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I wonder how western cities compare in this regard to cities in Japan in where animism/shintoism is pretty prevalent still
by ptah 7y ago
I wonder how western cities compare in this regard to cities in Japan in where animism/shintoism is pretty prevalent still
- mc32 7y agoUsually creeks and steams are very well managed by concretizing the riverbed. Japan is in love with concrete and with controlling river flow and coastlines. Basically if it’s in a city, it gets paved over! There's a duality there. The other side of that coin is they started the whole forest bathing movement. I’m reminded by Zizek that outsiders to a culture are apt to romanticize things they don’t know. His go to quip is how an American Indian (native/First Nations person) frustrates and indignant at this romanticizing bursted out saying “we killed more buffaloes than any settlers ever did”. The point being most humans have the same drive and desires, in this case to control nature and unpredictability.
- seiferteric 7y ago> “we killed more buffaloes than any settlers ever did” Is he saying in total over thousands of years that they hunted them? Or in the time that guns were introduced to Native Americans? If the later, that is pretty surprising and I had never heard that if true.
- mc32 7y agoIt’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s a way to give oneself agency. “We are also just regular people like you; we can do good, and we can do bad. We’re not to be romanticized and looked at as weird noble people, something no one can actually be.”
- ptah 7y agoyes, the noble savage idea if from rosseau
- astazangasta 7y agoZizek is too in love with that sort of thing; I think he just enjoys the shock value of embracing soft bigotry to scandalize his Left audiences.
- ptah 7y agohe is just using a joke to refute rousseau's noble savage idea. nothing new, just a new way of doing it