Five years after its initial publication, and three years after its translation and publication in English, I've finally read Masahiko Fujiwara's (藤原雅彦) Dignity of the Nation [Kokka no Hinkaku], and I've been both surprised and disappointed. Surprised, mainly, by the book itself, which is good-humored, even-tempered, and thoughtful. Disappointed, retrospectively, by Western reads, including this summary from Time and a Financial Times article excerpted here that characterize it in terms usually reserved for Japan's reactionary, old guard far-right. One can't always trust an author's own protestations, but Fujiwara's condemnation of nationalism as "sordid," a "foul philosophy that everyone should steer clear of," is actually held up by the book as a whole. While it's clear that he has some views that I'd consider beyond the pale (for instance, his reference in the FT interview to differences between Japanese and non-Japanese brains), these don't surface often in Kokka. What emerges instead is a clearly conservative stance, but one that's quite in line with a lot of enlightened contemporary thinkers on nation and politics (And who can hate a book that contains such a vociferous advocacy for reading?).
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Global Voices
I've recently discovered this international blog aggregator, Global Voices. It's not just an aggregator, though, as those are too often automatic and, for a globally-oriented site, wouldn't be that useful. Instead, each page is edited and translated by hand. Obviously, I'm particularly interested in the Japanese portion of the site, which offers a lot of really interesting stories about culture and politics. Best of all, they are presented in side-by-side translation, which, when paired with a browser plugin like Rikaichan, provides a really good platform for brushing up on your kanji and grammar.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Tokyo Journal: Memory and Forgiveness

Talking to his mother, though, really highlighted some of the potential difficulties of Japan as a society traveling a like path.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Fake expertise by pleading (occasional) ignorance
The nice man from Tokyo Gas came today to turn on the stove and hot water at the place I'll be staying for the next two weeks or so. I used one of my patented tricks on him, something that works every time to convince Japanese people that I am Wonder Gaijin, capable of linguistic feats that absolutely transcend the humanly possible. This is also, importantly, a method that can be applied in a wide variety of situations, and which speaks to some deep function of human intersubjectivity.
It works like this. The gas guy (or any given Japanese person) is talking a blue streak at me, which usually happens pretty quickly after I greet them with a reasonably confident "Konichi wa" and explain to them that "I don't speak much Japanese" in decent Japanese. I do not understand much, if any, of the specifics of what he's explaining to me. But about halfway through the chat I pick out a word - you can pick out pretty much any word, you don't understand any of them, remember - and stopped him, puzzled. I repeated the word a couple of times, then went to grab my dictionary. I figured out what the word was, made a slight "o" of recognition while nodding gently, then looked at him, cueing him to continue. I then proceeded to not understand the bulk of what followed.
As he was leaving, the mechanic told me that in the entire time he'd been working the job, I was the best Japanese-speaking foreigner he'd met. At least, I think that's what he said.
The lesson here is pretty simple. If you make a big, ostentatious deal out of not understanding one very specific element of a conversation, presentation, or what have you, then your interlocutor is likely to assume that you understood everything else that they said. It's a misdirection, a slight-of-tongue, a gaslighting - the one point of misunderstanding effectively distracts from even the possibility that you didn't understand anything else being said, either. This could be an effective tool/weapon in, say, a graduate classroom ("What exactly do you mean by gradation?") or a boardroom ("I'm not sure I'm following your point about ISO ratings."). I hope all of you use this insight responsibly, but I'm more concerned with the deeper structure we're encountering here . . . in precisely what way does a protestation of ignorance make your erstwhile silence seem like comprehension?
It works like this. The gas guy (or any given Japanese person) is talking a blue streak at me, which usually happens pretty quickly after I greet them with a reasonably confident "Konichi wa" and explain to them that "I don't speak much Japanese" in decent Japanese. I do not understand much, if any, of the specifics of what he's explaining to me. But about halfway through the chat I pick out a word - you can pick out pretty much any word, you don't understand any of them, remember - and stopped him, puzzled. I repeated the word a couple of times, then went to grab my dictionary. I figured out what the word was, made a slight "o" of recognition while nodding gently, then looked at him, cueing him to continue. I then proceeded to not understand the bulk of what followed.
As he was leaving, the mechanic told me that in the entire time he'd been working the job, I was the best Japanese-speaking foreigner he'd met. At least, I think that's what he said.
The lesson here is pretty simple. If you make a big, ostentatious deal out of not understanding one very specific element of a conversation, presentation, or what have you, then your interlocutor is likely to assume that you understood everything else that they said. It's a misdirection, a slight-of-tongue, a gaslighting - the one point of misunderstanding effectively distracts from even the possibility that you didn't understand anything else being said, either. This could be an effective tool/weapon in, say, a graduate classroom ("What exactly do you mean by gradation?") or a boardroom ("I'm not sure I'm following your point about ISO ratings."). I hope all of you use this insight responsibly, but I'm more concerned with the deeper structure we're encountering here . . . in precisely what way does a protestation of ignorance make your erstwhile silence seem like comprehension?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
On Going Legit: Jessica Hopper vs. Academia
I heard Jessica Hopper yesterday on NPR, reviewing the new Kelis album. I first encountered Hopper more than seven years ago, when I was working a semi-shitty desk job and started obsessively reading her blog, Tiny Lucky Genius. She was acerbic, funny, and obscene, with a no-caps, off-the-cuff style that has come to represent something like the punk rock of the blogosphere. I've honestly never seen a picture of her, but after reading one particular anecdote, I couldn't help but imagine her in dirty-blonde pigtails and kneesocks, roller skating down a grocery aisle pulling cereal off the shelves. Naturally, I had more than a slight crush on her digital ghost.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Hidden Arts: Non-Academic Journals Giving Intellectualism a Good Name
I've written before about my impatience with academic writing, from details of style to the institutional structures that guide writers. But what are the alternatives? There are a variety of journals – magazines, really – fiercely holding on to the terrain most famously staked by the Paris Review. These are, in academic jargon, “interdisciplinary” - or, to speak a less flutey language, they are intellectual. They are thoughtful, without the bombast, jargon, and self-importance that so often cripples the academic journals. They are historically, contextually minded, often well-produced and formatted, including things like full-color photographs that no academic journal could afford. I think those of us writing for the journals could really benefit from looking to these extra-academic sources for guidance in combining intellectual rigor with emotional heft and readability. Here's a sampling of exemplars I've found:
The Consequences of Indulging the Deficit Hawks: Deflation and Disaster
The Wall Street Journal today has findings threatening deflation. While a lot of people are familiar with the spectacular collapses of countries like Zimbabwe due to hyperinflation, and the right does a great job of playing up the threat of moderate inflation as a way to sell gold bullion, deflation is the real nightmare scenario - a death spiral of falling prices and wages that can dig the economy into a hole that's nearly impossible to escape. The story, naturally, makes no mention of the inconvenient political context - that even as deflation looms, the Right for which the Journal is a (relatively sane) mouthpiece is still banging the drum for deficit reduction, when Keynesian deficit spending is exactly what the economy needs in its current state.
Sometimes I feel that the average liberal regards the stupidest gestures of the right as charming quirks. This is obviously what's happened with Sarah Palin - liberals follow her tweets and joke about her because they regard her as about as consequential as a Troll doll, a mere piece of entertainment. In her case, that may ultimately be true, but when it comes to the ignoramuses shouting for deficit cuts in the middle of a recession/tentative recovery, we can't afford to indulgently laugh at these strange people who apparently have forgotten the biggest lesson of Hoover's fiscal policy and its consequences. When you understand a few things about how the world works, it may be far too easy to remember that some people don't have a clue, but still have the power to act on their ignorance.
Sometimes I feel that the average liberal regards the stupidest gestures of the right as charming quirks. This is obviously what's happened with Sarah Palin - liberals follow her tweets and joke about her because they regard her as about as consequential as a Troll doll, a mere piece of entertainment. In her case, that may ultimately be true, but when it comes to the ignoramuses shouting for deficit cuts in the middle of a recession/tentative recovery, we can't afford to indulgently laugh at these strange people who apparently have forgotten the biggest lesson of Hoover's fiscal policy and its consequences. When you understand a few things about how the world works, it may be far too easy to remember that some people don't have a clue, but still have the power to act on their ignorance.
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