10-26-2015, 09:26 AM
10-27-2015, 04:36 AM
TFA Wrote:Charlie Chaplin said: “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but aJournalism is also a comedy in long-shot.
comedy in long-shot.” I say: Charlie’s got it the wrong way round with
Japan. In close-up, the country is a comical jumble of geeks in love
with their cats, electronic gadgets or inflatable anime pillow
girlfriends. But in long-shot, the place is doomed to extinction. I read
recently that by the year 3000, there will be only 18 Japanese people
left.
Japan is just a weird place. You can do 99% of the stuff you can do in a Western country no problem, right down to watching American TV. Notable exceptions include a complete lack of concealed carry permits and less cheese on the menu. But it's completely modern. It's a society obessessed with tradition, except for the facts that they build lots of robots and tear down and rebuild most single-family dwellings for new occupants. It's a society obsessed with newness, except for the fact that there are 900 year old family businesses and an honest-to-Kamisama emperor. The last Western one of those was the Kaisar-i-Hind, and England hasn't had that since '48.
So, like any society, easy to build a fake narrative around. And especially so, because Japan like America has an belief in in its own exceptionalism.
But remember that meme in the 2000 decade where France was so peaceful that they wanted to surrender to the terrorists, with the "Freedom fries" and all? You know, the home turf of the Hundred Years' War? The place that to this day sends armies into its former African colonies? Or should I instead talk about the science journalism going on today that inflames a pretend debate about anthropocentric climate change, while running alternating headlines about the health benefits/risk of your favorite vice? Anyway, it's not just a problem about Japan, but one of missing insight throughout journalism.
I enjoy watching Japanese media on its own terms. It reminds me that there are different ways to live -- that accomplish nearly the same thing as our culture because like I said, they have 99% of what we have. And they're not afraid to make Americans the bad guys, which is a good reminder. This is the 125th anniversary of the Wounded Knee massacre, after all. We're just as often the good guys in Japanese media, sometimes in the same show, which is a lot more balance than you're going to get here.
-- ∇×V
10-27-2015, 02:24 PM
vorticity Wrote:... Japan is just a weird place. You can do 99% of the stuff you can do in a Western country no problem, right down to watching American TV. Notable exceptions include a complete lack of concealed carry permits and less cheese on the menu. ...So, Japan is like Canada?
(I understand they apologize a lot in Japan, too...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
10-27-2015, 03:13 PM
robkelk Wrote:So, Japan is like Canada?
(I understand they apologize a lot in Japan, too...)
Now I can't help but imagine some kind of alternate history scenario in which the Japanese islands became a bunch of Canadian provinces...
10-27-2015, 05:42 PM
A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
10-27-2015, 06:00 PM
Tennie Wrote:robkelk Wrote:So, Japan is like Canada?
(I understand they apologize a lot in Japan, too...)
Now I can't help but imagine some kind of alternate history scenario in which the Japanese islands became a bunch of Canadian provinces...
"Ranma, prepare to die, eh!"
"Take off, you hoser!"
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
10-27-2015, 06:29 PM
Quote:Tennie wrote:In a twist on that, Charles de Lint's Svaha is set in a future in which China took over the ruins of the U.S. after a big collapse -- and Japan (mainly the Yakuza) took over Canada. Oh, and the Native Americans/First Nations have the highest technology on or off Earth, and propaganda claims that they caused the collapse so they could lord it over us less-advanced peoples....Quote:robkelk wrote:
So, Japan is like Canada?
(I understand they apologize a lot in Japan, too...)
Now I can't help but imagine some kind of alternate history scenario in which the Japanese islands became a bunch of Canadian provinces...
-----
Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
10-28-2015, 01:27 AM
Quote:Ebony wrote:Three Metropolitan areas.
A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
Tokyo may not have been nuked, but the firebombing that was delivered there was arguably just as bad - no radiation, but the damage done was far more comprehensive and complete over a larger area. It was like shoving it in the Emperor's face, saying, "And you think the nukes are bad? This is what we can accomplish with conventional bombs! And there's a lot more where those came from."
10-28-2015, 03:15 AM
Ebony Wrote:A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
Wouldn't post-WWII Germany count as well? It too was ravaged pretty badly, with the added "bonus" of spending much of the latter half of the 20th Century split into two countries (and East Germany apparently took a lot longer to recover than West Germany, due to a variety of factors).
10-28-2015, 07:09 AM
Ebony basically Wrote:A friend is of the opinion that [they are] the first post-apocalypticI think you just described the birth of the Jewish culture in Babylon.
culture on Earth. ... [they] had never experienced true defeat prior,
was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force..., that left two metropolitan areas destroyed ... Shortly after that, core tenets of [their] culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they
were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people ... have had
to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive
in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British
Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. ...
-- ∇×V
10-28-2015, 03:18 PM
Quote:Tennie wrote:A case could be made for it, I suppose, but I don't think the Germans were quite in the same cultural situation that the Japanese were. For example, Hitler was not seen as a semi-divine figure. He was a charismatic and influential leader, to be sure, and the leader of a fascist state, but Hirohito was supposed to be descended from the gods. The requirement that the Emperor publicly announce that he was not divine would be kin to someone conquering the Vatican and forcing the Pope to say that he was not the direct interpreter of God's will, and for the entire Catholic Church to change policy to go along with that statement. Or the Jewish people being forced to state that Israel is not their divinely granted homeland, and the government of the nation formerly known as Israel will be stepping down, to allow the Palestinians to take over. In addition, Germany had been defeated in war previously, and even invaded, specifically by Napoleon. Japan had never been successfully defeated in its own lands, which had also become part of their socio-religious culture, if I remember the concept of kamikaze correctly (i.e., that the gods protected Japan and would destroy invaders with the force of nature).Quote:Ebony wrote:
A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
Wouldn't post-WWII Germany count as well? It too was ravaged pretty badly, with the added "bonus" of spending much of the latter half of the 20th Century split into two countries (and East Germany apparently took a lot longer to recover than West Germany, due to a variety of factors).
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
10-31-2015, 04:04 AM
Quote:Ebony wrote:No, it was already being strangled by sea and hammered from the air by summer of 1945. Had Operation Olympic gone through in 1946, There would had been no Japan. Period. What was happened next was similar to what happened to Germany. The emperor was demoted from demigod to a human being (personally Hirohito should had been tried and hung as well, but that's politics for you). The policies and institutions made by the militarists were scrapped and replaced by policies made by the new Shogun. Douglas MacArthur. The good news is that Japan rose again from the ashes like a phoenix. The bad news is that Japan has never came to terms with what it did before and during WWII.
A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
You can see that in the history books. Japanese do not like to examine how the war came about and what their role is. That's why there is still such a huge reserve of ill will towrd Japan among the nations in the Far East. If the Germans can do, I don't see why Japan can't.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
10-31-2015, 09:56 AM
Quote:ordnance11 wrote:Trouble is that there were too many echoes of the old guard from the bad old days. They quietly kowtowed to us Americans and were basically promoted while behind closed doors they sneered at us and perpetuated their hatred of us - which was made easier by the hard times occupation and reconstruction brought about. They knew better than to bite the hand that was feeding them, though. Fast-forward to present day. Some of the younger generation are unaware of what happened in the past, and some of this minority spout hateful and xenophobic nationalism. Just like what happened nearly a hundred years before.
If the Germans can do, I don't see why Japan can't.
This... worries me.
10-31-2015, 06:19 PM
Quote:Black Aeronaut wrote:You are going to have bigots of every stripe in every country. Even in the U.S. Best we can do is keep an weather eye out and see it doesn't blossom into action against. us.Quote:ordnance11 wrote:Trouble is that there were too many echoes of the old guard from the bad old days. They quietly kowtowed to us Americans and were basically promoted while behind closed doors they sneered at us and perpetuated their hatred of us - which was made easier by the hard times occupation and reconstruction brought about. They knew better than to bite the hand that was feeding them, though. Fast-forward to present day. Some of the younger generation are unaware of what happened in the past, and some of this minority spout hateful and xenophobic nationalism. Just like what happened nearly a hundred years before.
If the Germans can do, I don't see why Japan can't.
This... worries me.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell