Are there Japanese Nobles anymore?

[Sage_Rat]

@jovan

What’s scary about this? As Nava mentioned in the other thread, handing down the family business is certainly not unique to Japan. As a matter of fact, for much of history, throughout the world, Europe certainly not excluded, this was the norm.

The freedom to choose ones occupation and the freedom for others to choose whether to employ someone based on their individual merit has some really great upsides for humanity:

1. The person doing the job is interested in his job.
2. The person doing the job is qualified to do his job.

Minus those two things, I don’t really want someone performing surgery on me.

[skdo23]

@jovan

What’s scary about this?

Among other things, Minkyberry’s post seems to indicate that the son of a physician can get into his father’s medical school even if he doesn’t necessarily meet the academic standards for acceptance.

[mbh]

@Isamu

I don’t have any idea about what insignia or other decorations would have been worn by legitimate Japanese nobles. But the guy I met at the one party I mentioned had a scarlet sash worn diagonally over his torso from shoulder to hip, a decoration (medal or insignia, I’m not sure) hanging from a ribbon around his neck, and a few medals pinned to his dinner shirt.

You don’t have to be a noble to wear a sash. Lots of republics award them. A decoration on a neck ribbon usually outranks a decoration on a breast ribbon. A decoration on a sash usually outranks a decoration on a neck ribbon.

In the USA, the presidential Medal of Freedom is worn on a neck ribbon, and the Medal of Freedom with Distinction is worn on a sash.

[Bookkeeper]

I would suspect that, in both the Japanese and French examples, the noble title is no longer recognized legally, but is still recognized socially (at least in some parts of society).

[UDS]

@skdo23

Among other things, Minkyberry’s post seems to indicate that the son of a physician can get into his father’s medical school even if he doesn’t necessarily meet the academic standards for acceptance.

Mmm. But in the more egalitarian, meritocratic model, the academic standards for acceptance are set by competition - if there are, say, 50 places then the 50 candidates with the highest academic marks will get them. But this may set a cut-off - the marks obtained by the 50th entrant - which is absurdly higher than the level of academic attainment actually necessary to be a competent, or even outstanding, physician.

So you could set a much lower cut-off mark, and then choose among all the candidates who have attained that mark by reference to some other quality. If one of those qualities is being the son or daughter of a physician you might think that’s unfair, but it won’t necessarily result in less competent physicians.

The Japanese model fails if the rule is “any child of a physician, however stupid, gets in”. But if the rule is “among candidates with the necessary level of academic attainment, the children of physicians are preferred over the children of others” this won’t necessarily result in worse doctors, and could conceivably result in better ones.