Reggie's "Fast Culture: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes" Impressions - The Dark Side of Modern Japan from the Perspective of Culture. A stimulating work that cuts to the mechanisms of influencer popularity.
I would like to introduce "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes" by Reggie, published by Shueisha in September 2022.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
The stifling effect of "culture = useful for business."
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Reading the classics to improve social skills, checking out the contents of great books on YouTube, learning financial techniques and argumentation skills from influencers to increase "self-worth" - this kind of "culture theory" is gaining popularity among businesspeople.
The author, who works as a writer while working for a general company, named this situation "fast culture.
YouTubers who incorporate and transmit stimuli into their "culture," entrepreneurs who say "earning money is winning," charismatics who preach "skill improvement," politicians who preach "self-responsibility," and commentators who easily classify others as "idiots" ......2000s and beyond. This report analyzes the discourse that has been supported by business people since the 2000s and reveals the true nature of the "suffocating" feeling that pervades society.
The work "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes," which I became extremely interested in when it appeared on my Twitter timeline.
In the "Introduction," the author explains what "fast culture" is, which is the title of this book. This is an important part of the book, so we will read it carefully, even though it is a bit long.
Fast Cultivation" as the current place of culture
Hiroyuki, Atsuhiko Nakata, Kazu Laser, DaiGo, Yusaku Maezawa, and Takafumi Horie.
These faces were the top performers in the "Business and Liberal Arts YouTuber Influence Trend Ranking" published by the entertainment website Model Press at the end of 2011.
Many people may feel uncomfortable and uneasy about the "culture" of Japan. Is what the influencers, whose definitive tone often causes a stir on the Internet, are transmitting really "culture"? Has "culture" become a concept that is spoken of by successful business people? In the first place, should "business" and "culture" be placed in the same category?
In the past few years, the message that "business people need to be educated" has become a popular topic in various media. For example, if you look around a bookstore, you will often see a book titled "0 as an Education" in the business book section. （The book is called "The Businessperson's Education.)
Why has "culture" been pushed so much toward business people?
Of course, the importance of education has been frequently mentioned for a long time. Comparisons have long existed between Western executives who are well educated and their Japanese counterparts, such as .......
However, the author feels that the recent "culture is important" theory is in a somewhat different phase from those of the past. Compared to the term "culture" in the past, the current "culture" has a particularly strong connotation. It is the "impatience" of businesspeople.
I want to know something quickly. I want to stand out from my rivals in the business scene by doing so. If I don't, my market value will not increase. You will not grow. You will drop out of the competition. ......
The "education is important" argument of the current era is closely linked to such a desperate desire and a sincere anxiety. Education as useful knowledge for business and as a survival tool. As if in step with this trend, Atsuhiko Nakata started his own YouTube channel under the title "Education for Living in the New Era," and Takafumi Horie urges people to read "solid education books" in his books.
Why are today's businesspeople so moved by the call "culture matters"? And how have the business influencers who transmit the message "culture matters" caught the wind of the times and expanded their influence?
The key word to answer this question is "fast education," which is also the title of this book. This is information that can be easily consumed like fast food and is supported by the uniform judgment that "what is important is what is useful for business. This is the true nature of what drives today's businessperson.
In this book, we delve into the "fast" culture, relying on related books and the voices of businesspeople. What emerges through this process is the transition and current state of Japanese society as it comes to accept the values embodied in fast culture.
Shueisha, Reggie, "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes," p. 8-11.
This book is not simply a work written to criticize "Hiroyuki, Atsuhiko Nakata, Kazu Laser, DaiGo, Yusaku Maezawa, Takafumi Horie" and other influencers.
Rather, the work carefully follows the mechanisms of modern society as to why we are attracted to such influencers.
The author continues the above statement by stating
Beyond the "Good Old Liberal Arts Theory."
One of the reasons the author began to think about this issue of fast culture is his own background in working.
Currently, the author is working for a company while working as an individual music blogger/writer outside the company, and is considering how his career should be, including so-called side jobs (or double jobs).
In the former case, he has changed jobs multiple times, and is constantly trying to figure out how best to move forward while assessing his own skills and market value. On the other hand, in the latter case, his blog has given him the opportunity to write for commercial media, and he has built relationships with artists and people working in the music industry, while providing critical commentary on the Japanese music scene.
In my frequent travels between the two footholds, I have often felt that there are conflicting opinions surrounding culture circulating in each place. Simply put, in the world of the average businessperson, fast culture has a reasonable following, while in the so-called "cultural" sphere, such as the music industry, there is a swirling dislike of influencers such as those named at the beginning of this article.
Whenever the author saw such extreme divisions, he wondered whether such a simple dichotomy was really sufficient.
Culture lovers dismiss the "shallowness" and "incompleteness" of fast culture. While they may be right, such opinions are uttered because they do not understand the frustration of businesspeople who are busy with their daily work. On the other hand, when I see business people under the influence of fast culture judging music, movies, and reading based on "cost effectiveness" and "whether or not they are useful for business," I sometimes feel righteous indignation beyond discomfort that "culture cannot be judged based on cost effectiveness or whether or not it is useful. I am not a fan of this attitude.
It is my basic opinion that the current situation in which fast culture is prevalent should be viewed critically. However, I am well aware that this does not help me if I look down on business influencers and say, "Go back to good old-fashioned culture.
The goal of this book is to provide an ideal but more realistic and practical guide to action.
Shueisha, Reggie, "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes," p11-13.
If anything, I have been expressing my thoughts on this blog from the "cultural" side of the spectrum.
Ray Bradbury's science fiction novelFahrenheit 451 Degrees.and an article about "understandability" on the subject of Nietzsche.What is culture?"I have been thinking about this.
but stillThe author's basic opinion is that the current situation in which fast culture is prevalent should be viewed critically. However, that doesn't mean that looking down on business influencers and sending out messages like "go back to good old-fashioned culture" won't help."This was something I had felt as well. I kept feeling helpless, or something like that.
However, the author does not simply deny them, but rather tackles this conundrum by analyzing the soil in which they have come to be popular.
The mechanism of why people today are so obsessed with fast culture is so huge that it cannot be captured by simply saying "That's outrageous! and "culture is not a tool for making money.
This book takes a careful look at such a dark situation in modern society.
As you can see from the table of contents, this work looks at the mechanism of why many people are attracted to "fast culture" using numerous examples. The explanation of this mechanism is very detailed and makes us think deeply about what is happening now in contemporary Japan, where we live. Reading the book, I felt a sense of gratitude, "You have done a very good job of unraveling the background of the times through the angle of fast culture! I was so grateful to the author.
To understand what "fast culture" is, we must first look at the historical background in which it emerged. Only by understanding this background can we see what it is.
Learning about the historical background and taking the time to consider things from a broad perspective have been ideas that I have valued in updating this blog.
I have been learning about Marx since last year, and it was precisely to think about why Marx was able to influence the world so much. Behind the birth of Marx's thought, there must have been the spirit of the times and the soil that demanded it. I thought that knowing this would be of great significance in considering what religion is in the future.
For more on this, see the above"Why I, a non-Marxist, study Marx: Marx as a Religious Phenomenon."As I also mentioned in the book, "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes," this is exactly what I was talking about when I talked about cultivation and religion. I was particularly impressed with that part of the book.
Since we are here, I would like to introduce that part.
What is the purpose of studying the liberal arts? Although it is a basic premise that the motivation is up to the individual, looking back at the historical background, one of the events that triggered a renewed awareness of the importance of the liberal arts was the series of Aum Shinrikyo incidents that occurred in the mid-1990s (just as liberal arts departments were being dismantled at national universities starting in the early 1990s). (This was also the time when the dismantling of the liberal arts departments at national universities was underway since the early 1990s.) (This was also the time when the liberal arts departments were being dismantled at national universities from the early 1990s.)
Even if a student has a high deviation score in entrance examinations, it is useless if he or she uses that ability for something strange. In the past, education was sought as a means of acquiring a variety of viewpoints to avoid falling into cults, as well as to acquire ethics as a human being. Is the current fast-education approach of "let's learn to be a parrot" a countermeasure to the "parrot" approach? Could the mainstreaming of the fast education shown by those who place the highest value on success in business above all else create a new "parrot" who can abandon deep thought processes and ethics to be followed with impunity for the sake of economic benefits?
The situation surrounding the fast culture depicts businesspeople who are losing their sense of equilibrium between their desire to succeed in business and their fear of becoming "useless human resources. In the next chapter, we will follow the story of how this current mood emerged. The key players in this story are the people mentioned in this section who were once called the "darlings of the age.
Shueisha, Reggie, "Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes," p75-77.
I think it is very significant that the topic of parrots has come up here.
I myself am a monk in my own life.What makes me any different from a parrot?"I have always been troubled by the problem of
This is also a major starting point for my ongoing study of religion.
"Could the mainstreaming of the culture exhibited by those who place the highest value on business success above all else create a new "parrot" who can abandon deep thought processes and the ethics that should be defended with impunity for economic advantage?"The author's words "I am a very strong believer in the importance of the environment, and I am very happy to be able to help.
As you will see in this book, "Fast Education" is all about how quickly you can ingest something useful for your business. Fast Education" makes sense as a strategy to help you survive the competition.
The process of carefully considering various possibilities and positions is abandoned, and they are forced to compete for survival according to their own rational thinking (as they see it). However, I highly doubt that this kind of learning is good for the world. As the author says later in the article
What is missing in fast culture
In this chapter, we have discussed the inevitability of the widespread support for the concept of fast education, which focuses on how individuals can earn money and survive. While there have been many hit titles in the so-called business and self-help book genres in the past, fast-education, which accelerates based on self-responsibility, is a phenomenon created by the overall trend in Japanese society since the beginning of the 21st century. And this momentum is likely to continue for some time to come.
I have introduced a number of key players in this debate, and one of the major common threads is their "divergence from the public sphere. They emphasize individual survival as if they reject the model of a society where people support each other as annoying. The reason why Horie, Hashimoto, and Hiroyuki all advocate the introduction of a basic income system is because the "I'll give you a certain amount of money, and you can handle the rest" approach is compatible with their strong individualistic ideology. In addition, neither Atsuhiko Nakata nor DaiGo seem to be willing to give back to society as a whole or to the weak.
In his book "Lifehack, Reward Exploitation, Individualism...The 'Inconvenient Thinking' of 'NewsPicks-kei' People" (Bungeishunju digjtal), Takesato Fujisaki, a critic and part-time lecturer at the Saitama Institute of Technology, writes In his book, "Lifehack, Exploitation of Rewards, Individualism...," he described the common attitude of the people discussed in this chapter as "individualism without a concept of responsibility," including the idea of attributing everything to individual efforts and the attitude of considering everything in society from a business perspective ("Even laws and regulations that are designed to provide minimal fairness are a bump on the eye from a business perspective").
There is nothing to blame for making an effort to learn something. A society in which the results of one's efforts are steadily returned to the individual in the form of monetary compensation is a desirable state of affairs. It is a correct strategy to focus one's study on skills that are needed in the world in order to produce results. It is only natural that we should aim for an efficient way to advance our skills, and sometimes it may be necessary to take risks and challenge ourselves to go beyond the rules.
However, efforts focused on "self-survival" make people look at those around them coldly. In addition, although "learning" by nature is usually a state in which "the more you know, the more you don't know," it is inevitably difficult to feel such an atmosphere in places surrounding fast education. Nakata's reaction to the discussion between Atsuhiko Nakata and Takumi Yobinori, who runs a YouTube channel called "Yobinori," a Japanese word for "college math and physics" (yobinori), in the book "Study Dokugaku no Neri Dake Dokugaku no Shiroku" (A Textbook for Self-Study That Makes Learning Fun) is symbolic of this.
rice paddy field in the middle of a fieldWhat percentage of the total is there that you don't know right now?
meansI think it's about 0.001 percent of what we know, in terms of sensory perception.
rice paddy field in the middle of a field: eh? Less ....... I was under the impression that you knew more.The way of learning, in which one gains a sense of omnipotence by acquiring knowledge and gaining confidence in one's own survival while feeling superior to others, seems childish in any way. The "simple decision" that Horie and Hashimoto often emphasize should become more difficult the more one learns. However, what lies ahead of the fast-educated worldview is a society where only "simple decisions" required in business situations are favored in all situations, without fostering fear of the unknown, consideration for exceptional events, and imagination and compassion for people in different positions. What do the people named in this book think about such a society that may be formed in the future? Do they express their true feelings of "I don't care about society" based on their confidence that they can survive no matter what? And will those who feel sympathy for their values internalize such ideas as "self-responsibility," "skill development," and "separation from the public" (while being tormented by the fear that one day they may drop out) and move forward to become someone else?
While there are those who would be fine with such a stance, I would like to take the position that such a society is indeed unbalanced. In this book, I would like to take the position that such a society lacks balance. While affirming at a certain level the fast-education way of learning, in which people use their education to improve their own skills, we would like to examine the ideal form of education for the next era, including an eye toward society and dignity.
Shueisha, Reggie, Fast Cultivation: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes, p123-126.
I feel a great threat if the "fast culture" worldview continues to infest Japan.
As mentioned above, a "new parrot" could be born at any time. In fact, I believe that influencers' methods of attracting customers may be akin to a cult.
They are willing to say radical things, assert themselves confidently, and argue polemically. And they skillfully create enemies, abuse their opponents, and make them think they are righteous.
The only thing wrong with you is a society that doesn't understand you. But if you follow me, you will succeed. It is your enemies who are to blame, who treat you with disrespect. Do as I say.I'm going to try.You are a wonderful human being."
Then Oyasama takes away the will and initiative of the believers. The believers think they are doing it of their own volition. But what is the reality?
I cannot talk more about cults here because it would be a digression, but I would like to note again that the soil in which "fast culture" is prevalent is closely connected to it.
Now, I have talked about this at length, but I also do not have the opinion that 'fast education' is an 'absolute evil' and should go away. I think it is important to have the desire to study and learn more.
The question, however, is what purpose you will use that culture for, and what you want to become in the first place. In this book, too, you will think carefully about what you should do from now on in Chapter 6.
We cannot simply dismiss it as "outrageous," nor can we stand by and watch. In such a frustrating situation, I think this book is very valuable. Anyway, it is polite. It does not use offensive words that slander the other party. This work, which calmly reads the background of the times, is a great book that I highly recommend.
Why not pick one up?
The above is my impression of Reggie's "Fast Culture: People Who Want Answers in 10 Minutes" - The Dark Side of Modern Japan from the Perspective of Culture. A stimulating work that cuts into the mechanism of influencers' popularity".
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