265
SESSION V
SCHULL I believe that you are wrong, but { will admit that the
lose of identity is of a different kind than one sees ia Europe, #8
seems to me that there is more of an isulation of the young cecple
in Japan from their elders, ona relative scale, than there is even
in our own country where, as we al) know, there has been a substantial rejection of the values of former generations by the youth of
today.
MILLET: te that the same as identity?
have no identity as Americans?
SCHULL
Would you say that we
Perhaps I'm using the word identity ina different sense
from that of peychiatriets, bul a nation’s images ise not apt to be created by its youth. and in Japan now, 66 in many other lands. the
young are not identifying with their elders who create the image,
it fe almost foolhardy on my part to attempt to describe the direc.
tlons that Japanese youths are apt to take, They pick up one fad after
another; ['en sure they even have hippies now. Hut the role of studente in Japan in the years since the war has been a particularly
interesting development, The Cornmunist movement on the campus,
for example,
ranges trom the shuryt of ‘main stream” Zengaturen
tw leeser and lesser streams, some of which even find the Chinese
mech tuo liberal,
Theee latter extremints have isolated themselves
from all of the Comynuntet currents except therr own, Uslibe the
prewar ;ears,
the Emperor doeun't seem to be a focus af student
interest ror even concern, although the younger membera ol the
eoyal family often are, albeit in a somewhat romantic way,
About two years ago we lived on a amall island inthe western nart
of Kyushu known ae iiteada, f& has a population of shout 40,900 tndividusle, and we were the only Caucasians. We managec to establish
reasonably close relations with eeveral of the families and could observe come of the emotional difficulites their college-age children
were experiencing.
Many were torn between the needa of a meaniern,
raptdly paced society and the traditional waye of their parents: they
‘were attempting to retain come sense of parent-child relationship
but often cowld rote bring themselves to actually accept the values
which motivated their parents,
As & consequence, they are canfused,
and perhaps sorre of this confusion te reflected in their extremely
high rate of euicide—almost a third of all of Japan's suicides involve
individuals of ager 20 to 29, and a surprising number involve tren
agers, that ie 15-19 year-olda,