Word: symbolization
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Japan: land of the rising yen, unstoppable economic growth and perpetual bullishness. That was the image that emerged in the 1980s, as Japan's financial juggernaut rolled forward with seldom a pause or a setback. The most striking symbol was Tokyo's stock market, which consistently scaled heights that seemed unattainable by any global standard. Property values rose astronomically, yet inflation was virtually nonexistent. The money machine kept churning, as if powered by some magic force, difficult to fathom and nearly invulnerable to financial stresses and strains in the rest of the world...
...symbol of the times is blue jeans -- not just blue jeans in good condition but jeans that are frayed, torn, discolored. They don't get that way naturally. No one wants blue jeans that are crisply clean or spanking new. Manufacturers recognize a big market when they see it, and they compete with one another to offer jeans that are made to look as though they've just been discarded by clumsy house painters after ten years of wear. The more faded and seemingly ancient the garment, the higher the cost. Disheveled is in fashion; neatness is obsolete...
That label won't stick on "mainstream" Clinton. Comfortable being whisked off in a limousine in the evening to Antoine's by lobbyists for RJR Nabisco, the quintessential symbol of 1980s corporate greed, he can then preach Democratic values in the morning. Clinton is the perfect front man for an organization that celebrates the work ethic of the common man while relying almost entirely on the Fortune 500 for operating funds. Although Clinton has recovered from his stupefyingly long prime-time address at the 1988 convention, he is still a techno-Democrat, one of a dozen...
...American wines in Japan. The company has uncorked a new line of four California wines to be sold in Japan under a Gone With the Wind label. It hopes to capitalize on Japan's near obsessive love for the 1939 epic, which company official Tsutomu Nakamura describes as "a symbol of American culture and an unforgettable dream of youth...
Even more important than what Gromyko and Yeltsin say is the manner in which they do (or do not) say it. Like the old Soviet state of which he was a symbol, Gromyko is plodding and closed and oppressive. Like the new Soviet state of which he ardently hopes to become a symbol, Yeltsin is explosive and open and at times verging on being out of control. Which makes Yeltsin's book, like the new Soviet state, far more exciting than the old model...