Clifton Truman Daniel’s “A Mission of Reconciliation,” describes his recent trip to Japan, honoring the victims of the atomic bomb, ordered by his grandfather. On the first day of Daniel’s trip, Nana Yamada, the Nagasaki correspondent of Japan’s largest television network, asked Daniel whether he came to Japan to apologize.

He didn’t.

“Out of respect for the survivors and their countrymen, I would not defend the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but neither could I apologize for my grandfather or my country. After all, I have shaken the hands of dozens of WWII veterans who tell me they probably wouldn’t have survived the invasion of the Japanese main islands.”

For the remainder of his visit and in his report, Daniel worked to explain and enact this complicated stance, which I appreciate. It hit close to home. As I read his account, I thought of my father.

While Daniel’s grandfather, President Harry Truman, momentously decided to drop the bomb, my dad, Ben Goldfarb, was one of the thousands of GIs who, therefore, were not part of the invasion. For my father, this was after serving in the South Pacific for four years as a conscript (who went in as a private and out as a corporal or private, I can’t remember; he told me about repeated promotions, followed by demotions connected to fighting with an anti-Semitic officer in his unit).

My father and I generally agreed on politics, though he was probably more of a leftist. He didn’t vote for Daniel’s grandfather, but for Henry Wallace. Yet, he strongly supported President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs, not only because it saved him, but also because, he convinced himself following the commonsense of his times, the bombs in the long run saved more lives than they destroyed. I didn’t and don’t agree, but it was one of the very few issues that he really didn’t want to debate, our typical mode of communication once I was an adult. And as Daniel didn’t want to either defend or apologize for his grandfather, I didn’t want to argue about this with my father, and never did after one discussion.

I think that Daniel’s public position and my private one implicitly reveal an etiquette of reconciliation. We both recognize that others see differently than we do: I, across a generational divide, he, across a national one. We respect the other’s positions, even if we can’t change ours. We choose to remember together some things, remember others differently. We make room for discussion about some issues, seeking common ground, respecting loss and sacrifice, as we avoid issues on which there cannot be agreement. In terms of my recent research interest, we recognize the social condition, and we attempt to work with it, rather than against it. We recognize that ways of life and identities surround judgments, as the judgments form the life and identity, and that some things are possible, but others aren’t. The combination of respectful competing memories, and convictions beyond change, defines the possibilities and also the impossibilities of reconciliation. This was at issue in Clifton Truman Daniel’s trip and my discussion with my father about the atomic bomb, but it ubiquitously appears.

Will it ever be possible for Palestinians and Israelis to come to a peaceful resolution of their conflicts and to reconcile? Will racism, and tense race relations, ever really come to an end in America? Will Japan’s relations with its neighbors, specifically China, ever be normalized? I think that the optimistic and pessimistic answers to such questions often tell more about the person answering than about the specific conflicts of each case. I also think that those who declare a time frame for an answer, as in: it will take a century to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are widely off the mark. Rather at issue is not time but manner: how the social condition is confronted, how the etiquette of reconciliation is enacted. It may open new possibilities at any time in each of these cases, but requires purposive creative action, carefully combining shared memories and purposive forgetting such as is exhibited in the visit by Daniel and his respectful reception, through the work of his Japanese hosts. Combining memory and forgetting is also important for fathers and sons, and for that matter, grandfathers as well.

At the best of times, elections provide social catharsis. Voters are given the opportunity to replace an under performing government with one that promises a brighter future. In reality, though, elections are messy, relative contests. Voters are choosing not their ideal government, but rather the best of available options. In the recent House of Representatives elections (Dec 16, 2012), the Japanese electorate clearly demonstrated its disenchantment with the reigning Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), whose seat share collapsed from 48% to 12%. However, ex-DPJ supporters did not flock to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the eventual winner. Instead, they divided their ballots among a host of new or minor parties, or chose not to vote at all. As a result, the LDP dominated the election with 61% of the seats despite winning fewer absolute votes than they did in the last contest. The lopsided outcome was the product of voter disappointment with all parties, and the LDP won by default as the best of bad alternatives.

Explaining the Outcome: Disenchanted Voters

Voter disenchantment produced the LDP’s victory in two ways: declining partisanship and a collapse in voter turnout. While Japanese voters have traditionally been less partisan than in the United States or Western Europe, the ranks of “independents” have been growing since the mid-1990s. According to monthly opinion polls by the Jiji Tsushin, a Japanese wire service, close to 70% of the population declared no partisan affiliation leading up to the 2012 contest. This ratio has been increasing steadily since the last election in September 2009, suggesting that disaffection with the ruling DPJ was not translating into support for an LDP government. With so many undecided voters, twelve political parties and over 1500 candidates competed in the election. One prominent new entry was the Japan Restoration Party (JRP), led by Toru Hashimoto, the charismatic mayor of Osaka, and Shintaro Ishihara, the nationalistic governor of Tokyo. The JRP had formed in September 2012 under the banner of stronger regional governments and constitutional reform. Independent voters who rejected the status quo choice between the LDP and DPJ flocked to these outsiders. According to exit polls from the Asahi Newspaper, 28% of independents voted for the JRP in the proportional representation tier—where voters cast a ballot for a party instead of a candidate—compared to 19% for the LDP and 14% for the DPJ.

The second manifestation of voter disenchantment was the low, post-war record 59% turnout, a 10% drop from 2009. This fall was concentrated among former DPJ supporters, which allowed the LDP to improve its seat share despite winning fewer absolute votes.  The LDP’s vote share in the PR tier rose marginally from 26.7% to 27.6%; in the constituency tier, the difference was slightly larger, from 38.7% to 43.0%. In absolute terms, however, the party’s votes actually fell by roughly 2 million. The more striking swing occurred to the DPJ, which received 20 million fewer votes in each tier. While some of these disenchanted DPJ voters transferred their support to the “Third Force” parties, many of them simply stayed at home.

What Can We Expect from the Abe Administration

It is a foregone conclusion that Shinzo Abe, the leader of the LDP, will become the next prime minister of Japan. This is his second go-around, after leading the LDP briefly from 2006 to 2007 before resigning due to poor health and to take responsibility for the party’s loss in the 2007 Upper House (House of Councilors) election. In fact, the Japanese cabinet has been extremely volatile since his first exit: Abe’s return marks the seventh prime minister since 2006.

We can divine the new Abe administration’s priorities through surveys of election candidates and voters. The Asahi Newspaper, in conjunction with Professor Masaki Taniguchi of the University of Tokyo, polled candidates on their policy positions prior to the election. 89% of victorious candidates strongly or somewhat support constitutional amendment, which in the Japanese case refers most prominently to the Article 9 “Peace Clause.” Under current interpretation, the constitution permits Japan to have a self-defense force, but it cannot use military power as a means to settle international disputes. Both the LDP and the JRP are in favor of establishing an official Japanese military with enhanced collective self-defense rights. This would include sending troops overseas to participate in international peacekeeping missions or in aid of the United States. Given Shinzo Abe’s nationalist credentials, the rightward turn of parliament has raised Chinese and Korean concerns that Japan will finally flex its muscles, possibly including the development of nuclear weapons and preemptive military action against North Korea.

This threat of Japanese militarization is likely overblown, at least in the short-term. Foreign policy is a low-salience issue for most voters, and Abe would risk too much by emphasizing militarism or constitutional reform above economic revitalization and nuclear energy policy. More voters listed economic growth and employment (35%), taxes and social welfare (30%), and energy policy (17%), as their top priorities, with constitutional reform or security policy trailing farther behind (12%). If anything, LDP voters are even less exercised about foreign policy, with 73% placing greater emphasis on growth, employment, and social welfare. Given the two-decade economic malaise, and with the March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and nuclear meltdown in recent memory, there is little political upshot to focusing on a secondary issue.

Abe has already said that his administration will focus on economic recovery through an expansionary mixture of Keynesian public works spending and monetary easing. Neither policy will be easy: voters (and investors) are already worried about record-high deficits, and it remains to seen whether Abe can convince the Bank of Japan to accept his preferred 2% inflation target. However, it makes political sense to target these issues, because the LDP’s real hurdle is the upcoming Upper House election in July 2013. Unlike the House of Representatives, the House of Councilors uses a more proportionate electoral system that makes it difficult for one party to win a decisive majority. The LDP and DPJ have needed to form coalitions with minor parties to govern effectively, but should the LDP capture a majority, they can legislate without compromising their election promises to keep coalition partners on board. To do this, though, Shinzo Abe needs to demonstrate that his priorities are the same as that of voters: employment and growth first, taxes and welfare second, nuclear energy third, and foreign policy last.

Recent struggles in Northeast Asia between Japan and its neighbors South Korea and China illustrate well Robin Wagner-Pacifici’s notion of the “restlessness of events.” Current territorial disputes over the Senkaku/Daiyoutai and Takeshima/Dokdo islands, as well as the uproar over the collective memory of World War II tragedies, such as the recent flare up of debate regarding Korean sex slaves, suggest that the notion that the end date of the Pacific War was 1945 may not be accurate. In some ways, the event, the world war, is continuing, and, in recent months, it’s escalating.

Governments in Northeast Asia are engaged in the escalation, but also in attempting to diplomatically calm the ongoing conflicts. Non-governmental groups also are involved, with some egging on confrontation and others trying to settle it, and still more attempting to highlight larger long-term interests over present-day concerns. My specific interest is with those non-governmental efforts that are attempting to foster peaceful coexistence, to put a final end to the great event, WWII. Through this posting, I hope to initiate a dialogue here on Deliberately Considered about the role that civil society can play in reconciliation, or at least in de-escalating tensions.

At the “end” of the Pacific War, non-governmental groups played a significant role in transforming the people of the United States and Japan from enemies to friends through carefully crafted and well-funded educational and cultural exchange programs, funded by private philanthropies such as The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Henry Luce Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The JDR III Fund, The Asia Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Religious organizations played a role as well. All Souls Church in Washington, DC, for example, developed a program to send art supplies to elementary school children in Hiroshima as a method for achieving reconciliation. A film titled Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard has just been completed that focuses on this story. In addition, Christians in both the US and Japan raised funds to develop what today is Japan’s leading liberal arts college, International Christian University (ICU), which was developed as a place of reconciliation between Americans and Japanese. It is built on the grounds of the former Nakashima aircraft company, which was designing a long-range bomber to bomb New York City. Transforming war to peace is built into the DNA of this institution.

Due to the unique history of ICU as a place of reconciliation, as well as its ongoing work in this area, the Aspen Institute elected to hold its most recent Cultural Diplomacy Forum there. The Art of Peace-building and Reconciliation, the fifth cultural diplomacy forum (and first in Asia), hosted 100 selected individuals from around the world for three days this past October to explore ways in which the arts, culture and the media can help overcome conflict and hatred and foster more peaceful societies and international relations. Bahia Shehab, a street artist (and also an Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo where she teaches graphic design) from Egypt, told us about her work to promote freedom there; another artist, Mundano, from Brazil illustrated his goal in life to make invisible people visible and, in the process, helping to improve their lives. He does this especially with those who make a living recycling waste materials (see his website here). Charles Bailey, Director of the Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange Program gave a very moving and powerful account of how Agent Orange in Vietnam continues to cause birth defects, and how this program at Aspen is leading a very real effort to remove all of it.

I was particularly struck by the work of three individuals I met at the Forum, Rev. Katsuhiko Seino, Dr. Haiping Liu, and Ms. Yukiyo Kawano.

Reverend Seino is a pastor at a small Christian church in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, who directs a program there that takes Japanese people to South Korea to meet former sex slaves (formerly known as comfort women, who are generally seen to have been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military) in order to apologize to them and foster reconciliation with them.

Dr. Liu, a Professor at Nanjing University, runs a joint China-Japan theater project that led to a production about the Nanjing massacre with Japanese and Chinese students involved.

Ms. Kawano, a Japanese visual artist focuses her work on the history and memory of World War II. At the conference, she displayed two art pieces that were exact replicas of the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but made from kimono. She used her grandmother’s kimono, a Hiroshima hibakusha (survivor), to create the representation of Little Boy (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima), which in my mind instantly and powerfully weaved together the bomb and the human victims.

In different ways, these three individuals are working with the “restless” event of World War II. Using different forms, they are creating better futures by dealing with painful memories. They endeavor to put this “event” to rest by dealing with it in subtle, complex, and authentic ways, instead of hiding or denying it. They are doing this in direct contrast to zealous nationalists who, in effect, work to keep this event alive, using it to promote their own gain, political clout or power, money for the military, or simply to fan public emotions.

I wonder how the efforts of the Japanese pastor, Chinese professor, and Japanese visual artist can scale up their work to eventually influence the states in which they live, as well as the governments of other states, to settle the enduring conflict in a more peaceful manner.

And the plot thickens as the U.S. becomes involved: on November 29, 2012 the Senate unanimously approved an Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 that reaffirms Japan’s administrative control of the Senkaku islands. The Amendment also articulates the U.S. commitment to defend Japan under Article V of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, indicating clearly that the U.S. will not change its mind due to “unilateral actions of a third party,” and stipulating that the US supports a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to the disputes over this territory. Senators Jim Webb, James Inhofe, Joe Lieberman, and John McCain co-sponsored the amendment. While Americans are not likely to support going to war with China over uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea, such possibility exists.

In addition, battles over the Korean sex slaves was brought to the United States this past summer when Japanese Diet Members requested that the mayor of Palisades, New Jersey remove a monument to Korean sex slaves that was placed in that town by Korea-Americans. After request to remove the monument was refused, some Japanese people began a petition on the Whitehouse.gov website, demanding that the Obama administration force the Mayor of Palisades to remove the monument. This led to an escalation in the conflict. Soon thereafter, a second monument was erected in Long Island and more are apparently being planned. The dispute became so serious that Korea and Japan broke off a deal to share national security information.

As World War II continues to haunt Northeast Asia (due to word count limitations I have left out countless details and examples), one of the most dynamic regions of the world and a region in which the United States is intricately involved, I think that it is worth exploring the role that independent citizens and associations can play in preventing conflict and in promoting long-term reconciliation between and among the people of different states.

My invitation: I hope readers of Deliberately Considered will offer statements, suggestions, and stories about ways in which non-governmental organizations have successfully, or unsuccessfully, played a role in de-escalating conflict and promoting peaceful reconciliation, how they might contribute to putting WWII to rest. These can be very grassroots efforts such as those between civil groups, sister cities, and individual organizations, or can be more “high level” non-government efforts of Track II dialogues run by think-tanks, for example. Furthermore, it is my hope we can then better understand the ways in which some of these activities grow, spread, and in effect gain power, or fail. In Jeff’s terms, I hope we can understand the conditions and consequences of the politics of small things in an important corner of the world.

Contingency is of the essence for creativity. The Flying Seminar session with members from Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolt), an anti-nuclear and counter cultural social movement group from Japan, and Occupy Wall Street, I think, was not an exception. What started as a rash decision by the Shiroto no Ran to come to New York to show their support to the OWS protest and to experience the heart of the occupation first-hand took an unplanned change after a chance meeting. Through a New School effort to create the time and space for deeper and meaningful dialogue, a valuable Japanese – American encounter occurred.

I heard the news about Shiroto no Ran’s visit just a day before their arrival. During their short stay at the Liberty Square, we met and talked about OWS. From our conversations, I began to realize how difficult it was for them to actually get the opportunity to really meet and get to know the people who are most engaged in the OWS movement. The activists in Zuccotti Park were too busy and things were changing too rapidly there. I realized that there was a need for creating a space that would facilitate a dialogue between these two groups of activists. A teach-in session organized by two New School professors, Jeffrey Goldfarb and Elzbieta Matynia, not only opened a door of opportunity, but also gave a concrete structure to my vague idea. From listening to their ideas about the Flying Seminar, I realized that we could have a serious conversation between these movements from different cultures. Just two days after I proposed the event, we all met, and my sense that it could be worthwhile, proved to be correct.

As a participant in both movements, I see my contribution in creating a space for dialogue as a modest one. But on the other hand, as a researcher who is working on the Japanese 1968 movement from a transnational perspective, I am especially interested. I am fascinated how such a dialogue is now possible in contrast to the impossibility of transnational – transcultural exchanges between activists in the sixties, and I think that such dialogue can have significant consequences. We learned from both our similarities and our differences.

Similarities and Differences

On capitalism: although not all participants involved in these movements are anti-capitalists, many, if not most, do consider capitalism as the source of profound problems. Both countries are in the stage of late capitalism and are currently facing the consequences of the great recession. In both countries the activists see the need for radical change.

With this in mind, both movements regard zones for alternatives as especially important. They work to create spaces where people can gather and live through an alternative life style, different from the ones which capitalism demands. For example, the urban commune filled with love and thoughtfulness at the Liberty Square and various shops in Koenji, Tokyo run by Shiroto no Ran that are organized through creativity and support from the people who share their ideas. Even though both movements believe in drastic social change and use the word “revolution” to describe their aspirations, their immediate aim is not to forcibly take over the government, but to create a “post-revolutionary” space inside of capitalism. They wish to change the society by inventing new tactics and demonstrating to the public that “another world is possible.” Persistent activity and the desire for creativity is the key to both movements. Their primary task is to expand their space and penetrate their thoughts into the existing society.

Despite these similarities, there are also important differences. In OWS, the goals are vague and also diverse. On the other hand, after the disaster of 3.11 in Japan, Shiroto no Ran is now focusing on a single issue, which is the abolition of nuclear power plants. Their tactics are also different. OWS occupies public spaces, while in Japan, since the use of public space for political purpose is highly restricted, Shiroto no Ran has rented  and runs several small retail shops, creating an alternative micro-economy to sustain their movement. Another difference is the consensus building process. Direct democracy is crucial for the OWS, but not for the Japanese movement at this moment. Lastly, judging from our discussion, principled opposition to violent action is more central for the Japanese activists than for the Americans.

Other than these differences on the level of issues and tactics of the movement, there are also the differences in the way they conceive capitalism. As I have mentioned earlier, both groups are against capitalism, but it seems that they are focusing on different aspects of capitalism. The OWS movement is struggling against the system that creates the deep disparity between the rich and the poor and the winners and losers that is rooted inside the American capitalist culture, which have become extreme especially after the great recession of 2008. On the other hand, after listening to the comments made by Shiroto no Ran’s members, it seems that their target is more toward the high mass consumption culture in everyday life that has been deeply embedded in the Japanese society since the 1970s. This difference came about partially from the impact of the 2008 recession on the labor market in each country. In the States, unemployment rate skyrocketed from 5.80% in 2008 to 9.28% in 2009. On the other hand, although the recession actually did affect the Japanese labor market, it was still within the limit of 3.99% in 2008 and 5.09% in 2009. Overall, a large part of the Japanese society is still living off or surviving from the post-war rapid economic growth reserve. Shiroto no Ran’s criticism is of the consumer culture supported by the post-war economic growth.

Hybridity: Central for Sustainable Occupation

In our global era, it is even more important for social movements to learn and be empowered by one another from both our similarities and our differences. While there seemed to be ambivalence about violence among the Americans, there was complete rejection of violent action among their Japanese counterparts. Japanese experience of the recent past accounts for this difference. Violence against the police and brutal infighting among the activists during the late 1960s and 1970s in Japan not only isolated the movement from the larger society, but it also left a deep cultural trauma, creating a negative image of social movements for almost forty years. Violence was the beginning of the end of social movements in Japan, and it seems to me this is something our American colleagues, who may be attracted to the communicative power of violent projects, should bear in mind.

On the other hand, the Japanese movement can learn a lot from the Americans about consensus building. As Hajime Matsumoto, one of the members of Shiroto no Ran, has accurately pointed out during the dialogue, it is hard to build up consensus through the open assembly in Japan. Instead problems are solved during unofficial situations such as the drinking session after meetings. Of course, direct democracy, which is practiced by the OWS general assembly, is not perfect. Words are power and people who can use the words effectively tend to prevail. Thus, we should acknowledge that there are voices that are being suppressed. However, it seems to me that the consensus building tactics practiced by the OWS is based on the notion that people are different and have different opinions and this needs to be consciously worked on through a persistent effort as the precondition of common agreement. Compared to the U.S., Japanese society is less diverse, especially in terms of race and ethnicity, and therefore, people tend to think that others share similar ideas, although in many cases they may not. Since different ideas are an important source for creativity and since Japanese society is becoming more diversified, it is essential to self consciously create a more democratic and open way for building consensus. This does not mean that the tactics of direct democracy and its tools of human microphone and hand gestures can or should be directly transferred to and implemented in Japan as it has been practiced in the U.S., yet these technics can be modified and rebuilt by applying appropriate resources in a different culture. Tactical hybridity is inevitable and desirable.

Lastly, in order to achieve a social change within capitalist society, it is crucial for movements to endure without losing the support from the general population. To do so, the tactics of Shiroto no Ran that creates an alternative economy inside the capitalist society and maintains relationships with the existing and surrounding society is instructive. But to really make a difference, it is crucial for us to keep pushing creatively, to draw the attention of the media and to surprise, indeed astonish, the public at large, to provoke them to think that the way things are is not the way things must be. For such purpose, the practices of OWS can be adapted and used in many different ways by the Japanese movement when they try to expand their movement.

I believe the coming together of these “amateurs” from different cities and continents will be a source of creativity sustaining an occupation. I hope and think that this Flying Seminar session made its small contribution to an ongoing transnational relationship between the two significant movements.

In the wake of the trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his colleagues have donned the blue uniforms of first responders, suggesting they are working tirelessly. But despite his efforts to handle the biggest crisis in Japan since Hiroshima, Kan has not won the hearts of his countrymen, whose apprehension and distrust increases each morning when they turn on the news to learn of increasing radioactivity, the plummeting stock market, and the soaring death toll. As it turns out, blue uniforms are not enough.

History has taught us that disasters and mass emergencies can transform a mediocre politician into an inspiring leader. The 1944 San Juan earthquake in Argentina that killed more than 10,000 people, earned Juan Perón instant esteem, as well as a glamorous wife, Evita. Ten years ago, the rubble at Ground Zero in New York City transformed George W. Bush from an alleged illegitimate president to a folk hero shepherding the nation through crisis. For Kan, the challenges of Sendai have opportunities and pitfalls. But so far, Kan’s focus on the rubble has not brought the Japanese together in common purpose.

Where did Kan go wrong? To be sure, there is a Japanese cultural style, But nowadays politicians must be aware of new global expectations, which call for a man of compassion and empathy, a man of the people. Consider Wen Jiabao. Two hours after China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he jumped on a plane bound for the area struck by disaster. Soon he was seen walking around in the devastated community, telling children who were buried in a half-collapsed building that “Grandpa Wen is here with you.” The politics of emotion in action. Hundreds of millions of Chinese watched Wen shedding tears, angrily slamming his cellphone at slacking officials, and hugging wailing orphans. Just as Bill Clinton, Wen realized that a politician must feel your pain. As a result, the Chinese felt sheltered instead of afraid. A few cynics have called Wen “the best actor in China,” but many more see him as the father of the nation. Wen’s recent remarks about democracy even kindled the flame of hope in some political dissidents’ hearts. Is he acting? Maybe. But the performance works!

For all his skills, Kan learned little from China’s Premier, the now beloved “Grandpa Wen.” Kan urged people to remain calm, meanwhile muting his own reactions. This may work in times of trouble when the world is under control. Perhaps this was the Japanese style in a world before global media, but today it seems apathetic and passive. In the new Asia, Kan must express emotions on the public stage, by daring to show compassion and by “being there.” After a disaster of the current magnitude, a nation searches for a leader who can rally the people with inspiring words, with displaying sincere compassion, and reassuring the frightened with his presence. Disaster politics do not consist of bureaucratic responses but of performances facilitated by symbols and gestures. People desire a leader who is able to share and articulate their emotions. We want to find him or her in the wreckages and in the crowded shelters. When George Bush decided not to touch down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina something was forever lost.  In contrast, Wen Jiabao’s swift action was taken as a sign of the Chinese government’s concern, even while most rescuers had not yet arrived at the scene.

Political success belongs to the swift and to the empathetic. Before Wen Jiabao, there was also Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” who rushed to the World Trade Center on 9/11. Sadly, Kan better resembles  George Bush after Katrina than Guiliani after the terrorist attacks. Hovering above the decimation is no replacement for having mud on your shoes and radiation in your lungs. Kan did what politicians used to do. He managed. But he failed at what politicians must do now. He didn’t perform. When he finally decided to go to the area, blue uniform and all, it was too late. As the emotional atmosphere had changed, the rubble on Kan’s shoes did not produce a positive effect.

The one Japanese politician who has become widely admired is not the prime minister, but Yukio Edano, the spokesman of the Japanese government. His success rests on his red eyes: he has been so omnipresent that the Japanese people believe he hasn’t slept since the quake. Japanese Twitter users, moved by his devotion, now routinely tweet, “Edano, sleep!” This echoes the comments of Chinese online users about Premier Wen Jiabao, also believed to have worked around the clock after the Sichuan quake: “Please, Grandpa, get some sleep!”

When citizens tell a politician that he needs rest, he surely is doing something right.

This week Hannah Arendt’s notion of “past and future” has been revealed at DC. We have addressed a variety of different issues, trying to orient our future action, by thinking about our experiences.  We have looked at the headlines, but also looked elsewhere and thought about different experiences to support the imagination.

I was particularly happy to receive Sergio Tavolaro’s post on President Obama’s visit to Brazil. Following cable news logic, it was a big mistake for the President to go to Brazil, given the pressing problems at home, centered on the impending budget crisis and the great debate about jobs and the deficit, and the military engagement in Libya and the growing uncertainties in North Africa and the Middle East. Yet beyond news sensation, there are important ongoing developments in the Americas, with very significant changes and challenges. Paying attention to Latin America, not only connected to drug and immigration issues, is a necessity especially when there are problems elsewhere.

Brazil is an emerging global power. Brazil and the United States have a long, sad history, marked by domination and political repression. As Brazil has emerged politically and economically, it often has defined its independence against the United States. Obama’s trip worked to change this. The highlight: the historic appreciation of the first African American President of the United States meeting the first woman President of Brazil. Tavolaro reports that there is a fascination with a shared progressive heritage, working against racism and sexism. And he notes that Obama embodied the declaration of equal partnership between nations: the President of the United States visited Brazil before he had an audience with the Brazilian leader in Washington, reversing the usual order. Using a sad past, the Brazilian population could and did imagine a hopeful future with the great American superpower to the north. This is important news for them and for us.

Karl Marx famously said “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Gary Alan Fine shows how sometimes it works the other way around. First the popular entertainment show, “Candid Camera,” and now the grave dangers of the politics of surveillance.

I believe there is a need to distinguish between the public and the private. I think that targeted revelations about hidden injustice is necessary, but generalized invasions of that which is private will have a long time effect of diminishing democratic capacity, as Daniel Dayan, Elzbieta Matynia and I have noted here, as we each reflected on the WikiLeaks controversies. The new form of simulated revelations is even more pernicious. It has been associated with the left, directed at Governor Scott, but especially by the right, directed at wonderful organizations such as ACORN, Planned Parenthood and NPR. I always find Fine provocative, but I often disagree with him. On this issue, in his linking between a happy past with a frightening future, I am in complete agreement.

Esther Kreider-Verhalle reminds us of the long term effects of Chernobyl as we are observing the horrors of natural disasters in Japan and the failing reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. It is a cautionary note, about future dangers, especially meaningful to me as I live less than twenty miles downstream from the Indian Point Energy Center.

And when I wrote about enhancing nature and mission creep, I also was positioning myself between past and future, trying to inspire thoughtfulness about not only the perils, but also the promise of our times. I often find strength, facing public and private challenges and difficulties, at my favorite retreat, the Rockefeller State Park. I thought about its special qualities to get me out of my latest funk, trying to absorb and think about the painful news from Japan. Bridges old and new helped me think this through, helped me link past and future, reminding me that the human hand can create useful, beautiful and meaningful things. I am looking forward to more reflections on bridges as they enable us to make creative links. Elzbieta Matynia has written incisively about this in her book Performative Democracy. I hope she will adding a post on this here in the near future.

And on my hopes for mission creep, I must confess some deep concerns. I see real creativity and promise in the Middle East and North Africa. But as that promise is being met by violent suppression and as it is defended by violent resistance, I fear the promise is retreating. I will consider this further in my next post, but in the meanwhile, some thoughts related to Michael Corey’s reply to my post. I don’t have a highly elaborated justification of American actions. I am appalled as he is by the administration’s use of the term “kinetic military action,” although I understand why they don’t simply use the word “war.” This is an intervention, very quickly enacted with multinational support, to stop an impending massacre of innocents. As the international support for the action was elegant, the domestic enactment has been clumsy. Using newspeak to cover this clumsiness is not a good idea. Obama’s speech to the nation on Monday is the way to go. I look forward to it and will deliberately review it here on Tuesday. But in the meanwhile, please take a look at a series of posts by Juan Cole. He presents the facts on the ground which explains why action was urgent, how it has been successful and why the mission creep I hope for has a chance.

While Japan is struggling to avoid the release of large doses of radioactive material from the failing reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant after the earthquake and tsunami, Chernobyl has taken a step back into the limelight. It is a typical journalistic ritual to revisit disasters after any round number of years. Think one hundred years after New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (coming soon), sixty-five years after WWII, or ten years after 9/11. Currently, while witnessing Japan’s nuclear malfunctions, we are remembering the world’s worst nuclear disaster 25 years ago. The question is what the repeated and repackaged story of Chernobyl adds to our dealings with current and future failures at nuclear power plants.

Today, a trip to Ukrainian Ground Zero is accessible to all. Journalists can simply accompany tourists on special Chernobyl tours to venture into the thirty kilometer exclusion zone (19 miles) around the former nuclear plant. The tour operators’ program describes a trip to the plant, a stop at a cooling channel to feed the fish (!), and after some sightseeing in the spooky town of Pripyat, a return to Chernobyl itself for lunch. Visitors will return home with the images of the deserted apartment buildings, the unused Ferris wheel at the moss overgrown fairground, and of course photos of the sarcophagus and the remains of the reactor complex itself. So, what have we learned?

The eerie devastation that humans caused in and around Chernobyl is hard to describe. But it is much easier to retell the unearthly story than to analyze and act upon it. I still have fresh memories of my own visit to the site – as a journalist – in December 2000. Almost fifteen years after the explosion in reactor number four on April 26, 1986, I was there to attend the final closing of the nuclear complex. Up until then, the remaining reactors had been operating to some degree, providing electricity to the area and necessary jobs for the people. In exchange for a compensation package from the West, former Ukrainian president Kuchma had agreed to a ‘premature stoppage,’ and the loss of thousands of jobs as a result.

© Justin Stahlman | Wikimedia Commons

Armed with Geiger counters and cameras, our crew visited all the usual spots in and around the former plant. We witnessed and recorded the abnormal and the absurd. We climbed to the top of one of the highest buildings in the town of Pripyat for a panoramic view of the remains of this former settlement of some 50,000 workers and their families. We saw the schools, the apartments, and the stores of the community that was. Everything bore the sinister signs of damage by years of free play of the elements, of being left in a hurry (after the Soviet authorities had belatedly organized an evacuation), and of being ransacked, probably multiple times. We talked to some surviving engineers and rescue workers. We also visited the little villages within the forbidden zone where the old people have returned to spend the remainder of their lives. During their forced year long evacuation, they felt they couldn’t live anywhere else but on the land they had spent their entire lives. They went back because radioactivity couldn’t break their bond with their native land. On our way home, we visited the Chernobyl ward in a children’s hospital in Kiev. Scientists are still researching the specific effects of radiation. The sick patients and grieving parents were very real.

Chernobyl is not just the only level-7 (the highest) accident on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. It is also the mother of all monsters that humans can create when they lose control. It’s true. There was another major disaster in the Soviet Union in the Chelyabinsk province. But information and images are absent of the serious level-6 disaster in 1957 in that closed military town. The level-5 accident at Three Mile Island that is often mentioned nowadays gives the American audience something to relate to. But then again, thirty two years after the fact, the images of Dauphin Country, PA pale in comparison to the otherworldly, bone chilling reality of Chernobyl.

Fukushima is no Chernobyl. The trouble in Japan is the result of nature’s violent outbursts, not of human error. Or is it? Should the reactors have been built on a site where earthquakes occur? The safety measures that are in place in the Japanese plants are a vast improvement over those in the Soviet plant. But are the reactors safe enough to allow humans to live in the vicinity of plants? Stories about poor maintenance of the Japanese plants have started to pop up. The main question should be if the use of nuclear technology to satisfy our energy needs is worth the risks that major malfunctions carry for humans, animal life, and nature. Are there realistic alternatives given energy consumption levels around the world? What alternatives might technology offer 25 or 50 years down the road? One of the troubles of radiation is that humans can’t see, hear, feel, or smell it. And even when we see what it did to Chernobyl, we are numbed.

“I believe that intellectuals have played crucial roles in the making of democracy and in the ongoing practices of democratic life.” With this sentence, I opened my book Civility and Subversion. Motivating the writing of that book was a developing misinformed (to my mind) consensus that intellectuals played an important role in the democratic opposition to the Communist order, but they would be relatively unimportant for the post Communist making and running of democracy. I thought that this was a terrible mistake, and I tried to show that in the book. In short, my argument was that intellectuals play a democratic role, not when they purport to provide the answers to a society’s problems, but when they facilitate deliberate discussion. Intellectuals are talk provokers. Discussions at Deliberately Considered over the past week demonstrate my point. We have considered and opened discussion about important problems.

On Monday, Vince Carducci introduced and analyzed the photography of John Ganis, art that confronts the damage we do to our environment, showing beauty that displays destruction. Carducci observes that “Ganis describes himself as a ‘witness’ rather than an activist. And yet his subject matter and its treatment clearly indicate where the artist’s loyalties lie.” But it is the ambiguity of the work, its internal tension that provokes and doesn’t answer political questions that facilitated a discussion between Felipe Pait and Carducci, comparing the destruction of the BP oil spill with the devastation in Japan. This could inform serious discussion about my reflections on man versus nature. We are present. We have our needs. How does it look when we satisfy them? What are the consequences? I think that this reveals that the power of the witness can sometimes be more significant than that of the activist. Carducci and I have an ongoing discussion about the value of agit prop. He likes it. I abhor it. I think Ganis’ work, with Carducci’s analysis of it, as the devastation in Japan was unfolding, supports my position.

On Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, I reported on and reflected upon some local happenings in my hometown: the closing of an A&P and threatened budgetary cuts at a community center in a primarily African American neighborhood. Logical business decisions and business as usual local governance were having profound unjust effects. I was particularly impressed by the replies to the posts. First, my Town Supervisor responded, asking if he could pass my criticisms of the A&P closing on to A&P. Then a series of replies to my post on institutionalized racism, which pointed to analogous situations. Rafael reported from Texas about the schools there. Regina Tuma’s noted how the conflicts in Wisconsin and the experiences in Ohio are a manifestation of the same problems. And Scott made the general point: “The powerless throughout the country are being asked, or more properly forced, to bear a disproportionate cost for a problem that was, by and large, not of their making,” and speculates about the likelihood of “a counterpoint to the Tea Party.” I also had discussions at the community center about the post. Staff and community members think that the protest I reported on may be having an impact. They seem to have a sense of empowerment, as they try to figure out how they are going to buy their daily bread, along with their other groceries. I’m struck how two parts of my life, one embedded in the academic world, the other in my hometown, met virtually through the post.

I tried hard to facilitate a careful response to the Japanese catastrophes.  I have difficulty responding to natural disasters.  To use a silly cliché, they are beyond my pay grade. I generally listen to the experts, turn off the cable news and try to act as a responsible citizen. Intelligent public deliberation and discussion are difficult.

The complaint of Pait in his response to Fine’s post on joking about Japan underlines the point. “This conversation is too much about the talk and too little about the act. There are people who like it. As an engineer, I don’t.” I am a man committed to talk, but I know that sometimes talk is cheap.  Pait is right, action is imperative in the face of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear disasters. Talk is secondary. But eventually it is important.

We need to confront the relationship between the human and the natural world.  We need to know when we can tame nature, when we must accept its overwhelming destructive force, and we need to be aware when we are the destructive force, as it is connected to our pursuit of oil and our attempt to create easy alternatives in the form of nuclear power. That requires informed talk, when intellectuals, including artists, not only experts, are necessary.

And then there’s Gary Alan Fine, Deliberately Considered’s intellectual provocateur, mixing high and low brow insight. He established his learning by presenting a classic reflection by Adam Smith on distant suffering. Fine, in his first post this week, highlights that Smith recognizes both the problem of empathy at a distance, but also reflects on how reason and principle reach out, leading us to do the right thing. But, in his second post, he explains the humor in horror, justifying the politically incorrect jokes of: “Mr. Gottfried, Mr. 50 Cent, and Mr. Haley Barbour’s press secretary.” Fine in his appreciation of troubling humor, makes a classic conservative point about the human condition, “let us treasure those who begin the process by which we realize that we cannot change the world, but must distance ourselves from it, amused. We can wallow in the pain of others or we can recognize that our life continues.” Have I found an intelligent conservative intellectual within our midst?

This post follows Fine’s reflections on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. –Jeff

As we begin to find ourselves numbed by the tsunami of news, videos, and twittering from Sendai, we are moving from the tragedy (which is, of course, really, really sad) to find other topics that speak to our assorted emotional needs. We are not quite done with Japan, but our tears have dried. Soap operas can’t run over an hour. (The naïve Libyan rebels didn’t realize that their reality show was in reruns. But we have scheduled prime time grief for them next week).

Like clockwork, the topic du jour is joking after disaster. Af-lac! As folklorist Bill Ellis noted in his dissection of the jocular aftermath of 9/11, “Making a Big Apple Crumble: The Role of Humor in Constructing a Global Response to Disaster,” it routinely takes about three days for the first jokes to appear. Right on schedule, Mr. Gottfried, Mr. 50 Cent, and Mr. Haley Barbour’s press secretary.

Mr. Gottfried perhaps has it the worst of all as his gig as the voice of Aflac’s duck has been washed away. The duck will be “revoiced.” Hearing such offensive poultry would be too much. Who knew that Japan was the company’s largest market? (Fill in your own joke about the meaning of Aflac in Sendai.) Rather than quacking, Mr. Gottfried tweeted. His jokes struck me as rather mild (I have a strong stomach). For instance, “My Japanese doctor advised me that to stay healthy, I need 50 million gallons of water a day.” Drum roll, please.

Mr. Gottfried might be forgiven for thinking that he could ride out the storm since he had previously gained notoriety for his 9/11 joke at a comedian’s roast for Hugh Hefner in late September 2001. He joshed that he couldn’t find a direct flight because the plane had to connect with the Empire State Building first. After his roast appearance, he became something of a folk hero among comedians. One wonders what people thought they would get when they signed up for his tweets. Now we wait for Sarah Silverman.

Losing one’s livelihood for some middling funny jokes is tough business. Gottfried was forced to retreat, tweeting, “I meant no disrespect. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.” Of course he meant disrespect. That is his job. That is what we want from him. He was shredded by the buzzsaw of our hypocrisy.

But Gottfried was not alone. Dan Turner, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s press secretary, was rapidly fired for a rather convoluted witticism about Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay” not being so popular in Japan. Oy! And then there is rapper 50 Cent who was forced to apologize for commenting that he had moved his ho’s out of danger from LA, Hawaii and Japan. It was the Japan part that got him in trouble, not the ho’s.

Our discussion of the dangers of humor is bogus. Perhaps it offends, but free speech can offend. And when we go searching for speech that offends us, we should not blame the speaker when we find it. Let us not retreat to the treacly defense that the need to joke reflects our common humanity when faced with overwhelming pain. That line is worse than the jokes. These guys weren’t feeling overwhelming pain; they were moving on.

Jokes are told because we have a nasty, cutting streak. This contrarian view is part of our charm, just as the kind of political discourse that people bemoan is critical to a healthy democracy. Tough talk jazzes us; creating jokes allows us to grow tougher skin. It is not part of the grieving process; it is part of us that doesn’t wish to grieve. And we shouldn’t be ashamed of savory discourse.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we should not also be aware of the plight of others. But this is not all of what we are. Anyone who spends time in an emergency room, in a social work office, or in a police station knows that rough humor goes with the territory. So, let us treasure those who begin the process by which we realize that we cannot change the world, but must distance ourselves from it, amused. We can wallow in the pain of others or we can recognize that our life continues.

No amount of sentimentality and faux outrage will change the reality that humor is happy talk from a sometimes cruel species. Today Aflac’s duck is protected; tomorrow he may be foie gras.

Today, as we think about the developing catastrophe in Japan, we will consider the problem of distant suffering and the limits of human empathy with the help of Gary Alan Fine. We start in this post with Adam Smith’s reflections from his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, followed by Fine’s commentary on this classic passage. Later today, Fine will explore the odd, very human, relationship between horror, humor and the human condition. -Jeff

“Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.The world has a multitude of distant shores. As we are creatures of the local, we strain to feel compassion for those we know only in imagination. Yet we realize that at times of trouble those far others impinge unwelcome on our thoughtless selves.” 

In moments of disaster I return to the wise counsel of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith. Not for Wealth of Nations, but for his earlier The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

Smith understood the problem of distant suffering. It has been too common to quote the first half of the paragraph, presented above, in which Smith seems callously dyspeptic in considering the aftermath of a great earthquake in the East. He writes that “If [a European] were to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night, but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren.” Ouch. He might tell jokes or make slighting remarks, mocking the suffering.

But this realization is not for Smith a moral desideratum. He, rather, recognizes how our passive feelings revel in what does not affect us. This passage presents the predicate for the remainder of the paragraph. Smith is not coldly cynical – Ayn Rand in a kilt – but he knows that our emotions do not define us to the exclusion of our ethical reflection. “It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.” This is mind filtered through morality. The inhabitant in the breast provides the wisdom that the imp in the heart can not trump. Or so is Smith’s hope. Our emotions may discount distant suffering and make otherness a justification for inaction, but it is the recognition of the honorable and the noble that makes us worthy. Smith wisely recognized that our presumptuous passions can be bettered by active engagement. Smith, I choose to believe, would not be cross with our cynical distancing and would not believe that it will be overwhelmed with the soft power of humanity alone, but rather our good works and best deeds occur when our world – near and far – is deliberately considered.