Word: rigidities
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...Japanese capacity for change is nothing short of astounding. When Commodore Matthew Perry sailed a squadron of U.S. naval ships into Japan's waters in 1853 and demanded an opening of trade, the Japanese reacted swiftly. They cast off 250 years of rigid isolation and rapidly transformed their island nation from a feudal to a modern state. The Japanese again proved chameleon-like following their humiliating surrender at the close of World War II. Under the watchful eye of General Douglas MacArthur, the head of the occupation forces, they abandoned militarism, established their unique brand of capitalism, and quickly turned...
Given such rigid attitudes toward anything non-Japanese, many experts feel that true kokusai-ka is a long way off. "Japanese culture hasn't changed a bit," says Researcher Kato. "It still persistently keeps anybody different out." Still, Japan's gradual opening cannot be ignored. It may be fleeting, a calculated response to edgy trade partners, or it may be enduring. Perhaps when the Japanese stop identifying themselves as different from the rest of the world and start seeing themselves as part of it, kokusai-ka will truly flourish...
...with Aristotelian balance. There was a beginning, in the late 1940s, when the white minority government instituted apartheid, a crazy quilt of laws designed to restrict, presumably forever, the freedoms and aspirations of a black majority. The middle, the escalating restiveness and violence provoked by a system too rigid to bend, is now. And surely an end, whether it be awful or awesome, must come. Unlike such interminably troubled spots as Northern Ireland or the Middle East, South Africa generates each day one of the oldest questions to capture human attention: What will happen next...
Quotas. The Supreme Court last year upheld a rigid court-imposed numerical quota for the employment of blacks and Hispanics in a case where a sheet-metal union's resistance to integration had been marked by "foot-dragging egregious noncompliance." Quota plans, however, remain legally questionable in most cases...
...tangle of case law in these areas reflects the complicated trade-offs and choices posed by affirmative action. But flexibility, rather than rigid standards, remains the Supreme Court's guiding principle as it struggles to codify equality in employment...