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Careful, are you saying that Japanese-ness is genetic or cultural?
by guhidalg 3y ago
Careful, are you saying that Japanese-ness is genetic or cultural?
- Bran_son 3y agoIt's both, and it boggles my mind how so many can (claim to) be so deluded as to say it's entirely the latter. Notably, their culture has changed dramatically over the last ~300 years (as it has for most nations), yet one wouldn't claim they are no longer Japanese on that basis. And the Japanese themselves consider Japanese-ness genetic, so who are you to tell them otherwise?
- guhidalg 3y agoI am a human being who can tell them they’re really bigoted for linking genetics with Japanese-ness. That line of thinking isn’t new at all, and it’s responsible for tragedies like miscegenation laws, eugenics, genocides, slavery, and (clearly) the demise of the native Japanese population for fear of immigration. Of course people can believe that there’s a genetic component to Japanese-ness, and they are free to become extinct as a result.
- flippinburgers 3y ago[flagged]
- slaw 3y agoTo be Japanese you have to look like Japanese and talk like Japanese. You need both genes and culture. If you are Japanese descendant born in US you are American. If you are not Japanese American born and raised in Japan you are not Japanese.
- guhidalg 3y agoThen immigration is not going to prevent Japan from a population collapse, I suppose to you that’s a reasonable end to the Japanese people.
- slaw 3y agoImmigration is not going to prevent Japanese people from population collapse, but it can prevent Japan as a country. These two are not synonyms. Some other nations can live in Japan. There are minorities of Koreans and Chinese living in Japan now
- glandium 3y agoException: if you're good at sports, you're Japanese, even if you barely speak a word. See Osaka Naomi and Lars Nootbaar.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wsgeorge 3y agoIn spite of the problems this has caused, contemporary society will eventually have to accept the place genetics and tradition has in forming ethnic identities, if it intends to ever value distinct ethnicities.
- Bran_son 3y ago[flagged]
- guhidalg 3y ago[flagged]
- flippinburgers 3y ago[flagged]
- ChainOfFools 3y agoI'm actually rather puzzled by what the dogmatic proponents of a multicultural population expect to be the end result, if not an inevitable convergence towards some bland, undifferentiated or trivially differentiated mean. If this were to happen worldwide, and geography thankfully makes that likely impossible, I'm not sure that an entire planet blanketed with a single mass media driven culture, with the inevitable extinction of hundreds of long cultural tails ( like endangered or near endangered languages today) answers the problems that proponents of unrestricted multiculturalism seem to be profess concern about. For there to be cultural variation at all, "original" or "native" sources of variation to provide inputs for the "multi" have to be preserved somehow. And it can't just be the cultural equivalent of farmers markets, reservations set up part time on half a city block, on land that 50 years prior was not city, but hundreds of acres of actual farmland and farmers tending it.
- guhidalg 3y ago> If this were to happen worldwide, and geography thankfully makes that likely impossible That's why this is not going to become a real issue. It's always a fake issue that nationalist can draw on to get people agitated. Even in the most multi-cultural places in the world, people will self-segregate to be with those that look and think like them. We simply shouldn't ostracize or shame the small minority that branch out of their genetic in-group.
- clove 3y agolol @ "careful," as if it's dangerous to disagree with you. I live in Japan, btw, and the people here in general don't consider immigrants to be Japanese, no matter how well said immigrants speak Japanese or contribute to society. If you asked a Japanese person, and that person gave you a "honne" answer, he or she would most likely say "genetic." I guess the Japanese should be "careful," lest they draw your ire.
- guhidalg 3y agoI don’t care whether Japanese people agree or disagree with me, but if people in the US believe that genetics are important to nationality then there’s a problem. And yes HN is mostly a US forum.
- flippinburgers 3y agoSounds like a threat! Hahahhaa.