Diary of the Late Republic, #5
Yesterday, I paid a visit to the Keio Academy in Purchase, New York, a school for the children of Japanese nationals who work here or wish their children to be educated abroad. The teacher of an Honors English course had assigned my book The American Dream, and asked me to visit her class. I was glad to get a glimpse of this world.
I found the students I met something of a paradox: they seemed more ingenuous than their peers who I teach in Greenwich, and yet more serious and intellectually sophisticated. They affirmed my guess that there was a Japanese Dream, though they explained that it operated in a more communitarian paradigm (rising to the top of a business rather than starting one, for example). They also said that gender conventions there were stronger and factored into personal aspiration. Given that I was in a room of adolescents, I couldn’t resist noting that the United States, like Japan (and most post-industrial nations), was experiencing a sharp drop in birth rates. One might guess, I said, that traditional gender practices would help with family formation, in contrast with the United States, when many women might feel they had better things to do than have children. But we arrived at a recognition that the key factor in both countries was intensive parenting: husbanding more resources on fewer people—or not wanting to have children without such resources. This kept family size down.
In response to my queries, my host—a native of Italy—explained that students made trips to New York City on their own (Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, which I discussed in this space yesterday, noted that Japanese children are sent on errands that include navigating street traffic from a very young age), which made her a bit nervous. But this has tapered somewhat post-Covid.
Indeed, I have become increasingly aware of how long a shadow Covid has cast. At one point in the discussion, I was making the point that hard work had an intrinsic value in its own right apart from the quest for upward mobility. I’m sure you all feel like you’re challenged by your schoolwork, I said. But imagine what it would be like not to really have anything to do, how disorienting and isolating it would feel. And then it hit me: they knew.
One student, who expressed surprise when he realized how valuable a commodity his bilingualism would be when he went to work in Japan, asked me if I thought U.S. global dominance was a good thing and if I thought it would last. I said that of course the American empire, like the Japanese empire, had plenty to answer for. But that global hegemony could also be a very good thing: most nations—especially Japan—are very glad to have the U.S. Navy keeping the world’s oil supply moving through the Straits of Hormuz each day. But that for better or worse, American dominance wouldn’t be lasting much longer. I’d be surprised if Japanese students would be learning as much English by century’s end.
Then I went to school cafeteria and had a burrito bowl for lunch.
Over the years, I have spoken to student groups from many countries. The dialogue is a gift.
I recently listened to a speech (on a French website) given by Francois Macron to an audience of students at a university in The Netherlands. He spoke for about an hour, in English, without notes and with eloquence. His central message to the students was that the future of Europe would be in their hands - and in the hands of the next generation of Europeans. He warned that Europe could no longer count on the USA for any kind of leadership. As an American, that was hard to hear, yet fully understandable.
When my wife and I are traveling in Europe, we experience restaurant seating that places diners close to each other. We invariably find ourselves in conversation with Europe natives and fellow travelers from all over the world. They are all well informed on American politics - and are uniformly perplexed. I sometimes respond that it is difficult to find role model candidates for public office in a country that has only 375 million citizens.