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The person who made the complaint called me secretly to alert me to the event and the circumstances.An internal semi-peer jealous of my much higher organizational status despite a nebulous title overheard us joking on the phone (actually only heard HER side of the conversation, as I recall) and immediately pressured her subordinate to accuse me of unprofessional behavior and sexual harassment. This back-stabber spent most of her career in highly politicized organizations: Microsoft and various government agencies, frequently as a stiff-necked EEO officer and compliance cop. Extremely close-minded and quite a bully herself, she rejected all of her minion’s protestations that we where just engaging in casual friendly banter with no offense either intended or perceived and insisted that the low-level worker report this “incident” in ominous terms. Believe she even dictated the words to be submitted.The friendly “victim” (living/working in a distant other city whom I had never even physically met or seen) obeyed rather than risk the job she needed. I understood, sympathized, and thanked her profusely.I then immediately tipped off our HR officer and the CEO (my ex-partner in an earlier life). Don’t know what disposition they made of the “complaint”… but I do remember that every manager in the North American offices of that firm at some time was required to successfully complete a course on Sexual Harassment and Anti-Bias Behavior. Can’t recall if it was before or after this happened… it would have been the most appropriate corrective/preventive placebo. (I aced the test, BTW, having written and taught many of them in my checkered past. My “rival” was totally unaware of the extremely high repute I held in the Woman’s Lib community due to my many very “bold” pro-female pro-protected-class articles, speeches, media appearances and public debates.)The HR officer and CEO kept a close but discreet eye on the wannabe-provocateur. A few years later, she was caught in flagrant violation of her employment contract: blowing off all her job responsibilities while accepting her handsome salary working from home but instead engaged in a “rival” independent business using company products for personal gain. She resigned (accepted a forced termination ultimatum in place of a lawsuit) and became the EEO Compliance Officer for a major County. Only her rules counted… ones of her own or ones she wanted to enforce using the power of government authority. She was happiest doing stuff like that where she could push folks around with impunity.

Biology is a fundamental subject for careers in the science and health sectors but there are many other routes you can take with this degreeJob optionsJobs directly related to your degree include:BiotechnologistHigher education lecturerMarine biologistMicrobiologistNanotechnologistNature conservation officerPharmacologistResearch scientist (life sciences)Scientific laboratory technicianSecondary school teacherSoil scientistTeaching laboratory technicianJobs where your degree would be useful include:Animal physiotherapistDental hygienistDentistGeneral practice doctorHealth promotion specialistHealthcare scientist, cardiac sciencesPhysician associateScience writerSustainability consultantVeterinary nurseZoologistThis biology careers list shows what you can do with a biology degree. These are the top 15 careers for science graduates with a biology major.You need to remember that biology is a fundamental science discipline. To keep progressing in biological science, you'll almost certainly need to do postgraduate study. And you'll probably need to do further study to branch into a related health, teaching or applied science field.15 Biology Careers and Job TypesIf you're thinking about studying for a biology degree, or you have one already, these are the kinds of jobs you could be doing. We've searched numerous job sites to come up with an a-z list of the 15 major types of careers where a biology degree is useful.Biology is offered as a major in a 3-year Bachelor of Science degree in Australia. You can also do a double major, adding another specialisation in a science or non-science (e.g. business or arts) discipline. An honours (4th year) is also offered to students with good grades.Earning a science degree is a significant achievement, and qualifies you for many graduate jobs (including in government, academia and private business). But, here, we're focusing on careers where biology is especially relevant to the work.DentistryKnowledge of biology (especially human anatomy) is valuable for a dentistry career. After an undergraduate degree, you need to complete an accredited postgraduate program in dentistry, dental surgery or dental medicine. After this, you can register with the Dental Board of Australia to begin practice. If you’d prefer to be a dental hygienist, plan to complete a Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualification in oral health (dental hygiene).Job titles: associate dentist, dental assistant, dentist, dental hygienist, dental surgeon, hygienist, general dentist, lead dentist, oral health therapist, oral surgeon, senior dental officer, senior dentist, senior dental assistant, senior dental nurse.Environmental ScienceA biology degree is excellent background for work in this field. Environmental scientists study the environment, drawing on their knowledge to create plans and policies for the protection of the air, water, flora, fauna, and other elements of the environment. A good way to transition from being a student to a professional is to gain significant field experience during your degree and to find an environmental science support job before or soon after graduating.Job titles: associate environmental scientist, environmental consultant, environmental management system officer, environmental officer, environmental scientist, environmental scientist/planner, environmental scientist-contaminated land, principal environmental officer, senior ecologist, senior fisheries biologist.GeneticsTo work in this field, load up on genetics and chemistry units during your degree. Postgraduate courses in genetics can provide an important career boost, too. Genetics laboratory work involves conducting specific tests. Cytogenetics laboratories test to determine if medical conditions are caused by chromosomes, while molecular labs determine if there are any genetic mutations. Genetics counsellors require a specialised postgraduate degree. They help their clients understand how genetics relate to medical, psychological, reproductive, and familial issues and conditions.Job titles: genetics counsellor, genetics laboratory manager, postdoctoral research fellow, professional svcs consultant-genetic/molecular, staff specialist-clinical genetics.High School TeacherAre you interested in teaching biology to high school students? You can enrol in a Master of Teaching (Secondary) degree program after graduating with biology qualifications. The preferred undergraduate program would combine biology studies with units in other fields. Second-learning-area options include mathematics, languages, humanities and social sciences, English, design and technology, and arts (media arts, visual arts, dance, drama, or music).Job titles: biology teacher, head teacher-science, high school teacher, science teacher, secondary teacher.Laboratory TechnicianYour knowledge and expertise in biology will be useful in a career as a laboratory technician, such as one who works in a medical or microbiology lab. After you graduate with your degree, enrol in a laboratory technology postgraduate program. If you work as a medical laboratory technician, you’ll test human body specimens (such as blood and urine) to assist with disease diagnosis and treatment. Other duties might include preparing reports and ensuring compliance with quality control standards.Job titles: lab and quality control technician, laboratory assistant, laboratory technical officer, laboratory technician, laboratory technician-microbiology, medical laboratory technician.Medical ResearchMedical researchers conduct experiments and other studies to investigate diseases and treatments. To build a career in this field, continue your education beyond the bachelor’s level, possibly obtaining a PhD or MD degree. These professionals are found in settings such as universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. They enjoy an excellent average salary. Australia has a large medical research industry, supported by large public funding pools.Job titles: clinical research associate, histology scientist, medical scientist, research assistant, research officer, research program officer, research scientist-medicinal chemistry/drug discovery, scientific officer-pathology officer or research scientist, trainee research assistant.MedicineTo become a doctor, you must complete a four-year graduate entry medical degree program. You’ll need to sit the GAMSAT (Graduate Australian Medical Schools Admissions Test) exam to be eligible for admission into such a program. It’s a good idea to take courses in anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology during your undergraduate degree. Doing volunteer work and showing you’ve made contributions to the community could help make you more competitive in the medical school admissions process.Job titles: anaesthetist-staff specialist, consultant-general physician, consultant-obstetrician and gynaecologist, emergency physician, general medicine physician, general practitioner, hospital scientist, infectious diseases physician, medical oncologist, neurologist, palliative medicine physician, physician, rural generalist, staff specialist-geriatric medicine, staff specialist-endocrinology, staff specialist-immunopathology, vaccine scientist.MicrobiologyMicrobiologists study micro-organisms or microbes (organisms too small to see with the naked eye), such as fungi, viruses, bacteria, archaea, algae, protozoa, and prions. You can specialise in the subject by choosing relevant units within a Bachelor of Science degree. Most jobs will require postgraduate education, possibly to the PhD level (especially for university faculty positions). A curious mind and well-developed analytical skills are essential to success in this field.Job titles: assistant microbiologist, microbiologist, microbiological laboratory technician, microbiologist-veterinary diagnostic.NursingWhile nursing is rewarding and provides opportunity for advancement, it’s an extremely demanding occupation. If you’re an organised and energetic person, though, and want to devote your life to helping people, it might be the perfect career for you. After you finish your biology degree, apply to a graduate-entry master’s degree program (which is two years’ duration). Once you’ve finished your nursing education, you’ll need to get a license to practice in the profession.Job titles: clinical nurse specialist (drug and alcohol), clinical triage coordinator, cosmetic injector, immunisation nurse, registered cardiac nurse, registered dialysis nurse, registered general nurse, registered nurse-cardiac cath lab, registered nurse-community services, registered nurse-diabetes educator, registered nurse-emergency department, registered nurse perioperative, registered nurse (renal unit), remote area nurse, research nurse, women’s health clinic nurse.PharmacistFor a career as a pharmacist, you’ll need to complete a Master of Pharmacy degree. This program tends to be very competitive, so you’ll need to work especially hard during your undergraduate studies and earn excellent grades. Relevant subjects are chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, and mathematics. An internship with a registered pharmacist follows the master’s program. Some of a pharmacist’s primary duties include preparing and dispensing medications, providing advice about medications, and facilitating health awareness in the community.Job titles: clinical pharmacist, drug safety associate, intern pharmacist, pharmacist, pharmacy analyst, senior pharmacist, specialist pharmacist mental health.Research AssistantResearch assistants often work in a laboratory environment. Many assistants are young researchers who are also studying for a PhD. Conducting experiments is the classic job activity. If this line of work interests you, you’ll need to demonstrate conscientiousness and meticulous attention to detail. Teamwork, as well as independent endeavours, are required. A biology degree with plenty of research and laboratory experience is ideal. Being a research assistant is a path towards becoming a primary researcher.Job titles: bioinformatics research assistant, director’s research assistant, research assistant, research assistant-network biology, research assistant-vector and genome engineering facility, technical assistant, research support officer.Research Scientist in BioinformaticsTo be a research scientist in bioinformatics, you’ll essentially have to earn a doctorate degree. You’ll also need excellent research and writing skills, with the ability to get articles published in scientific journals. Jobs in this field may require several years of postdoctoral research, or at least equivalent experience in bioinformatics, information science, or genetics. One of your primary duties in this career will be to use computer technology for the collection, organisation, and utilisation of biological information.Job titles: assistant scientist spatial imagery, bioinformatician, bioinformatics research assistant, data scientist / biostatistician / bioinformatician, postdoc in single-cell analysis, postdoctoral researcher, postdoctoral scientist, research assistant, research associate, research officer, research scientist-bioinformatics, scientist, senior research officer.Research Scientist in Computational BiologyYou’ll likely need a PhD in the field as well as postdoctoral or other experience for this job. You might be required to know how to write computer programs as well as do statistical analysis, and will need highly developed analytical and communication skills. A record of journal publications and conference presentations will give you an edge in job search. Research scientists in computational biology create computer models of biological systems. They often work closely with researchers in bioinformatics.Job titles: data scientist genome analysis (postdoctoral fellowship), postdoctoral fellow (imaging), postdoctoral research fellow, postdoctoral research officer, postdoctoral researcher, postdoctoral scientist, research scientist in applied biological modelling, research scientist-computational biology, scientist, senior research officer.University Lecturer or ProfessorAs a biology lecturer or professor at a university, you’ll most likely be combining teaching duties with a research career. A PhD is generally required for professorial positions. A good career strategy while studying is to take every opportunity to be published, and to participate in academic conferences and other professional forums. If you truly love biology and want to devote your life to its study, becoming a professor or lecturer might be the right career path for you.Job titles: lecturer-marine biology, lecturer-biological sciences, research scientist-quantitative geneticist, scientist.Veterinary ScienceDo you love animals? To become a veterinarian, you’ll need to complete a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program after your undergraduate biology degree. If you’d prefer a career as a veterinary nurse, you should earn a Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing. A 24-month traineeship might also be available. You’d assist veterinarians in providing animal care, and carry out a range of other duties such as administering medication to animals, sterilising surgical equipment, and maintaining medical records.Job titles: associate veterinarian, certified veterinary nurse, small animal surgeon, emergency veterinarian, equine veterinarian, senior research veterinarian, senior veterinary laboratory scientist, trainee vet nurse, veterinarian, veterinary cardiologist, veterinarian-internal medicine specialist, veterinarian-small animal oncology, veterinarian-small animal surgeon, veterinary nurse, veterinary surgeon.Jobs in AustraliaBeing a biologist (or 'life scientist') is a relatively niche profession in Australia, with only around 7,000 employed in that broad field. The group consists of biologist, anatomist (or physiologist), biochemist, biotechnologist, botanist, marine biologist, microbiologist and zoologist.The best employment prospects may be with some of the larger occupational categories, including nursing, teaching, medicine, pharmacy, and environmental science.Projected job numbers by 2022Registered Nurses349,100Secondary School Teachers139,000General Practitioners81,700University Lecturers and Tutors50,400Pharmacists32,400Environmental Scientists31,600Medical Laboratory Scientists24,900Dental Practitioners15,300Veterinarians11,800Life Scientists6,900

April, 2018The short answer … banned from sustainable employment in Japanese academia.Just some thoughts on the matter, some more random than others …Generally speaking, Japanese institutions, especially colleges, are run according to a strict hierarchy, the structure of which doesn’t seem to be closely correlated with merit, and like all institutions, tend to depend on opaque, rule-driven behavior, rather than the empathy-driven morality of learning / nurturing communities.Forget that baloney about Japanese culture excelling at group work. The Far Eastern virtues of ‘harmony and traditions’ are not so different from the Western counterpart of ‘individuality and freedom’ … just buzzwords for ruling elites to herd the majority into a superficial compliance to authority … ‘authoritarianism’ being the operating word. They might have been ideals in small communities, but as larger numbers of people tend to do, displace those communities with hierarchies, replace empathy with cognitive constructs of tradition, law, or algorithms … all of which may give lip service to community values, but are thinly veiled justifications for the hierarchical power structure we social primates are so fond of.The biggest difference is the tool of choice by which the ruling elite control the disposable human capital beneath them … and the oxymoronic titles of these two books alone should be enough too spell it out:1 — For the West, Chomsky and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent2 — For the East, Edited by Vlastos, Invented Traditions of Modern JapanSchools, corporations, religions, governments, think-tanks, and even some NPOs — in either the Far East or the West, are not democratically run. When was the last time you, the typical Quora reader, were elected to the board of directors on earned merit alone?For those who haven’t seen this movie about the dysfunctions of ‘corporations’, I hope you take a peak, and just imagine similar dysfunctions to all groups, since the dawn of civilization, larger than local communities.Large populations of we herding primates are organized into hierarchies, and those at the top are largely there through the privilege of inheritance, or the dark triad behaviors of self-entitlement.As pointed out in the documentary, through morally questionable legal gymnastics, corporations have been granted ‘personhood’. But when when the social dynamics of a collective entity are compared with a relatively normal single individual, the collective lacks a collective moral autonomy that individuals are expected to aspire to mature.The collective ticks off the traits of a narcissist and psychopath. The priority of the corporate collective is legally constrained to profiting the shareholders, not the stakeholders … a zero sum game that is won by externalizing losses to competitors, the infrastructure, and/or the environment.This cuts deeper into human nature than capitalism or socialism. It is the social dynamics of in-gropus and out-groups, populations of scale, and hierarchies. The narratives barely holding the cultural conceits holding a corporate nation-state’s public education, history, and news together barely maintain the cohesive narratives of our cultural conceits. Though new in the West, as far as I can see from chats with educated native Japanese, the Far Eastern hierarchies do not even have a word for Collective Narcissism, yet it is the in-group water these fish swim.Again, forget that baloney about Japanese culture excelling at group work. The culture is obsessed with competition and ranking that would make an American blush. Any collaboration between schools, companies, or institutions in general, if done at all, tends to be secretive, and antithetical to the narratives and conceits which hold the lower ranking members of the group together.For the big picture … I would agree with the documentary, and go a bit further, in saying that homo sapiens, is by nature, most optimally a social primate that hopefully matures into a responsible member of a community … thus ALL institutions (corporate, government, religious, educational, etc.) eventually undergo mission drift / mission creep into corruption and eventual failure. With our current technological capacity lacking both an equivalent moral capacity and unlimited natural resources, I can’t help but to expect our sins to catch up with us in a catastrophic malthusian meltdown. The task of the morally autonomous human should be to prolong that day of reckoning, altruistically if necessary.My poster boy for mission creep / mission drift is Harvard University. With the world’s largest endowment of around 40 billion dollars, it is by far the world’s wealthiest university, and has more disposable cash than some countries. Yet America’s oldest school was founded by a clergyman, John Harvard, with the intent on instructing future clergy in ‘god’s ways’. Alumni and former Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, when justifying to the collective slap on the wrist by the Obama administration for bankers grabbing such obscenely high salaries and stock options in a land of increasing poverty, answered with a line from prosperity theology that likes of Jim Baker or Donald Trump would appreciate … that bankers do gods work (as if nurses and teachers do not). Journalist Matt Taiibi, in his famous Rolling Stone magazine article, The Great American Bubble Machine, began with a bang …“The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”Back to a more parochial social landscape, In either my native American culture, or Japan, if the boss says ‘black is white’, you either ignore the cognitive dissonance and respond in the affirmative like a machine-man should, or you are out. Corporate or private, I’d say Japanese institutions are about as ‘democratic’ (community-driven) as American institutions … which is not very much.What is particularly frustrating about ‘educational’ institutes is the blatant hypocrisy of the gap between professed values (empowering the individual to reach their full potential, and building compassionate, critically-thinking, problem-solving communities — who are also able and willing to hold authority accountable) and actual goals (identifying ‘talent’ through standardized testing, funneling that talent into institutions of appropriate power and prestige — and therefore further enhancing the power and prestige of the identifying / funneling ‘educational’ institute, thus moving up the ladder of ‘being more selective’ (exclusive) than competing institutes, and therefore more powerful) … a damned zero-sum game of winning at the expense of others.There are too many examples of how this plays out over time by looking at the feeding-funneling ground of U.S. Ivy Leagues. Just look at dog-eat-dog, self entitlement of the dark-triad driven individual who is moving between educational and for profit institutions, and clambering to climb to the top of either … ‘Really Graceful’ does an excellent job here.What ‘Really Graceful’ says about the Education system is mirrored by Japan’s, and I dare say the systems in China and most of the Corporate Capitalist world.Although hierarchies may be the default organization of social primates when they exceed small communities, Japanese institutions are notorious for one’s status based on the old boy’s network, gender, ethnicity, or simply age.Hundreds of years of mission creep have reduced the original Confucian meritocratic ideals of institutions to a kabuki-show-cover for concentrations of power decided by families, connections, and blind ambition. That being said, as the political situation in my native U.S. is demonstrating through my example of Harvard above, these kind of social dynamics may be par for the course, world wide.For a good example of the corruptive dynamics of ‘mssion creep’ or Mission Drift’ … just look at the breeding ground of high flying Wall Street CEO’s, Harvard University. Alumni and former Goldman Sachs CEO ”Blankfein Says He's Just Doing 'God's Work' … and being a Harvard University graduate, that makes sense. After all, the school’s founding charter in 1636 stated clearly "To be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ." But with with the U.S. having the world’s largest prison population (many such prisons for profit, not rehabilitation), an opioid epidemic fueled by Big Pharma, Washington Post owner and richest man in the world Jeff Bezos … timing the pee breaks of his minimum wage workers, unprecedented levels of homelessness, and so on, and so on … a few of us might be excused for meekly asking whether Harvard and Yale have Drifted from their Original Mission.One writer I’ve come to trust is Matt Taibi, whose first paragraph in his ‘Rolling Stone’ article The Great American Bubble Machine is now a cultural meme the ruling elite would just as soon ban from public school OR college text books … “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”Blankfein was right. He is doing god’s work. Only his god’s name is Mammon.What has this got to do with me being banned from higher education in Japan? Please bear with me.Here, Matt talks about a phenomenon of that ‘gray zone’ between private companies and the governent, in this case, profiteering off the sub-prime loan crisis.This kind of gray zone is a common tradition in Japan. It is called ‘ama kudarai’ … descent from heaven … describing how well paid national government workers retire early to an even better paid private sector. Mission drift with a golden parachute.In other words, Japanese institutions are not known for their leadership. They tend to be led by symbolic ‘managers’ who have only a passing acquaintance with the cultural conceit of meritocracy.Japan has a ruling aristocracy. Some are in that lofty stratosphere by ancestral tradition, others by dint of dark-triad behavior, and there is a ‘fuzzy logic’ around the edges, but it is no less real than the labyrinthine titles of British royalty.And like America and Great Britain, the current model of economics has little to do with educational ideals … and schools, as institutions, are not run by meritocratic ideals, or even educational ideals. Schools tend to be run like most other neo-liberal businesses … depending on zero-sum games and economies of scale to outsource losses rather than absorb them.When I was younger, I mistakenly put teachers on a pedestal, and aspired to a profession as either a teacher or writer. But I am a slow learner, and it took a while to find that teachers are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ as people. There is as much quality, or lack of, as can be found in any institutionalized counterpart in the arts or sports or any profession. In idolizing teachers, and therefore schools, I had made the fundamental attribution error, and indulged in that error for much too long.Schools, as institutions, are no different from banks.Scholars, academics, and administrators are not saints.Hell, even saints are not saints.But there is even less acknowledgement of quality in Japan’s educational institutions than in American counterparts.Unlike some schools in the U.S., no matter how moving, or how consistent, or how effective a teacher may be, there is little acknowledgement of that by peers in Japan. You will not see a ‘Teacher of the Year’ award in most Japanese schools … nor any equivalence of ‘The Great Courses’ series so popular in the U.S. — here crammed into one of my book cases, about $10,000 invested in what many Japanese schools see as worthless … or as a marketing gimmick at best.When my school was in the process of moving from Hino, West Tokyo, to the more upscale and trendy Shibuya of downtown Tokyo, I verified that books were seen by the school’s administration as mere shop-window accessories. It was less than a year since the Great Tohoku Earthquake had left a wake of devastated communities north of Tokyo, but rather than donate books to those communities and schools from my own school’s library, I watched in ‘shock and awwww’ as volumes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Hawthorne, Plato, Russell, and thousands of books in Japanese, were unceremoniously fed into a garbage truck, shredding and compressing those works into easily disposable trash. Standing there alone, watching the process, I felt like I had been sucker punched in the gut.As for quality teaching, you will not even get a pat on the back by administration or colleagues for doing a good job. It is taken for granted that anyone who is a ‘sensei’ is above reproach, and not held accountable for quality, other than as a ‘managerial’ stick-or-carrot tool to get rid of trouble-makers or outsource costs.In Japan, even more than most countries, innovators are trouble-makers for those most comfortably nestled in entitled positions of authority. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out about the U.S. economic/political system, the rigidly authoritarian, centralized power structures of Japanese institutions tend to be self interested rather than goal oriented, and that ‘self’ is not even the whole institution, but rather those most comfortably nested at the top.The problem with this kind of social dynamic, though, might be summed up best with best-selling author and anthropologist Jared Diamond’s final lines about the failed Norse colony in Greenland about 500 years ago …‘Thus, Norse society’s structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. Much of what the chiefs and clergy valued proved eventually harmful to the society. Yet the society’s values were at the root of its strengths as well as of its weaknesses. The Greenland Norse did succeed in creating a unique form of European society, and in surviving for 450 years as Europe’s most remote outpost. We modern Americans should not be too quick to brand them as failures, when their society survived in Greenland for longer than our English-speaking society has survived so far in North America. Ultimately, though, the chiefs found themselves without followers. The last right that they obtained for themselves was the privilege of being the last to starve.’Diamond, Jared. Collapse (p. 276). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.I’ve thought of the psychology of classroom dynamics as one metaphor for the group dynamics involved. Whereas small learning communities can be relatively egalitarian and empathy-driven, larger groups (probably Dunbar’s number or more) tend to depend on rule-driven moralities. But when empathy for the individual becomes irrelevant, rules become niche opportunities for ‘dark triad’ personality types, fake news or bread and circuses for the whimsical play of pareidolia, and blind spots for those suffering from prosopagnosia.Despite being well below Dunbar’s number, I could not find an education ‘community’ at my school. Only a gang of kyuryo dorobo (salary-thieves), desperately trying to look gentrified under the cover of ‘institutionalization’.Over the course of 36 years teaching in Japanese colleges, and at least 15 as a tenured Associate Professor, in weekly department meetings, or monthly academic assemblies, I have never, NEVER, heard or taken part in a discussion about educational values or goals.Never.Schools appear to be basically business opportunities for people who are not normally business oriented. Schools have become more conservative gate-keepers to the ‘real world’ of business which, at the very least, is ideologically constrained and driven by the market. Though petty politics seem to be part and parcel of the nature of homo sapiens, where businesses can not afford the luxury of racism, schools can.Culturally and institutionally embedded racism, gender discrimination, and age descrimination are among the many tools used to enforce conformity to an authoritarian hierarchy.I can’t attribute this exclusively to Japanese schools though. Former colleagues, co-workers, and doctoral cohort members at an American university in Japan have not been of any help other than a ‘gambatte’ here and a ‘I hear you’ there. And while working at least a dozen years at Temple University Japan, an American school, I’ve seen enough pettiness and bullying to realize it is the nature of the beast.Meh … maybe I’m just an ass. Just barely getting by with a little help from my friends, mostly Japanese.And another reason I can’t play the racist card so easily is because it is not just foreigners who are suffering. By chance (or is there really any chance?), today’s lead story on one of my news feeds, a translated subsidiary of Japan’s most widely read newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun.In a country like Finland, education has been the most popular career choice among college students.But most of Japan’s ‘best and brightest’ (as I suspect America’s) choose the financial sector. It is a VERY competitive country, and foreigners are not the only ‘losers’ in a zero-sum game.Among the other easy pickings of opportunists include the elderly (several times a week, an educational short is shown on NHK television about how the elderly can avoid getting scammed), the working poor (1/6 of families containing school children according to the government’s own statistics, minorities among Japanese - news reports of police officers sent down to Okinawa and using ethnic slurs against the Ryukyu people, anti-discrimination laws protecting the Ainu being passed only as recently as the 1990’s, and the huge gender gap. Even high school students have to form a labor union to fight predatory part-time companies.Of course there is nothing preventing the marginalized from being just as driven by opportunistic instincts — the same as the ‘winners’.The really dangerous gap, not just in Japan, but in most large scale industrial societies, is between our own altruistic tendencies and our opportunistic tendencies. But as a Taoist saying goes, the more laws governing the people, the more evil the people become. Hierarchies and rule-driven morality end up making more problems than they solve … making more niches for Dark triad personality types to hide and pounce.But back to that lead story about work ambitions of college students. Notice the Winter Olympics medal standings beside the lead article?I would much rather have seen a photo of the moment when Nao Kodaira wrapped her arms around the stressed-out Lee Sang-hwa. If I could find myself ‘loving’ a nation-state (and that is a big ‘if’), that would be the Japan I could learn to love, but I suspect Kodaira’s touching gesture came despite Japan’s educational system, not because of it.And back to the short reason for MY ban … everything that could have gone wrong in the scenario behind 12 Angry Men … with myself playing the part of the immigrant juror.Update: Wednesday, Feb.28, I just received the following from Quora admin:Your answer to What are you banned from? Why? is getting views. Answers with good credentials get more views and help readers. Update your credential.So I guess that means I should be updating a resume to fit this answer? (sighing) I presumed that part of my answer included enough of those qualifications so I would not slip into a vulgar display of self-promotion, but will comply with Quora’s suggestion, though it may be just a bot doing its algorithmically determined job.At the risk of later repetition in my answers, to get my ‘qualifications’ out of the way, here is the short version of my resume. Feel free to skip ahead to read my answer … or not.1 - For about 36 consecutive years, over half my life, I have been both a trainer, facilitator, and educator in Japan. I DO make a distinction between the three, and if you would like to know why, Wiki is a great place to start.Although I first started teaching at conversation schools, most of that time has been teaching in colleges and universities including Waseda, Tokyo University of the Arts, Nippon University (Nichidai), Komazawa University, Musashi University, and the list goes on. I have turned down a part-time job offer from Keio University. Those of you familiar with Japanese Universities will recognize a few Japanese ‘Ivy League’ names on my short list.2 - I had been a full-time, tenured Professor at Jissen Women's Educational Institute, having reached the rank of ‘Associate Professor', when I chose to resign under protest from what I considered racist-tinged behavior on the part of my ‘colleagues’ and administration. At the very least, they were guilty of harassment as a breach of Japanese Labor Law. Nearly three years later, and I am still looking for work that provides at least enough income to pay the rent, but find it odd I can’t even find part-time work in English skills oriented academia, and in the world’s most heavily populated Metropolitan area. Will leave it to the reader to do the math.2 - I have also taught classes, as a volunteer, from private kindergartens たまだいらようちえん to corporate in-house technical high schools Hino Motors which are not under the auspices of highly centralized MEXT (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).3 - I have taught at public high schools sakushin-gakuin-high-schoolに関するnabinnoのはてなブックマーク and have given presentations as a volunteer at various public elementary schools and Jr. High Schools in the Hino City area.4 - Though not a particularly outstanding student, I have an undergraduate degree in biology with a concentration in Marine sciences, a Master’s Degree in Education, T.E.S.O.L., and matriculated into, though did not finish, a Doctoral program in Education at Temple University Japan where I also taught liberal arts, biology labs, and speaking / writing skills in the undergraduate program for over 10 years — Temple University, Japan Campus.5 - I have published original research regarding Education in Japan (though mostly in in-house academic journals that are not peer-reviewed), and have given several academic presentations in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. regarding that research, one of which was an award winning poster session.6 - All textbooks used in Japanese public schools (elementary through High Schools) must pass through a MEXT textbook committee associated with each subject. From 2006 until 2011, I was one of maybe 3 native speakers of English in Japan on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology English Textbook committee. I resigned only because I became too busy and stressed-out with the duties associated with a tenured position in a dysfunctional college.7 - Even though I resigned from the MEXT textbook committee, I am on the mailing list of P.A.L.E. (Professionalism and Administration in Language Education), a special interest group within J.A.L.T. (Japan Association of Language Teachers). Though mostly merely a lurker, it is through the sporadic newsletters that I am somewhat familiar with the diminishing and precarious status of non-native Japanese language instructors.8 - From the news, and my sporadic volunteer activities with a labor union, I have increasingly become aware of the precarious nature of employment for all teachers in Japan, regardless of nationality or ethnicity. I have been to Tokyo District court a few times as member of that union supporting other marginalized teachers.9 - Other peripheral volunteer activities have included workshops with the mental health care out-patients via the Hino City Government — as well as English communication classes for the office staff, supporting a loose coalition of local activists supporting the severely handicapped (pic updated Monday May 7, 2018) …several trips to rural Cambodia supporting teachers and students, frequent trips and support for a roving soup kitchen supporting the homeless (Steve Martin (Steven Martin)'s answer to Is it true that in Japan there are no beggars?), and 13 years as a volunteer judge/advisor for Japanese University E.S.S. (English Speaking Society) All Japan English Speech Contests at schools such as Tokyo University 3 times), Waseda, Keio, Sophia, Soka Daigakku, Hosei University, Takasaki City University, and my own former place of employment, Jissen Women’s College.Now that that my qualifications are out of the way, on to the answer.For the longer explanation:The context ... I was the only full-time, non-Japanese, tenured professor (Associate Professor of English) in an English Communication Department of a Japanese Junior College ... Jissen Women's Junior College .The ban(s) ...1 — Banned by The English Communication Department from conducting community outreach work or volunteer activities — even with other departments at the same school, or with students in my own classes — without permission from my Department's Japanese 'colleagues'.To be clear about community outreach activities, (and repeating my qualifications listed previously), this was not in affiliation with any particular religious or political institution … I was on the board of directors of the Hino City government NPO TOKYO International Communication Committee, a volunteer English teacher at a local Kindergarten, たまだいらようちえん, volunteered as a communication facilitator for mental health care outpatients, work with a traveling soup kitchen supporting the homeless in Shinjuku … Soup no Kai, held community/student workshops with Junior Chamber International Japan, helped out with a local circle supporting the severely handicapped, took 4 trips at my own expense to rural Cambodia to work with teachers and students, volunteered as an in-house technical high school English teacher for Hino Motors, and volunteered (refusing to accept monetary honorariums) as a speech contest judge for All Japan Intercollegiate Speech Contests sponsored by the highest ranked schools in Japan … Tokyo University, Waseda, Keio, and Sophia, among others.I take volunteerism as a natural extension of an educator’s pedagogic toolbox — not just as some information to pass down to the students from the Ministry of Education, but as the obligation of an educator to facilitate, and act as a role model.I was a member of an English Communication Department. But other than the traditional top-down, sage-on-stage, one-way ‘communicating’ all too common in higher education, all too clearly, I saw my own limits as a collaborative facilitator. I was teaching college students, mostly young women.My gaps were many … gender, age and pop culture awareness (older than their parents), national culture (raised in the U.S.), and individual differences (I like fishing and playing guitar). To communicate those values central to a liberal arts education, I had no choice but to try and connect my students with those I consider worthy role models in the Japanese community.After all education should be a community, not an institution … right? At least some individuals within the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology — for which I also worked as one of maybe three or four textbook proofreaders in the whole country at any single time — seems to agree. And the Ministry has also tried time and again to instill those same behavior patterns among teachers, mostly to no avail.The response by my Japanese colleagues was that such community outreach activities were irrelevant to my duties as an employee of the department and full time faculty member of the school, to exclude me from any real decision making processes, and to insist that my priority is restricted to the role of a native-speaking English informant and support for the ‘real’ teachers … presumably full-time, ethnic Japanese department members.The department chairman insisted that the Dean of the entire University was ‘wrong’ in insuring me that I had equal rights and responsibilities as other tenured Japanese faculty members. Even after repeated requests to have the Dean and the Department chairman meet to decide my status as stated in my tenured contract … they mutually refused to meet and formally decide my status. Convenient tactics on their part. Ha. The oldest trick in the book … divide and conquer.I refused to follow this ban on volunteerism on at least 8 grounds:I was told by the Dean that I was an 'equal' member of the Department, though I had no 'equal' part in making such department ’rules' ... and had no 'equal' right to question them.Japanese colleagues were not bound by the same 'rules'. Some are more 'equal' than others.Such 'rules' were contrary to the institution's stated ideals as stated on its glossy, catch-copy homepage ... University Ideology.Such 'rules' are particularly contrary to the need for volunteer work still necessary for dealing with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , not to mention covering those current social problems the government and infrastructure of Japan can not deal with ... the homeless (despite a seemingly contradictory problem of a decreasing and aging population), high rates of work induced suicide and mental health care problems, insufficient support for the aged, terminally ill, severely handicapped, and orphans, and a growing digital divide and wealth gap resulting in the hollowing out of the middle class and growing numbers of working poor — the government's own statistics state that 1/6 of Japanese children are at the poverty level or below.Such 'rules' are contrary to educational goals and obligations as expressed by MEXT:Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the highest level of authority regarding education in Japan.Such 'rules' are contrary to Japan's signing of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations).Such 'rules' are contrary to the common sense of any adult capable and willing to foster the personal growth of young people, and contrary to any socially mature adult's sense of obligation to help nurture a sustainable local community.Such ‘rules’ compelled me to ‘obey department colleagues’. Say what? How can ‘obey colleagues’ NOT be an oxymoron? Even as the only tenured ‘Associate’ Professor with a graduate degree in T.E.S.O.L., by what academic virtue did my department ‘colleagues’ presume to have the right to tell me how to teach, which language to use, and when to use it? For any other academically credentialed professors reading this … how would you feel about ‘colleagues’ outside of your own academic discipline who presume to micro-manage your classes?I was a slow learner. It took several years to figure out what ‘communication’ means when being directed to this non-Japanese member of the department. I will spell it out for you in a Japanese language lesson which I call ‘The 5 M’s’ approach to managing foreign teachers (though it is equally applied to other Japanese of lower rank within institutions).1 - Meilei - to give orders2 - Marunage - to pass the buck3 - Mukanshin - to completely ignore4 - Madogiwazoku - to marginalize someone to a seat by the window5 - Murahachibu - to completely cast out of the communityWhy ... ?Officially — 'Volunteer activities are not part of our program this year.' (As explained by two successive Department Chairmen) and you, as a foreign instructor, do not have equal rights of tenure as Japanese colleagues.Officially — ‘You do have all the equal rights and responsibilities of Japanese colleagues. (As explained by the Dean of the University).More likely — I was the only full-time, non-Japanese, tenured professor in an English Communication Department of a Japanese Junior College ... Jissen Women's Junior College — managerially problematic because the willfully contradictory status was designed only to make me compliant to orders, without any of the rights of tenure or educational obligation to the students.——————————————2 — Banned, subsequently, by the Board of Directors from:receiving any classes the following academic yeartaking my scheduled research sabbaticalWhy ... ?Officially — for refusing to sign a document prepared especially for me, demanding that I follow above stated Department 'rules' regarding community outreach activities and volunteer work.More likely — I was the only full-time, non-Japanese, tenured professor in an English Communication Department of a Japanese Junior College ... Jissen Women's Junior College.The ‘dead silence’ detail …Upon being called into a conference with the Dean and Assistant Dean and presented with the document, I was told to either sign it, or forfeit my impending 1 year research sabbatical to Cambodia. I pointed out that if I signed that document, I would be forfeiting my right and my obligation to help my own seminar student prepare for the upcoming Tokyo Jr. College English Speech Contest.Even before my ten years of tenure at the school, as a part-timer, I had been asked, and accepted, the role of volunteering to be the coach of each year’s contestant. My full-time colleagues appeared to not have either the interest, temperament, skills, or educational priorities to do so, and so I stepped up to the plate.After about 12 years or so of doing this, I petitioned to have my speech coaching ‘volunteer’ duties re-designated as one of my committee responsibilities, since volunteerism was no longer officially part of their program … and as counterparts at other schools also have their duties counted as ‘work duties’, not volunteerism.My request was granted, but being as opportunistic as they were, authority was immediately handed over to a Japanese colleague heading a new ‘Kyoiku-inkai’ (Education Committee), which I was not invited to join.During the time I had been doing this as a volunteer, I was also a member ot the Tokyo Jr. College Speech Contest Committee, and so I had the benefit of receiving communication about the contest directly at the committee meetings, and was able to have nearly a year to prepare multiple students (in the name of equal opportunity) for the contest … and all of that editing, re-writing, and bringing out the best of the student took that whole year.But now my duties had become ‘official’, and subject to receiving information on my colleague’s definition of ‘a need to know’ basis. This meant that I would now have to ask permission from my Japanese superior to ‘volunteer’, and it was only under his auspices, and at his convenience, and on his terms that I was allowed to do the same work I previously did on my own free will. All of the same responsibility, but with an added layer of bureaucratic hierarchy insuring I would not have the right to receive the direct and timely information necessary to do my job. My colleagues saw this as an opportunity to further marginalize me and concentrate institutional power into their hands.I no longer was given the courtesy of information about the speech contest until a month or two prior to the contest … as the new Education Committee did not consider it a priority to inform me of the theme or schedule of the speech contest in a timely manner. Neither making my job easier, nor bringing out the best in students was the priority of my colleagues. Putting an uppity foreigner in his place was.But back to the conference with the Dean and his demand that I sign a letter compelling me following orders from my colleagues.‘In the school’s 120 year history, has any other faculty member been asked to sign such a letter prior to taking a research sabbatical?’ I asked.‘No’ was the curt reply.The paper laid on the desk in front of me, waiting to be signed. I looked at the Dean and reminded them that as this forbids me from volunteering …. and I was specifically told by my colleagues, I no longer had the right to help even my own seminar student with the upcoming speech contest. I told them that I would sign the document … if one of the two sitting before me promised to step up and help that student prepare for the speech contest.‘Would either of you agree to take my place and help that student’, I asked?Silence.I have a digital recording of that meeting, and that’s all you can hear — a deafening silence.I refused to sign the document.I said that my obligation was to the student(s) … not to blindly following orders deliberately designed to marginalize me from performing my duties as an educator. Not by coincidence, ‘witholding information from an employee which is necessary to complete their work obligations’ is against Japanese labor law.The student came to me for help. As no one else was either able or willing, I did so. A lot. Something for details of another Quora answer later. But for the sake of context, I will say this. She wrote and spoke about being a victim of the Great Tohoku earthquake, and the real meaning of family and friends.Though we had spent a good 50 hours or more, editing, revising, recording, and analyzing videos of her practice … on the moment of her performance, the memories of a crumbled hill-top house, watching in horror as the tsunami engulfed the harbor below, and the desperate attempts to bypass the deadlocked transportation grid … all came out in a torrent of tears. But she kept her cool, and she kept her pace so as to not exceed the time limit.Half of the audience, myself included, were in tears … the judges were flummoxed.This was just supposed to be a display of English skills, not a real speech. They couldn’t just throw the meticulously detailed point sheet for judging out the window. But they couldn’t ignore the real thing, transcending typically rote memorized performances.They compromised by awarding her 2nd place in the contest.The school’s administration promptly used her result as a photo op for marketing purposes.Though her speech was about her finding the meaning of ‘family’ and ‘friends’, about the community that defines the social primate, it was made perfectly clear that I was not part of that ‘education’ community.Shortly after the speech contest and photo-op, I was notified that for disobeying department orders and for not signing the document compelling me to do so, that I had forfeited my upcoming research sabbatical and would be relieved of all teaching duties the following year.That’s when I began seeing a psychiatrist, got put on anti-depressents to hold down suicidal thoughts, and exercised my right to a medical leave of absence.The results ...After receiving notice that I would be given no classes nor allowed to take a research sabbatical, I secured a lawyer, joined a union, and took a medical leave of absence for harassment induced mental stress (and subsequently, hip-joint replacement surgery).In the ensuing two years, despite several meetings, my labor union could reach no agreement with the school, and my lawyer advised me that even though I would likely win a legal suit against the school, the Japanese judicial system is weighted in favor of institutions, and my victory would likely be a long and costly, pyrrhic victory. In the Japanese legal system, if it is ‘individual vs. institutional entity’ … the individual is pretty much ‘guilty, unless proven otherwise.’ I later realized, if one follows a strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language determining what we see … that this village mentality might be correlated with the fact that the Japanese words for ‘individual’ (koujin) and ‘citizen’ (shakaijin) are only a couple of hundred years old … and presumably the rights and obligations of the two.Thinking I would just put it all behind me and find work elsewhere, I resigned a ‘tenured’ position … in protest … against institutionally sanctioned harassment, a breach of Japanese Labor Law, and a general disregard for human dignity and human rights as befitting an institution of higher learning.Now, five years since resigning, I have reached the age of 64, for some mysterious reason, I have not been able to find even a single class of part-time college work in one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet. After having lived over half my life in Japan as a college teacher, I have been unemployed for three years now.I am still on a nightly dose of anti-depressent and sleeping pill, and still see a psychiatrist once a month for my prescription.I keep busy with community out-reach, volunteer activities, one of which is Soup no Kai, a roving soup kitchen supporting the homeless. In 2017, this NPO received the ‘Social Contributions Award from the Tokyo City Metropolitan government. Steve Martin (Steven Martin)'s answer to Is it true that in Japan there are no beggars?I continue helping out with speech contests. Though I am no longer employed, I still consider myself an educator, and my honor and duty to help young students when I can … and as my policy for about 10 years now, as a volunteer. In 2017, I was a finals judge for the Soka Daigakku (Soka University) E.S.S. (English Speaking Society) All Japan English Speech Contest. The Ikeda Cup - 創価大学 英語研究会SEAIn early 2018, I was again invited to be a preliminary judge for an All Japan English Speech Contest held by the English Speaking Society (E.S.S.) of Japan’s highest ranking university, The University of Tokyo. Between meetings and e-mail with the student organizers, pouring over 81 speech scripts and videos, and writing remarks for each of them while judging … I must have spent about a hundred hours on the project.東京大学ESS杯争奪英語弁論大会 (The English Oratorical Contest at The UT) The contest was relatively successful, and the E.S.S. president has agreed to donate my judge’s fee to helping the Rohingya Muslim refugee crisis. I was pleased with his decision. But now that the contest has finished, the student organizer of the event has refused to answer my e-mails of inquiry regarding the status of that promise. I will think long and hard about future volunteer activities with college English Speaking Society events.(EDIT … about a year later, 2019, I have indeed exchanged letters, and was invited again to a judge, again accepted, and again … kicking myself in the head wondering if my time was well spent. Now have written over 150,000 words of comments for the 51 speech contest applicants … but only 3 of the 10 finalists, and 2 other applicants were interested in reading those observations and suggestions.)Again, I questioned the VERY sloppy judging criteria chosen by the student speech contest committee. I pointed out that the criteria does not reflect how public speaking skills are learned or taught, does not reflect salient features of effective public speaking, and does not reflect the highest ideals of a public speech or a communication community. Two years ago, the head of the committee begged me to NOT compare his goals to his predecessor (who gave a speech about the importance of good posture for ‘success’), but this year, the committee strongly insisted that the highest priority of the contest is connected to neither educational nor social problem solving goals, but to follow the will of their seniors. Yep, Tokyo University students, the future top managers of Japan Inc. are just doing a role-play practice of Invented Traditions while exchanging name cards to form their elite, oligarchic, and self-serving social networks.For those interested, you will see some very good speeches in the recent past by copy-pasting the kanji for Tokyo University’s Todaihai — ‘東大杯’ — into YouTube. You might notice that this tradition seems to have come to an end as of this year, 2019. I would like to think I had something to do with ending this corrupt and invented tradition. Here is an example of a great speech. She was the last winner of what may be the last Tokyo University All Japan English Speech Contest, and though I had some good chats with Sara about her speech, on-line and at the contest, I haven’t seen or heard from her since. I fear that her alma mater, Keio University, and intended graduate school, Stanford, may be following the same path of Mission Drift as Harvard and Yale.Meanwhile, I occasionally check the glossy home pages peddling ‘education’ in Japan, back at my former school, I see there is no longer a full-time, non-Japanese, native-speaking faculty member in the English Communication Department.I spend a lot of time reading and watching Youtube videos … mostly documentaries (love David Butler on physics), TED, and so on.As for Quora, I find myself writing fewer answers, but reading much more, and chatting one-on-one in comments or messaging.And when I tire of words, I pick up my guitar and practice bossa rhythms and jazz arpeggios … planning to play for no one but myself. Just therapy.Reflections on the big picture …Japanese institutions are somewhat overlapping in-groups, but traditionally place a priority on compliance to a collectively assumed authoritarianism.Communities are small enough to keep an empathy-driven morality. But like other large, hierarchical groups following authoritarian priorities, morality here tends to be provisional, parochial, and situational. Institutional culture takes priority over individual moral autonomy. Institutional morality tends to be driven by rule and ritual, not empathy. To further explain:Oxford anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has a very interesting theory correlating the size of the human pre-frontal cortex with the number of people we can effectively work with as a group. For the sake of brevity, I’ll define that as the number of people we can recognize by face, name, and individual characteristics and temperaments including unique skills, interests, traumas, and hopes. His studies indicate somewhere between 150 and 250 people as the optimal size for groups … and I would infer that this number of recognizing each other as individuals correlates with morality being driven by neural pathways associated with empathy. Cross cultural studies seem to replicate his results.By implication, once we exceed Dunbar's number, groups necessarily form hierarchies, which in turn are held together by a combination of provisional rules, traditions, and force … not empathy. As Hannah Arendt chronicalled in the Eichmann war crimes trials, this excuses the cog-in-the machine-human from moral responsibility or autonomy with a simple ‘just following orders’.And as the post-war behaviorist experiments of Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and later, Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment showed, the average American was just as likely as the average Nazi prison camp guard to allow institutional authority to override empathy.I would say a lot, if not most of our cognitive dissonance, isolation, and marginalization in large scale populations, from corporate states to nation-states, is the gap between empathy driven morality and rule-imposed morality. A cultural defining historic event of Japan, the Forty-seven rōnin, hinges on this conflict of values. But I would argue that this is a conflict in human nature everywhere, and just as contradictory in what my fellow Americans will say in their pledge of allegiance, and what Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, or William Blum reveals about what goes on behind the curtains.Representatives of institutions have no qualms about lying, deception, stalling, any machiavellian tactic … all rationalized as necessary on behalf of the group, but more likely just subconscious, opportunistic behavior. Dark triad behavior. Again, this is not unique to Japan. Just look at the recent U.S. presidential election as one example.Marginalized individuals have little recourse against blatant institutional disregard of law. Institutions are cynically all too knowledgeable that the legal system is weighted in their favor … one lie at a time, one stall after another, can draw out any legal challenges for years — long enough for those responsible for malfeasance to have retired or transferred to another branch or committee deep within the institution.Even small institutions have their ‘deep state’. And the cost to the institution? Financially, a minimal loss, and at most, only a brief moment in the public forum before all is buried under bread and circuses. For example, compare your memories of the Pyongyang Winter Olympics (or any world wide sporting event) and the case of Matsuri Takahashi. Case closed.More results, the BIGGER picture ...While Japan is the 3rd or 4th largest economy in the world, its Universities are ranked somewhere around 70th place. While acknowledging that 'rankings' are to be taken with a grain of salt, where there is smoke, there is fire.I would say that the priority of compliancy over the critical attitude towards authorities fostered by the liberal arts, drops Japan even further. At least a few other professionals both inside Japan Humanities under attack | The Japan Times ... and outside Japan, seem to agree Japan Dumbs Down Its Universities.According to the Hofstede Index, Japan - Geert Hofstede, management of higher education in Japan is what drops it down to such abysmally embarrassing levels. But I would also say that management is inextricably tied to a culture of deference to authority.With the ruling LDP's enfranchising of 18 year olds with the right to vote this year, BUT the new State's Secrets Law, change to the Peace-Time Constitution allowing 'pro-active, military defense', and a neo-lib climate that taxes basic food items for the growing numbers of working poor while giving tax breaks to the corporations ... this empowerment of youth may simply be a token of 'rights' that will soon have to be repaid as an 'obligation' to serve in a ramped-up military.Scary times ahead.Still, trying to do my small part for the marginalized in Japan ... most recently helped out with a mobile soup kitchen for the homeless in Tokyo ... Steve Martin | Facebook ... but of course, whether we are talking about the homeless, the high suicide rate, the falling demographics, or the falling business standards in Japan (Season of Scandal Hits Japan With Company Confession Flurry), or enough fissile plutonium stored in Japan alone to make 1,300 nuclear warheads ... are NOT a concern for Japanese 'Institutes of Higher Learning' ... which begs the question, what, exactly are their concerns? Despite the glossy homepages, my guess is that they are either simply for-profit businesses, or quasi-governmental meat grinders churning out a literate but compliant (no questions please) workforce.As for me, I take my cue from a former Dean of Helsinki University I once heard at a forum at Tokyo University. "The purpose of the 21st century university should be to solve 21st century pr0blems."My problems are not restricted to marginalization and dehumanization of based along ethnic lines. By the government’s own statistics, 1/6 of Japanese children live at the poverty level or below, (and though now somewhat dated info) the single greatest cause of death in the work force between the most productive ages of 20 and 44 is suicide … Suicide in Japan … and these are examples taken from Japanese citizenry themselves.The purpose of public education should be, though perhaps never was, socialization … raising collaborative, critical thinking problem solvers who are morally responsible to the community. But once past primary school, education, devolves mostly into a process of standardized testing and sorting … gate-keeping as a means of institutionalizing individuals. Disposable human capital. Standardization, institutionalization, and compliance are the highest priorities.This leads to another theme altogether in my writings on Quora … how naive scientific reductionism is becoming the new religion, and how it may be a terminal one at that.Standardization and institutionalization is far easier than fostering positive fundamental changes among the struggling youth. It is far easier to just give lip service to educational ideals rather than getting down and into the mud of the meaning of learning. It is far easier to go through the motions of teaching while actually serving as merely another functionary bureaucrat, a gatekeeper who uses standardized tests to identify the ‘talented’ … and pass them along to the next appropriate academic, professional, business, or political institution.Anyone familiar with Chomsky’s understanding of pro-social anarchism … ?Or even better (or worse) … the first 3 paragraphs of his 2010 Chapel Hill speech will do.Human intelligence and the environmentthe problem with Japan Inc., indeed, all humanity, I sum up as this:Empathy-driven communities are conflated with rule and ritual-driven institutions, and institutions are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Individuals, regardless of injustices suffered from those institutions, are considered guilty until proven innocent. ‘Education’ has long since been conflated with ‘propaganda’, and neither the sanctity of the maturation process of the social primate, nor the necessity of empathy-driven communities for sustainability is respected by the ruling powers that be.The failed idealist in me tends to agree with Stephen Hawking … Stephen Hawking: Greed And Stupidity Are What Will End The Human Race.And the pessimist in me, with J. Robert Oppenheimer …Lesson learned ...Yokoso (welcome to) Japan!A nice place to visit.—————————————————————————————————————Update, Wed. Dec. 14th, 2016Informed by Quora that this post will be sent to 1000 readers, I thought I would give an update. A couple of years have passed, and now 61, I am still unemployed, living off of borrowed money from Japanese friends, and the Hello Work unemployment system in the land of Hello Kitty … I have maybe 5 months left to pay the rent. Starting to sell off things through Yahoo auction.But looking at the homeless I still work with, the systematic bullying of school children evacuated from the Fukushima meltdown, the continuing pace of corporate-driven suicides of Japan Inc., and the bigger world picture — Trump and his cabinet of deplorables, Brexit, growing right-wing extremism in Europe, the tragedy of Aleppo, the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya muslims in ‘democratic’ Burma — I should be grateful for still having a handful of friends, and for now … a roof over my head and food in the fridge. Outside of that, I am finding it harder to justify my continued existence.If nothing else, as a permanent outsider depending on a small community of culturally and ethnically different friends, I can empathize further with the minorities I attempted to help through my volunteer activities, and those minorities I will never have an opportunity to help. But how far can empathy carry me when I will no longer be able to pay my own rent?Hmm … just found the 6th ‘M’.My life as the Mandelbrot set unfolding — a microcosm of the forever-war between the authoritative right hand of man, and the would-be progressive hand on his left. Cognitive dissonance — built into our genes, we bi-polar apes. Meh … maybe this is just a fancy way of saying ‘what goes around, comes around.’ Karma, baby.Update … April 27, 2017I have about a month go left for unemployment insurance, still no sign of work. But it appears I am not the only one falling victim to the ‘Education Scams’ of Japan Inc. …Cautionary tale: Bern on how no protections against harassment in Japan’s universities targets NJ regardless of Japan savviness and skill level