[Rebirthia]

Duty meaning…


«In the West we say that money moves the world, but in Japan, giri makes the world go around much more. Giri is the Japanese word for obligation, debt, duty, and to putting obligations above personal desires, or economic reason is the rule #1 of Japanese society. This means honoring a long-term relations over the chance to make a greater benefit, and marrying with the woman that mother chooses instead of the person you are in love with. The feeling is that one cannot survive without the others in this world. This idea was specially strong in Japan because the lack of space bound people into close-knit groups, which inevitably became very interdependent.

For that reason, people are enmeshed in a complex network of social obligations from birth, because the children inherit the giri of their parents, and then builds up its own throughout life. The people of the West spend most of their time trying not to create debts with the others, and feel discomforted being indebted. However, the Japanese are brought up to freely accept favors and allow themselves to fall into other’s debt like something inevitable.

The need to fulfill social obligations continuously puts special pressures on people and this causes Japanese to complain more often than others about ningen kankei – the strains of maintaining harmonious relationships. But the complex bonds of giri also assure that as long as one does one’s duty to others, one will never left out in the cold.»

extracts from “Everything you wanted to say about Japan in English”, byMargarite Price y Itoh Nobuji.

So, that means that "what everythin wants..." and the lyric of duty makes much more sense now, at least, for me. does she mean that this kind of social obligation is bad? because she says that a whole generation ended... and she know it's her turn now... perhaps the release of the album duty was in itself, her duty ? (this idea has been commented by masa as well)