4 ms·

Culture is merely people and ideas. Good ideas should be preserved and remixed. Bad ideas should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Promoting bullying and

by isykt 3y ago

Culture is merely people and ideas. Good ideas should be preserved and remixed. Bad ideas should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Promoting bullying and exclusion —- part and parcel to indigenous Japanese society — is a bad idea that should be relegated.

zpeti 3y ago
If someone has good ideas, as you say good culture, shouldn’t they have the right to exclude people with bad ideas? Do you as, for example an LGBTQ culture person not have the right to exclude a Nazi? By your definitions they don’t because exclusion = bad
- isykt 3y ago
  When I say bullying and exclusion, I’m speaking specifically about the practice as it exists in Japanese society. This practice has produced an entire lost generation called “Hikkikomori,” Japanese people who were excluded from Japanese society so completely that they don’t even leave their homes. Some of them are entirely dependent on their aging parents for their subsistence, including shelter and food. That says nothing of gay people, whose presence is tolerated at best. When it comes to foreigners, they are welcomed as tourists and guest workers, but there will always be places and aspects of society that they will never be welcome in. This is exclusion for no other reason than xenophobia. Even a person who learns the language, practices the customs, pays taxes and follows the laws will not be accepted in Japan. What you’re hitting at in your response is “The paradox of tolerance.” To arrive at the paradox of tolerance, a society has to have a sufficient level of tolerance. Japan simply doesn’t. When I say this is “bad,” I mean this is in two ways. First, it violates my principles of tolerance for good faith actors — a set of values shared broadly in the west, to varying degrees and with a lot of asterisks. Secondly, it’s bad for Japan. In a situation where your demographics are decades into terminal decline, the ability to integrate foreigners is the only option to continue to being a going concern. The breakdown of their society without foreign integration will be catastrophic.
coldtea 3y ago
It's their country. You don't get to feel "bullied" for them not wanting foreigners there. Would you feel "bullied" if an Amazon native population wants to keep their ways, and doesn't welcome you or anybody else coming over and wanting to join them? Are people you don't know demanding to stay at your house "bullied" and "excluded" when you don't just let them in? What if they're "good people"? Should they just get a room then? What if you have a couple of extra rooms you don't use?
- claudiawerner 3y ago
  >It's their country. You don't get to feel "bullied" for them not wanting foreigners there. Why shouldn't I? You don't get to dictate how I "get" to feel. The very idea of racism and xenophobia is fundamentally offensive to me. As with the Amazon native population, I would not approve if they didn't let me in by virtue of some immutable attribute of mine such as my appearance. So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more. I'm not aware of any moral theory that has been justified in academia or elsewhere which prescribes that such discrimination is permissible. This also is evidenced by the fact that many Japanese people claim to abhor racism while simultaneously practicing it against sections of their own population and other populations.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Maybe you should ask the Native American tribes who died of smallpox what “scientific” basis there is for being afraid of foreigners? I know you are going to say that’s not the case in the modern world, but you need to at least understand there are very concrete reasons why xenophobia evolved, and why it’s a natural reaction. Some might not be relevant in the modern world, but I’d argue there’s a lot of complexity that we might not understand. For example, there are some extremely intolerant immigrants to Europe right now, 100% of whom in London polled as wanting homosexuality criminalised. Should everyone be 100% accepting of this because they are foreigners? Is xenophobia justified in this case in your opinion?
Akronymus 3y ago
So, we should mass migrate to african countries and get rid of the parts of their culture we dislike? From my understanding, that is essentially what you are advocating, just with a different landmass. To me, it seems incredibly colonialist.
- isykt 3y ago
  UNICEF has initiatives in Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Sudan and Tanzania to end open defecation. High levels of open defecation are linked to high child mortality, poor nutrition, poverty, and large disparities between rich and poor. Is this colonialism? It’s certainly a cultural change. The mixing of people and ideas through trade and migration has resulted in the fastest decline in mortality and poverty in human history. Cultures open to new ideas have benefitted the most.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >Is this colonialism? Foreign/multinational organizations coming to dictate to the "natives" even how to deficate, for "their own good"? Sounds like it. Colonialism is not just about "bad intentions". There were colonialists with "good intentions" too. They also thought they were doing "god's work", building railroads, teaching the brute natives how to live, and so on. The "white man's burden" they called it. In the case of Japan, Americans threatened and even bombed them (in the 19th century) to teach them how they should live: to force them open their borders to western trade. The same entitlement apparently never stopped.
anigbrowl 3y ago
This seems like a very disconnected way to view things. There are unpleasant aspects of Japanese society, but it's not obvious you can just remove those while keeping the positive aspects. The US is indeed more dynamic, but as has often been pointed out, that's partly due to coming into existence with a continent's worth of very lightly defended resources only a few hundred years ago. If you win a huge lottery jackpot you will probably enjoy a very comfortable life afterwards, but it doesn't mean you became brilliant at economics.

by isykt 3y ago

zpeti 3y ago

If someone has good ideas, as you say good culture, shouldn’t they have the right to exclude people with bad ideas? Do you as, for example an LGBTQ culture person not have the right to exclude a Nazi? By your definitions they don’t because exclusion = bad

isykt 3y ago
When I say bullying and exclusion, I’m speaking specifically about the practice as it exists in Japanese society. This practice has produced an entire lost generation called “Hikkikomori,” Japanese people who were excluded from Japanese society so completely that they don’t even leave their homes. Some of them are entirely dependent on their aging parents for their subsistence, including shelter and food. That says nothing of gay people, whose presence is tolerated at best. When it comes to foreigners, they are welcomed as tourists and guest workers, but there will always be places and aspects of society that they will never be welcome in. This is exclusion for no other reason than xenophobia. Even a person who learns the language, practices the customs, pays taxes and follows the laws will not be accepted in Japan. What you’re hitting at in your response is “The paradox of tolerance.” To arrive at the paradox of tolerance, a society has to have a sufficient level of tolerance. Japan simply doesn’t. When I say this is “bad,” I mean this is in two ways. First, it violates my principles of tolerance for good faith actors — a set of values shared broadly in the west, to varying degrees and with a lot of asterisks. Secondly, it’s bad for Japan. In a situation where your demographics are decades into terminal decline, the ability to integrate foreigners is the only option to continue to being a going concern. The breakdown of their society without foreign integration will be catastrophic.

coldtea 3y ago

It's their country. You don't get to feel "bullied" for them not wanting foreigners there. Would you feel "bullied" if an Amazon native population wants to keep their ways, and doesn't welcome you or anybody else coming over and wanting to join them? Are people you don't know demanding to stay at your house "bullied" and "excluded" when you don't just let them in? What if they're "good people"? Should they just get a room then? What if you have a couple of extra rooms you don't use?

claudiawerner 3y ago
>It's their country. You don't get to feel "bullied" for them not wanting foreigners there. Why shouldn't I? You don't get to dictate how I "get" to feel. The very idea of racism and xenophobia is fundamentally offensive to me. As with the Amazon native population, I would not approve if they didn't let me in by virtue of some immutable attribute of mine such as my appearance. So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more. I'm not aware of any moral theory that has been justified in academia or elsewhere which prescribes that such discrimination is permissible. This also is evidenced by the fact that many Japanese people claim to abhor racism while simultaneously practicing it against sections of their own population and other populations.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Maybe you should ask the Native American tribes who died of smallpox what “scientific” basis there is for being afraid of foreigners? I know you are going to say that’s not the case in the modern world, but you need to at least understand there are very concrete reasons why xenophobia evolved, and why it’s a natural reaction. Some might not be relevant in the modern world, but I’d argue there’s a lot of complexity that we might not understand. For example, there are some extremely intolerant immigrants to Europe right now, 100% of whom in London polled as wanting homosexuality criminalised. Should everyone be 100% accepting of this because they are foreigners? Is xenophobia justified in this case in your opinion?

Akronymus 3y ago

So, we should mass migrate to african countries and get rid of the parts of their culture we dislike? From my understanding, that is essentially what you are advocating, just with a different landmass. To me, it seems incredibly colonialist.

isykt 3y ago
UNICEF has initiatives in Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Sudan and Tanzania to end open defecation. High levels of open defecation are linked to high child mortality, poor nutrition, poverty, and large disparities between rich and poor. Is this colonialism? It’s certainly a cultural change. The mixing of people and ideas through trade and migration has resulted in the fastest decline in mortality and poverty in human history. Cultures open to new ideas have benefitted the most.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Is this colonialism? Foreign/multinational organizations coming to dictate to the "natives" even how to deficate, for "their own good"? Sounds like it. Colonialism is not just about "bad intentions". There were colonialists with "good intentions" too. They also thought they were doing "god's work", building railroads, teaching the brute natives how to live, and so on. The "white man's burden" they called it. In the case of Japan, Americans threatened and even bombed them (in the 19th century) to teach them how they should live: to force them open their borders to western trade. The same entitlement apparently never stopped.

anigbrowl 3y ago

This seems like a very disconnected way to view things. There are unpleasant aspects of Japanese society, but it's not obvious you can just remove those while keeping the positive aspects. The US is indeed more dynamic, but as has often been pointed out, that's partly due to coming into existence with a continent's worth of very lightly defended resources only a few hundred years ago. If you win a huge lottery jackpot you will probably enjoy a very comfortable life afterwards, but it doesn't mean you became brilliant at economics.