High Anxiety and Western Values..

are driving the Japanese crazy, according to this Times Online article:

THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.

Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety” and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.

The trend is put down to Japanese companies’ attempts to globalise by adopting working practices more closely in line with US and British models. Larger numbers of temporary staff, a greater willingness to sack people and greater pay disparities are the downside.

A spokesman for the Mental Health Institute said that the emphasis on individual performance was driving Japanese workers — particularly those in their thirties — to mental turmoil. “People tend to be individualised under the new working patterns,” he said. “When people worked in teams they were happier.”

Now stop me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Japanese under an enormous psychological burden under the old system, as well? While guraranteed lifetime employment, workers were required to put in long hours and then required to socialize with the boss until the wee hours of the evening. They even coined a new term in Japanese to describe the early deaths brought on by this highly socialized industrial regimen: karoshi.

But I can understand the culture shock that such an individualized, competitive ethos can have on more traditional, collectivized cultures. I think that this shows just how radical Anglo-Saxon culture is in comparison to the rest of the world. The complaints from the Japanese workers don't sound much different than the wails from the brave French students standing up for their rights to lifetime security. I think that it is part of our evolved nature as a tribal species to expect a permanent place in the social sphere, which is not contingent on extra-social factors related to one's ability to adapt to some ever-shifting set of performance criteria, but to one's ability to establish and maintain social bonds in a group that will endure through one's lifetime.

Which is why I think socialism and other collectivist ethics will remain permanent players on the socio-political scene. Our nature is to derive economic status from social accomplishments, not vice versa, which is the capitalist way. There is something radically different about the way that we have de-linked economic potential from social factors.

Self Rererence Alert! Speaking of workplace anxiety, I underwent my annual performance review with my new employer today. The good news is that I'm on the high side of "meets expectation". The discouraging part about the whole review process is that it is just one more opportunity for the world to point out the flaws that you have had since birth and which you will not be getting rid of until your death.

The review is based on the flawed assumption that it is possible to mold employees into the coveted "well rounded person" in whom all personality traits are equally balanced. This is all just a farce perpetrated by the Human Potential movement and encouraged under the futile Human Resources practice labeled "personal development". Each of us is unbalanced by nature. We have a set personality which contains strong points and weak points, as viewed from the perspective of any particular job situation. No matter how well you do a job, employers will always see it as their duty to point out those particular traits that you posess that they think would make you a better worker if they were changed.

So every year I hear the same thing in my performance review: "could be more agressive". This is something I've been told since I was a young, painfully shy child. I'm by nature cautious and non-confrontational, but I've managed to build a successful career as an IT professional with a non-agressive, cooperative style. Heck, I was even a successful Marine officer, although they also told me I needed to be more aggressive. Just once I'd like to see a review that stated "isn't very agressive, but gets the job done in his own style". If I get the job done, does it matter that I'm not agressive? And just what do I have to do differently to be more agressive? Bang my shoes on the table? Would that really make people feel better? Or are we (as Americans) just so keyed into the idea that being aggressive is the single milestone for measuring success?

So even though I predicted that comment would be in my review, and that I would get a good review anyhow, I'm still bummed. It's just another jab into an old wound, all the more painful because it is such a rote exercise, as if the Human Resources manual stated "As part of every review, make sure to poke the employee in some old, sensitive wound".

That cheese revenue can't come fast enough.