The weekly Shukan Kinyobi discerns a "new fatalism" among young people. Meaning what? A feeling that effort reaps no rewards and so is not worth making; that the world is what it is and cannot be changed — at least not by me, even if I felt like changing it, which I don't; that luck or inborn talent (which, being inborn, is just luck under another name) determines destiny, excluding most of us from the really good things in life — if they really are good, which they're not, so to hell with them.

It sounds like despair but it is not. In fact, reports Shukan Kinyobi, young people have never been happier. A paradox indeed — one well worth exploring.

Fatalism. The first thought that comes to mind is, "No wonder." The world seems to have spun murderously out of control, the Islamic State symbolizing rampaging insanity abroad while at home a 19-year-old Nagoya murder suspect has allegedly confessed to police, "Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to kill somebody." It could have been anyone, she allegedly said, as, apparently, it can be anyone for the Islamic State. How not to be the unlucky "anyone"? Some places are safer than others, no doubt, but ultimately, with such a spirit at large, there is no refuge. An individual might well feel lost in the immensities involved.