Rules are an Excuse to Not Care

the Coronavirus “scare” offers a simple example

People care about Corona in Japan, but then again not really. Yes, it’s the greatest societal issue we have in the world today, and it’s important as ever to appear like you care and that you are contributing to the effort.

“Appear”. The thing about a collectivist culture is that appearance matters a lot. As long as you look like you’re doing the right thing, then everything is fine, and you will not face public condemnation or embarrassment. Quite the opposite from America where rather then caring about how an action is perceived, you will be ok doing it as long as there is an important benefit.

For example, Americans would be perfectly fine driving through a “Private Property: Do Not Enter” area if there was a car accident which stopped up traffic on the main road, and the private property offers a safe and efficient bypass for uninvolved drivers. Sure depending on your personality or values you might feel bad, but you can still justify the action and follow through. Japanese would simply wait in traffic until the accident is resolved or the police handle the traffic, and would not even consider driving through the private property because their train of thought stops at the sign “Do Not Enter”. If it says don’t enter, I shouldn’t enter. To do so would be punishable, and if I were to do it, I couldn’t stand people judging me for selfishly wanting to bypass traffic when everyone else is doing the right thing and waiting for the “correct” solution.

Following the rules are an essential part of Japanese life, and almost everyone does it, to a shocking extent without thinking. A whole new set of rules have sprung to life in response to Coronavirus, which itself is sensible. But how blindly these rules are followed makes you wonder whether people really care about the virus itself, or whether they just want to be perceived as “doing the right thing”.

Some of the novel rules have included wearing a face mask at all times, using disinfectant when entering stores or public areas, and many signs and markers asking people to maintain social distance and how far apart to queue. You can see people following these quite stringently, but then they seem to make mistakes which you would never make if you were really scared about getting infected.

Take my local supermarket for an example. Upon entering the store, you are greeted by a clerk with disinfectant in hand asking you to hold out your hands to spray. There’s also an optional surgical glove service for anyone who wants to extra careful, with the box on the table right next to the clerk. Once entering the store, you can see a row of cashiers with long sheets of transparent plastic hanging from the wall, acting as a physical shield between the customer and cashier, with just enough of an opening at the bottom to place groceries and transact. In front of the cash registers are a complex apparatus of store clerks, tape, and signs, designed to make sure that people queue at least 5 feet apart. The last rule set by this store is for the meat section, where only one group of customers are allowed in at a time, and there’s a dedicated line for that. Of course this is Japan, and so everyone follows the rules quite perfectly.

Rules aren’t perfect though, and you would think you shouldn’t have to spell out everything literally. It should be common sense that if you want to reduce your chances of getting infected, you should probably maintain distance everywhere, not just in queue at the cash register? If you look at the line for the meat section, you have 10 people lined up with only about a foot between each other. If you’re going to decrease the risk of infection in the meat section, why not do the same in the fish section or deli section (which has things like cheese and sausage, some of it not pre-cooked)? There are loads of people in those areas, and they are not all 5 feet apart for sure. And sure, the customers have been disinfecting upon entrance, but the employees who collect shopping carts from inside and outside the store for the new customers to use? Of course not, because that wasn’t a preset rule.

So if Japanese really cared about these social distancing measures, they would take initiative themselves to not get infected, rather than rely purely on rules. I doubt that the same psychology of fear of social shame and need to be guided by an authority from the car accident example would apply where a person feels restricted from maintaining social distance in line at the super market or in the packed deli section. If you care about your own health, you would do something about it. So instead, I believe this behavior has more to do with a sense of having done the social minimum requirement, which entitles one to get on with the rest of his or her freedoms. Another way to say that is that following the rules is an excuse to not care — if I did everything you asked me to, and everyone else is doing it too, then I’m free to do whatever I want now?

The attitude towards Coronavirus is a timely example of how apathetic people can get in Japan about serious issues. Maybe it’s because there are so many of these rules embedded throughout society, people just want to do the bare minimum and focus on enjoying their lives with the rest of their time and energy. If you understand this thinking though, you can probably understand the reasons behind some of the other phenomenons in Japan, such as why voter turnout is low, why people stand at red lights when there’s not a single car in sight, or why waste sorting is successful here.