From: dcroz@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Not a Myth at All
Date: 16 Dec 92 14:23:04 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan

Pascal Goguey writes:
 
=}How can a guy who says: "more than 99% of Japanese are racist" be objective?
 
     Come again?  If I said, "More than 99% of fish spend most of their lives
in water," you wouldn't declare me "excessive."  What is there in my statement
that justifies your absolute presumption that it is not objective?  
 
     To answer my own question, your statement is justified only by your
equally absolute assumption that you are right and I am wrong.  I don't see a
great deal of objectivity in that position either, but that's beside the point.
 
It seems to me that the most significant thing that's happening here is your
unequivocal refusal to consider the possibility that racism is endemic to the
Japanese culture and volksgeist.
 
=}you do and think what you want.
 
     Wouldn't it be nice if that were true?  More often, I do what I must and I
think what the facts will allow me to think.  It is increasingly rare that
either of these things correspond to "what (I) want."
 
=}But your reactions to the Japanese's behaviour seem to be disproportioned to
=}their cause.
 
     Them's some pretty radical assumptions behind that apparent fairness,
podnuh.  
 
      Firstly, you're assuming that you have some idea what my
      experiences have been, which is most likely based on the
      presumption that mine have been similar to yours.  
 
      Secondly, you're presuming that your perceptions and analyses
      are more accurate than mine, so the things that I see and you 
      don't are just signs that I'm "paranoiac."
 
     I wonder how you square your presumption of superior objectivity with your
tendency to make such assumptions.
 
=}So, ALL the Japanese you met had that kind of belief? I doubt.
 
     On what grounds do you doubt?  On the grounds that you have not perceived
it?  How good is your Japanese?  How determined are you that this should not
exist?  How much have you explained away?  Have you considered the possibility
that you don't perceive it for the same reason that "love is blind?"  Are you a
"kao ga hiroi" dude, or have you been living in a company's tame g**j*n
isolation bubble?  What is the capital of Abyssinia?
 
=}At least not more than in any other country.
 
     I can prove to an impartial jury that it is a *lot* more than in the U.S.
or the Philippines.  I don't know about France.
 
=}There are a lot of people in France who believe that tha French culture is
=}the best of the world, that the French language is the richest language in
=}the world, that the French lovers are the best of the world, the french
=}cooking, etc, etc...
 
     And are there a lot of people in France who believe that they belong to a
separate "race" which, for metaphysical reasons having to do with special
creation, is superior to all other races?  Including but not limited to the
Swiss, the Germans, the Belgians, and of course the awful Americans?  
 
     I think we're talking about two different things.  A distinction needs to
be made between a preference for a given cuisine and racism.
 
=}It is like that in any country.
 
     Err, sorry. . .no, it's not.
 
=}Concerning all the rest, there is no objective truth.
 
     Zow, what a sweeping proclamation.  These four things can be known,
*everything else* is relative.  Whew.
 
     I don't think you've adequately supported that position with your
examples.  Sure there are tough questions and gray areas, but that hardly
supports your panoramic relegation of every other question to the shadow realm
of situational ethics.
 
=}the truth depends on the place.  The truth depends on time as well: Take the
=}first example : there was a capital punishment in France until 1981 (if I
=}recall exactly) Can you believe that?
 
     Well, I don't know if I can believe it.  Is this one of those "truths"
that are dependent on time and place?  It's not one of the four absolutes you
named, so it seems I should be able just to declare it false if that pleases
me.
 
=}I think that one does not make so much presents to a person if one does not
=}really estimate that person.
 
     Sorry, but I think you're wrong about that.  In some cultures, which shall
remain nameless to protect the guilty, gift-giving and placing one's self in
the "benefactor" or "mentor" position are mechanisms for asserting dominance or
superiority.  Try to pay the check yourself sometime and see what happens.
 
=}For these two examples, I have good reasons to think that it's more than a
=}friendly tatemae.
 
     Okay.  I'd like to hear them, if they're not too personal.
 
=}By the way, do you have any reason to write g**j*n and n**g*r?
 
     Some people find this kind of language offensive, and you can mitigate the
unpleasantness somewhat in this way.
 
 *I wonder sometimes why some people have such a bad time, while others
 *don't.  Are some people just more sensitive and easily perturbed, or
 
=}Some are paranoiac and some other aren't! (I may get a couple of flames).
 
     It would hardly be surprising if such a 
 
      [[[At this point in writing this note I took my lunch break.  I
      generally go to a little French restaurant rather early, 11:30, and
      sit in the back room.  With luck, I'm finished before the front
      room fills up and other customers overflow into the back room. 
      Today I was a little late and the restaurant was a little crowded. 
      I left before my coffee because each of the three groups of
      Japanese sitting near me was making hard-core, make-a-nazi-look-
      like-M.L.King racist remarks in voices too loud to ignore.  Tell me
      some more about "paranoiac," Mr. Goguey.]]]
 
     Now where was I?  Oh, yes.  It would hardly be surprising if such an
insulting and absolutist denigration of others' arguments and mental health
produced an angry retort.  A less temperate fellow might come back with:
 
      Some people *don't* see the racism because they are: 
 
(pick as many as you like)
 
      iggernunt newbies.
      thick as a plank.
      only semi-conscious.
      a couple of pickles shy of a jar.
      in denial.
      quasi-sentient at best.
      cortically challenged.
      logic-impaired (or, to use the PC term, victims of "logocentrism").
      a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
      on the payroll.
      synaptically disadvantaged.
 
etc., etc.
 
     I, of course, being a paragon of virtue, a shining beacon of moderation,
and the very archetype of modesty itself, would never dream of stooping to such
calumny.  But it wouldn't be surprising if somebody did.
 
=}If you want ABSOLUTELY to find something bad in the behaviour the Japanese
=}have towards you, you can ALWAYS find it.
 
     You seem to be overlooking or denying that virtually all (everybody I know
or have heard of, anyway) of the people whose opinions resemble mine *started
out* every bit as giddily pro-Japanese as you.  I don't know of anybody who
arrived at this position because he *wanted* to, or anybody who likes it.
 
 *bad treatment, and thereby invite it, or do they act in racist-type
 *manners towards the Japanese, and so get racistized in return?  Or is
 
=}That's possible. I don't have any concrete example, but I wouldn't be
=}surprised if so.
 
     Sure it's possible.  It's also possible that the Japanese go to a lot of
trouble to insulate certain categories of tame g**j*n from these realities, and
that if you allow this, you can remain oblivious.  It's also possible that some
people are geniuses in certain areas, and in others are about as sharp as a
sack full of wet mice.
 
     The thing Americans tend to overlook with regard to the whole tatemae
issue is that the Japanese are f*cking **_good_** at it.  Americans seem to
assume that they will somehow recognize or see through it if confronted with
it, which is about as likely as the Japanese Olympic basketball team defeating
the American pro "Dream Team."  Then, because they didn't see it, they decide
it wasn't there.
 
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