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.

Feel free to recommend readings.

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).

my culture only exists on reservations….

some BASTARDS husbands 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?

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..

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…

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.

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!!

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.

This 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.

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.

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?