Consequences

In the Artist of the Floating World, the narrator meets with his future son-in law, Jiro Miyake. Jiro expresses to the narrator his relief that the president of his company has committed suicide. Jiro continues to express his discontent that those who were responsible for Japan entering World War II haven’t claimed responsibility and committed suicide themselves. In his conversation to the narrator, Jiro makes it seem like suicide for repentance is common occurrence at this time. I found the willingness and the expectation to own up to your mistakes fascinating. In the United States (or maybe Western cultures in general) it’s rare to see remorse for mistakes. Even rarer is to see people taking responsibilities for those mistakes and trying to rectify them.

Our whole society accepts this behavior as normal. As we’ve seen in recent news, executives are running their companies into the ground, leaving their employees with the financial burden and leaving with millions themselves. We see that most Americans in general have this mentality as well. We buy and consume so many resources. Even though we’re 5% of the population we use 25% of the earth’s resources. And even with significant evidence that global warming is occurring, Americans still refuse to admit that our lifestyle is the cause and that it needs to be changed. This disregard of our actions and its repercussions can conflict and hostility. Other countries are beginning to resent the United States for burning so much fossil fuels, but being restricted by our government to do so themselves. And when these countries can’t burn fossil fuels, the major source of energy, it makes it incredibly difficult for the country to develop.

I think that it’s safe to say that America doesn’t apply the principle norm of social justice, “A social norm stating that we should help only when we believe that others deserve our assistance” or social responsibility, “norm stating that we should help when others are in need and dependent on us”(Glossary). Americans. We are in denial, believing that consequences to our actions don’t affect others, so they don’t deserve help (which would rectify our mistakes). According to the New York Times, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the US envoy blamed the Chinese for their fuel emissions, criticized Europe for making too many demands on the US, and said “the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that.”

This sense of denial and refusing to take responsibilities for our actions is something the United States government and perhaps its citizens participate in everyday. But, like in the case of global warming, our actions can potentially have catastrophic results. Hopefully before any of these catastrophic consequences occur, we will engage in norms (expected standard of behavior and belief established) of social justice and responsibility.

Works Cited:
Broder, John. U.S. Climate Envoy’s Good Cop, Bad Cop Roles. 10 Dec. 2009. The New York Times.10 Dec. 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/science/earth/11stern.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Unknown Author. Glossary. University of Richmond. 10 Dec. 2009. https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~allison/glossary.html