Upload: 24 June 2019, Last update: 25 June 2019

Conformity is one of the characteristics Japanese society has besides obedience and homogeneity.

Recently I saw quite a lot of coverage over the primary-school-age youtuber Yutabon[1]. As far as I know, he goes to primary school when he wants and in other cases skip classes explaining one of the reasons is that for example, other students looked like “robots” since they obey the instructions of teachers.

There are many harsh comments on his YouTube channel as well as some articles on the Internet which look more verbal-attacking rather than constructive ones. It seems to me that he wants to spend time more actively, not just obeying what teachers say to him.

At present everyone can learn even if they do not go to school. It may be not suitable for him to be educated at school. There is a case of home-schooling in US, so going to school is the only way way to learn. I think there is a best way for each person.

Recent years, the word diversity is one of the key words. Increasing diversity has an aspect of being a trigger that a society to develop as the different values people encounter comes in. When people has the same opinion in a society, the orientation of a society tend to be fixed in a way. However, if we accept different values from outside, that can be a chance to go beyond the existing framework.

We tend to focus on diversities from outside of a community. Diversities that I define as different values are absorbed into a society. That is happening worldwide. But as the globalization progresses, the world becomes more homogenous. That is because uniqueness of culture and whatsoever in limited area becomes commonsense after it goes across borders.

It ends up with convergence of diversity in global level — that is to say that different values existed all over the world are shared and becomes not surprising ideas to human beings. I suggest that the internal diversification is necessary for further development as I wrote in a previous article titled “Internal diversification in a society — education encouraging internal diversity“.

TV programs should broadcast more the information beneficial to the public. It strengthens the role of TV. In more democratized society, I think TV should more emphasize on and convey what the public needs to know.

In these days, I think I do not turn on TV to watch some specific shows. I know there are some commentators and shows which steadily pointing out what is wrong with the current politics or other societal situations, but most of news can be caught up on Twitter and by other news media online. Moreover articles on the Internet have more severe eyes.

It is often said that people are leaving TV. That is partly because people less think the necessity of turning on. The alternatives and more developed media has been advancing. More importantly, TV should tell beneficial information to citizens since it can reach out wide range of population in a society.

Upload: 8 June 2019, Last update: 9 June 2019

The democracy at this moment doesn’t work enough to reflect the citizens’ opinions. As Joi Ito who is the director of MIT media lab mentions that “I think the indirect democracy we know today has to change.”[1], it is time to shape and implement the new systems of democracy in a society. The more those new models appear, it would form the post-democracy.

One of the examples which can reflect more the public opinions is the citizens’ initiative referendum (= referendum d’initiative citoyenne/referendum d’initiative populaire in French) which hasn’t been installed yet in France, but in the movement of Yellow vests, the participants claim the necessity referring to the model of Switzerland.

Basically citizens have to assemble enough number of signatures decided in advance. According to the fliers spread by the Yellow vests demonstrators[2], there are four types of that referendum — “legislative” concerning legislation of a law, “abrogative” related to abrogation of a law, “revocatory” regarding “dismissal of political representatives”, and “constituent” is “modification of the constitution”.

For countries like Japan, this can be an option for their democracies since the current government doesn’t respect enough the voices of the public. Especially the recent Henoko landfill is one of the those cases.

I think the democracies in the future would be choosing not just persons as representatives, but more likely citizens make choices on policies such as laws they support. Supporting a person as a representative is harder. In most of cases just because a voter supports a candidate doesn’t mean that all of policies and opinions of the candidate is supportable.

A person is composed of various opinions complexly which means that there are some opinions of a representative a citizen support, but it is often found that the others are not supportable. In the meantime, politicians with higher skills of negotiations are necessary to have diplomacy in internationally and globally.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uaRdwoF1c 2:08-. Accessed 7 June 2019

[2] In French they use the words “législatif”, “abrogatoire”, “révocatoire”, and “constituant”. https://www.giletsjaunes-coordination.fr/ressources.html Accessed 26 May 2019, “ricv3” Accessed 26 May 2019, “tract ric1” Accessed 26 May 2019, “tract ric2” Accessed 26 May 2019. “tract ric 3” Accessed 26 May 2019.

In April 2019[1], it was shockingly reported that Julian Assange was arrested. After that happened, it is often talked on the Internet and news programs whether he will be extradited to US or not.

UK should not extradite him to US. He had sought asylum at Ecuadorian embassy in London in the first place while there’s always been huge pressure on him. And this case is hugely influential on the future journalism including freedom of press.

Some of the revelations that WikiLeaks did in the past was that the secret US military informations related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the video of “a US Apache helicopter killing at least 12 people – including two Reuters journalists – during an attack in Baghdad in 2007″[2].

What if WikiLeaks didn’t publish those information to the public?

UK should not have arrested him. It increased the risk of extradition immensely. Given the powerfulness of US over the world, any threat has to be minimized and his safety has to be protected.

While catching up with this news, I was wondering if there’s any international law or if we can set up a law in global level which can protect a publisher of information hugely giving contributions to the public. That is because what Julian Assange made public was what people couldn’t know without him. When a person publishes information clearly contributing to the public interests, the person should be protected from threats.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47891737 Accessed 31 May 2019

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-10757263 Accessed 1 June 2019