Farewell Poem

会者定離 - esha jôri
"Treffen heisst auch wieder Scheiden,
Kennen wird einst zum Vermissen",
mögen die Japaner meinen
und damit des Abschieds Leiden
schicksalsbedacht zu trösten wissen.

Doch wenn du mal jemanden triffst,
den du nicht so leicht vergisst -
du merkst ihn dir, du weilst bei ihr,
und sie zu treffen wird zum Bestreben,
dann wird er bald ein Teil von dir
und bleibt dein Leben lang am Leben.

Void does not matter.

Have you reached the turning point
where your world’s got out of joint,
when to accept was past-due
that nothing’s right, wrong, false or true.

What you’ve learned through all these years
were just some else’s fantastic ideas,
confirmed through propagandistic millenia
as “general knowledge” and “trivia”.

Theorems are gravity
attracting castles in the air
Commands mean certainty
blessing people in despair.

Laws just bring security
in taming all that liberty
and taking freedom in custody
while moral relieved the dense
from comprehending what would make sense.

All your life, you saw a world
that was drawn, labeled and rehearsed
by people who just believed in it
and drew it further bit for bit.

Either you will join them in
drawing dream worlds out of air thin
or you start to question that all
and try to bring it to the fall.

Paralysis, disesteem
awaits for bursting their all dream
the only meed for you, indeed,
is to overcome some others’ creed.

Yet, never be just destructive,
but try to invent your own belief!
Choose what you want, what to agree
reality is what you choose to see.

See the world through your own mind
and find some people of your kind.
Meet them and you will find your own
reflection in what you’ve always known.

What you are and what you’re for
keep questioning that furthermore.
But never take the step as far
to doubt that you actually are.

“Just be yourself!” means being first,
to question life leads to the worst.
For life means nothing but to avoid
to be welcomed by the void.

Specialist shops in retail won’t go under – manufacturers‘ concerns about branding and marketing rescues traditional distribution channels

(Thank you, Claudio, for pointing out this trend in the first place!)

Internet has radically changed the world – including marketing and sales of products and even services. With cheap transportation, tariff reductions and saver payment systems world-wide on the one hand and large savings in shop rents, product display, promotions and expensive employees for product advice on the other hand, internet dealers have been gaining an increasing market share in retail. Not only cost-sensitive buyers but more and more the general customer base wants to profit of quick and stressless shopping and fast and save delivery right to their house.

However, such internet shopping has always needed and exploited retail shops with product display, professional advice and support. Buyers started to inspect the products in stores, just to get home and order them cheaper over the internet. As retail shops could neither prove such exploiting behaviour nor call on any legal measures against it, they were bound to carry the costs themselves – with layoffs in particular. There seemed to be no end to this trend until to the point where price competition on the internet got so fierce and the high fix costs of retail shops so unbearable that the whole retail market collapsed and there would be no more traditional shops at all. Solutions like product display and sales by manufacturers themselves (see Apple stores) struggle in maintain the corporate image or lack knowledge about local markets, while ideas of exhibition halls with entrance fees would scare off or be bypassed by the customers.

To my own surprise, I have come to learn about a solution by the manufacturers themselves: More and more of them (see Philips for example) have started to provide exclusively specialist stores with specific high-end product lines. Others (like HP Compaq) distribute different product lines over internet and retail. As manufacturers could not possibly be (directly) concerned about the fate of independent retail shops, the reason for this strategy must lie in bad experiences with their corporate image and profits: Probably, lack of advice and support by internet resellers did not cast as much shadow on the resellers themselves as on the manufacturers’ brands. Further, the fierce competition among internet resellers will probably have effect on the production development in the long term: Assuming that in the near future, internet resellers try to out-compete their rivals by requesting only cheap models (with lower margin) from manufacturers, they cannot bear the costs of their high-cost and -profitable series anymore. Thus, price rivalry on retail markets will gain such a strong momentum that it effects production of the manufacturers themselves.

These two reasons appear to be the reason for this striking development in consumer markets: Manufacturers limit the distribution of their product lines and cancel market forces – in favour of their own and retailers’ profits.

Of course, such separations of distribution channels will heavily affect market overview, consumer information, buying behavior and satisfaction: No longer can customers compare prices as well as product specifications in retail or internet stores, but need to access manufacturers’ websites to gain full overview. This goes hand in hand with recent changes in retail shops where manufacturers send their own employees to. Those employees will only promote, inform about and support customers of their brand.

As a result, radical changes in competition and market forces will result: Internet resellers will be parked on a new discount market while retail shops won’t compete among each other as much as manufacturers inside the shops themselves.

The end of neo-liberalism

Today, U.S.-president Barack Obama presented his plan to introduce legal changes – the newspapers report either about a whole new agency or about an extensive reorganisation for an increased control of financial intermediaries in the U.S. capital markets. Whether new agencies are established or existing ones empowered, anyway, the direction of this policy is clear: away from a neo-classical/ capital market-oriented, neo-liberal/ state-independent economic system towards a system of governmental supervision. The American idiosyncrasy has found an end – the end of neo-liberalism draws near. Whether the Americans, still locked up in their paradigms and barely able to find system-criticial/-extrinsic approaches out of their deep mole, already realize what that means? A walk to Canossa, respectively Berlin, Tokyo and Beijing, the re-writing of economic textbooks that stylized the neo-liberal market-system as the best and most efficient one in the world: separate banking system, rating agencies, hedge funds and funds of hedge funds, dispersion of ownership and last, but not least: Friedmann, that arrogant Nobel-laureat.

Whether the Obama administration has realized or will have realized in time what radical change they’re really up to, will be crucial for the consistency and extensiveness of this turnaround. There couldn’t be anything worse but an administration that just fights symptoms and ends up stuck in the same paradigm, just a bit more twisted in its logic, which would harm the system and its participants even more.

Basically, economic systems are just like religions – in the latter case, you call it belief, in the first one, it’s trust. The integrity and consistency of such a system needs to be maintained in order to keep people trusting in it. Of course, with a bit of self-discipline and moderation, the neo-liberal system could have worked – but so would have communism.

The lack of credibility by scientistic esotericism

Anticipating the outrage and feelings of insult of some believers, let me foreclose (again) that I consider myself as a pragmatic relativist. My pondering in all kind of religions, philosophies and theories led me to the conclusion that simply nothing is true or false, right or wrong. There’s simply no (objective) reality out there to base any (universal) truth on. Thus, I’m no disciple of science, either. Heck, I consider science just as much of a belief than religions for example: It’s basic axioms in methods and theorems in theories are arbitrary presumptions – premises. However, this is where pragmatism comes in: Science has provided the most comprehensive and compelling concept for explaining this our world (in the West) so far, calmed down people’s worries and doubts and thus contributed the most to life’s highest values – may it be longevity, happiness or human progress (as I think is the basis for the prior).
I’m trying to understand every different concept for explaining the world. This attempt of course is limited and sometimes thwarted by my social imprint (which is of a Middle-European Protestant-Christian, rather Republican than liberal democratic kind). I see logical inconsistencies in the argumentation of people who on the one hand affirm the subjectivity of our consciousness and the important role of the human subconscious and on the other hand, claim to have got conscious of all their social imprints and to be able to transcend them. Such transcendence would not only require full objectivity but also full awareness of the subconscious. This is logically contradictory, I reckon. But again, such people may immunize their opinions by claiming that they have also transcended logic – which I must admit haven’t managed myself nor observed among great philosophers, animals or nature in general: Trial and error, learning by doing – life is doomed to be logic, it seems. Thus, such people rather appear like heretics in my eyes and out of different presumptions alone, must be excluded out of this discussion.
And nevertheless or just in fact, it’s such logical contradiction and the subsequent lack of credibility among certain alternative concepts of beliefs to science that I want to discuss at this point. Recently, a huge variety of rather new concepts of beliefs have come to my attention that try to merge spiritual ideas with scientific findings. The term “spiritual ideas” may not have explanatory sufficiency (as in the sense of mathematical sufficiency), but seems to hit the spot as the basic difference between such concepts of beliefs and science is that it assumes “non-materialistic”, thus spiritual factors in the universe that play a role in our life. Again, it’s important to notice that such beliefs do not assume that this might be materialistic aspects that just haven’t been discovered or proven by science, yet, but presume (and thus immunize the discussion) that this cannot be researched by scientific methods. “Only through your spirit you can explain consciousness”, I was told. Well, this reminded me of semantic linguistics where my friend told me that you cannot really explain scientifically the coordination between words and their empirical referents. Another common example is that there’s no way to explain with science why human beings have consciousness. On my behalf, however, this question is flawed because again, we analyze our consciousness from a subjective point, raise it over living being’s state of being and think that we’ve reached the peak of evolution. How the heck should we really know what we are, what we are thinking when our subconscious is so overwhelming? I rather favour the cyberpunkish conception that consciousness and identity is the result of an overflow of information that cannot be processed in time. In such a view, consciousness is not digital – existent or inexistent – but analog-dynamic: You can have more or less. On a sidenote, I don’t see any other motive in the general dichotomic conception of human beings on the one side and the rest of the nature of the other side than the “eternal” struggle of the human ego to be special. Dodge this!
So, we’re talking about concepts of beliefs that draw most of their ideas from spiritual and religious beliefs like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism (Heck, most of those people don’t even know the source of both Buddhism and Hinduism!), Daoism, Shintoism, etc. General characteristics of these beliefs are that they exclude (monotheistic) deistic entities, stress on the human spirit and other polypolistic forces in nature. This renders the explanatory content rather flexible or differently put, ambiguous and vague.
I don’t see any logical inconsistency in those views. They’re perfectly fine in regard of their intrinsic premises, the argumentation and conclusions.
However, the bogus comes in when disciples (especially Western people) try to merge these ideas with science. By trying to fathom the limits of scientific explanatory power, in the present case, quantum physics, they try to build a bridge to spiritual concepts: Waves are no immaterial, thus spiritual. The logic is incredibly flawed. Why? Because science is built on materialistic premises! You cannot connect to line of argumentations that are built on different presumptions! Further, empiric science itself consciously excludes itself out of the whole wave and string theories because experiments have already proven that the very act of empirical analysis influences the object of investigation. (Personally, I also see that case in social sciences where descriptive and especially instrumental theories turn normative as their explanatory power influences the empirical referent more than the other way round. Jensen’s free cashflow theory might be a famous example. Personally, I’m studying on the case of corporate governance in Japan in general.) Thus, such disciples simply abuse the huge comprehensive and consistent body of findings, arguments and conclusions by science in order to prove their own ideas right – even though you cannot prove but only confirm or falsify theories of a humanistic approach!
But, why the heck would they want to merge those ideas with science anyway? There’s only one simple answer: They cannot belief them without having approved their own (socially imprinted) beliefs of Western science and norms! In other words, they’re still (unconsciously) trapped in their old beliefs – and haven’t even got aware of that! Thus, they do not only implicitly confirm their old Western beliefs but also betray their new-claimed spiritual ideas, deprive their credibility and create an illogical bastard of esotericism. That’s what esotericism is anyway.
Instead, those disciples should keep their hands of scientific findings and turning them into scientistic arguments, but instead should stick to their completely distinct premises. And if they want to proselytize – either because they need confirmation in their own beliefs by convincing others or because they want to make profit out of it – they shall argue the only valid way: with pragmatism. They shall foreclose – just as I did – that their ideas are also mere beliefs, not to be proven (scientifically), but to be believed, and argue that then– and only then – they would fulfill those aforementioned highest values even better than science does.

Liberaler wider besseren Wissens – Haltet wenigstens ein paar grundlegende nachhaltige Prinzipien hoch!

Wie die Obwaldner Regierung und gewisse Kommentatoren auf NZZ Online den jüngsten Vorschlag einer Sonderwohnzone für Einkommensstarke zu rechtfertigen und Leuenbergers harsche Kritik zu verurteilen versuchen, schlägt doch dem Fass des politischen Opportunismus den Boden raus!

Ich muss mich wohl selbst als Liberaler wider besseren Wissens verstehen: Im internationalen Wettbewerb bieten wir besser mit und hoffen, als Letzte unterzugehen. Viel lieber bezeichne ich mich aber als Pragmatiker mit einem letzten Funken Hoffnung, im ganzen Wettbewerb da oder dort nachhaltige Prinzipien wahren zu können: Chancengleicheit und Meritokratie etwa. Aber solche komplett korrumpierte, systemintrinsische Lackaffen versauen auch das!

Was der Kommentatoren bubenhafte Diffamierungen einzig und allein offenbaren, ist, dass sie in ihrem prinzipienlosen, systemintrinsischen Denken über das derzeitige politisch-wirtschaftliche Paradigma die gleiche Ahnungslosigkeit allen Mitmenschen unterstellen: Als ob wir direkt unsere Ansprüche an einem Wohnsitz in dem hinterwäldlerischen Kaff bedroht sehen würden! Nein, hier geht’s um grundlegende Freiheits- und Besitzrechte, deren Korrumpierung auf zahllose Generationen nach uns Auswirkungen haben können – nicht nur zu unserem Schaden. Eigeninteresse ist immer die grundlegende Motivation des Menschen. Das will ich nicht bestreiten. Aber wer sich Rawls’ Ideen nicht selbst zusammenreimen und entsprechende Schlüsse ziehen kann, der wird die Implikationen eines nachhaltig bedachten Eigeninteresses nie verstehen können.

Leuenbergers Unmut ist gänzlich verständlich: Wer selbst ein föderalistisches System aufgrund der Mitspracherechte für möglichst viele Gruppen gutheisst und dann zusehen muss, wie St. Floriansprinzip und unsolidarischer Kantonsgeist das ganze Projekt zu gefährden droht, der verliert mal die Geduld – abgesehen davon, dass solch’ krasse Verstösse nicht schönrednerisch gerügt werden sollten. Leuenberger ist in den vergangenen zehn Jahren der einzige Bundesrat gewesen, der sich als gerechter, volksbedachter und pragmatischer Staatsmann hervorgetan hat. Versaut ihm nicht die Nachfolge oder ich gehe selbst in die Politik.

Why has Japan become a culture of materialism and ignorance?

Let me get straight to the point: Present-day Japan is promoting a lifestyle in materialistic ignorance. The question isn’t whether this is true – every initiate would agree anyway. It’s not a question about right or wrong, either, as there’s no “right” or even “optimal” way of lifestyle and it’s all about view, values and attitudes. There’s simply the question of why – why has Japan become like that?
To allays reservations about me forestalling the first two questions: First, of course, I’m talking about Japanese in general. And second, “materialistic ignorance” is not meant to be judgemental – at all. Both because of the bias of almost any present-day term as well as the high relevance of the topic, the second assertion may need some clarification: Ignorance shall not be confused with stupidity. Economists may think of “rational ignorance”, the state where it would be simply stupid to acquire more information since it wouldn’t pay off. And sociologists may think of the incredible judgemental embossement the “educated bourgeoisie” (in German: Bildungsbürgertum) has left on all these thoughts. You don’t need to watch modern movies like “Fight Club” to understand that “you need to loose everything before you can appreciate the least you gain”, but can start off right in the Bible where it’s written that “blessed are the poor in spirit because the heavens are theirs”. Having allaying this first concern about my own bias, I may introduce the two fundamental attitudes towards life that make rate “the Japanese way of life” completely different. The view and valuation of different kinds of needs and their satisfaction is crucial to the differences occurring.
On the one hand, there’s a simplistic, fundamental attitude towards life. This attitude stresses out basic needs and their satisfaction: Why caring about science and arts if you gain the best feelings from good food, deep sleep and well, intensive sex. Educated people in particular may agree that thinking rather leads to more worries than intellectual satisfaction: Either because you get more questions than answers or need to start to worry about losing your answers again. Critics may call this lifestyle hedonistic, supporters have already called it pragmatic. Anyway, the prioritization of basic needs also implies – and hopefully, will be consciously grasped as – a rather existentialistic, self-determined, maybe egocentric world view.
On the other hand, there’s an attitude towards life that combines utilitarian principles with the higher appreciation of more “sophisticated”, “distinguished” needs: Just according to Maslow’s pyramid, satisfaction in intellectual studies and self-fulfillment are considered as well as felt as more intensive – probably also in the awareness that they contribute to human development and therefore the chance of satisfying even more “sophisticated” needs. Please consider that I’m talking about development and not improvement as the first doesn’t need to make us any happier.
Having said that, let me also disclose that personally, I’m trying to commit myself rather to the second attitude towards life – not out of conviction but a sense of duty: Probably, I wouldn’t have been put in this privileged position both to take the time as well as the system-critical capabilities to asses these two views if my parents and ancestors wouldn’t have worked their asses off for me. Thus, if I want to grant the same insight to future generations, I may do best not to make them read this essay but to make them experience themselves – and this can only be ensured with enough resources gained now. Thus, both for human development as well as the opportunity to make the very conclusions here, I consider it as much more sustainable to choose the second way – and history seems to prove me right, too.
See? Going straight to the point has made me to go into details of details. However, in the end, you may see that the conclusions of this whole essay lie much closer to the universal attitudes explained above than you might have though. Also keep in mind my important distinction between reading and learning on the one hand and experiencing and understanding on the other.
Well then, the question is at hand: How come that the Japanese society has brought up such a short-sighted, ignorant materialistic lifestyle?
This certainly hasn’t always been like that! Just looking back before the two World Wars reveals a Japanese society craving for knowledge, leading discussions through all social strata and resulting in upheavals and movements that threatened the very locus of power. Think of the Meiji reformists and their principles or think of Buddhism. We need to consider that all these events and ideas may not be representative for the whole people of Japan, though. There’s the valid claim that Japan simply never showed such a lifestyle because most people couldn’t afford it! It’s only been in the last few decades that most Japanese have acquired enough wealth that they – or rather their children – could live out their real attitude towards life to the full extent.
However, instead of insinuating hedonism as a cultural basis, I rather would like to introduce another hypothesis: The economic development in the last fifty years hasn’t allowed such a lifestyle, but caused it in the first place! The economic success of Japan has cauterized Japanese culture. When Japan entered the period of high growth, every Japanese was able to get a job – however, despite the high and fast growth of the economy, Japanese people have never acquired the same living standard like in Europe for example: They normally spend 12 hours a day at work, get home exhausted, just to do the same thing the next day again. The economic success hasn’t freed them from their poverty and lack of need satisfaction but just locked them up in a new cage. Japanese employees don’t have spare time or power to care about politics, they don’t have spare time and power to think or do arts. All what it’s left for is some mindless shopping. Think it this way!
At some certain point, this development had become a self-enhancing process, of course. You may want to call it a vicious circle. A culture of political culture ceased, topics like philosophy and arts lost attention and this again had an impact on the socialization of upcoming generations which were born into a system of labour and some spare time for shopping. You can’t learn about political discourse in school. You need to try it out yourself. But are you supposed to do that if there’s cram school to be attended late night? The Japanese have started to run faster and faster in their hamster wheel and all their amenities were expelled until there was only the cold-iron wheel bars left they were clinging to. Japanese materialism isn’t an expression of hedonism, but a desperate escape from an underprivileged life.
Now, if this hypothesis should hold true, how are we supposed to solve things? There’s no use to call Japanese to come to their senses when there’s nothing but work that awaits them. You need to break the system itself, see and try whether a life less under the economic imperative holds more amenities. However, kept in fear of loss by the mass media, having never seen how things are different and still work in other countries, they lack the experience to compare. As extensive and effective the Japanese education system may be, it’s diametrically opposed to the concept of true understanding and insight.
As I mentioned in the introduction already, this conclusion is based on a rather strict conviction about learning and understanding: I’m a fierce opponent of monologue argumentation and explanation. In other words, I don’t think that anyone can gain more understanding (however, certainly more knowledge – but what the fuck is that supposed to be good for if you don’t really understand, grasp the problem and idea behind?) that lies beyond the personal, subjective view. That means that you cannot lead a political discussion representing both sides, that you cannot improve your argument by not receiving any input from someone else, someone else who’s thinking differently than you. You cannot fool your immanent you hiding behind every idea and argument of your own. It’s only in a true discourse with someone else where your thought, your opinion, your idea and your understanding can be enriched. And well, the truer and more direct this discourse is, the more effective! You cannot argue with a book and therefore, reading a book is the least insightful way of learning! How do you want to study, not to mention to understand a foreign country if you haven’t been there? The information is just too complex to be stored up on some pages – just like this essay by the way.
Just think of Japanese in holidays! They don’t try to live in the foreign country, try to get in contact with its people – no, they stick together in a group, follow their tour-guide and rape pictures from one sight after another. Captured, it’s in the box, ours now. This short moment saved for the rest of the life. There’s quite some despair shining through that materialism, isn’t there?
No, the best way to make Japanese aware of their situation is to actually make them see the world!