Napoleonic, Classical Moderne, and Hollywood Regency Regency Redux: High Style Interiors:

The gap between Japan's way of doing things and the realities of modern life, both international and domestic, is extreme – there is no other way to put it. It is this that leads me to call Japan a case of failed modernization. Japan's elaborate Dogs and Demons monuments are a sort of defensive bulwark, a desperate attempt to shore up its embattled systems against the crushing weight of real value. The strain can only worsen, yet in the end reality will prevail – the earth does move around the sun. Japan has departed so far from jitsu, I believe, because during the past century the nation did not in fact respond well to new ideas coming from the West, as classical «modernization theory» preaches; instead, Japan has had one long, agonizing struggle with these ideas, and the struggle is by no means over. As in the 1930s, the nation is repeating a pattern whereby huge initial success eventually leads to disaster. In the early stages, Japan finds its own innovative way to do what the West does – and with spectacular results ...»