We’re selfish (wagamama) by nature, cooperative (majime) under social pressure. Individuality is important. So is society. Every culture evolves its own compromise between two opposing forces. Japan’s, traditionally, favors majime, tarring wagamama types with the feathers of spoiled children. Is that fair? asks President magazine (May 31). Does majime, pursued to excess, hold us back? Is wagamama virtuous after all? If not, why do wagamama types live longer? Why are they richer?
Consider cholesterol – original sin, along with sugar, in the moral universe of the health-conscious. Dr Hideki Wada, in his contribution to President’s feature, pictures an executive at lunchtime, busy afternoon ahead, fuel needed: “Pork cutlets and rice!” – then abruptly reconsidering: “Wait, cancel that, make it salad and hold the mayo!” There’s the spreading middle to consider, hardening arteries to fear. Resist temptation and live long – so goes the conventional (majime) wisdom.
(“Selfish” and “cooperative” are loose renderings of two words as resistant to easy translation as to facile moral judgment. Wagamama, deplored as egoism and childish insistence on having one’s own way, is sometimes, if grudgingly, admired as strength of character when it’s a matter of standing up for what’s right. Majime, often rendered “serious,” can be good as sacrifice of immediate pleasure to higher concerns, or bad as self-denial to the point of self-suppression and ultimately, perhaps, self-annihilation.
Why, asks Wada, is cholesterol vilified? The basis, he explains, is a body of American research dating back to 1948 which finds it a major cause of heart disease. And so it is. But Japan is not America. In America, heart disease is the leading cause of death. In Japan cancer is. In 2020, 378,000 Japanese died of cancer, as against 30,000 of heart disease. The typical Japanese diet, Western-inflected though it is, remains far less cholesterol-heavy than the typical American diet. Japanese can loosen the reins a little. They’d better. Cholesterol is instrumental in preventing cancer, Wada says.
Self-denial (majime) versus self-indulgence (wagamama)? Old wisdom shows its age. Even new wisdom is old before its time, today’s data trumping yesterday’s only to be trumped in turn by tomorrow’s. What’s the point? Eat as you please, and long life to you!
Long, and rich. Wagamama temperament does not guarantee wealth acquisition but supports it, says investment manager Tatsuro Kiyohara. He cites the names that routinely come up in such discussions, the mega-entrepreneurs of our time: Steve Jobs (Apple), Elon Musk (Musk Foundation, SpaceX, X formerly Twitter, etc.), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Masayoshi Son (Softbank) – wagamama types all, yielding to no one and nothing, least of all to “reality” as the yielding majime types perceive it. The bold, the daring, the venturesome are scornful of “reality’s” supposed resistance to the dreams and visions of dreamers and visionaries like themselves. They are possessed of an iron will that bends the world but is not bent by it. Majime is wind in the sails of harmony, consensus and comfortable adaptability to life as we find it. Wagamama is (sometimes) the fire that forges new life – for better and for worse.
New life. Modern life. Busy, busy. If one single word is wanted to describe our lives today, is there a better one than “busy”? It’s much on the mind of “time coordinator” Asako Yoshitake. “For many people,” she writes in President, “the day’s 24 hours are simply not enough.” No indeed. Figure an eight-hour work day that can easily, with overtime, stretch to 10 if not more. Add to that a one-hour commute (often two) times two, there and back. That’s 10-14 hours gone right there. Add seven hours of sleep, three for meals, and what’s left?
It makes one’s head spin – kids to raise, parents to nurse, bosses to please, customers to satisfy – and amid all this doing unto others your soul cries out, When can I do unto me?
Organize, prioritize, counsels Yoshitake. But that only goes so far, as she concedes. Inevitably, in the end, the dilemma must be faced: wagamama, or majime? Be selfish, or selfless? Do unto others, or do unto oneself?
Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.”
© Japan Today
3 Comments
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falseflagsteve
Just get one with life and have a good time. No need scratching your bonce worrying about all this stuff
Gene Hennigh
It seems to me that both are important, and not just in Japan. All of one or the other seems to be imbalanced. Taking control of something or someone, by itself, is not constructive. Being expected to obey without resistance is not very good when someone has an opinion that just might be better than what is being demanded. The balance, obviously, will be different from culture to culture but too much of one or the other is detrimental. (US billionaires dictating what the underlings must do, Japanese workers accepting too much of what the bosses demand, etc.) From country to country there is variation, with neither being bad as long as that group, which ever, can live proactively with it.
browny1
The sentiments are interesting.
Actually I find Wagamama surfing a crest at the moment.
Outside of one's own group(s) , I've noticed "me" as in "I do whatever I want regardless of others" has been noticeably increasing over the years.
I differentiate this from a more solidly based independence or individualism, which also is increasing.
Wagamama types can also be found "in-groups" which can have devastating results.