Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety, and Emotion in Japan's Era of Mass Motorization

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Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety, andEmotion in Japan's Era of Mass Motorization

Joshua Hotaka Roth

The Journal of Asian Studies / Volume 71 / Issue 01 / February 2012, pp 171 - 192DOI: 10.1017/S0021911811003019, Published online: 19 January 2012

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021911811003019

How to cite this article:Joshua Hotaka Roth (2012). Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety, and Emotion inJapan's Era of Mass Motorization. The Journal of Asian Studies, 71, pp 171-192 doi:10.1017/S0021911811003019

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Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety,and Emotion in Japan’s Era of Mass Motorization

JOSHUA HOTAKA ROTH

This paper explores the contradictory discourses on manners, safety andemotion that arose with mass motorization in Japan in the 1960s andwhich continue through the present. It documents the way in which multiplegovernment entities end up working at cross-purposes in their attempts tocultivate safer drivers and slow the epidemic of traffic accidents. On theone hand, the discourse on driving manners suggests a widespread embraceof the Traffic Bureau’s and other government agencies’ concern with safety.On the other hand, the emphasis on manners may lead to angrier driving,which promotes accidents according to psychological studies of driving. Thepicture that emerges is one in which attempts at social control are compli-cated by the often unpredictable emotional reactions of subjects caught in aweb of institutional and ideological processes. By exploring the relationshipof emotion to driving school curricula and the discourse on manners, thisarticle extends previous studies of self, social control, and social managementin Japan.

THE STANDARD CURRICULUM FOR officially certified driving schools in Japanincludes a driving aptitude test (unten tekisei kensa) that incorporates a per-

sonality inventory. One question asks the student whether she frequently wakesup in the middle of the night. Another asks if she gets happy or sad in response totrivial matters. Another asks if she often hears voices that come out of nowhere.Others ask whether she hates to lose, whether she has ever doubted anyone,whether she makes friends easily, whether she frequently gets into debateswith superiors, and whether people often intentionally ignore her. Anotherasks if she sometimes gets sick of the world and wants to die.

These questions may seem unusual in the context of a driving aptitude test.Yet psychologists involved with these tests point to anger, aggression, emotionalstability, confidence, and considerateness as dispositions that can affect safety.

Automobility, or the individualized control of motorized transport, affordsgreat flexibility and a sense of freedom, yet involves the potential for a greatnumber of accidents. In 1970, traffic fatalities hit 16,765 in Japan (Naikakufu

Joshua Hotaka Roth ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department ofSociology and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College.

The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 71, No. 1 (February) 2012: 171–192.© The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2012 doi:10.1017/S0021911811003019

2008). The grim toll of the early years of automobility in Japan motivated variousagencies within the government to regulate driving through such measures as theinstitution of stricter licensing requirements, ongoing traffic safety campaigns,and stiffer fines for the violation of traffic laws.

Governmental efforts may have helped spur a popular discourse on drivingsafety, or may have been motivated itself by the widespread concern with theincreasing numbers of accidents. Many newspaper and magazine articles fromthe 1960s and ‘70s criticized aggressive driving and urged people to be consider-ate and to give way to each other (yuzuri-ai) on the road.

Yet the personality inventory, given to tens of millions of Japanese driving stu-dents over the years, suggests a concern among some authorities that efforts tocontrol individual driver behavior is not uniformly effective. The test’s concernwith the emotional disposition of student drivers indicates the authorities’ under-standing that when drivers are confronted with difficult situations on the road,they may react in varied and sometimes unwelcome ways, regardless of thekind of the book learning that they had gotten in driving schools. The testsuggests an acknowledgment on the part of certain government agencies of thelimits of moral suasion through safety campaigns in shaping a cautious driver.As we will see, however, the test is now being used to spur self-reflection, withthe hope that self-reflection can help overcome unconscious emotionalpropensities.

Sheldon Garon criticizes Foucault and his followers for giving too muchemphasis to the idea of discipline and social control (Garon 1997). Garonprefers the term “social management” to social control, management better cap-turing how government elites foster active participation in policies among a broadrange of civil society organizations. Implicit in Foucault’s (1990; 1991) formu-lation of social control is the ongoing dichotomy between government elitesand the rest of society. Garon’s study shows that in fact there was substantialoverlap in social background of government and business and civil societyleaders. The aspirations of the rising middle classes and ideas about what consti-tuted modern society were widespread in all of these groups. The universitysystem played an important part in this development. Garon writes that sincethe late 19th century, “would-be civil servants rubbed shoulders with those whowould make up the new middle class of lawyers, journalists, educators, engineers,physicians, and salaried employees” (Garon 2006, 19).

While Foucault overemphasizes the power of government rationality toshape subjectivity, Garon suggests mutual influence. The implication, however,is perhaps more consensus and coherence than really has characterized Japanesesociety. Lacking in both Foucault and Garon is a sufficiently developed under-standing of subjectivity, or “the emotional experience of a political subject”(Luhrmann 2006, 359). Without such an understanding, it is hard to accountfor the sometimes unpredictable and unruly ways in which people react toefforts at both control and management.

172 Joshua Hotaka Roth

The depths of subjectivity are often difficult to fathom, and many studies dobetter at describing programs of government rationality than they do in explain-ing how those programs shape subjectivities. Drawing primarily on articles fromcar magazines, as well as from interviews with drivers, driving school administra-tors, police officers and insurance officers conducted during six months ofresearch in Japan starting in August 2007, this article explores the evolving dis-course on driving manners, governmental efforts to promote safety, the regu-lation of emotion, and the relation of manners to emotion. By taking seriouslythe authorities’ concern with emotion, we may be able to better understandthe dynamics of self and social control in Japan.

DRIVING AND REGULATION IN THE ERA OF MASS MOTORIZATION

The Tokyo Olympics in 1964 served as a stimulus for the tremendous growthof infrastructure construction. The high-speed bullet train began service in thatyear with much fanfare, while at the same time the road system was similarlydeveloping. Sections of the Tokyo Metropolitan expressway opened in 1963,and the Tomei highway between Tokyo and Nagoya began operation in 1968.Rising wages and lower costs made personal cars affordable for many peoplewho could only dream of owning one prior to the 1960s (Plath 1992). Althoughthe cars that people could afford were very economical, they allowed a sense ofparticipation in a consumer-based modernity, captured by the term “mai-ka” (lit-erally, “my car”). The Japanese media identify 1966 as the first year of the My-Carera, when the number of vehicles in use surpassed the 10 million mark, eventhough just 3.8 million were cars (Plath 1992, 230; JAMA 2011, 3). In 1967,the animated television series Speed Racer was launched and became animmediate sensation. By 2006, there were almost 76 million vehicles onJapan’s roads, of which 57.5 million were cars (JAMA 2008, 3). The novelty ofdriving in Japan in the 1960s, and the excitement of so many embarking on anewly motorized lifestyle, resemble Peter Hessler’s description of Chinese carculture in the first decade of this century (Hessler 2010).

However, a darker side of car culture in Japan was documented by filmmakerTsuchimoto Noriaki in his 1964 documentary On the Road [Rojô Dokyumento], apoetic record of congestion and chaos on Tokyo’s roads. Traffic fatalitiesincreased steadily until they hit their high of 16,765 in 1970, for a rate of 16.2deaths per 100,000 people. Fatalities declined thereafter to 7,358 in 2002, arate of just over 6 per 100,000 (National Police Agency 2011). The overalldecline in fatalities in Japan has been striking considering the much highernumbers of vehicles on the roads in the 2000s compared to those 30 or 40years ago, and despite the rapidly aging population. Mandatory use of seatbelts and safety innovation in the form of air bags certainly have played a largerole in the decline in fatalities. Better-designed intersections and signage, and

Heartfelt Driving 173

anti-drunk driving laws have likely also contributed to this trend (IATSS 2005, 7).By contrast, in the U.S., there were more than 43,005 traffic related deaths in2002, with a fatality rate of 14.95 per 100,000 (NHTSA 2008, 5), althoughthey have dropped substantially in the last decade, to 37,261 (12.25 per100,000 population) in 2008.1

In addition, we should consider the effects of Japanese safety campaigns,driver education, and licensing requirements, in cultivating a more cautiousdriving subjectivity. Since the 1960s, an enormous number of resourceshave been dedicated to traffic safety. The National Police Agency generatescopious data on traffic accidents. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, andTransport also publishes an annual white paper on traffic safety, as does theTraffic Safety Policy Office under the Management and CoordinationAgency. In addition to publishing data on these issues, agencies have devel-oped and enforced traffic regulation, licensing requirements, and drivers’education programs, and have helped develop and regulate the insurancesystem. Many of the technologies implemented to control driving behaviorin Japan can be found in the U.S. and other countries as well, yet thebalance between them is somewhat distinctive in Japan, with relativelygreater emphasis given to driver education reminiscent of the emphasis ondriving safety from the 1930s to the ‘50s in the U.S. (Seiler 2008, 129–48;Packer 2008, 27–75) over economic incentives (e.g. fines or hikes in insurancepremiums).

Officially certified driver education schools are an important place toexamine attempts at fostering safer driving habits. One striking dimension of offi-cial driver education curricula is psychological profiling and the concern with“emotional” driving. The pedagogy of emotion rests on the assumption thatpeople can be taught to reflect on their dispositions and act rationally to compen-sate for them.

EMOTION AND SAFETY

In his study of Chinese driving, Peter Hessler comments that the wronganswers to the multiple-choice questions that appear on driving exams “describecommon traffic maneuvers with such vividness that you can practically see thefaces behind the wheel” (Hessler 2010, 30). For example:

1Comparisons between Japanese and U.S. data on traffic fatalities are complex. The Japanese datainclude only deaths that occur within seven days of the accident, whereas the U.S. data includesall deaths within 30 days. In addition, U.S. accident rates are lower than Japan’s when measuringaccidents per 100,000 miles driven rather than 100,000 population. I consider the populationmeasure more relevant, however, because it factors in the rail system, an inherently safer modeof transportation (U.S. Dept. of Transportation 2006, 22–3). The extensive rail network in Japankeeps many people off the roads, and is a key reason that fewer people die in automobilerelated fatalities.


81. After passing another vehicle, you shoulda) wait until there is a safe distance between the two vehicles, make a

right-turn signal, and return to the original lane.b) cut in front of the other car as quickly as possible.c) cut in front of the other car and then slow down. (Hessler 2010, 30)

By contrast, the content of questions appearing on the Japanese personalityinventory cannot be read to reflect anything about actual driving practices. Ifthe test does anything at all, it reflects and shapes a culture of test-taking, andperhaps an assumption on the part of authorities that knowledge of one’s tem-perament may help one better modulate one’s behavior.

The personality inventory used as a part of the driving aptitude test is astripped down version of the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven-tory) devised in the 1930s in the U.S. Personality inventories were developed toreplace psychiatric interviews as a screening device for military recruits duringWorld War I (Wiggins 2003, 165). The MMPI has been used to evaluatemental health patients and help in treatment planning, evaluation of treatmenteffects, and a host of research projects involving such things as personalitychanges over time and cross-cultural differences. In addition, it has been usedin occupational screening where emotional stability is deemed relevant for thejob. Starting with the screening for neurosis among military recruits, it hasbeen used to appraise personality in a variety of public safety positions in theU.S. including “police, fire, airline pilot, and nuclear power plant personnel”(Wiggins 2003, 12). It has been used in “classification of convicted felons atincarceration,” “evaluation of parents in family custody disputes,” and evaluationof personal injury claimants where mental health is part of the suit (Wiggins2003).2

The MMPI has been translated into many languages and adopted in manycountries (Butcher 1996). But rarely has it been used on such a broad scale asin Japan, where it is a standard part of the drivers’ education curriculum in offi-cially certified driving schools in which tens of millions of students have enrolledover the years. The large majority of Japanese drivers have attended these schoolsdespite the high costs (almost $3,000 for the regulation 60 hours, 26 hours in theclassroom and 34 hours behind the wheel). In Saitama Prefecture outside Tokyo

2Early questionnaires presumed the cooperation of respondents to straightforward questionsrelated to symptoms of neurosis and other conditions. By the mid 1930s, psychologists developedan empirical approach involving contrasting responses of “normals” (based on 724 Minnesotans notunder a doctor’s care) to groups clinically diagnosed with certain psychological pathologies includ-ing hysteria, mania, paranoia, and schizophrenia (Butcher 1999, 3–12). Question sets were devised,which often did not involve any obvious connection to symptoms, but which maximized the differ-ences in response patterns between “normals” and “deviants.” The updated MMPI-2 created in the1980s, was based on a larger and more diverse set of “normals.” Several hundred questions long, itincluded many that check for validity, allowing administrators to ferret out inconsistent responsepatterns, defensiveness, and exaggeration (Butcher 1999, 21–36).


where I conducted my research in 2007, approximately 94% of driving examtakers went to officially certified driving schools. Their pass rate was over 70%.The pass rate for those who studied on their own or went to other less expensive,uncertified schools was only 35% (interview at the Saitama Licensing Center,September 2007). Through the mid 1990s, the personality inventory was admi-nistered without any discussion of the results or advice on what those whoreceived low scores should do to compensate for their deficiencies. Butneither was it used as a screening mechanism to disqualify potentially dangerousdrivers in the licensing process.

Since then, however, the test has been used as a means to stimulate self-reflection on the part of student drivers. Psychologists and staff at a driving apti-tude testing company explained that the rationale for the personality test is tohelp students become more aware of their predispositions so that they will bebetter able to compensate for them when driving (interview at driving aptitudetesting company, December 2007).

The inclusion of psychological profiling in the official driving school curricu-lum constitutes a remarkably explicit attempt on the part of the government toshape a self-reflective subjectivity with the goal of creating safer drivers. Fromthe answers to these questions, testing companies generate a scoring profileof the student driver along seven discrete psychological scales. For each scale,the exam indicates whether or not the student has any deficits, and providesvery brief advice:

1. Sensitivity. You tend to worry or brood. While driving, forgetabout things that have passed, don’t focus on anything but what is athand.

2. Mood swings. Avoid driving when you feel depressed. And just becauseyou may feel good, don’t drive with abandon. Be very careful not to over-look dangers.

3. Distractibility. Don’t get caught up in conversations with passengers andforget that you are driving. Endeavor to control your feelings.

4. Self-assertiveness. No matter how much you are abiding by the rules orwhether you have the right of way, give way when it seems necessary.It’s too late if you cause an accident.

5. Cooperativeness. The road doesn’t belong to you. Recall the timethat others have given way for you, and try to actively give way toothers.

6. Ostentatiousness. Don’t drive in a showy manner until you have devel-oped the requisite skills. Try to drive in a subdued manner. Zigzaggingis not good.

7. Emotional stability. When driving, always focus your attention ondriving. Worry about other thoughts and concerns after you havegotten out of the car.


Without psychologists working at the driving schools themselves, it seemunlikely that the brief, preformatted suggestions above are sufficient in them-selves to substantially affect driving behavior. Nevertheless, the test and theemphasis given to self-reflection suggest policy makers’ faith in the efficacy ofeducation more generally to shape people’s behavior and subjectivities. Aninstructor at a driving school explained that different policies were appropriatefor different countries. He added that while economic incentives such as finesor variable insurance premiums may be the only way to get through to Ameri-cans, more educationally oriented programs still made sense for Japanese.Studies of Japanese education have emphasized schools’ efficacy in socializingstudents to feel a strong sense of group membership through the cultivation ofintrospection (hansei) (Rohlen 1989, 18–26; Lewis 1984). Thomas Rohlen andothers have shown that parallel processes involving “spiritual education” takeplace in adult institutions (Rohlen 1984; Kondo 1990). While the more limitedtime spent in driving school generally does not involve the expectation ofgroup solidarity, other contexts for learning in Japan suggest that students indriving school may not bridle at the authority which imposes personality profiling.

Thus what initially may seem a heavy-handed imposition by governmentadministrators in shaping a self-reflective subjectivity may not be experiencedthat way at all. As Sheldon Garon suggests for other contexts, this may be acase of more active collaboration between state and society, where the govern-ment appeals to shared standards even as it attempts to sway people in certaindirections (Garon 1997). Certainly government did not have to work too hardto promote the idea of traffic safety. In fact, the horrible traffic deaths in theearly years of mass automobility made safety an imperative for many, as wewill see in the following section on safety and manners. Government agenciesworked hand in hand with civil society organizations such as driving schoolsand the car owners’ advocacy group the Japan Automotive Federation (JAF).

The effects of government policies are not limited to shaping particular moralstances. While the ultimate goal of personality profiling may have been to createsafer drivers, we should consider the way in which its emphasis on self-improvement through regular test taking, self-reflection, study, and practicehelps shape an understanding of the self as mutable. Tests hold out the possibilitythat greater effort and study can lead to better performance, and a culture of testtaking may habituate people to the practice of self-improvement.

There is another popular discourse on driving and emotions, however, thatcasts into doubt the notion that self-reflection can help people compensate fordangerous psychological dispositions. Articles in Japan Automotive Federation’smonthly magazine JAF News (later called JAF Mate) have described a numberof driver personality typologies that suggest an understanding of psychologicaldispositions as deeply rooted. An article from 1985 categorized drivers accordingto blood type (JAF Mate 1985, 62), a popular medium for discussing personalitytypes in Japan. In this article, type O drivers tend to cause accidents when they


are learning how to drive. They are slow to acquire skills, but once they do theyreally master them. Type A drivers love speed, but they tend to be skilled, andcareful drivers. Type B drivers tend to be skilled too, although somewhat careless.Type AB drivers tend to be most moderate, and have great reflexes. Anotherarticle from 1989 advises drivers on appropriate measures to take when encoun-tering different driver types on a narrow road (JAF Mate 1989, 62). It says thatyou can tell the driver type by the movement of their eyes.

1. The overbearing type (gouin-gata 強引型). Best to pull over to the sideright away or risk collision.

2. The anxious, confused type ( fuan, konran-gata 不安、混乱型). Stay calm,reduce speed, roll down window and call out.

3. The safe driver type (anzen unten-gata 安全運転型). No need to worry. Ifyou don’t have confidence, just pull over and let the other driver knowhow you feel.

An article in April 2001 suggests that people do not necessarily drive the way theybehave in other contexts of daily life (JAF Mate 2001, 16–9). It suggests thatpeople could be classified into several distinct types according to how drivingtransforms them:

1. those whose language becomes foul2. those whose driving becomes aggressive and violent3. those who become quiet, who clam up

Authors of popular magazine articles were not the only ones to emphasizetypology over the transformative potential of self-reflection. In fact, the lastarticle on driving typologies was based on a study done by psychologists.When I interviewed psychologists and others who work at a company thatdesigns driving aptitude tests, several mentioned that they had come to viewself-reflection about the results of their exams to be of limited efficacy inaltering driving behavior (interview December 2007). A police officer whoworked in a prefectural licensing center in the department overseeing officiallycertified driving schools expressed a similar lack of confidence in the efficacy ofself-reflection.

Government regulated test taking regimes, including the way that personalityprofiles are used in the driving school curriculum, serve to support the perspec-tive on the self as mutable, and bolster an assumption about the moral obligationof individuals to cultivate a safe, or calm, style of driving (Roth 2011). Yet, it isclear that some elements of popular discourse resist such a notion, emphasizinginstead more fixed personality typologies. Such typologies may in fact represent arange of variation among Japanese drivers in how they react emotionally both tosituations on the road, and the limits of effectiveness of government efforts to


modulate driver behavior. However, both the perspective on the mutability of theself, as well as that of fixed types, reinforce the understanding that drivers are fal-lible, that they are the cause of many accidents and deaths, and that the govern-ment has a justifiable role in ameliorating the dangers that emotionally unstablepeople bring to the roads. A similar notion emerges in the discourse on drivingmanners, which holds out the possibility of improvement while also easilyfalling into reifying identity types.

MANNERS AND SAFETY

Through tight mountain turns, a car drives impatiently behind a slowmoving truck. Finally, the road straightens as it enters the Karuizawaplateau, several hours northwest of Tokyo. The car tailgates the truck,getting ready to pass, but they’ve already reached an intersection, andthe car’s driver can’t see that the light is turning red. Soon he hearsthe siren of a police car, and ends up with a ticket for 5,000 yen. (JAFNews, 1969a, 38–9)

This account appears in a November 1969 article on tailgating in the Japan Auto-motive Federation’s monthly magazine JAF News. Traffic accidents were increas-ing at an alarming rate in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the governmentresponded with stricter traffic laws and licensing requirements, more thoroughdriver education programs, and widespread safety campaigns. The author ofthis article goes on to criticize tailgaters for “driving greedily” (gatsugatsuunten ガツガツ運転) and urges them drive in a more relaxed (yoyû 余裕) or gener-ous (ôrakaおおらか) way. This advice provides a sense of how the legalism of newtraffic regulation was translated into a moral framework, a framework that waselaborated in numerous articles that constitute an evolving discourse ondriving manners.

Discourse on manners is pervasive in Japan (Bardsley and Miller 2011). Mostbookstores have an entire section dedicated to various books on etiquette cover-ing such issues as business manners, dress codes for women, table manners, letterwriting etiquette, wedding speeches, and overseas travel behavior. The contem-porary discourse on driving manners coincides with the governmental concernwith safety.3 Government agencies, in fact, have participated in the propagation

3Manners do not always coincide with government interests. Eiko Ikegami’s study (2005) on the“bonds of civility” that developed in medieval and early modern Japanese aesthetic circles suggeststhat manners at times can threaten official ideology, not just support it, or act just as an inconse-quential or apolitical means of marking social distinction. She shows how ritualized styles of inter-action in poetry groups allowed people from diverse status backgrounds to interact and bond,which, at a time when such cross status interaction was severely restricted by the government, con-stituted a real threat to official ideology (Ikegami 2005, 171–203).


of driving manners, through various forms of moral suasion common in Japan. Upto four times a year all over Japan, the police carry out traffic safety campaigns inwhich banners with safety slogans are hung across roads, many pertaining tomanners. One of the most famous is from 1973: “Narrow Japan, where are yourushing to?” (semai nippon, sonnani isoide doko e iku 狭い日本そんなに急いでど

こへ行く) (Kobayashi 2003, 57).Slogans continue to adorn the roads throughout the country, with many

sprouting anew with every traffic campaign, while others linger on throughoutthe year. National and local competitions are held in which hundreds of thou-sands of people submit safety slogans for use in this way. School children allover the country paint traffic safety posters every year, which are often displayednot only in the school hallways, but also in city halls and police stations.

In this section, I draw primarily on the monthly magazine of the Japan Auto-motive Federation (JAF) to explore the evolving discourse on driving manners.JAF was founded in 1963. Much like the American Automotive Association(AAA), JAF provides emergency roadside and trip planning services, and hasacted as a consumer advocacy group to lower taxes and loosen regulation.4

While the JAF magazine contains a wide range of materials on car cultureand regulation, most interesting for our purposes is the forum it provided for adiscourse on safety and manners. In its first year, JAF News included a columncalled “Etiquette Corner.” One short entry in this column discussed the traditionof the uphill right of way on mountain roads. The author describes the “beautifulfriendship” (utsukushii yûjô 美しい友情) of mountain people who would give wayto people in cars climbing uphill. Climbing uphill was arduous enough withouthaving to recover from a break in momentum if someone coming downhill wasnot thoughtful enough to give way. This was especially true for many cars inthe 1960s, which had very limited horsepower and often overheated whenascending steep roads in the mountains. The author notes that the beautiful tra-ditions of the mountains were being threatened by a lot of the new drivers whodrove violently (ôbô 横暴) and did not give way (JAF News 1963, 9). A numberof articles in the 1960s suggest a more generalized breakdown of traditionalJapanese driving etiquette.

At the start of the era of mass automobility, a critique of Japanese drivinghabits frequently emerged in comparisons with developed countries like the

4In the 1970s, JAF spearheaded campaigns to reduce taxes to levels more comparable to those inother countries, but with limited success. Drivers still face relatively high taxes and strict inspectionregimes and other regulations. In Tokyo, people must prove they have access to a parking spot toeven be eligible to purchase a car (Richie 2002). Car owners have to pay a special tax on the pur-chase of new automobiles. In addition, there is an annual excise tax. An onerous and very expensivecar inspection (shaken 車検) every two years ensures many owners sell their cars prior to inspection,spurring frequent new car purchases and a steady flow of used cars to developing countries. A taxdetermined by the weight of the car is also charged at the time of these inspections. There is anearly 100% tax on the price of gasoline.


U.S. and Great Britain. One author contrasts the orderly and polite manner ofdriving in Great Britain in the 1950s to the “scary surprise driving” (okkanabikkuri unten おっかなびっくり運転) she encountered upon her return to Japanin 1959 (JAF News 1967, 8–9). In another case, the author portrays Japanesedriving as immature (mijuku 未熟), reflecting a shallow history. He criticizesJapanese disdain towards the old rust buckets that foreigners drove around theU.S. military bases, noting that Americans understood cars as a functional partof daily life. The author criticizes Japanese drivers as being consumed by theimmature desire to show off their cars and their driving. He also criticizes theirmisplaced sense of special privilege, which, when combined with the qualitiesof impatience (sekkachi せっかち) and competitiveness, leads to terrible drivingmanners (doraibu manaa no warusa ドラブマナーの悪さ) (JAF News 1969c, 8–9).

The same author advocates adopting the “beautiful morals of humility” (kenjôno bitoku 謙譲の美徳)(JAF News 1969, 8–9). The author of another article writesthat well mannered drivers give way to each other, and drive in a way that avoidscreating a nuisance (tagaini yuzuriau manaa ga ari, tagaini meiwaku o kakenaihandoru sabaki ga ikizuiteiru 互いに譲り合うマナーがあり、互いに迷惑をかけない

ハンドルさばきが生きづいている) (JAF News 1968, 36–7). In many articles, theterm “yuzuri-ai” (譲り合い mutual giving way) most typifies mannered driving.The term “meiwaku o kakeru” (迷惑をかける cause trouble for others) most typi-fies a lack of manners. While mannered drivers are considerate and give way toothers, nuisance drivers cut others off. While mannered drivers are safe drivers,nuisance drivers are dangerous.

The author of one article uses an analogy to pigs and elephants to make hispoint about driving manners. While pigs will stay inside fences, elephants arewise, and do not need fencing to walk in single file. If anything, humans areworse than pigs, for they have just a limited amount of reason, allowing themto jump fences and get into accidents. Elephants do not jump over things orahead of each other to gain advantage. The author concludes that Japanesedrivers need to be more like elephants (JAF News 1968, 36–7). The analogywith pigs recalls the term the author of another article used to describe greedydriving – gatsugatsu unten – the term gatsugatsu often used to describegreedy eating, like that of a pig (JAF News 1969a, 38–9).

Many articles connected bad manners and a mistaken sense of privilege withaccidents, injuries, and death. In May 1970, one entry in the readers’ columndescribed the case of a Japanese couple who had just returned to the countryafter spending seventeen years in the Soviet Union. This couple had broughtwith them a thirteen-year-old son, who was run over and killed shortly aftercoming to Japan. In an interview, the parents noted that in Russia, sidewalkswere raised slightly above street level, in contrast to Japan where sidewalkswere barely even marked with a painted stripe. Moreover, they said thatRussian drivers stopped when people walked into the street, whereas Japanesedrivers did not (JAF News 1970b, 20–1).


It is no coincidence that many manners related articles appeared in the late1960s and early 70s when traffic related deaths spiked to unprecedented levels.Safety had long been a concern of JAF, but the organization began to make moreconcerted efforts to curb accidents and fatalities by the late 1960s. In 1969, JAFNews ran a column called Proposal for Calm Driving (anshin unten no teishyô 安

心運転の提唱, lit. proposal for peaceful heart driving).5 In November of that year,JAF encouraged members to make the “Calm Driving Pledge,” reminiscent ofthe pledge advocated by the Eisenhower administration’s “Crusade for TrafficSafety” in 1954 (Packer 2008, 29). JAF doesn’t actually define “calm driving,”but it is clear that safety is the objective. The letter notes that JAF memberscould not be silent given that annual traffic fatalities had risen over 10,000,and that by signing the pledge, members could mark a new epoch in their owndriving history (untenrekini hitotsu no epokku o kaku suru 運転歴に一つのエポッ

クを画する). It stated that the pledge movement was “the backbone of JAF’sactivities, and forms the basis of our increasing contributions to society” (JAFNews 1969c, 9). Those who made the pledge received a bumper sticker thatread: “Calm Driving Participant” (JAF News 1969b, 38–9). Within a fewmonths, more than 10,000 members had taken the pledge. But one memberwrote in February 1970 that he still didn’t see that many calm driving bumperstickers on the roads, and that occasionally someone with a sticker drove reck-lessly (JAF News 1970a, 8–9). Whether or not the pledge movement had anyreal impact on accidents, it is an example of the kind of public campaign thatno doubt helped shape people’s understanding of safety and manners in thelate 1960s and early 1970s.

The discourse on manners emerges in discussions of issues from minorinfractions of etiquette to more serious threats to public safety. A highway admin-istrator wrote an article condemning those who deliberately sought to “disruptharmony and order” (chôwa o kakimidashi, taisei ni meiwaku o kakete 調和をか

き乱し、体制に迷惑をかけて) through the vandalism of the public rest areas,misuse of emergency telephones, and thoughtless disposal of garbage and ciga-rette butts out of car windows (JAF News 1970c, 22–23). Similar critiqueswere made of those who threw garbage on the newly planted grass and shrub-bery, or urinated alongside highways despite the construction of rest stops(JAF News 1980, 44–5). To some extent, the issue here is middle class respect-ability, much as we can observe going on in China today (Notar, 2010) yet theauthors seem to suggest that it is the same uncaring attitudes revealed in suchbreaches of etiquette that can very easily end up causing accidents.

5David Leheny (2006) documents the rise of fear and anxiety since the 1990s in Japan. In the city ofKawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, where I conducted most of my research, the municipal governmentreorganized its office of traffic safety (kôtsû anzen ka 交通安全課) into the new “safe and soundoffice” (anshin anzen ka 安心安全課). But the term for calm or assurance (anshin) clearly hasbeen a favored one in relation to driving since the late 1960s.


In Japan, the discourse on driving manners is in many ways a safety discourse.Yet compared to defensive driving, driving manners invests the concern withsafety with a moral overlay. Over the decades, the pages of JAF Mate hosted adiscussion among authors of articles and letters about everyday encounters onthe road and whether or not other drivers lived up to certain norms of interaction.This discussion suggests that the governmental concern with the population, andthe conduct of conduct, was accepted as normative by a large section of thedriving population. In some ways, a kind of fit between governmentality and sub-jectivity that Foucault (1990; 1991) describes for modern times seems to gradu-ally emerge in the era of mass motorization in Japan. As accidents decline, drivingbecomes more orderly, and Japanese evaluations of conditions on their own roadsshift from widespread critique towards relative satisfaction in comparison to con-ditions overseas. And yet things become more complicated once we consider therelationship between manners and emotion.

MANNERS AND EMOTION

Manners and emotion, while very different things, both relate to the govern-mental concern with safety. We might think of manners and emotion as beingdefined in opposition to each other. Manners involve the control of emotion.Manners involve conventional, ritualized forms of interaction, while emotionsarise spontaneously. If manners are controlled, they are also contrived. Ifemotions are unpredictable, their spontaneity may convey some sense of authen-ticity. Manners may be interpreted to fall within the realm of outward appear-ances (tatemae), as a formality that facilitates the smooth interaction of relativestrangers, and thus, far removed from the realm of true feelings or emotion(honne). Manners and emotion both are related to safety—manners positivelyso (an increase in manners brings about an increase in safety), emotion negativelyso (a decrease in emotion brings about an increase in safety).

But some anthropologists have argued that emotions are not completely idio-syncratic, individualistic, and spontaneous, in opposition to social constraints.Rather, emotions themselves may be culturally and socially shaped (Lutz 1988;Luhrmann 2006). So how then do manners and emotion interact with eachother? Perhaps we should not think of them in ways that are binarily defined,as in opposition. Is it possible to have emotional manners, or manneredemotions?

I observed drivers and conducted interviews with administrators andteachers at several driving schools, one of which used as its slogan the Englishlanguage neologism “heartful driving” (http://www.tsurugashima.co.jp/talk/index.html). The chief of driving instructors at the school explained that heartfuldriving was driving that was considerate of others. It was mannered driving. Butthe notion of heartfelt driving, and other related keywords in the manners


discourse, do not reside in a realm of pure formalities, completely devoid ofemotion. The heart (kokoro), after all, is the seat of authentic feelings in contrastto superficial and contrived ceremonies. Even what may be considered banalphrases, like “calm driving” from the calm driving campaigns of the late 1960sand early 1970s, pack more emotional significance than may be apparent onthe surface. “Calm” (anshin) literally means “peaceful heart.” The peacefulheart is neither agitated nor fearful. It is calm and collected. Peaceful heartdriving is possible when everyone drives with consideration, and no one feelsthat other drivers endanger him or her. Peaceful heart driving also involves acertain amount of resolve. In one article, the author urges people to “commit(kokoro-gakete 心掛けて) themselves wholeheartedly to driving safely” (literally,hang their hearts on driving safely) (JAF News 1969a, 38–9). Likewise,manners require the same resolve on the part of drivers. One member of JAFwrote a letter in which she “commits herself wholeheartedly to learning gooddriving manners she will not be ashamed of” (haji nai manaa yoki unten nikokoro gake 恥ないマナー良き運転に心がけ lit. hang her heart on good drivingmanners…) (JAF News 1979a, 3). In the calm driving pledge that JAFmembers were urged to sign in 1969, the federation presented calm driving asa “basic principle” (kokoro-gamae 心構え, literally that which is “heart-held”)(JAF News 1969b, 38–9). Thus readers were urged to “hang their hearts”(kokoro-gakete 心掛けて) on the “heart-held” principle (kokoro-gamae 心構え) of“peaceful heart” driving (anshin unten 安心運転).

All of this heartfelt driving suggests that manners are not merely a superficialmeans of easing social interactions among strangers. Despite the formalism ofmanners in Japan, they are imbued with a strong moral valence that accessesan emotional vein. One letter from a JAF reader describes two very gentlemanlydrivers who give way to each other, and asks whether we can all drive with a gen-erous heart (kokoro yutakana kimochi de kuruma ni noru 心ゆたかな気持ちで車に

乗る)(JAF News 1979c, 47-8). Those who drive recklessly and lack considerationfor others are described as not holding learning close to their hearts ( fukokoroe-mono 不心得者) (JAF News 1970b, 20–1). These bad apples “disrupt the harmonyof all other drivers, and are a public nuisance” (Ikani zentai doraibaa no chôwa okakimidashi, taisei ni meiwaku o kaketeiru koto ka! いかに全体ドライバーの調和を

かき乱し、体制に迷惑をかけていることか！)(JAF News 1970c, 22). In anotherarticle, the author warns people that the appearance of their cars reveals theirhearts (kuruma no ato sugatani, anata no kokoro ga 車の後姿に、あなたの心が),and urges them to drive with care and consideration for others (JAF News1971, 20–21). The terms for consideration used in these articles literally meanto “attach one’s spirit/breath” (kihari 気はり) (JAF News 1979b, 26–9) or“attach one’s heart” (kokoro-hari 心はり) (JAF Mate 1988, 16–17).

This implication here is that we should aspire for a convergence of our heartsand social norms. Norms do not necessarily stamp out heartfelt feelings. Rather,they should inform the cultivation of a pure heart. As Dorinne Kondo suggests in


her study of a corporate ethics retreat, participants strive to polish the kokoro.The heart cannot be left to itself, lest it

become intent on the expression of its own selfish desires, with nothought for others. Indulgence and laxity would allow us to slip intothe state of … selfishness, the root of all negativity in human life. Onemust find means to polish the kokoro, to heighten its sensitivity, toshape it into magokoro, a sincere heart, or a sunao na kokoro, a naive,receptive, sensitive heart. (Kondo 1987, 261)

The true or sincere heart (magokoro) thus is a heart that is polished into align-ment with social norms. And yet, kokoro generally suggests not just considerationfor others, but an emotionally and morally charged consideration. Brian Moeranwrites that kokoro has a special relationship to individuality (kosei), one thattreads “a semantic tightrope strung between the two points of spontaneity andsocial exchange, on the one side, and outright individualism and ‘negative reci-procity’, on the other” (Moeran 1984, 262).

If a person’s attachment to manners is heartfelt, then we may expect that theywould not be complacent in the face of violations of manners. One taxi driverwith a head of white hair, perhaps about 60 years old, mentioned that selfishdriving ( jibun kattena unten 自分勝手な運転) made him angry. Examples he pro-vided of selfish driving included not giving way to ambulances, bicycles or ped-estrians. This accords with the emphasis in the manners discourse on givingway (yuzuri-ai) as a crucial practice. Indeed, many people I interviewedsuggested that anger is not specific to certain people, but rather that it arisesin specific situations. When we take a look at some of these situations, itbecomes clear that there may be a direct connection between heartfeltmanners and anger. This can be expressed in the syllogism:

Manners (notions of proper behavior), especially when they are heartfelt,make one susceptible to anger when they are violated.

Anger leads to accidents.Therefore, manners lead to accidents.

Sociologist Jack Katz (1999), who conducted research on driving and anger inLos Angeles, suggests that anger when driving and the subsequent discussion ofdriving experiences constitute a widespread negotiation of social norms. As such,he doesn’t condemn anger as a danger to society. Katz argues that it is preciselybecause we view each other as moral persons that we get angry when someonefails to live up to some standard of behavior. He suggests that if we viewedother cars as large buffalo or robots without any moral center we would notget angry at their behavior. In my interviews with Japanese drivers, it becomesclear that anger and manners (as expressions of social norms) are intimately


linked to each other. Some express more annoyance (ira ira) than anger (ka ka),but the line between the two is often blurry.

The white-haired taxi driver also pointed to the connection between angerand safety. He mentioned that he had had numerous accidents in the past, butthat recently he doesn’t get so angry and that he hasn’t been in any accidents.He attributed his decline in anger to age, but perhaps he has come to take aZen approach to driving. Perhaps he sees the other cars around him as largebuffalo, potentially dangerous objects but ones without moral agency. But theimplication of such a possibility would be that he no longer holds mannersclose to his heart, for heartfelt driving should lead to anger when manners areviolated.

The discourses of manners and emotion may work at cross-purposes. On theone hand, heartfelt drivers may place a moral value on driving manners and feelthat manners help promote safety. But their heartfelt embrace of manners maylead to a more impassioned response to the inevitable violations of certainnorms of civil interactions on the roads. There are those who may emphasizesafety in a more dispassionate way, through a careful calculation of risks andbenefits. Their driving manners, however, may be more robotic than heartfelt.

Discourses of manners and of emotion at times may work against each other,yet one area in which they are in accordance is in their strong emphasis on thenotion of self-control. Discourse on manners stresses the need to avoid selfishdriving and idealizes consideration for others. The discourse on emotion alsostresses the need to suppress one’s inner demons in order to remain calm andcollected in the public domain of the road. Both of these discourses ultimatelyconform to what we might expect of a liberal governmentality, which attemptsto maximize overall freedom (understood as minimal coercive authority)through the cultivation of self-regulating citizens (Rose 1999, 61–97). Neverthe-less, if we go beyond the superficial opposition of the realm of manners andemotions and recognize that manners can be heartfelt (and that emotions canbe socially shaped), we find that manners, promoted for the purpose of safety,may lead to the unintended consequence of increased emotion and risk ofaccidents.

GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND UNRULY SUBJECTIVITIES

In the Western philosophical tradition, subjectivity is contrasted with objec-tivity. While objectivity implied a neutral, overarching perspective, subjectivityimplied one that is limited to a particular vantage, in which personal experiencesand emotions clouded perception (Biehl et al. 2007, 5). Modern subjectivity isconceived more heroically, as the locus of individual creativity (6). In bothcases, whether positively or negatively framed, subjectivity is conceived apartfrom its surroundings (Biehl et al. 2007, 6). The literature on governmentality


produces a different understanding of subjectivity, one which conceives of it interms of processes of subject making (Ong 1996, 2006; Rose 1999). WhileOng, Rose, and other proponents of the governmentality approach are sensitiveto the complicated and multiple determinants of subjectivities, the approacheasily slips into an overly deterministic mode, locating in policies and institutionsthe absolute power to shape the emotions and inner lives of subjects. SheldonGaron’s approach to social management emphasizes the mutual influence ofgovernment and civil society, yet does not account for the range of subjectivitiesthat are possible within a given society and the very different reactions individualsand groups may have to government policies.

Tanya Luhrmann defines “subjectivity” as “the emotional experience of apolitical subject” (Luhrmann 2006, 359). Other anthropologists have exploredthe social dimensions of emotion – how culturally specific display rules, moral fra-meworks, and understandings of emotions can shape the way people experiencewhat psychologists have assumed to be universal human mechanisms (Briggs1970; Rosaldo 1980; Lutz 1988). To this social part of emotion Luhrmann addsa focus on a more individualized perspective, one that allows for tensionbetween the individual and various forms of authority. She proposes that we con-sider the emotional experiences of “the subject caught up in a world of violence,state authority and pain, the subject’s distress under the authority of another”(Luhrmann 2006, 346). While Luhrmann emphasizes the negative experiencesof distress or despair, it is clear that scholars may productively examine awhole range of emotions in people’s reactions to power and authority. The keypoint is that while social institutions and discourses help shape subjectivity,they may also provoke an assortment of unruly feelings that differ markedlyfrom person to person.

Those who have promoted the psychological assessment of student drivers inJapan are concerned with the overall behavior of individuals on public roads—notjust their reactions to authority but also their interactions with other drivers andpedestrians. It is precisely their insight into the range of temperaments in thepopulation that allowed them to recognize that certain drivers’ behavior wassomewhat impervious to book learning in driving schools or moral suasion ofsafety campaigns. Their answer was to encourage self-reflection among studentdrivers on their temperaments, in the hope that greater awareness would allowthem to modify their behavior or take special precautions.

But some authorities seem to have had a change of heart, and now think itwas naïve to assume that students could modify their own behavior based onthe results of a psychological test. And since 1996, the Japanese governmentintroduced reforms of the insurance industry that indicate a move away fromthe somewhat prescriptive attempts to shape a safety-conscious driving subjectiv-ity. Insurance companies now set rates themselves, rather than follow govern-ment rates, and have introduced policies to “responsibilitize” (Baker andSimon 2002) individual drivers by adjusting rates for policyholders to reflect


individual driving histories. This policy creates some tension with the Japanesestyle of managing traffic disputes which, for many years, almost always hasinvolved shared responsibility for accidents (Tanase 1990).6

Some proponents of neoliberalism suggest that the rather large investment ineducational programs to cultivate self-control is not as effective as simply expos-ing people to market forces. Pat O’Malley describes this as actuarial governance(O’Malley 1996). Actuarial governance is indifferent to the disciplinary approachto shaping subjectivities as a part of a larger programmatic effort. It allows peopleto make their own decisions, and to face the consequences of their actions. Pro-ponents suggest that such an approach ultimately shapes subjectivities more pro-foundly and efficiently, albeit less directly, than can any formal educationalinstitution. Institutions like insurance have risen to buffer some of the conse-quences, but under an actuarial regime insurance rates themselves are setaccording to individual behavior. In addition, there has been a shift towardsengineering safety into design, thereby attempting to avoid altogether the com-plicated issues involved in shaping subjectivities (Burnham 2009).

Statistics on accidents provide evidence of both the successes of safetydesign, as well as the failure of governmental projects to shape effectivelydrivers’ subjectivities. On the one hand traffic fatalities have declined dramati-cally in Japan since the early 1970s, especially so since the 1990s. In 1990,there were 11,227 traffic fatalities. That number fell to just 6,871 by 2005 (Min-istry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2006). On the other hand, the totalnumber of road accidents involving injuries has increased by almost 50% from643,097 in 1990 to 952,191 in 2004 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communi-cations 2006). Technology in the form of air bags and anti-lock brakes, and fasteremergency rescue and better medical treatment may have reduced total fatal-ities. But the greater number of accidents suggests that, if anything, technologyhas exacerbated dangerous driving behavior.

But we should not overemphasize a transition from a national identity thatwas coherent to one that is fractured, and a strategy of governance based onmoral suasion to one that is actuarial in approach. Subcultures of bosozoku(暴走族 kamikaze riders) emerged in the 1970s, whose goal was to make a spec-tacle of themselves and cause a nuisance for everyone else, roaring though streetsin the quiet of night, and blocking traffic by driving abreast on highways at busytimes (Sato 1991). Their antics explicitly overturned what they viewed as pettymiddle class driving manners. The efficacy of safety programs was not limitedjust with regard to the lower and lower middle classes from which most bosozokuwere recruited. Since the 1980s and ‘90s, street racers (hashiriya 走り屋), moremiddle class and clean cut than bosozoku, have raced around urban expressways

6It should be noted that a notion of individual responsibility with regards to driving had alreadyexisted in Japan and to some extent allowed people to frame the dangers of driving as acceptable,rather than to condemn the entire system of automobility as inherently dangerous (see Roth 2011).


as well as mountain roads at frightening speeds, terrorizing unknowing driverswith whom they share the public roads (Roth forthcoming). These racers areknown collectively as “dorifuto zoku” (drift tribe) or “roringu zoku” (rollingtribe), and individually as “hashiriya.”

These subcultures should not be dismissed as aberrations that just prove thenorm, for they both stimulate and are shaped in part from the “automotive cul-tural industry” (Fuller 2005, 10)—that nexus of the automobile and popularculture industries that includes films, car shows, video games, advertising, carmagazines, motor sports, and street racing. In addition to the popular animeand manga about street racing, sophisticated television/video game softwarethat reproduces the experience of racing on specific mountain passes and high-ways has come on the market, and car magazines have published articles high-lighting challenging stretches of actual road along with target times for speedtrials (Kobe Shimbun 2002).

Yet within the diverse influences on the field of driving in Japan, “heartfeltdriving” continues to have a taken-for-granted quality for many Japanese. Itdoes not generally lead to knowing smiles or dismissive smirks. Those whohold desires for speed fanned by the automotive cultural industry may readilyagree about the importance of safety as promoted by driving school curriculaand safety campaigns. And those who occasionally become agitated, angry, andaggressive while driving may do so precisely because they have a well-formedidea of what heartfelt driving should look like. Further research into the nexusof safety and speed, of risk and desire, and the unpredictable and emotionalways in which people react to authority, entangled as they are in multiple, some-times contradictory rationalities and modes of behavior, may illuminate thecomplexities of governmentalities and subjectivities in modern times.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Thanks go to Beth Notar, Kathleen Zane, Michelle Bigenho, Julie Hemment,Barbara Yngvesson, members of the Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology atMount Holyoke College, and the anonymous reviewers for this journal fortheir insightful comments on drafts of this article. Versions of this article werepresented at conferences and in university lecture series and benefitted fromthe comments of Emily Chao, Helen Siu, Mitch Sedgwick, and ChristopherHood among others.

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Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety, and Emotion in Japan's Era of Mass Motorization

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