umetani666 Wrote:of course there's satire in japan. in fact, one of the most notorious and extreme examples of satire in literature is from japan - yapoo the human cattle by shozo numa.

CureDolly Wrote:I am probably alone here, but one of the things I like about Japan is the relative absence of the current cynical, nagging, constantly-critical culture of Western countries.

I sincerely hope "biting satire" never becomes a thing in Japan.

CureDolly Wrote:I know harmony is not much of a valued thing in the West. I suppose that is a lot of the reason I am not very interested in Western popular culture as a whole.

cophnia6 Wrote:I wonder how they would perceive a foreigner which criticizes those aspect of japanese society.

jimeux Wrote:

CureDolly Wrote:I know harmony is not much of a valued thing in the West. I suppose that is a lot of the reason I am not very interested in Western popular culture as a whole.

I think a healthy level of cynicism comes from a healthy level of critical thinking. Even if you can keep laughing at never-ending rehashes of Laurel and Hardy (Japanese humour), never criticising things that are clearly problematic is as good as putting your head in the sand. Making jokes out of those things we have little immediate control over, like politics and social inequalities, at least helps maintain sanity. If you're wondering why more people seem to be becoming overly cynical, then you only need to read the news every day.

CureDolly Wrote:Hee hee. Well I kind of expected to be in a minority of one on an English-speaking forum.

It is interesting how the views of most English speakers (and possibly Westerners in general) on subjects like this don't vary much.

This isn't a criticism at all. People think how they think. Though the general tenor of a thread like this seems to be "we all think the same, so why don't Japanese people 'see it' and think the way we do?"

cophnia61 Wrote:What makes me sad is not as much the fact that things are like this, but the fact that japanese people seems to accept this passively and I wonder how they would perceive a foreigner which criticizes those aspect of japanese society.

Bokusenou Wrote:

umetani666 Wrote:of course there's satire in japan. in fact, one of the most notorious and extreme examples of satire in literature is from japan - yapoo the human cattle by shozo numa.

Just looked up Yapoo:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/equus/numa_manimal_01.htm
What the heck? That's...something else alright.

CureDolly Wrote:I apologize if I said more than I should have.

cophnia61 Wrote:

CureDolly Wrote:I apologize if I said more than I should have.

I don't this is harmony... I love armony, I love many aspects of japanese culture like respect, education and so on... but harmony is about equilibrium, for harmony to be true there must be a balance between the parts... this balance is synonimoum of justice, like it is represented by the libra. If there is not balance then there is not harmony but hipocrisy.
It's the same harmony you perceive in countries where women count nothing. Obviously there is harmony, no gelousy, no cheatings and so on... men live in harmony while women are segregated at home.
I see the same thing here in Italy now that girls can do what they want just as men do. Obviously on the past there was a stronger perceived harmony because women were close in house to do house things while mdn were all relaxed outside cheating with other women.
So I think harmony is good and important but there must be equilibrium or there will be injustice.
To accuse satire to break harmony is like if at time of slavery we said to afroamerican "shut up with your complains, you are breaking harmony".

Without critics of power we would be still like 1000 years ago... and unless japan has reached a sort of social perfection there is need for this critical voices... be they satire, journalism or other form of critical analysis of reality...

visualsense Wrote:One of the reasons you don't see so much political satire is that Japanese political dialogue takes place a lot through newspapers, books and magazines, that is, through writing.

For example, magazines do long interviews with celebrities, in those you see them talking about politics or criticizing media(some clueless, some surprisingly knowledgeable) much like you see in US.

Japanese read a lot, they are not as uninformed as their TV makes is it look.

The comedy you see in TV in Japan is a thousandth of what actually takes place, they have a lot of theater events and such, not to mention Internet, there is much more variety outside TV. (Much like Japanese may not be aware of the acerbic stand-up acts of comedians they see in silly Hollywood movies)

Feminism is not a thing in "the west" either, they are mocked and dehumanized constantly, and many woman make a point of affirming they are ANTI-feminism.

CureDolly Wrote:Thank you Cophinia-san.

I do understand and respect your point of view, even though I don't share it. Whatever effect satire may or may not have on the social situation, I am afraid I just don't like it, and I am not convinced that the generally cynical and hostile atmosphere it generates really improves much or makes people any happier.

It is not necessary to be cynical or disrespectful or coarse in order to criticize things that are wrong. Slavery is a very good example. Many, many people, such as Williiam Wilberforce and the Grimke Sisters criticized slavery. So did African Americans like Absalom Jones and Alexander Crummel and as a result of their efforts and many others it was ended, but none of them ever did so in a cynical or coarse manner. Neither did they advocate cynical and harsh mockery or coarse speech as entertainment.

That is a matter of taste. And taste and style is what I was talking about, not "issues".

To indicate what I do think, I will tell you a little story:

A friend of mine, a translator who lives in Japan mentioned a travel pamphlet to me. She said.

"It has been translated into English but it is still Japanese."

I asked what she meant and she explained that while the words were now English it had a lack of cynicism that just didn't make it sound English at all.

Now a travel pamphlet is one of the least cynical documents you can find in English (or any language, presumably). Its job is to make the place you are visiting seem wonderful and to tell you all the good, happy things about it. It is less cynical than advertising (which often tries to be hard-edged and "cool"). It is less cynical than song lyrics, or most entertainment. It is just about the most inoffensive kind of writing you can find, and deliberately so.

But I knew exactly what she meant. Cynicism has so deeply permeated modern English that it seeps through everything. A travel pamphlet translated from Japanese that hasn't been "hardened up" quite a lot seems far too soft and uncynical to sound "right" to a modern English speaker's ear.

That is why I avoid English-language popular culture, and can't empathize with it even when I do encounter it. It isn't just about criticizing bad things. It is about a whole deeply-ingrained culture of cynicism and harshness.

Now by having said this, it is clear that I am not representative of Western popular culture. I don't like it. I never have liked it. So I probably shouldn't have joined this particular discussion at all. It is a discussion of Japanese culture by Western people from the point of view of Western tastes and attitudes. And that is natural. People do discuss things from their own group point of view. Why wouldn't they?

I just really don't share those tastes and attitudes. So it isn't a discussion I should ever have become involved in.

I don't expect anyone to agree with me. In fact I knew nobody would. Which is another reason I should not have said anything. I am a doll, and no one really thinks like a doll, not even Japanese people.

I am sure most Western people don't find their own culture harsh and soul-abrasive. They are happy with it, or if they aren't happy with it, that isn't the aspect that bothers them (or if it does, they aren't aware of it).

And now I have said far more than I should have in explaining why I should not have said anything, to people who will not agree with or like a word I say.

So I am not just a doll, I am a silly doll.

PMotte Wrote:As far as I know one of the founding fathers in the 19th century of manga published a lot of satire.
Don't ask me names, though.

But I would also like to add that I'm often a bit annoyed by the almost unilateral positive way in which people in YT video's talk about Japan, as if nothing's wrong there.
There is one guy, though, who publishes his (very short) video's on the channel Arrgh Garry, and I think yu can see a lot of real Japan in his video's, provided you are willing to look. Although he never explicitly says that something's wrong, you often can feel it.

And I would also like to add that as long as you aren't able of reading and understanding another language, it's very difficult to pick up the negative signals. But for Arrgh Garry you don't need to, because his vid's are all in English -and almost nobody watches them.

CureDolly Wrote:Thank you again, Cophinia-san. I don't think we are in disagreement at all!

I confess I don't have very strong views about political issues (most dolls don't), but what you say sounds reasonable to me.