From: keis@psy.uwa.oz.au (Keis Ohtsuka)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Forgive me for asking, but...
Date: 25 Jan 1993 05:13:04 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: wapsy.psy.uwa.oz.au

eph@ukc.ac.uk (Genki) writes:

>I've been reading soc.culture.japan for about a year and a half
>now, but although my kowledge of Japanese culture has increased
>[this, to my mind, is definitely a good thing], there is one 
>thing that I've always failed to understand...

>Why, with a name like soc.culture.japan, does this newsgroup have
>to be a forum for all manner of racist and prejudiced attacks 
>against one group or another. As far as I can see, it should be
>devoted to discussing Japanese culture, not slanging matches or
>Japan bashing.

>I don't pretend to believe that Japan is perfect - no country can
>be...and all countries have their own problems. However all I'm 
>interested in is *culture* - and I can't see how even 50% of the
>posts could be categorized as "culturally relevant".

Culture is man-made construct that entails physical objects
such as buildings and bridges as well as non-tangible entities
including political institutions, economy, mass media, and values
and attitudes of people. If you exclude anything other than
flower arrangement, Kabuki, and Japanese gardens from "*culture*,"
you are only interested in traditional culture and art form,
which no doubt will give you a certain degree of understanding
of Japanese culture of the past but not necessarily that of today.
Culture is not a static concept. It is changing every day. One
of the most crucial issues that Japanese face today is whether
their culture, or civilization if you may, will be able to
provide universal and global values and visions that are 
meaningful to other people in a ever-shrinking borderless world.
Precisely because of the definition of Japanese culture, just
like any other culture, that is based on a collective hallucination
that their culture is "uniquely" different from others, Japanese
culture suffers from a limited generalizability when Japanese
start to question what they could offer to the global communities.
There is no doubt that Japanese culture is an interesting local
variant in the 20th Century that is known for its excellence in
producing consumer goods and accumulating wealth. But is that 
all there is? The real question people who are interested in
Japanese culture, (and I must emphasize this group of people 
include all people not just Japanese) ought to be asking is 
a historical question: how we would like to remember the
Japanese civilization that peaked in the late-20th to early
21st Century a couple of thousand years down the road.
Would it be a regional civilization that momentarily peaked
and fizzled in 20-21 century?  Would it become a civilization
that shape the world in a meaningful way?  
This BIG question recurrently surfaced as oft-heard
debates between the Revisionists and Anti Japan-bashers.     
The Revisionists believe that the Japanese acceptance of
a different standard of judgment ultimately hinders and
limits universal generalizability and effectiveness of the
Japanese civilization when it assumes a greater role in
a global context.  Anti Japani-bashers argue that the 
use of two different yardstick, one for Western world
another for Japanese, does not necessarily invalidate
Japanese potentials in the future.   

Racial prejudice, international trade disputes, and
possibly promotion of Akebono and Konishiki, all 
controversial issues are interesting for us to
discuss, argue, flame to death as they serve
litmus tests to predict the future course of
Japanese culture.     
 
Keis Ohtsuka