[Post by Lelangir]
THE PINNACLE OF RELEVANCE!
In part of a post, omo brings up a very interesting thing that really tickles my balls.
I’ll just bulk quote:
To paraphrase in my own words, it went like the Japanese Akiba-kei types are too socially and politically conservative given their underground status and social, emotional and financial needs in a post 9/11 world (don’t ask me how he worked that in); the American “douchbags” need to stop looking at trends and start to look at the uniqueness of each individual artists and what called them to draw the things they do; it’s not about what anime is like, but about what it means on an individual level, a trans-locational postmodern perspective that has nothing to do with it being from Japan but everything being what it really is as is.
When dealing with “trans-locational postmodernity”, you could say that cultural hegemony instills within people a “false sense of identity” – I like teh animu ’cause it’s from Japan only ’cause Japan stuff is Japanese, but wait, isn’t that circular logic with no explanatory powah? oic – but does that mean it’s any less “real” than subcultures whose basis is found in objects with great explanatory power and substance (i.e. dead poet societies, or sumfin)? Nope.
Locations, those geo-political, discursive, constructed entities do have cultural value aside from the lack of their explanatory power. I think we really can say “I like teh anime ’cause it’s from Japan ’cause it’s Japanese…’cause it’s from Japan.” Why? – just because the heart of a subculture or group is situated upon paradoxical, conflicting meaning systems doesn’t mean it’s in any way “false”, yet more importantly, it doesn’t mean that the relationship between cultures is a hierarchical one; hence a culture, even if it makes little logical sense on its own, and even if it trivializes another culture in the eyes of the very constituents of said culture, is still equal to that culture it objectifies. A while ago, Durkheim did basically said that “all cultures are equal”.1
As Ueno-sensei has said, weeaboo culture utilizes anime on a “superficial” level, a level that has everything to do with the socially constructed representations of anime and not the historical trajectories of yourself. But this is partly a contradiction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Ueno-sensei establishes a subtle causality between superficiality and a lack of individualism – apparently, a culture of superficiality results in a culture of collectivity (as opposed to individuality). But this is not so because every person is intrinsically a psychologically developing person that creates novel meanings every moment of their life (Valsiner; 2005); “superficiality” is one plausible source of individualism, no matter how cookie-cutter and conformed this individuality may appear to be because we cannot measure psychologically-specific individuality at the level of sociological generalities: inasmuch as the idea of being superficial (i.e. not a critical anime viewer) constitutes the dominant ideology in the subculture of weeaboos, gaining admission into the hegemony of the dominant group within the subculture by way of being superficial is an individual act that is nonetheless rooted in the psychological and historical development of a person. Maybe conforming is a way to escape harsher realities, nevertheless it is a psychologically individualistic process. This is one reason why I like getting my weeaboo-fu on: it creates solidarity and I enjoy solidarity (at least spewing random shit on twitter all the time) because it contributes to the complex definition of “myself”.
Superficiality as an ideology used to catalyze individuality is no less a cultural phenomenon than viewing superficiality as an ideology used to inhibit individuality. Both are paradigms simply for viewing society – and often these ways of interpretation are rooted within cultures themselves. So it’s very true that one culture may use postmodernism, another modernism, another _____ism, but, as we said before, the relationship between these modes of interpretation is still equal.
No doubt Ueno-sensei’s discourse is primarily an ethical one because it is theory thoroughly rooted in the agenda of ideologies and social institutions. Duh, he’s Japanese, he wants the best for his people. There are probably historical reasons for this, as there are historical reasons why a lot of left-leaning Americans hate their own country – well, there are always reasons “to hate” your own nation… At least in my own ethical concerns, political consciousness is very important, so I just want to explicate more thoroughly more facets of this giant puzzle.
notes
1. Ok, so he used the term “religion” in place of “collectivity” – because he was a French academic i.e. terrible writer – but the way he’s been manhandled through the 20th century has turned collectivity and solidarity (which are based on specific “moral sentiments”) into the cultural-semiotic systems underpinning how solidarity is built.
Pontifus
kaiserpingvin
cuchlann
Shance
TheKittymeister
r042
ghostlightning
/ 13 March 2009This statement… challenges me. I’ve been thinking a lot on the meaning of the ‘Filipino’ as a nationality and/or ethnicity, and culturally.
I’m so tempted to declare them all unilaterally false because of the circumstances of their formation.
Ethnically, there are so many sub-ethnicities in the Philippines – from aborigines to various mestizo mixtures. This is complicated by the sheer number of languages (70+ excluding their respective dialects). It is quite possible for me to ride a train and not understand what anyone is talking about (the ff languages may be spoken by groups in the train: Ilocano, Kapampangan, Ilonggo, Cebuano, and Bicolano – and nobody’d understand what the other groups are saying).
We are unified, basically by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi who claimed the whole archipelago in the name of Philip II (of Spain). Many of ‘us’ didn’t even talk to the people in the other islands, but we were suddenly ‘Filipinos’ (actually, ‘indios’ because non-african savages were usually called Indians). 300 years later Spain sells us to the Yanks, and 40 years later the Japs take over, but only for a while.
American colonialism is still the dominant one because they actually took the initiative to educate us when the Spaniards were quite happy to keep us illiterate.
The educated class understand each other because they speak english. Our nation functions because of the use of english. Not that everybody speaks english, only the educated elite – and somehow the barely educated expatriates serving the world as meido.
We call each other Filipino, out of habit, out of education – but I really doubt that there is a unifying cultural thread that holds us together.
Our culture exists on a superficial level – if in terms of trying to find a unifying thread; there’s so much plurality in it that makes it difficult (at least for me ) to claim.
I don’t know if the average Japanese can easily ‘claim’ the tea ceremony, or Shinto practices (I do know that they’re not a nation of otaku). But I certainly don’t feel confident in claiming ‘tinikling’ (a bamboo dance) or ‘zarsuela’ (a drama/musical form) as my own. I hardly consume or experience these cultural products (aside from the exposure through education) – even though I am taught to relate to these as my heritage.
So I’m not really sure what the social construction of the ‘Filipino’ is even to ourselves. I do feel our historical trajectory establishes very little unifying sensibility. Am I just to appreciate the plurality and just claim everything? I really don’t know.
Perhaps it doesn’t help that I consume and participate mostly in what I feel is American otaku culture. But I don’t feel like claiming that either. Would I want to stake a ‘location’ for myself anyway?
lelangir
/ 13 March 2009GUHHHH SO COMPLICATED. Will perhaps write a more thorough follow-up post at some time…
animekritik
/ 13 March 2009@lelangir
Very briefly, to say that all cultures are equal might be as inadequate as setting up a hierarchy for them. Equality, hierarchy imply measurement, Cultures cannot be measured. Also, Mr. Durkheim was Jewish, from a very observant Jewish family actually, and as you know “equality” is almost the core concept of modern Jewish intellectual thought, so there’s some prejudice there. That said, I agree with pretty much everything you say!
@ghost
If you study history long enough, you will see all of your beliefs crumble before your very eyes! Everything they taught you at school is lies. This doesn’t mean that teachers are deliberately trying to hurt you, it’s simply that they’re feeding you the necessary data to deal with society etc. That data is what you called “constructions”. Ideally, you’ll be able to see through them, smile and carry on. In any case, there’s one thing all Filipinos can agree on (I think), and that is the awesomeness of Manny Pacquiao!!
lelangir
/ 13 March 2009actually, you bring up a very pertinent issue I’ve been dealing with – “equality” is a social construction, basically the theoretical notion of “equality” is an academic privilege. People that aren’t situated in academic discourse may not be “aware” of these theoretical notions of equality, so for those people, cultures simply aren’t equal, and due to what I just said, their position of inequality is still valid; ergo cultures are NOT equal, It’s tricky :(
I knew Durkheim was a Jew (not too knowledgeable of modern Jewish thought though), and Marx was an anti-Semite, so there’s probably some relevance in that ;)
But cultures can be measured, just not in this “ethical” sense of good/bad. Does France eat more beef than California? Take a population n=10,000,000, take a sample based on socioeconomic data, measure, theorize, read on the cultural differences leading to beef production, etc. The point of such a study would be to determine why there are different cultures of beef production inasmuch as your sampling is objective and representative of your given populations. This is true, you can do that.
animekritik
/ 13 March 2009Yes, agreed. I try to explain this to people when the subject of better and worse countries and nationalities come up. I ask them, better or worse for what? If you want mid and long-distance runners, Kenya and Ethiopia are simply the best, they’re SUPERIOR as far as that goes. I’ve heard that Japanese sports committees have spent lots of yen building “environments” which simulate conditions in Kenya, even feeding its athletes Kenyan food and drink, but they still get destroyed in competition. But when it comes to anime, Japan kicks ass.
On Jewish intellectuals, Marx was an anti-Semite, no doubt about it, but the main thrust of his position is precisely that people are equal, that there is no natural basis for hierarchies, that it’s all about raw exploitation. I think he was an anti-Semite because he hated capitalists and of course many Jews were capitalists..
ghostlightning
/ 13 March 2009Lol he’s pretty awesome yeah. I’m not well-read on the philosophy of history and I end up applying textual criticall methods to historical writings.
Feel free to recommend readings.
omo
/ 13 March 2009Well, before you take it too far,
1. Douchbags do tickle your balls when used correctly…?
2. I paraphrased what Ueno said in my own words, but I probably didn’t do his speech full justice. I certainly can’t vouch for what you think what he said based on what I said :)
3. I don’t think “superficiality” was actually used in his talk, but at some point he does address this; just not so much in the sense perhaps you are using. But in artistic criticism, we could criticize a movement or a style, but that’s just that. When we evaluate individual works, we have to put that in an individualized context of the artist. One example that came up was the origin of the “big eyes small mouth” trait, and one of the slides at the talk showed an ukiyoe art that predates Walt Disney which had large eyes. So it makes you wonder–why? Maybe it’s just an individual artistic choice. The anime/manga “genre” is so diverse, that there is a lot more than just your Murakami-brand Superflat out there.
4. So it’s got nothing about “individualistic” in the sense as you write. I don’t know if I agree or disagree besides that, sure, even a discoursed based on terms forged via cultural hegemony can be fruitful. But at some point we have to move beyond that in order to really dig into the substantive criticism of an art genre as broad as the one inspired by modern visual japanese culture.
lelangir
/ 13 March 2009Hm so you’re saying Ueno-sensei used “individualistic” in the sense of the artist vis-a-vis “the genre”, i.e. big eyes before there was an ideology that territorialized big eyes, I see.
But I still think that’s very relevant to what I’ve said – doujin circles. One man draws in the style of, say, Haruka Tanabe (fictive), he does so because mimicking both the style and the meaningful substance of her works (Super ~PRetty~ doki doki Natsu Yasumi is his favorite work) allows him to express himself, to manifest his individuality in a material product that others can see, he invests his self in his work. Of course, Haruka Tanabe draws in a style deemed ULTRA MOE by industry standards – yet our one man does not mind, in fact he relishes this classification because it grants him socioeconomic access to a group. So is it ULTRA MOE drawing, or the specific, personal meanings of each individual work? Both, probably. pieces of art probably have a lot of personal meaning attached to them (in part) precisely because they’re conformist and status quo. This “individual artist choice” Ueno-sensei (or you?) speaks of is just as rooted in everything I’ve delineated as an “individual consumer choice”.
But I’ve probably breached #2 by now…
Ryan A
/ 13 March 2009BUY AMERICAN….
my culture only exists on reservations….
some
BASTARDShusbands don’t allow their wives to speak their native tounge…I will agree that cultures are equal, but this doesn’t sway the facts of affinity. If we take that away, regardless of culture structure, what then of the individual?
Cuchlann
/ 13 March 2009I may be completely bastardizing what omo said, which lelangir is quoting, but it seems to me that statement could actually be pointed, not towards devaluing a culture (so much), but instead toward highlighting the lack of critical apparatus? Liking something “because it’s Japanese” leaves the door wide open, and in fact is probably not actually true — the person who claims to like that probably won’t like every anime ever made, or enka music, or the Hanshin Tigers (They found the colonel! Woo!), or doujinshi that slashes the characters in Naruto they think hate each other.
There’s another thing in their decision-making process, some sort of critical apparatus, and *that* bears discussion and propagation, while “because something’s Japanese” can be just fine on an individual level, sure, but is pretty much useless for having conversations and discourse of any type (if one is within that belief system — obviously we’re having discourse on it now, but using it as a chit in our discussion, rather than working from within it as a cultural assumption).
Ubiquitial
/ 13 March 2009of course its not true…. no one is that naive.
omo
/ 13 March 2009Well, there’s some of that, I’m sure we all see it some time.
Also, however, a lot of the time people do get hung up on the stuff lelangir mentioned–how location matters at all. It’s a valid inquiry but one that we can move on from. There’s a lot more to explore.