0:01
They've been growing rice in central
0:03
Japan for 3,000 years. It's always been
0:07
a pretty complicated business and
0:09
remains so to this day.
0:11
Seeds will only germinate properly if
0:13
they've been sitting for many months in
0:15
a sunlit pool of water at least 5 cm
0:17
deep, but the stalks can only be
0:19
harvested when the water has been
0:21
drained and they've been able to dry out
0:25
All this makes for an unholy degree of
0:28
It means that rice generally has to be
0:30
grown in terraces facing the sun with
0:32
water flowing down the hillside through
0:34
a well-managed network of sluices and
0:36
dikes. There has to be an upper terrace
0:39
that functions as a reservoir or holding
0:41
pond and an extremely detailed agreement
0:44
between all the farmers as to when their
0:46
particular terrace will be ready to
0:48
receive or be drained of water.
0:51
The whole community needs a firm grasp
0:54
of hydrodynamics, a law-abiding nature,
0:57
and a highly punctual and disciplined
1:01
When trying to understand the
1:02
particularities of the Japanese
1:03
character, sociologists in the 20th
1:06
century focused in on what is famously
1:09
come to be known as the rice theory,
1:12
which states that a nation whose diet
1:14
has for centuries depended on rice will
1:17
develop many of the qualities that are
1:19
necessary for its successful
1:23
These sociologists proposed that the
1:25
Japanese are the way they are, thorough,
1:28
collaborative, precise, traditional,
1:30
focused on the we rather than the I,
1:33
principally because of the virtues a
1:35
majority of them had to exercise to
1:38
bring in the harvest. The rice terraces
1:41
of places like Maruyama Senmaida molded
1:44
the national character.
1:46
Conversely, the same sociologists have
1:49
proposed that the characteristics of
1:51
many Western nations, individualistic,
1:54
impatient, self-reliant, and innovative,
1:57
have been the consequence of their
1:59
cultivation of a very different plant,
2:03
However fanciful these two theories
2:05
might sound, they point us to the idea
2:08
that far more than we're normally
2:09
prepared to recognize, our jobs don't
2:12
just occupy our energies, they shape our
2:18
Teaching children all day will give us
2:20
one sort of temperament, designing
2:22
advertising campaigns another.
2:25
Politicians might speak one way over the
2:26
dinner table, psychotherapists another.
2:30
All this can open up an avenue for
2:33
The regrettable awfulness of many people
2:35
won't necessarily always be their fault.
2:39
It may be a function of the work they
2:40
found themselves having to do.
2:43
If people in the television industry
2:45
are, for example, often disloyal,
2:47
paranoid, unreliable, and insincere,
2:50
this may have far more to do with the
2:52
vagaries of their industry than of
2:54
anything fixed in their natures. If we
2:57
gave them a rice field to cultivate in a
2:59
picturesque village south of Osaka, some
3:02
water sluices to manage, and some
3:03
neighbors to depend on, they might, in
3:06
time, grow exceptionally calm,
3:08
collaborative, and forbearing.
3:11
Similarly, at a state level, the
3:13
atmosphere of many modern countries,
3:15
their ruthlessness, immaturity,
3:18
aggression, and exhibitionism, may
3:20
ultimately be a function of the way most
3:22
of their citizens have to earn their
3:24
living rather than of any drastic
3:27
deterioration in human nature.
3:30
Japan's rice theory asks us to explain
3:33
and then perhaps one day reform our
3:35
characters by looking in an unfamiliar
3:39
and often painful place,
3:41
at who our jobs ask us to be every
