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Hikikomori “crisis”

An opinion piece in Japan’s Mainichi News titled “‘Hikikomori’ bedroom hermits should be regarded as national crisis” summarizes the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan today, the extent of the issue, and the fact that all remedies so far have fallen short.

There are approximately 230,000 people who almost constantly shut themselves in their rooms except to go to nearby convenience stores, according to a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office. The number increases to about 700,000 if those who only go out to do something hobby-related are included.

Moreover, there are an estimated 1.55 million potential so-called ‘hikikomori’ who have felt like shutting themselves in their own rooms. Most of them are young people.

As the population of young people declines due to falling birthrates, the statistics have raised questions about the future of Japan.

Hikikomori are defined as those who shut themselves in their homes for at least six months but are not involved in child care or housework even though they are not sick.

The article acknowledges that even after 15 years of observing this phenomenon in Japan there is no consensus on the cause.

URL: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20100727p2a00m0na007000c.html

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Solitude on college radio

Two “radio” talks about solitude from the “Ethics Talk – Philosophy, Flourishing, and the Good Life” program of the Philosophy Department of Central Michigan University are available. The two programs are: “Solitude, its Virtues and Vices” and “Solitude; an In-depth Exploration.” The talks can be downloaded for listening at one’s convenience.

URL: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ethics-talk/2010/06/29/solitude-its-virtues-and-vices; and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ethics-talk/2010/07/06/solitude-an-in-depth-exploration

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Karen Markham, UK hermit

A Mail (UK) article on Karen Markham, a Shropshire hermit. She holds a doctoral degree in music composition and has taught music at the university level. Before her decision to live as a hermit, Karen learned tai chi from a Buddhist teacher, spent time in the U.S. with communities of Native Americans in New Mexico and Muslim Sufis in Philadelphia, returning to England under the sponsorship of a Christian Orthodox monastery. Karen resides in a cottage on now highly-valued property, and was the recent subject of media articles on her possibly losing her present home. Includes several photos.

URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1290619/Karen-Markham-Meet-modern-day-hermit.htm

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Fukase’s “Ravens”

The Japanese photographer Masehisa Fukase’s book of haunting photographs published as Karasu [Ravens] and published in English in the 1980’s as The Solitude of Ravens is getting renewed attention due to a British Journal of Photography award as the best photography book in the last 25 years. See Guardian announcement and photo gallery.

The book is long out of print and copies are very expensive. Guardian summary:

Brooding and shatteringly lonely, the Japanese photographer’s series on ravens has been hailed as a masterpiece of mourning

Fukase’s photographs of ravens in various grains of black and white evoke at once a sense of unease, repulsion, pity, and despair — as intended. The English translation adding the word and connotation of “solitude” attempts to capture the sense of alienation, strangeness, the status of pariah, outcast, of deformity and repulsion. It is almost unnecessary.

Elements of Japanese aesthetics, of wabi-sabi, can be identified, but the naturalism of the photographs becomes “unnatural” to most people’s sensibilities as otherwise comfortable onlookers. Both the art and psychology of the photographs are compelling in a new and different way than anything modernist.

Ravens are what they are but Fukase’s relentless lens inevitably provokes an analogy to human beings, to human society, to the ambivalence of real or contrived feelings of ugliness we all harbor. Solitude here is both the condition of ravens but also the result of our uneasiness.