Japanese Society and the Psychopath

The writers of this article, Takamura Kaoru and Noda Masaaki, believe that there two main reasons for the downfall of Japan. The first is the media and it's outlets and the second is the Ministry of Education. These factors play a major role in the development of the nation's children. They state that the children, as they grow older, have only the knowledge to think in given, controlled situations, not in the real world. So as new situations arise, these adults can only react according to the "old rules" or shut off their reasoning. When a person shuts down their reasoning, they react according to what feels right at the moment. This is the mentality of the psychopath.

The role of the media in the creation of the new Japan has opened all people, even the smallest child, the access to all forms of pornography, violence and age-inappropriate information. Through movies and video games, the children and teens have become desensitized to violence. In the video games, they kill the opponent, only to see him resurrect from the dead. As they play these games, they then need greater stimulation and harder challenges to keep their attention.

This opens them to explore more exciting and sometimes more gruesome "games." As Masaaki said, "There's a new type of murderer that sees human life as something that can be turned on and off at will, just as in an electronic game or a horror video. By turning off the victim's "switch," the perpetrator is seeking a sense of magical omnipotence, a felling of "See what I can do!"

Though the media of "Old Japan" has shown violence and gruesome images in its art and literature, it was a picture of the past and it was appreciated for its value as a reminder. Today's art and literature is mainly for the purpose of entertaining and stimulating the imagination. Two examples would be the animated films and the shin hankaku. Kaoru says that these novels "are an intellectual exercise in which the characters are like chess pieces to be manipulated in the service of some idea. The novel is like a game in which the enjoyment derives from playing within the closed system it establishes."

The second problem that the authors state is with the Ministry of Education. I have already breifly reviewed the criticism in paragraph one. They believe that the school system is responsible for the creation of absent-minded genuses. I use this phrase to mean that the students of Japan are highly intelligent in the controlled environments of school and the workplace, where problems arise and solved straight from the books, yet in real life they don't know how to use the knowledge that they have gained.

Kaoru says, "When these "superior" young people go out into society, they haven't really learned how to think. Without ever giving serious thought to anything, they cook up their own facile view of the world from the superficial stimuli and data that continually bombard them."

In summary, the creation of the new pyschopath is largely due to the free access of the media and the strictness of conformity in the lives of the school chidren. This has led to young adults who have access to any material they want without the proper mental acuity to analize the information obtained. This is not only the trend in Japan, but I believe, in the whole industialized world, and I believe that America has led the way. For me, it is truly sad to see the disinegration af a long standing culture due to Westernization .