It seems hard for Americans to understand that not everybody in the world wants their lifestyle.
Cut throat competition in the marketplace.
Office politics and vicious gossip in the workplace.
The 24/7 rat race.
Long commutes and longer hours.
The pursuit of money, which turns out to not be the same thing as the pursuit of happiness.
The trivial pursuit of the trendiest fashion, the hottest car and the coolest gadget.
Even some Americans opt out as the Beats and the Hippies did in the 1950s and 1960s when the beast of capitalism slipped the leash.
Now in Japan come Grass Eating Boys as profiled in a Slate article Peggy pointed out to me the other day.
It seems a significant number -- up to 75% in one survey -- of Japanese men in their 20s and 30s are opting out of their country's knockoff of American capitalism.
Raised by parents, who bought into it by working 24/7 for Toyota and Honda and Sony, these boys were left home alone.
They stayed in their rooms and played video games. They found a new world on the World Wide Web. They did not develop any interest in sex.
This latter seems to be what Japanese culture watchers worry about the most.
The consumers gone wild boom in the 1980s, followed by the recession and lost decade of the 1990s, produced a generation of young men who show little interest in the traditional values of capitalist society.
They have lost interest in going to college, getting a good job, marrying the woman of their dreams, buying a house, and raising 1.6 children.
They watched their hard working, dressed for success fathers strap on "the heart attack machine" that Bob Dylan warned them about.
The Grass Eating Boys are saying thanks but no thanks to that lifestyle.
These sons of the bourgeoisie also reject the more ancient Japanese macho culture of the Samurai.
Growing up solitary, only sons in empty houses where parents were otherwise engaged, the Grass Eating Boys are leading a silent and virtually invisible rebellion.
This revolution will not be televised. There is nothing to see.
The Grass Eating Boys do not gather in groups to protest the way things are.
They are simply walking away, quietly walking their own way.
They are home gardeners and vegetarians, thus the Grass Eating Boys nickname.
They like to go for hikes and photograph Zen temples.
They are a living critique of the American illusion that the American Dream can be exported, or that it is even a dream worth following.
I like these guys. I like the idea of just quietly going your own way. These guys are much more free than the rest of us. As always, I'm amazed at how you can cut through the crap and find the essential bit with such accuracy. The articles I read about this were focusing on the controversy, people attacking them, people defending them, and on the effects on the culture and whether that was good or bad. But these guys aren't asking for acceptance or support. They're just doing what they do. It is a revolution and the government should be scared to death! If your people don't want anything, you have no power over them.
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