At the Speed of Irrelevance

CHAPTER 8Congress

ON A SUNNY SUMMER day in Washington, DC, several congressmembers gathered near the Capitol building. There, they were going to stage a spectacle to show their rage against a foreign country. They were going to physically destroy a technological artifact of a foreign country with jackhammers. If it feels as if something like this would have transpired in the recent past, it didn't. It happened in 1988. Japanese technology was outperforming American technology. A subsidiary of Toshiba along with a Norwegian firm had sold submarine technology to the Soviet Union. This had angered the US congressmembers, and while Norway did not face any hate, a group of congressmen staged a demonstration that many Americans will find as reminiscent of the recent nationalistic fervor in the nation. The congressmembers placed a Toshiba radio on a stand. Then with sledgehammers they demolished the radio. If that reminds you of a scene from the movie Office Space, that was exactly what happened. One after another, they took shots at the radio (Figure 8.1). The radio was shattered, but so was the American image in many ways. It made Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, a New York Democrat, say in anguish that the metaphor “Japan-bashing” would affect the American policies in the future and said, “The side with the commanding metaphor takes the commanding position, and wins the debate” (Tolchin 1988).

FIGURE 8.1

Source: AP Photo/Lana Harris

But unlike post-World War II–Japan, over which ...