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Ethan Watters “The Mega-Marketing of Depression” in Japan p. 513
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All semester, we’ve contemplated perception. From the attributes that shape perception, to debating whether perception is a choice—we’ve examined the concept from multiple angles. In “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” Ethan Watters exposes the power in shaping perception. Specifically, Watters casts a critical gaze on the ability to create conflict to correspond to an already designated solution.
How does bearing solutions before there is a corresponding conflict yield affect life in the twenty-first century and beyond?
Questions to Consider
Does bearing solutions before there is a corresponding conflict make the world advanced or counterproductive?
Is breeding problems to correspond to existing solutions exploitative or necessary to maintain a hierarchical system?
Consider technological advances like camera phones, sugary items like sodas, and man-made constructs like race and gender— all of which simultaneously solve and create problems. Consider what came first:
the problem or the solution
the producer or the consumer
the supply or the demand
What is the American dream? How if all does this correspond to capitalism? Is creating conflict a necessary component in achieving the American Dream?
In creating an epidemic to an already established cure-consider the gains and losses. Particularly, who gains and who loses? Who determines the winners and losers?
Is a solution truly a solution if there is no conflict? Thus, were the anti-depressant pills a solution to depression if the concept was not active in Japan? If these pills were not a solution, what were they?
On page 522 Watters discusses contrasting ideas of “self” with regard to American and Japanese culture. How does one’s conceptualizing of “self” correspond to what they perceive as a conflict?
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