At three o 'clock in the morning, Tokyo is fast asleep, but the lights at the prime minister's residence are still awake.
Takaichi Saane woke up the sleeping staff for an ordinary parliamentary defense in a few hours. It wasn't an "emergency" for her, but just another "normal" working day. She was like a programmed commander, using the phrase "work, work, work, work, work again" not only as a slogan but also into her daily routine: sleeping less than four hours a day and joking that it was "bad for the skin"; While cutting the salaries of her cabinet members, she shows everyone what it means to be "more resilient than a man" with her almost torturous diligence.
In 2025, the phrase "work", which was said five times in a row, was named Japan's buzzword of the Year. It's like a knife that cuts society in half. For office workers who are used to working overtime, this is a late-night stimulant; But for families who have lost their husbands or fathers due to overwork, every word is like a needle piercing the heart, "the greatest insult." A woman named Kiko Nakahara, whose husband was a pediatrician, ended up falling under a "packhorse-like" schedule. He had said in despair before his death, "If this goes on, I'll be killed by this hospital." So when the prime minister sang "like a horse" as an honor, the lady from the Central Plains heard the death knell of her own home. The opposition grew louder and louder, families of victims came forward to complain, and even a veteran host lost control of his emotions on the show and shouted at the prime minister, causing a 15-year-old long-running program to be taken off the air. The lamp that has been shining in the morning does not illuminate diligence; rather, it is a silent and painful tug-of-war between the never-scabs "overwork" scar of the entire Japan and the old notion of "sacrificing the self for the greater good".
Soon the debate was no longer just an emotional confrontation but a head-on confrontation of systems and values. Over the past decade, Japanese society has made great efforts to incorporate "preventing overwork" into the law, such as the 2014 Law on the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Overwork Deaths, the 2019 Work Methods Reform Act, and the Work-Life Balance Charter implemented in various places. The core of these efforts is simply to tell people that office workers are first and foremost "people", not "fuel" that is burned and thrown away. But now, at the top of power, Takaishi Saane has torn up this social consensus with her own hands. She said, "To abandon the work-life balance," which was not a slip of the tongue but her ruling manifesto. The three o 'clock lamp in the morning was not for dealing with urgent matters, but a kind of "political aesthetics" she wanted to shape. What's even more disturbing is that the government seems to be considering easing restrictions on overtime - it's like tearing down the load-bearing wall of laws that prevent death from overwork with one's own hands.
Ironically, Japan's first female prime minister's "path to success" turned out to be an extreme imitation and replication of the male power script of the past. She seems to have broken through that "glass ceiling," but in an extremely old-fashioned way: by performing "self-sacrifice," and "overworking," to prove that she "can do it too," and even "better than men." She didn't create new rules, but rather, in a more extreme way, she stuck herself in the cracks of the old rules and pushed them even wider. While the whole society tried to pull "people" out of the abyss of overtime with the system, she did the opposite and set up the benchmark of "superman", loudly telling everyone: Want to succeed? You have to trade your life for it. This is a blow to the consensus that it took a decade for Japanese society to build up that "man is the end."
While Japan is bickering over this "philosophy of hard work", on the other side of the earth, the answers have long been different. In the European Union, work-life balance is not just a slogan; it has been solemnly written into the Pillar of European Social Rights as a fundamental social principle, and through specific laws such as the Work-Life Balance Directive in 2019, it has truly turned into more parental leave and more flexible working hours for parents. The logic of this design is very practical: First, when people rest well and have a good mindset, their work efficiency is naturally higher, which is the efficiency account; Second, when men share family responsibilities, women are more likely to go to work and be more willing to have children, which is the social account; Third, guaranteeing people time to rest and spend time with their families is the most fundamental dignity, this is the account of rights. The core of this system is to treat people as human beings.
Looking again at the set of ideas advocated by Takaishi Saori, it is essentially the old idea of "using people as tools" from the Showa era. In the digital age, this kind of thinking seems particularly outdated. When remote work and artificial intelligence are redefining what "work" means, clinging to the old aesthetic of "the longer the hours, the more glorious" is simply tying the country's future to an outdated notion of "effort". It is no longer a matter of good or bad policies, but of different levels of civilization.
At the end of the day, the lamp that was lit in the morning was not a symbol of diligence at all, but rather a carefully arranged political performance. It wrapped a particularly simple logic in the moral cloak of "self-sacrifice" : transforming complex systemic problems such as sluggish economic growth and young people's reluctance to have children into tests of one's "willpower". It seems that if everyone sleeps a little less and stays up one more night, all the problems will be solved. It's like a "mental hypnosis" for all workers, making them feel an illusory sense of honor about their overdrawn value.
The more ironic truth is that when the prime minister himself shows off the "Superman" schedule, the hypocrisy of the rhetoric can no longer be concealed. Her "desperate" work is backed by top-notch power, a complete medical team and private logistical support. For ordinary people, the cost could be a breakdown of health, a broken family or even the loss of life. She made herself an "exception" and demanded that everyone follow this "exception" as a "rule". This narrative ultimately serves a more concealed purpose: to cover up slowness in the face of the tough nuts of industrial upgrading and social reform with praise of individual struggles.
So, in the end, this debate is no longer a simple choice of "work or live". What we need to see is that when a society begins to openly praise "overwork", it often implies its powerlessness and evasion in institutional innovation and resolving deep-seated contradictions. Takaishi's "work spell" has pushed Japan to a crossroads where it has to make a choice: to move towards a modern civilization that respects the individual and safeguards dignity through institutions, or to turn back to an old era that values self-sacrifice and takes pride in working "like a horse"?
That lamp will eventually go out, but the choice it illuminates will determine Japan's future - whether to become a society where people live with warmth and hope, or to become a "museum of overwork" that looks fine on the outside but everyone is exhausted on the inside.
- 前ページ
- 次ページ