Haruki Murakami, writing in The Incredible Wind-up Bird Chronicle:

... The father was convinced that the only way to live a full life in Japanese society was to earn the highest possible marks and to shove aside anyone and everyone standing in your path to the top. He believed this with absolute conviction.

... All men are not created equal, he said. That was just some righteous-sounding nonsense they taught you in school. Japan might have the political structure of a deomocratic nation, but it was at the same time a fiercly carnivorous society of class in which the weak were devoured by the strong, and you unless you became one of the elite, there was no point in living in this country. You'd just be ground to dust in the millstones. You had to fight your way up every rung of the ladder. This kind of ambition was entirely healthy. If people lost that ambition, Japan would perish. In response to my father-in-law's view, I offered no opinion. He was not looking for my opionion. He had merely been spouting his belief, a conviction that would remain unchanged for all eternity.