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imomusI've discovered a connection between two battles I find myself fighting on Click Opera: the battle against people who think I should pay more attention to the downside of Japan, and the battle against purveyors of a 1980s-style identity politics focused on victimhood.
The connection became clear to me when I answered this anonymous comment in the early hours of this morning:
Momus' perception of Japan seems to be skewed by the fact that his mates are all successful creatives or else trust-fund kids; I mean, how many Japanese does he know who've been hospitalised through overwork, for example? I can count four among my Tokyo friends just off the top of my head, unfortunately. That's a side of this country subject to wholesale sweeping-under-the-carpet on this blog, unfortunately.
Now, I could have answered this by saying that I know very few trust fund kids, somewhat shun the ones I do know, and would much rather have dinner -- as I did on Monday night -- with a group of recent immigrants to Japan from Malaysia, people who get up at 6 in the morning to scour the markets for food ingredients for the Malaysian restaurants they cook in. Or I could have answered that Hisae's family, with whom I'm staying here in Osaka, are mixed Japanese-Korean. Hisae's mother runs a small clothes store on an arcade, importing items from China and Korea. (Neither Hisae's mum nor the Malaysians, by the way, complain about overwork.)
Instead, I wrote a mini-manifesto, between the lines of which anyone attuned to these things can clearly read the ideas of Marx and Nietzsche:
The fundamental premise of this blog is that you get to the essence of a culture via its talents, not its problems. Ability, as Joseph Beuys put it, is the true human capital. Now, of course there's a place for examinations of the stumbling blocks a culture faces on the way to its achievements. But I think the Dogs and Demons approach -- examining Japan through its problems -- does not get to the heart of Japan's amazing achievements, and its massive success. Problems are distractions from the essence of something, someone, or some place, not a key to understanding it.
The useful thing about this statement is, I think, that it expresses -- in the words of Joseph Beuys -- the single most powerful idea of Marxism: that ability, not money, is the true human capital. But there's also a Nietzschean element in the thought, an emphasis on contention, striving and ambition. The underclass wants to become, if you will, the overman. Problems and distractions cannot bend it from a historic act of will: the fulfillment of (in Marxist terms) its historic destiny to enjoy the fruits of its labour, and take the ascendent position warranted by its productive abilities.
Now that's what I call a left wing position! That's the long march! That's the shining future that justifies present austerities and struggles! Unfortunately, I think a lot of power has been sapped from the radical tradition by what I'd call "problem narcissism": the tendency to make problems, obstacles, or deficiencies the key to identity, and a destination in themselves, rather than mere distractions from the goal of dominance-through-ability. The result is the PC identity politics landscape we all know so well, with its emphasis on victimhood, on symbolic reparation and tokenistic compensation, on "respect" based on the hiding of (unchallenged) stigma via policed language, and, worst of all, on the built-in presupposition (so damaging) that all difference is bad difference, and must therefore be suppressed and spun out of view.
Anon's critique raises the spectre of class war in its association of success with "trust fund kids and successful creatives", but it's a phoney class war. As Beuys and Marx (and Nietzsche, for that matter) agreed, creative ability is absolutely key to all human ability. For Beuys, "everyone is an artist". Anon wants to say that rich and privileged people are the only artists, and that normal people are basically victims, falling by the wayside.
Of course victimhood is an important part of Marx and Beuys' thinking: Beuys said "Show your wound!" and Marx covered the problems of 19th century workers in enormous detail. The important thing is that Marx didn't end with that suffering, victimhood and failure. Marxism is a praxis dedicated to putting those who work, those who create, those who control the ultimate human capital of ability, in the place they deserve: the place of power, will, success and determination. Marx would have been appalled by the "problem narcissism" of identity politics, which -- like a sick man proposing you identify him entirely with an illness which is nevertheless unmentionable -- proposes the gaining of respect for "identifying deficiencies" ("deficiencies" mapped spuriously to identities based on difference: being a woman, being black, being gay) as the ultimate goal of radical politics.
Just as Japan reportage which looks at perceived problems (themselves, all too often, seen through an ethnocentric lens focused on "bad differences") rather than its core creative abilities as a nation misses the essence of Japan -- the Japanese people's extraordinary will matched to their great abilities -- so 1980s-style identity politics defines identity as a series of shortcomings, sees them as "bad differences" from the norm, and demands respect for them in terms which merely underline its bad faith; the perception it shares with its enemies is that it perceives difference as deficiency. And so political struggle gets turned into a series of semantic negotiations in which supposedly-bad differences are spun, if not into good differences exactly, at least into a series of respectful silences, compensations, tips of the hat, correct terminology (according to an endlessly-turning treadmill powered by stigmas which are never, themselves, challenged, probably because the stigmas encode the victimhood so essential to the whole enterprise) and "appropriate language".
I fundamentally reject the idea that this is a progressive politics. As I've said, this negotiation simply encodes more subtly the prejudice it seeks to rebuff. Progressive politics, for me, has to go back to Marx's basic, positive, clear and forceful idea (it was William Morris's too) that ability is the true human capital. We have to stop associating creativity with privilege or class. All human beings are creative. That, rather than problems or victimhood, is what's at the core of an individual, a class, a nation, and the species itself.
The connection became clear to me when I answered this anonymous comment in the early hours of this morning:
Momus' perception of Japan seems to be skewed by the fact that his mates are all successful creatives or else trust-fund kids; I mean, how many Japanese does he know who've been hospitalised through overwork, for example? I can count four among my Tokyo friends just off the top of my head, unfortunately. That's a side of this country subject to wholesale sweeping-under-the-carpet on this blog, unfortunately.
Now, I could have answered this by saying that I know very few trust fund kids, somewhat shun the ones I do know, and would much rather have dinner -- as I did on Monday night -- with a group of recent immigrants to Japan from Malaysia, people who get up at 6 in the morning to scour the markets for food ingredients for the Malaysian restaurants they cook in. Or I could have answered that Hisae's family, with whom I'm staying here in Osaka, are mixed Japanese-Korean. Hisae's mother runs a small clothes store on an arcade, importing items from China and Korea. (Neither Hisae's mum nor the Malaysians, by the way, complain about overwork.)
Instead, I wrote a mini-manifesto, between the lines of which anyone attuned to these things can clearly read the ideas of Marx and Nietzsche:
The fundamental premise of this blog is that you get to the essence of a culture via its talents, not its problems. Ability, as Joseph Beuys put it, is the true human capital. Now, of course there's a place for examinations of the stumbling blocks a culture faces on the way to its achievements. But I think the Dogs and Demons approach -- examining Japan through its problems -- does not get to the heart of Japan's amazing achievements, and its massive success. Problems are distractions from the essence of something, someone, or some place, not a key to understanding it.
The useful thing about this statement is, I think, that it expresses -- in the words of Joseph Beuys -- the single most powerful idea of Marxism: that ability, not money, is the true human capital. But there's also a Nietzschean element in the thought, an emphasis on contention, striving and ambition. The underclass wants to become, if you will, the overman. Problems and distractions cannot bend it from a historic act of will: the fulfillment of (in Marxist terms) its historic destiny to enjoy the fruits of its labour, and take the ascendent position warranted by its productive abilities.
Now that's what I call a left wing position! That's the long march! That's the shining future that justifies present austerities and struggles! Unfortunately, I think a lot of power has been sapped from the radical tradition by what I'd call "problem narcissism": the tendency to make problems, obstacles, or deficiencies the key to identity, and a destination in themselves, rather than mere distractions from the goal of dominance-through-ability. The result is the PC identity politics landscape we all know so well, with its emphasis on victimhood, on symbolic reparation and tokenistic compensation, on "respect" based on the hiding of (unchallenged) stigma via policed language, and, worst of all, on the built-in presupposition (so damaging) that all difference is bad difference, and must therefore be suppressed and spun out of view.
Anon's critique raises the spectre of class war in its association of success with "trust fund kids and successful creatives", but it's a phoney class war. As Beuys and Marx (and Nietzsche, for that matter) agreed, creative ability is absolutely key to all human ability. For Beuys, "everyone is an artist". Anon wants to say that rich and privileged people are the only artists, and that normal people are basically victims, falling by the wayside.
Of course victimhood is an important part of Marx and Beuys' thinking: Beuys said "Show your wound!" and Marx covered the problems of 19th century workers in enormous detail. The important thing is that Marx didn't end with that suffering, victimhood and failure. Marxism is a praxis dedicated to putting those who work, those who create, those who control the ultimate human capital of ability, in the place they deserve: the place of power, will, success and determination. Marx would have been appalled by the "problem narcissism" of identity politics, which -- like a sick man proposing you identify him entirely with an illness which is nevertheless unmentionable -- proposes the gaining of respect for "identifying deficiencies" ("deficiencies" mapped spuriously to identities based on difference: being a woman, being black, being gay) as the ultimate goal of radical politics.
Just as Japan reportage which looks at perceived problems (themselves, all too often, seen through an ethnocentric lens focused on "bad differences") rather than its core creative abilities as a nation misses the essence of Japan -- the Japanese people's extraordinary will matched to their great abilities -- so 1980s-style identity politics defines identity as a series of shortcomings, sees them as "bad differences" from the norm, and demands respect for them in terms which merely underline its bad faith; the perception it shares with its enemies is that it perceives difference as deficiency. And so political struggle gets turned into a series of semantic negotiations in which supposedly-bad differences are spun, if not into good differences exactly, at least into a series of respectful silences, compensations, tips of the hat, correct terminology (according to an endlessly-turning treadmill powered by stigmas which are never, themselves, challenged, probably because the stigmas encode the victimhood so essential to the whole enterprise) and "appropriate language".
I fundamentally reject the idea that this is a progressive politics. As I've said, this negotiation simply encodes more subtly the prejudice it seeks to rebuff. Progressive politics, for me, has to go back to Marx's basic, positive, clear and forceful idea (it was William Morris's too) that ability is the true human capital. We have to stop associating creativity with privilege or class. All human beings are creative. That, rather than problems or victimhood, is what's at the core of an individual, a class, a nation, and the species itself.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 08:38 pm (UTC)I personally think the most interesting things about Japan are its weaknesses, but there again I'm coming from a place where I've had to go to parties with people who study Japan for a living, and are as a general matter the most tiresome exceptionalist pricks. Japan is not so great at showing its wound - I don't think they've yet begun to praxis, in any meaningful way - but hey, that's their bag, and it's very "bad difference" of me to point that out, yes?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 08:47 pm (UTC)So how do the Japanese report themselves? Is what the West perceives as a deficiency discussed at all, and if so is it mapped to a more virtuous assessment?
The nations that are most dominant ( as per the FT report discussed here recently) are probably the hardest working and most creative - America is based on the idea that initiative, a work ethic, and being a creative entreprenuer can elevate one's standing - which in the US is about money status as opposed to ascending the class system ( like in Britain). It seems that all that effort is really directed towards becoming a consumer and Marxism has become a 'victim' of that. Don't the Japanese fall foul of the same consumerist disease?
Richard
theorizing about people who theorize
Date: 2009-12-08 08:56 pm (UTC)but aren't you being a bit blind about your own theorizing tendencies while putting others down for it?
re consumerist disease
Date: 2009-12-08 09:03 pm (UTC)at any rate, every time i'm in japan, i always think to myself: my god, these people put america to SHAME when it comes to consumerism.
now, the chinese, and HK in particular--that's a whole other ball game...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 09:10 pm (UTC)"problematic" language
Date: 2009-12-08 09:14 pm (UTC)new left is uncomfortable with language like "ascendent" and "dominance" fearing as it does that it and all this "marching" will only lead to a replacement of the old hard ass ideologues (old right) with a new group of hard ass ideologues (the old left). don't you remember mai 68?
what about those who don't want to set up a new regime in place of the old. (go back and read some of foucault's fall outs with the marxists and maoists over this. they called him a conservative--because he didn't want to "march" "dominate" and set up a new "regime" of "power"!!!
you're still using the same old tools to try and build a new house. it's not that easy...
Re: re consumerist disease
Date: 2009-12-08 09:37 pm (UTC)Richard
Olympia was a mannequin, and the man who made her eyes broke her apart in front of Hoffman
Date: 2009-12-08 09:55 pm (UTC)Also even invoking the spectre of political struggle, in Japan, in 2009, is laughable.
Do some leg work. Get someone to translate for you. Engage someone on the street, someone young, talk to them about either politics or struggle. You'll come up empty.
Someone will no doubt tell you about the struggle, ie the grind, for cash. Someone will tell you about Nori P. Still. Still talking about Nori P. Also the Michael Jackson Doc. This is it, Momus.
Whether people are being hospitalized from overwork or not is irrelevant.
Marx is irrelevant. Beuys is resplendent.
What the anon above, not myself so I am just paraphrasing (not really), seems to be stabbing at is this depiction of Japan which appears in your blog, spoken with the air of authority, spoken with the insecurity of someone clutching something dear, something unearned, is rosy beyond all proportion with the everyday realities. Whether your friends have money or not and how they earn it is irrelevant. You want to talk about a burgeoning creative place which by association to you, the one delivering the news, adds color to your coat. Some kind of greater east asian co-prosperity sphere, you tell the news of art and live in the magical isles and your rep grows, and so does the brand.
But living here and seeing the everyday is less idealistic. Also that you are perturbed by any mention of problems in Japan is confusing. You aren't some socially impaired basement anime exoticist, overseas, dreaming of a Japan you'll never go to. You've been here. Your orientalism seems willful. Magical thinking? Ask your shrink. Ask Copernicus about pushing limits. Ask someone in Japan. An internet link to a cool event in Koenji that hasn't happened in two years doesn't help. The kids are painting shit on canvasses that looks like VH1 logos from 2004 in hopes of designing a shoe. These are the people I know.
Perhaps you shouldn't try to tackle the existence of a nation as a problematic to throw some jargon at. And don't get mad at people who live in this biological art garden criticize it and your misconceptions.
Old news, and why bring it up, but I will. Your feathers were ruffled up by Marxy talking about goings on and more importantly not goings on in this country, and it conflicted with your ideas. Taking him on this fight was like E. Wilson taking on V. Nabokov in questions of Russian in Pushkin. He speaks the language and has done the research. Bad analogy. Marxy is no Nabokov. But the point remains. As inarticulately as I have levelled it. Perhaps it hasn't been conveyed at all, sorry.
Love ya
Re: re consumerist disease
Date: 2009-12-08 10:09 pm (UTC)don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful amazing blade runner all the cliches you know and more place. but for those of us who prefer the more (ok) traditional stuff there, the arts and crafts, temples, thunder gods, etc, it truly is hard to reconcile the hyperuberextremeconsumerism that you'll definitely see. one way to deal with it is to NOT spend all your time within the major city limits...it can get you depressed.
but, seriously, this goes for london paris roma nyc beijing mumbai etc etc
Re: Olympia was a mannequin, and the man who made her eyes broke her apart in front of Hoffman
Date: 2009-12-08 10:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 11:03 pm (UTC)JS
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-08 11:13 pm (UTC)First, the Japanese mother in the family told me about how she was in labour (giving birth to her new baby, who has a Malaysian father) for 36 hours, and that her entire extended family was in the delivery room with her stuffing golf balls into her anus to stop what she called "a tsunami" from emerging there. In retrospect she thinks this is what prolonged the birth so long, and was a mistake. (By contrast, Kahimi's baby, scheduled to have a super-natural-organic water birth with aromatherapy for palliatives, was in the end delivered by caesarian section because the doctors thought the pain and difficulty would be too much, and because the baby was too large. These two birth styles -- no extended family or golf balls for Kahimi! -- reflect a class difference.)
Then the Malaysian immigrant cook spoke to me. I asked him how well he was accepted in Japan, and he said fine, but noted that the Japanese are very strict at work and very lax at play. That division is very different from Malaysia, where people play and work, I guess, in somewhat the same spirit. He said that he really appreciates the Japanese sense of harmony and politeness, because in Malaysia people spend half the time arguing pointlessly with each other, and get nothing done.
Then I spoke to his 17 year-old daughter (by his first marriage to a Malaysian) and just asked her if she liked Japan, and if she wanted to live in Malaysia again at some point in the future. She's been in Japan just three months, but wants to stay here all her life. She loves it.
hyperuberextremeconsumerism
The danger we face in abstracting terms like "ability" and "creativity" is extracting them from all contexts in which they apply. I'm not at all sure I have any problem whatsoever with consumerism per se. Bring it on -- it is, after all, simply the commercial expression of making things, of ability, of production. There are no workers without products, and no products without workers. What I have problems with are extreme inequality of access to consumer items, irresponsibility when it comes to environmental issues, and consumerism that sacrifices other values to pointless consumption. That's why I've paid particular attention to the Slow Life movement in Japan. I'm convinced that the thing-after-consumerism will emerge from the societies which are most frenetically engaged in it. I think Japan is poised (particularly in terms of a growing interest in sibling differentiation from China) to pioneer post-consumerist values, and that's one of the main themes in the Aftergold exhibition I'm here to put together (or "feather my costume with", as the cynical Anon-Johns prefer).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 12:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 01:24 am (UTC)This shift in perogatives, combined with the tradition of suicide in Japan and the tradition of striving in Japan produces the kinds of stresses which result in people offing themselves.
According to the professor, Japan in the Meiji-era and before did indeed have a strong drive to suceed and work hard, but that in the end, people lived `for themselves` and not for the sake of the company. Where he gets his information, I don`t know!
(now that I am a `company man` I can see that some of my colleagues do plainly live for the company, which rewards them with bonuses and raises. But there are a very few people that seem to prioritize their interests and go home at the end of the day)
Now, these aren`t my opinions, but I thought them interesting to share, even though it is indeed concentrating on the negative, which in turn produces pessimism, which is no good for anyone in my opinion.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 02:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-09 06:15 am (UTC)Re: theorizing about people who theorize
Date: 2009-12-09 07:14 am (UTC)