VOX POPULI: Complaints about young an endless pastime

"Waterfall" is a work by Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), a Dutch artist famed for his trompe-l'oeil (trick-the-eye) technique. It shows water cascading down a channel and turning a waterwheel below. As you follow the flow of the water with your eyes, you realize that the flow leads right back to where it began. The work is a masterpiece of optical illusion that creates an "infinite chain" that could never exist in the real world.

But humans perpetuate a much more mundane kind of infinite chain by complaining about "young people today." I understand that even Socrates (469 B.C.-399 B.C.) wasn't above it.

Young people grow into adults, and before long it's their turn to grouse about the younger generation. This "seamless relay" has been going on since the dawn of history.

In the 1950s, the taiyo-zoku--amoral, rebellious young people named after "Taiyo no Kisetsu" (Season of the Sun), a controversial 1955 novel by Shintaro Ishihara--raised the hackles of older Japanese. Then in the mid-1960s came the miyuki-zoku, who hung out along the fashionable Miyuki-dori street in Tokyo's Ginza district.

Kazuhiro Kokubo, a 21-year-old snowboarder who just competed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, got into trouble for his slovenly attire. He was subjected to considerable public censure, and his name was even mentioned in a Diet debate. With his harsher critics calling for his withdrawal from the Games, Kokubo voluntarily absented himself from the opening ceremony. I imagine all this will be remembered as one of the episodes in the Vancouver Olympics.

I, too, did not approve of Kokubo's attitude. However, I was more bothered by society's intolerance for his youthful "immaturity." Kokubo reportedly drew a lot of flak even from his contemporaries on the Internet. Our society today seems to be full of hostility.

Novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), noted for his cynicism, once observed: "The smartest way to get ahead in the world is to live in strict observance of the very social conventions one scorns." Akutagawa does have a point here, but I wouldn't like any young person who is smart in this manner.

"I saw my parents (in the crowd), and I was happy that they were cheering me on," said Kokubo, who finished in eighth place in the finals. He must have been disappointed with the result, but he can certainly set his next goal for the 2014 Olympics.

I just hope he will not have "aged" so much by then as to be complaining about the younger generation.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.