As a graduate student, I worked as a teaching assistant as well as a lab instructor, and taught many a student the rudimentaries of anthropology and archaeology. A necessary part of the instruction is explaining the different types of social organization one is likely to encounter in the ethnographic and archaeological records.
And when you are dealing with alot of idealistic young college students, they tend to become quite enamored with "egalitarian" cultures...pretty much always without having a real understanding of what the term means.
And egalitarian culture is one where everybody is at about the same social level most of the time - someone may become a leader for a short time when their particular expertise or confidence is useful in a situation, only to give way to another leader under different circumstances. People follow not because someone is a chief or king or any other fixed hierarchical leader, but because that person is able to persuade others to follow them.
There are, of course, many different variations on egalitarian societies. In some, there may be some degree of formalized leadership, but it tends to be fluid and open to anyone who meets certain requirements (all men past the age of puberty, for example), in others there really are no recognition of leaders, just people who can persuade you to do things.
Naturally, my students would romanticize people who live(d) in these societies. There was a pervasive notion amongst the undergrads that people who lived in egalitarian societies were inherently more peaceful and led idyllic lives. One student even informed me that she felt moved to write a paper for another class that compared the (as she saw them) egalitarian and peaceful !Kung San of Africa with our current status-obsessed violent culture, and found us to be quite lacking.
I pointed out to this student that, according to the ethnography on which she was basing her views of the !Kung San, domestic violence was fairly common, and abject poverty the norm. In other words, there ain't no such thing as Utopia.
What my students never seemed to pick up on is that social organization tends to evolve in place (with the exception of those relatively unusual instances where it is successfully imposed from the outside...even in which cases it tends to e warped to fit local conditions and traditions). Egalitarian societies are not the product of gentle, enlightened souls who see a better way of organizing, they are the product of a system of resource procurement and use coupled with a low population density that allows such societies to exist without descending into chaos. Importantly, they only seem to work when you have a society in which there are a small enough number of people that everyone can both keep tabs on each other (to ensure that you are engaged in no wrong doing, and to make sure that you are not aggrandizing yourself) and equally share in the available resources. As soon as you have a large enough number of people packed into a small enough area, and accompanying resource stress, there is a need for organization in order to distribute what is needed to where it is needed. In other words, hierarchies, if they haven't formed already, will begin to form.
Now, with our ancestors, it's not clear which came first: did the population density/resource stress require hierarchies to develop, or did hierarchies develop and allow larger population densities to grow? It's an interesting question, but one that is rather beside the point as far as making judgements go. Once you have the number of people in the volume of space that occur in modern industrial and post-industrial nations, hierarchies are necessary.
That's not to say that the hierarchies always work well (they can be inefficient and ineffective) or that they are always nice to live in (ask a 19th century factory work about how much they enjoy life), but they are necessary to allow life to continue past a certain point in human cultural development. And we're not going to go back without killing off a huge portion of the global population.
If my students had recognized this, then they may have been able to start working towards what they really seemed to want: a society in which there is some degree of social equality even if organizational inequality is necessary - indeed, during the 19th and 20th centuries, progress was even made on this front. But as long as they romanticized these other cultures without recognizing both what allowed them to work, and the shortcomings of these societies, they were going to be dreamers without a viable cause.
Showing posts with label Culture Porn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture Porn. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Native American Ancestry, or Lack Thereof
First off - I will be away in the field for the next week, and therefore I probably won't have any site updates unless I am able to scare up an internet connection, I may not post any updates this week other than this one.
In the meantime. here's something to consider...
Last week, NPR's show Talk of the Nation had a segment on the issues surrounding individuals declaring that they are of Native American ancestry (to hear it, listen here or go here for a transcript). There's a number of issues surrounding this, but there are two that I find particularly interesting.
The first issue is that of the interests that different federally recognized Native American groups have to accept or reject individuals as members of their tribe and/or organization. This is often an issue with tribes that own casinos, as people come out of the woodwork claiming to be members in order to secure a share of the casino's money. Depending on where you are, the more prevalent issue may be individuals who are legitimately part of the tribe being rejected or dropped from the membership roles, or people who are not part of the tribe trying to be listed as such (some of whom really believe themselves to be, and others of whom simply think that it is a good way to get money). For a variety of reasons, I'll not say too much on the topic, except to note that I know of people who were dropped from the register who were, legitimately, of the appropriate ancestry...but that I have also known a large number of people who have tried to be accepted as tribal members who had no more a claim to Native American ancestry than the British exchange student who lived upstairs from me in college. There is a tendency for people to see the behavior of whatever group they are most familiar with as the norm as far as accepting or rejecting members goes, but there is actually alot of variation, for both good and ill, in how these matters are handled.
The second issue is the matter of people claiming Native American ancestry when such claims are dubious at best. One thing that a guest on the show brings up is that there seems to be a pattern of these claims that a great-grandmother specifically on the mother's side is a member of a Native American group (usually, though not always, Cherokee). While there are many, many people in the U.S. with Native American ancestry, there seem to be many, many more that simply want to be. I don't know what to make of the claim that it is usually a great-grandmother on the mother's side (well, the great-grandmother makes it essentially an unverifiable claim as the individual is usually dead, and claims of poor record keeping can be made, but why on the mother's side?), but my own experience has been that people often claim Native American ancestry because they want to be seen as somehow magical, or special, and figure that associating themselves with a group that they have insultingly simplified and/or romanticized.
There's another, interesting and bothersome, issue also brought up in the interview: the tendency for some to claim Native American ancestry, and to sell "spiritual" services based on these claims. This may include people running for-profit "sweat lodges" at a heavy fee, or selling magical items allegedly of "Native American Origin!" Generally, these individuals may actually be Native Americans, or they may simply be claiming to, but either way they are cashing in on the racist notions that most people have about alleged Native American mysticism.
Anyway, give it a listen, it's an interesting show.
In the meantime. here's something to consider...
Last week, NPR's show Talk of the Nation had a segment on the issues surrounding individuals declaring that they are of Native American ancestry (to hear it, listen here or go here for a transcript). There's a number of issues surrounding this, but there are two that I find particularly interesting.
The first issue is that of the interests that different federally recognized Native American groups have to accept or reject individuals as members of their tribe and/or organization. This is often an issue with tribes that own casinos, as people come out of the woodwork claiming to be members in order to secure a share of the casino's money. Depending on where you are, the more prevalent issue may be individuals who are legitimately part of the tribe being rejected or dropped from the membership roles, or people who are not part of the tribe trying to be listed as such (some of whom really believe themselves to be, and others of whom simply think that it is a good way to get money). For a variety of reasons, I'll not say too much on the topic, except to note that I know of people who were dropped from the register who were, legitimately, of the appropriate ancestry...but that I have also known a large number of people who have tried to be accepted as tribal members who had no more a claim to Native American ancestry than the British exchange student who lived upstairs from me in college. There is a tendency for people to see the behavior of whatever group they are most familiar with as the norm as far as accepting or rejecting members goes, but there is actually alot of variation, for both good and ill, in how these matters are handled.
The second issue is the matter of people claiming Native American ancestry when such claims are dubious at best. One thing that a guest on the show brings up is that there seems to be a pattern of these claims that a great-grandmother specifically on the mother's side is a member of a Native American group (usually, though not always, Cherokee). While there are many, many people in the U.S. with Native American ancestry, there seem to be many, many more that simply want to be. I don't know what to make of the claim that it is usually a great-grandmother on the mother's side (well, the great-grandmother makes it essentially an unverifiable claim as the individual is usually dead, and claims of poor record keeping can be made, but why on the mother's side?), but my own experience has been that people often claim Native American ancestry because they want to be seen as somehow magical, or special, and figure that associating themselves with a group that they have insultingly simplified and/or romanticized.
There's another, interesting and bothersome, issue also brought up in the interview: the tendency for some to claim Native American ancestry, and to sell "spiritual" services based on these claims. This may include people running for-profit "sweat lodges" at a heavy fee, or selling magical items allegedly of "Native American Origin!" Generally, these individuals may actually be Native Americans, or they may simply be claiming to, but either way they are cashing in on the racist notions that most people have about alleged Native American mysticism.
Anyway, give it a listen, it's an interesting show.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Indian Burial Grounds, Hilariously Revisited
I have written before about the tendency for people to attribute bad circumstances or allegend hauntings to a place supposedly being built on an "Indian burial ground". For those readers outside North America, there's a tendency for many on this continent to view the native peoples of the Americas as, essentially, mystical. This includes everyone and their Irish cousin claiming to be descended from one Native American group or another, even when such claims are tenuous at best, and often complete fantasy. It has also led to most of my fellow Caucasians assuming that the places valued by Native Americans are magical, and so it's not uncommon for me to find rock art sites vandalized by people attempting to "use the magic" of the place for their own gains.
It has also led to the idea that any frightening happening must be due to an "Indian Burial Ground" - after all, the cemeteries of Europeans and their descendants are creepy, so the burial grounds of people assumed to be magical must be really scary, right?
I think, though, that the Onion has now taken this to it's logical (and hilarious) conclusion:
Report: Economy Failing Because U.S. Built On Ancient Indian Burial Grounds
Ahhh, the Onion...life would be so much less fun without you.
It has also led to the idea that any frightening happening must be due to an "Indian Burial Ground" - after all, the cemeteries of Europeans and their descendants are creepy, so the burial grounds of people assumed to be magical must be really scary, right?
I think, though, that the Onion has now taken this to it's logical (and hilarious) conclusion:
Report: Economy Failing Because U.S. Built On Ancient Indian Burial Grounds
Ahhh, the Onion...life would be so much less fun without you.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Whitewashing the Past
I'm in a strange mood. You have been warned.
There was a really great interview on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week in which the often violent interactions between white settlers and the Comanche is discussed. It's well worth a listen.
One of the issues discussed early in the interview is the way in which Native American cultures have been "whitewashed" in the last several decades, primarily in response to the earlier tendency to portray all Native American peoples as savages. The impulse is an understandable one, but also, I think, a mistaken one. It tends both to reduce our actual understanding of both history and human behavior, and it also leads to the sort of bizarre history in which the actions of nobody make any sense.
It has also had the weird effect of further separating groups of people. One of the points that is made during the interview is that the violent raids committed by the Comanche were not really any different from violent raids committed by tribally-organized peoples of Europe, Asia, or Africa. I would go a step further and argue that modern warfare is simply an extension of these old raids, and often engaged in for the same reasons (resource procurement, political pressure, ideological differences, etc.). However, the perception of these types of raids has led to people believing that there are more significant differences between groups of people than there really is.
Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it should also be kept in mind that it was not unknown for the settlers to commit similar raids against the native peoples. The reasons were similar: revenge, resource procurement, and wanting to frighten "the enemy."
In the 19th and early 20th century century, when these raids were occurring, they were portrayed as terrifying events, as a violent and beastial people on a rampage. Of course, little mention was generally made of the fact that the settlement of southwestern territories and the great plains impacted the resource base, often making raiding the best way to both push back settlers (and thus restore the resource base) and to make up for losses caused by the settlers. Nonetheless, the brutality of the raids often left the settlers to portray the raiders as something other than, and sometimes less than, fully human. This view continued to inform popular portrayals of Native Americans up through the 1960s and 1970s, and enforced an "us and them" mentality amongst much of the U.S. population, long after armed and violent conflict was decades gone.
Since the 1960s and 70s, the tendency has been to romanticize Native Americans, and the raids are usually justified and played down, if not entirely forgotten. I have met many people, including a number of primary and secondary school teachers, who subscribe to the notion that there was no warfare in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans. So, now it's Europeans who are cast as the bad guys, but it's basically just a pendulum swing over to the reverse "Us vs. Them."
The reality is that the raids were part of a spectrum of human behavior that all of us are capable of. They were brutal, involving killing, torture, gang rape, and kidnapping. And anyone familiar with history will know that the Romans and Greeks documented their own armies engaging in similar, if more organized, behaviors. As did the Vikings. As did the Normans. As did the Celts. As did the people of every region of every populated continent.
The tendency to forget or ignore this type of violence on the part of some groups of people is part of a modern political reworking of history, just as the tendency to play it up and ignore the causes during the 19th century was part of a political reworking of current events. It is understandable, but should, nonetheless, be viewed suspiciously. Associating notions of perfection or nirvana with periods in the past or with specific cultures does little other than put those people or times outside of human experience and provide a false view of our nature. There was no perfect culture or golden age of humanity. We are all both magnificent and frail.
There was a really great interview on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week in which the often violent interactions between white settlers and the Comanche is discussed. It's well worth a listen.
One of the issues discussed early in the interview is the way in which Native American cultures have been "whitewashed" in the last several decades, primarily in response to the earlier tendency to portray all Native American peoples as savages. The impulse is an understandable one, but also, I think, a mistaken one. It tends both to reduce our actual understanding of both history and human behavior, and it also leads to the sort of bizarre history in which the actions of nobody make any sense.
It has also had the weird effect of further separating groups of people. One of the points that is made during the interview is that the violent raids committed by the Comanche were not really any different from violent raids committed by tribally-organized peoples of Europe, Asia, or Africa. I would go a step further and argue that modern warfare is simply an extension of these old raids, and often engaged in for the same reasons (resource procurement, political pressure, ideological differences, etc.). However, the perception of these types of raids has led to people believing that there are more significant differences between groups of people than there really is.
Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it should also be kept in mind that it was not unknown for the settlers to commit similar raids against the native peoples. The reasons were similar: revenge, resource procurement, and wanting to frighten "the enemy."
In the 19th and early 20th century century, when these raids were occurring, they were portrayed as terrifying events, as a violent and beastial people on a rampage. Of course, little mention was generally made of the fact that the settlement of southwestern territories and the great plains impacted the resource base, often making raiding the best way to both push back settlers (and thus restore the resource base) and to make up for losses caused by the settlers. Nonetheless, the brutality of the raids often left the settlers to portray the raiders as something other than, and sometimes less than, fully human. This view continued to inform popular portrayals of Native Americans up through the 1960s and 1970s, and enforced an "us and them" mentality amongst much of the U.S. population, long after armed and violent conflict was decades gone.
Since the 1960s and 70s, the tendency has been to romanticize Native Americans, and the raids are usually justified and played down, if not entirely forgotten. I have met many people, including a number of primary and secondary school teachers, who subscribe to the notion that there was no warfare in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans. So, now it's Europeans who are cast as the bad guys, but it's basically just a pendulum swing over to the reverse "Us vs. Them."
The reality is that the raids were part of a spectrum of human behavior that all of us are capable of. They were brutal, involving killing, torture, gang rape, and kidnapping. And anyone familiar with history will know that the Romans and Greeks documented their own armies engaging in similar, if more organized, behaviors. As did the Vikings. As did the Normans. As did the Celts. As did the people of every region of every populated continent.
The tendency to forget or ignore this type of violence on the part of some groups of people is part of a modern political reworking of history, just as the tendency to play it up and ignore the causes during the 19th century was part of a political reworking of current events. It is understandable, but should, nonetheless, be viewed suspiciously. Associating notions of perfection or nirvana with periods in the past or with specific cultures does little other than put those people or times outside of human experience and provide a false view of our nature. There was no perfect culture or golden age of humanity. We are all both magnificent and frail.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Namaste Porn
When I returned to Santa Cruz in early 2007, I began to see bumper stickers with the single word "Namaste" emblazoned on them glued to cars all over the area. After a short time, I also began to see the word on T-shirts, and occasionally worked into conversation. So, being the sort of person that I am, I decided to look it up. Namaste is a Hindi word, derived from Sanskrit, that translates literally into "I bow to you" but is more typically taken to mean "My soul bows to yours", likely because modern Sanskrit is largely a liturgical language. In India, Nepal, and parts of Pakistan, it is used as a greeting and farewell, is accompanied by a bow, and in hierarchical settings (such as a young person meeting and older person, or an employee meeting an employer) it is initiated by the junior person.
So, it's a greeting that has a specific meaning within a deeply hierarchical culture. Why is it showing up on the back bumper of every Prius in the Bay Area? Well, it's associated with India. That's pretty much all you need to know*.
But, I've never let necessity stop me from blathering on, so I'm going to write some more. Wheee!
As I say, the term comes from India**, and is, in the minds of a particular sub-set of (usually white) Americans and Europeans, therefore connected with deep spirituality and mysticism. Or, rather, connected with western stereotypes of deep spirituality and mysticism. That it actually derives from a strongly hierarchical social system with which most people in Europe and North America (especially most of the people who like to throw the term around) would be deeply uncomfortable is lost. This is not surprising, as to most of us in Europe and North America, the fact that India itself is a rising technological power and a place of tremendous trouble and promise is lost. We know it as a land of gurus and magic, and that we now tend to view the gurus and magicians as wise sages rather than superstitious fools as our ancestors did in no way changes the fact that the notion that India is a place of mysticism outside of our mundane world is just a continuation of the racist attitudes of our ancestors.
India is a fascinating place. It is a place with an amazing history, and with a potential for a very bright future based on the resources that it dedicates to the training of scientists and engineers, as well as the willingness of its business community and government to take advantage of the opportunities available. It is also a place of deep social problems, often crushing poverty, and forms and degrees of inequality that would make most modern westerner's heads spin. But it is a place very much of this world, and the Indian people are living in the here and now, with the rest of us. The relegation of this huge quantity of people to the mystic ghetto, is both arrogant and stupid. The notion that the traditional religious practices of India should serve as a ready-made balm for our western psyches, bored from privilege and affluence, is absurd and demonstrates our willingness to take part of multi-culturalism when, and only when, the other cultures fill the roles that we deem they should. The conversion of a greeting that has a specific social and religious meaning into a bumper sticker simply shows how frivolous we are when we claim that we are "enlightened."
In other words, the appearance and spread of the term "namaste" within Santa Cruz is, once again, another example of culture porn. The people who have this bumper sticker or who use the term in conversation are, in my experience, not even vaguely interested in what is really happening in India, nor have they an interest in actual enlightenment. They are interested in consumer products, and ideas that can be commodified like consumer products, that make them look "deep" or "spiritual" or "enlightened" without ever actually having to leave their comfort zones.
*Well, that, and a group of frequently violent people used it on the show Lost, which I always found funny and I assume was intended to be ironic.
*Actually, I said that it comes from the larger region of south Asia, but in most American/European eyes, it's identified with India.
So, it's a greeting that has a specific meaning within a deeply hierarchical culture. Why is it showing up on the back bumper of every Prius in the Bay Area? Well, it's associated with India. That's pretty much all you need to know*.
But, I've never let necessity stop me from blathering on, so I'm going to write some more. Wheee!
As I say, the term comes from India**, and is, in the minds of a particular sub-set of (usually white) Americans and Europeans, therefore connected with deep spirituality and mysticism. Or, rather, connected with western stereotypes of deep spirituality and mysticism. That it actually derives from a strongly hierarchical social system with which most people in Europe and North America (especially most of the people who like to throw the term around) would be deeply uncomfortable is lost. This is not surprising, as to most of us in Europe and North America, the fact that India itself is a rising technological power and a place of tremendous trouble and promise is lost. We know it as a land of gurus and magic, and that we now tend to view the gurus and magicians as wise sages rather than superstitious fools as our ancestors did in no way changes the fact that the notion that India is a place of mysticism outside of our mundane world is just a continuation of the racist attitudes of our ancestors.
India is a fascinating place. It is a place with an amazing history, and with a potential for a very bright future based on the resources that it dedicates to the training of scientists and engineers, as well as the willingness of its business community and government to take advantage of the opportunities available. It is also a place of deep social problems, often crushing poverty, and forms and degrees of inequality that would make most modern westerner's heads spin. But it is a place very much of this world, and the Indian people are living in the here and now, with the rest of us. The relegation of this huge quantity of people to the mystic ghetto, is both arrogant and stupid. The notion that the traditional religious practices of India should serve as a ready-made balm for our western psyches, bored from privilege and affluence, is absurd and demonstrates our willingness to take part of multi-culturalism when, and only when, the other cultures fill the roles that we deem they should. The conversion of a greeting that has a specific social and religious meaning into a bumper sticker simply shows how frivolous we are when we claim that we are "enlightened."
In other words, the appearance and spread of the term "namaste" within Santa Cruz is, once again, another example of culture porn. The people who have this bumper sticker or who use the term in conversation are, in my experience, not even vaguely interested in what is really happening in India, nor have they an interest in actual enlightenment. They are interested in consumer products, and ideas that can be commodified like consumer products, that make them look "deep" or "spiritual" or "enlightened" without ever actually having to leave their comfort zones.
*Well, that, and a group of frequently violent people used it on the show Lost, which I always found funny and I assume was intended to be ironic.
*Actually, I said that it comes from the larger region of south Asia, but in most American/European eyes, it's identified with India.
Monday, February 28, 2011
My Life With the Datura Kill Cult
One of the weird side-effects of studying archaeology is that you soon find that some of your friends think of you as nature's drug dealer. For example, about a month before I finished my Masters degree, a friend of mine approached me and asked if I could identify Jimson Weed (aka Datura stramonium), a highly-toxic plant that , under very, very specific preparation and conditions can produce very strange hallucinations, but outside of those very, very specific conditions will kill you. He had been reading (naturally in culture-porn filled New-Age sources) about North American shamanic practices, and specifically about the use of hallucinogens in these practices, and decided that he wanted to have the experience. I told him about the dangers of the plant, and he claimed that these were over-blown by the DEA in order to discourage use (no, no they're not), even claiming to know someone who had used it and not died. I then pointed out that, even if the Jimson Weed didn't kill him, he was talking about recreating a state that, within it's normal religious context, was watched over by practiced people who had a pretty good idea of how to wrangle the person who had taken the drug in order to prevent them from harming themselves, and he was talking about doing it on his own without any real understanding of what effect it would have on his mind. He declared that he was experienced enough with "altered states of consciousness" that he would be fine.
Unless you were raised and trained by Shamans from a group that uses the plant in its ceremonies, the odds of you poisoning yourself while using it are pretty damn high, and there's a decent chance you'll kill your damn fool self. This isn't marijuana. Hell, it's not even crack. This is fucking datura. People historically have made animal poisons out of this plant for a reason! I would not have shown him the plant to begin with, but as the conversation went on and it became increasingly clear that he wasn't willing to accept just how dangerous the plant really is, nor how it might affect him, I informed him that I would not show him the plant not simply for basic legal reasons, but also because I didn't trust him to be safe and therefore would consider it a moral failing on my part to help him find it.
Given that there was a patch of it growing a five minute walk from his front door, I was particularly averse to showing him how to identify it.
Naturally, if these people are going to ask archaeologists about these plants, they will also ask Native Americans. One of my friends, who is a member of a local Native American tribal organization, tells me of a guy she knows, one of the "I would rather use crystals than chemotherapy should I contract cancer, which I won't because cancer is caused by bad vibes which I don't have because I shop at Whole Foods" sorts of people. He had informed her that he wanted to have a vision quest, and to that end he wanted her to supply him with peyote. Naturally, she refused.
Again, we have somebody without any real knowledge of what he is getting himself into asking someone who knows better to supply him with a dangerous plant. In this case, it is made even more absurd by the fact that the guy, who, like me, is as white as a lily, going to somebody who is from a group that he has some really weird misconceptions about in order to get something that he doesn't know how to use in order to experience a ritual from a culture that he knows next to nothing about. Hell, if he'd known anything about the culture, he would have asked for Jimson Weed instead of peyote - he was talking with a Native Californian and not New Mexican, after all.
Most of the folks I know, when asked to show someone one of these plants for their own use, rolls their eyes and tells the person what they can go do with themselves. But I wonder how often someone, whether out of a misplaced desire to be friendly or out of a sense of morbid curiosity, tells the wanna-be shaman how to identify the plants in question. And I wonder how many of the yearly plant deaths are due to this. Probably very few, but I am still curious.
Unless you were raised and trained by Shamans from a group that uses the plant in its ceremonies, the odds of you poisoning yourself while using it are pretty damn high, and there's a decent chance you'll kill your damn fool self. This isn't marijuana. Hell, it's not even crack. This is fucking datura. People historically have made animal poisons out of this plant for a reason! I would not have shown him the plant to begin with, but as the conversation went on and it became increasingly clear that he wasn't willing to accept just how dangerous the plant really is, nor how it might affect him, I informed him that I would not show him the plant not simply for basic legal reasons, but also because I didn't trust him to be safe and therefore would consider it a moral failing on my part to help him find it.
Given that there was a patch of it growing a five minute walk from his front door, I was particularly averse to showing him how to identify it.
Naturally, if these people are going to ask archaeologists about these plants, they will also ask Native Americans. One of my friends, who is a member of a local Native American tribal organization, tells me of a guy she knows, one of the "I would rather use crystals than chemotherapy should I contract cancer, which I won't because cancer is caused by bad vibes which I don't have because I shop at Whole Foods" sorts of people. He had informed her that he wanted to have a vision quest, and to that end he wanted her to supply him with peyote. Naturally, she refused.
Again, we have somebody without any real knowledge of what he is getting himself into asking someone who knows better to supply him with a dangerous plant. In this case, it is made even more absurd by the fact that the guy, who, like me, is as white as a lily, going to somebody who is from a group that he has some really weird misconceptions about in order to get something that he doesn't know how to use in order to experience a ritual from a culture that he knows next to nothing about. Hell, if he'd known anything about the culture, he would have asked for Jimson Weed instead of peyote - he was talking with a Native Californian and not New Mexican, after all.
Most of the folks I know, when asked to show someone one of these plants for their own use, rolls their eyes and tells the person what they can go do with themselves. But I wonder how often someone, whether out of a misplaced desire to be friendly or out of a sense of morbid curiosity, tells the wanna-be shaman how to identify the plants in question. And I wonder how many of the yearly plant deaths are due to this. Probably very few, but I am still curious.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Wannabe Tribe and False Impressions
I have probably mentioned this on the blog before, but a Chumash Elder with whom I was acquainted* back in Santa Barbara used to like asking "What's the biggest tribe in North America?" When you asked him the answer, he'd respond with "the Wannabe tribe!"
I was reminded of this yesterday, as I drove with the Native American monitor on my current project. As we moved from one site to another, we discussed all manner of things, one of which was the weird notions that many non-Native people have about how Native Americans live and how they are as people. She told me about how, as a teenager, a church located in her town arranged for people from her community to go live with people in San Francisco, as a sort of cultural exchange. Based on what she told me, it sounds as if she has generally good memories of the experience, but she told me about a weird set of conversations that she had with the host family, in which they were convinced that she lived in a ti-pi, hunted for food, etc., and had a hard time grasping that she lived in a normal house, had electricity, went to the grocery store, etc. The impression that these folks had, and keep in mind that this was the late 60s, a time when the vast majority of Native Americans lived in houses, had electricity, lived in towns, etc., was that the native peoples of the Americas were "wild" and "free", a romantic (and mistaken, and in some ways dehumanizing) belief, but a pervasive one.
Her story made me think of how some people react when they hear about my own ancestry. My grandmother on my mother's side was Cherokee/Choctaw, which means that my mother was half-native, and I am one-quarter, if we go by genetics. But, and here's the important thing, my mother and I were both raised in urban areas of Stanislaus County, California. We are both blond, we both have fair skin, and her eyes are blue while mine are green. We were never treated as being anything other than white, and neither Cherokee nor Choctaw culture were part of our upbringing - I only know about them because of my training in anthropology, which is essentially an outsider's perspective. While we might be considered Native American or partially so due to our ancestry, the fact of the matter is that we are for all practical purposes Caucasian. Whatever my ancestry, I am no more Cherokee or Choctaw than I am German, Irish, Scottish, or Swedish.
It has always struck me as curious, and more than a bit annoying, when people who are, like me, essentially just American white mutts discover that they have some Native American ancestry (or, as I suspect is often the case, invent Native American ancestry for themselves) and from there begin to claim some sort of bizarre "birthright" based on what are essentially racist notions of the wild, free, mystically-tied-to-nature "Native American." Now, don't misunderstand me, I see no problem with people becoming interested in the actual cultures of other people, regardless of whether this is out of simple curiosity or out of a discovery of their own genetic ancestry (certainly, I wouldn't be in my own line of work if I didn't support such things), but that is not typically what happens. More often, people find out that they have Native American ancestry, and from there decide that this means that they have some sort of magical tie to a non-existent people (the Native Americans of myth rather than reality) and that they are somehow more tied in to some sort of quasi-divine notion of nature. Most of these folks have little to no knowledge of the actual culture that they claim membership in, and often lump all Native Americans in to one monolithic whole - a tendency which demonstrates the depth of the ignorance of such individuals- and it is a monolithic whole that owes more to a combination of Westerns and New Age nonsense than to actual history. It's culture porn in it's purest form.
When I discuss this with people, they often say something along the lines of "hey, at least they're looking to the Native Americans with respect, which has got to be an improvement over the racism of the past!" Perhaps, but it is still not a good thing. Eve Darian-smith, in her book The New Capitalists, describes how the notion of the spiritual/natural mystic Indian held by many of the Wannabe tribe, and held by many people who aren't Wannabe members but are sympathetic to them, has been used by those who oppose entry of actual tribal organization into businesses - the basic idea being that people are comfortable with "natural" Indians, but don't think that they should be involved with such trappings of the modern world as business, science, etc.** This thinking can even impact individuals outside of tribal organizations, who often report that they have a hard time being taken seriously by colleagues who see them as an emblem of some sort of magical culture rather than as the individuals and professionals that they actually are.
Darian-Smith is Australian, and from what she has told me, similar problems face the Aborigines of Australia, and I suspect that this is not uncommon in other parts of the world.
So, yeah, it's probably an improvement that most non-natives now see these people as something other than a problem to be solved (as was the case for most of the 19th and even a chunk of the 20th centuries), but the conversion into divine nature-heroes probably isn't particularly helpful. And when it becomes difficult to determine who really is, and who isn't, a member of the groups because so many people claim a culture that they don't actually have any experience with, well, it becomes more of a problem.
*It's a funny thing, I come into contact with these people because of my job, and so when I say that I know a Chumash Elder, that's not bragging or an attempt to show off my multi-cultural ties to mysticism or any other such bullshit, it's pretty much the same as a construction worker saying that he knows a safety inspector. However, as described in this entry, we have so dehumanized the native peoples of tha Americas, first by demonizing them and now by making them into inhuman avatars for a nature-based mysticism, that to say that I know an elder sounds like I am claiming some sort of claims to being close to divine power.
**All of this despite the fact that there are many successful professionals from the myriad of Native American groups.
I was reminded of this yesterday, as I drove with the Native American monitor on my current project. As we moved from one site to another, we discussed all manner of things, one of which was the weird notions that many non-Native people have about how Native Americans live and how they are as people. She told me about how, as a teenager, a church located in her town arranged for people from her community to go live with people in San Francisco, as a sort of cultural exchange. Based on what she told me, it sounds as if she has generally good memories of the experience, but she told me about a weird set of conversations that she had with the host family, in which they were convinced that she lived in a ti-pi, hunted for food, etc., and had a hard time grasping that she lived in a normal house, had electricity, went to the grocery store, etc. The impression that these folks had, and keep in mind that this was the late 60s, a time when the vast majority of Native Americans lived in houses, had electricity, lived in towns, etc., was that the native peoples of the Americas were "wild" and "free", a romantic (and mistaken, and in some ways dehumanizing) belief, but a pervasive one.
Her story made me think of how some people react when they hear about my own ancestry. My grandmother on my mother's side was Cherokee/Choctaw, which means that my mother was half-native, and I am one-quarter, if we go by genetics. But, and here's the important thing, my mother and I were both raised in urban areas of Stanislaus County, California. We are both blond, we both have fair skin, and her eyes are blue while mine are green. We were never treated as being anything other than white, and neither Cherokee nor Choctaw culture were part of our upbringing - I only know about them because of my training in anthropology, which is essentially an outsider's perspective. While we might be considered Native American or partially so due to our ancestry, the fact of the matter is that we are for all practical purposes Caucasian. Whatever my ancestry, I am no more Cherokee or Choctaw than I am German, Irish, Scottish, or Swedish.
It has always struck me as curious, and more than a bit annoying, when people who are, like me, essentially just American white mutts discover that they have some Native American ancestry (or, as I suspect is often the case, invent Native American ancestry for themselves) and from there begin to claim some sort of bizarre "birthright" based on what are essentially racist notions of the wild, free, mystically-tied-to-nature "Native American." Now, don't misunderstand me, I see no problem with people becoming interested in the actual cultures of other people, regardless of whether this is out of simple curiosity or out of a discovery of their own genetic ancestry (certainly, I wouldn't be in my own line of work if I didn't support such things), but that is not typically what happens. More often, people find out that they have Native American ancestry, and from there decide that this means that they have some sort of magical tie to a non-existent people (the Native Americans of myth rather than reality) and that they are somehow more tied in to some sort of quasi-divine notion of nature. Most of these folks have little to no knowledge of the actual culture that they claim membership in, and often lump all Native Americans in to one monolithic whole - a tendency which demonstrates the depth of the ignorance of such individuals- and it is a monolithic whole that owes more to a combination of Westerns and New Age nonsense than to actual history. It's culture porn in it's purest form.
When I discuss this with people, they often say something along the lines of "hey, at least they're looking to the Native Americans with respect, which has got to be an improvement over the racism of the past!" Perhaps, but it is still not a good thing. Eve Darian-smith, in her book The New Capitalists, describes how the notion of the spiritual/natural mystic Indian held by many of the Wannabe tribe, and held by many people who aren't Wannabe members but are sympathetic to them, has been used by those who oppose entry of actual tribal organization into businesses - the basic idea being that people are comfortable with "natural" Indians, but don't think that they should be involved with such trappings of the modern world as business, science, etc.** This thinking can even impact individuals outside of tribal organizations, who often report that they have a hard time being taken seriously by colleagues who see them as an emblem of some sort of magical culture rather than as the individuals and professionals that they actually are.
Darian-Smith is Australian, and from what she has told me, similar problems face the Aborigines of Australia, and I suspect that this is not uncommon in other parts of the world.
So, yeah, it's probably an improvement that most non-natives now see these people as something other than a problem to be solved (as was the case for most of the 19th and even a chunk of the 20th centuries), but the conversion into divine nature-heroes probably isn't particularly helpful. And when it becomes difficult to determine who really is, and who isn't, a member of the groups because so many people claim a culture that they don't actually have any experience with, well, it becomes more of a problem.
*It's a funny thing, I come into contact with these people because of my job, and so when I say that I know a Chumash Elder, that's not bragging or an attempt to show off my multi-cultural ties to mysticism or any other such bullshit, it's pretty much the same as a construction worker saying that he knows a safety inspector. However, as described in this entry, we have so dehumanized the native peoples of tha Americas, first by demonizing them and now by making them into inhuman avatars for a nature-based mysticism, that to say that I know an elder sounds like I am claiming some sort of claims to being close to divine power.
**All of this despite the fact that there are many successful professionals from the myriad of Native American groups.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Old time religion...or not
When I was in high school, one of my friends announced that, having discovered that she was something in the neighborhood of 1/16th or 1/32nd Iroquois, she was going to start following "the Native American religion." She was rather proud of her new-found and allegedly deeper, nature-derived, mystical spirituality, which of course made her a bit obnoxious. Even more bizarre, she had turned to another friend, who was equally non-Native American, for information on this religious path*.
I found this whole turn of events baffling for three reasons.
The first reason is that I have never understood the common belief that having Native American ancestry somehow makes one more mystical, or provides them with a mystical birth-right. As I have described before, a full quarter of my ancestry comes from the Cherokee and Choctaw, and this in no way changes the fact that I was essentially raised as a white kid in a small town (which rapidly became the suburbs as I was growing up). The "mystical Indian" notion is at its heart a racist concept, and one that has been used (both historically and in the here and now) to damage attempts by Native American groups and individuals to advance their own causes in our modern world (see Eve Darian-Smith's book New Capitalists for a good discussion of the matter). It's basically culture porn that is used by (usually white) people who feel dissatisfied with their lives to try to make themselves feel connected to some other (non-existent but stereotypical) culture.
The second reason that I was baffled by this young woman's claim was the fact that the notion of the (as in a singular) Native American religion is absurd on its face. At the time of European contact there were hundreds of ethno-linguistic groups within North America and thousands of tribes and tribelets. Even looking at one ethno-linguistic group, let's say the Gabrielino of southern California, there is a figure who is considered a historic leaders at one village, a spirit at another village, a messiah at another, a culture hero at another, and a god at another village. And this is within an area that consists solely of modern-day Los Angeles and Orange Counties and amongst people who spoke dialects of the same language family and were part of the same social network. This doesn't even get into the differences between the Gabrielino and the Iroquois, Choctaw, Inuit, Tlingit, Hopi, Chumash, and so on. The notion that there is a single "Native American Religion" is based on the notion that all of the native people of the Americas are more or less the same - which is another rather racist notion*.
The third reason that this was baffling to me is something that I have actually come to accept, though not quite understand, since then. We, as a society, tend to talk about religion as being a deeply-held set of convictions and beliefs about the way the world works. For many people this is true. However, for some people religion has significantly more to do with adopting an identity than with belief. This is why it is not uncommon for some people to adopt religions when they admit that they don't know the religion's tenets, and why it's not uncommon for adherents to many social movements to adopt the same religious label as other members of the movement even though they may not actually hold the same beliefs or even know what the religion's beliefs are**. While I don't know if this woman was among them, as a teenager and as a college student, I knew many people who adopted new religions as a form of rebellion (they later admitted this was the case, which is how I can comment on it without worrying about overly-insulting them).
At any rate, I find the declaration just as odd now as I did back then.
*I remember, several years back, seeing the video-tape box for the film Island of the Blue Dolphins. The story is about a Nicoleno woman, but the video box bragged about having "genuine Salinans" in the cast. On the one hand, this seems rather uncomfortably reminiscent of the 17th-19th century European habit of putting non-Europeans on display for public gawking. On the other hand, it is as non-sensical as filming a movie about 1930s France and bragging that your film is especially authentic because the cast features "real, live Germans!"
**In retrospect, discovering this, and realizing that many people don't actually know, much less believe, the teachings of the religion that they claim to follow (such as the people I met who refused to believe that Jesus was Jewish) is probably one of the many factors that made me really start questioning religion in general.
I found this whole turn of events baffling for three reasons.
The first reason is that I have never understood the common belief that having Native American ancestry somehow makes one more mystical, or provides them with a mystical birth-right. As I have described before, a full quarter of my ancestry comes from the Cherokee and Choctaw, and this in no way changes the fact that I was essentially raised as a white kid in a small town (which rapidly became the suburbs as I was growing up). The "mystical Indian" notion is at its heart a racist concept, and one that has been used (both historically and in the here and now) to damage attempts by Native American groups and individuals to advance their own causes in our modern world (see Eve Darian-Smith's book New Capitalists for a good discussion of the matter). It's basically culture porn that is used by (usually white) people who feel dissatisfied with their lives to try to make themselves feel connected to some other (non-existent but stereotypical) culture.
The second reason that I was baffled by this young woman's claim was the fact that the notion of the (as in a singular) Native American religion is absurd on its face. At the time of European contact there were hundreds of ethno-linguistic groups within North America and thousands of tribes and tribelets. Even looking at one ethno-linguistic group, let's say the Gabrielino of southern California, there is a figure who is considered a historic leaders at one village, a spirit at another village, a messiah at another, a culture hero at another, and a god at another village. And this is within an area that consists solely of modern-day Los Angeles and Orange Counties and amongst people who spoke dialects of the same language family and were part of the same social network. This doesn't even get into the differences between the Gabrielino and the Iroquois, Choctaw, Inuit, Tlingit, Hopi, Chumash, and so on. The notion that there is a single "Native American Religion" is based on the notion that all of the native people of the Americas are more or less the same - which is another rather racist notion*.
The third reason that this was baffling to me is something that I have actually come to accept, though not quite understand, since then. We, as a society, tend to talk about religion as being a deeply-held set of convictions and beliefs about the way the world works. For many people this is true. However, for some people religion has significantly more to do with adopting an identity than with belief. This is why it is not uncommon for some people to adopt religions when they admit that they don't know the religion's tenets, and why it's not uncommon for adherents to many social movements to adopt the same religious label as other members of the movement even though they may not actually hold the same beliefs or even know what the religion's beliefs are**. While I don't know if this woman was among them, as a teenager and as a college student, I knew many people who adopted new religions as a form of rebellion (they later admitted this was the case, which is how I can comment on it without worrying about overly-insulting them).
At any rate, I find the declaration just as odd now as I did back then.
*I remember, several years back, seeing the video-tape box for the film Island of the Blue Dolphins. The story is about a Nicoleno woman, but the video box bragged about having "genuine Salinans" in the cast. On the one hand, this seems rather uncomfortably reminiscent of the 17th-19th century European habit of putting non-Europeans on display for public gawking. On the other hand, it is as non-sensical as filming a movie about 1930s France and bragging that your film is especially authentic because the cast features "real, live Germans!"
**In retrospect, discovering this, and realizing that many people don't actually know, much less believe, the teachings of the religion that they claim to follow (such as the people I met who refused to believe that Jesus was Jewish) is probably one of the many factors that made me really start questioning religion in general.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
From India, for your viewing pleasure?
I don't know what to say...but I'm glad to see that I am not the only person who recognizes culture porn, but these people are certainly funnier than me.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Corporate Culture Porn
I used to work for one of the big Silicon Valley tech companies, specifically I worked for a company that produced hard drives and other such storage devices. One day, while walking to my desk, I caught site of a flyer that had been posted on the wall. The flyer advertised an upcoming seminar (which we would all, inceidentally, be required to attend) on the conflict-resolution skills of the people of the island nation of Mauritius. The people of Mauritius, the flyer informed the casual reader, were comprised of five different religions, multiple ethncities, and had an economy that, like others of Africa, was often tumultuous - and yet they managed to all live together in complete happiness with no of ethnic or religious division or tension, no xenophobia, and no real conflict.
I was skeptical, but realized that, as we were all required to attend the seminar*, I would see soon enough what was up.
When the appointed day came, the human resources people all rounded us up and led us to the corral...err...meeting room. We sat down, and the presentation began. Over the course of the next hour, we watched a video produced by a company that sells products intended to increase workplace morale. In the course of watching this video, we were informed that the people of Mauritius are the ever-so-nicest people ever who completely accept each other despite religious, ethnic, and language differences, and gosh don't you know that in Mauritius there isn't ever any form of prejudice or bigotry because we are all ever-so-happy being one big family, and isn't it so great and makes you feel so warm and fuzzy seeing this so why don't you apply all of these ever-so-special and sugary sweet lessons to your job and have the ever-so-bestest work place ever!
Hmmmm....perhaps I should insert more "ever-so's" into the above paragraph...nahhh...
When the video was done, the human resources overlord who was running the show turned a whiteboard around to face the captive audience, and on it were printed three questions. I don't recall questions #2 or #3, but questions #1 was:
It was at this moment that I came up with the term Culture Porn. The producers of this video had clearly taken another culture, stripped it of its complexities and vitality, denied the real hardships and hence the acomplishments of the people of the culture, and packaged it as a consumer product to sell to corporate managers who were more interested in placating their employees than solving the real problems within their own corporate culture. I was thoroughly disgusted.
We had been shown a completely false image of Mauritius. In truth, there is much to admire about the people and the culture (or rather cultures) that they had developed. There was also much to be wary of. Like any nation, Mauritius has both admirable and damnable qualities. Within a year of sitting through this indoctrination session, I had re-entered the world of anthropology, and learned that, Mauritius did indeed have high rates of literacy and education, that it did function remarkably well as a civil society despite many economic and social problems, and all of this was certainly remarkable and well worth taking note of. At the same time, the claim that the island was free of prejudices and bigotries was an outright lie - ethnic and religious prejudices play a significant role in Mauritian politics, for example. Likewise, like many other physically constrained societies, the compact population leads to a society in which one is not exactly free to puruse ones own interests when they don't mesh with the often irrational prejudices of those around you.
In other words, Mauritus is, in many respects, a remarkable place, and it has a compelling story that is of value and interest to the outside world. However, to deny its problems is to deny the realities of life there, and also to deny the adversities that the people of the island have had to overcome, and is to cheapen the truth of their lives in favor of creating a consumer product.
To make matters worse, the entire presentation was rather disturbingly reminiscent of the racist "happy savage" stereotype that had been very much a part of 19th century colonial discourse.
Which brought us back to the question that had been scrawled on the white board.
I was at this point so disgusted that I decided to speak my mind about this. I commented to the room that the image that had been portrayed was obviously false, that it was quite offensive and borderline racist, and that it was impossible from such a false image to say if I admired the people, much less what I admired about them.
The HR people looked surprised, then annoyed that I had commented as I had. A few minutes later we were dismissed without further question. A few other employees thanked me for expressing sentiments that were, apparently, also on their minds.
*Like most large companies, the one for which I worked had developed a number of strategies to try to increase the morale of the work force, and as simple things like being honest with the employees regarding whether or not they would be laid off right before Christmas was apparently off the table, they did all manner of rather weird things instead. Amongst these were requiring us to read a book about finding happiness at work even if your job is a drag and makes you long for the sweet release of death (what I referred to as the "happy drone book"), and attending seminars on how people in harder situations have good lifes and so we really shouldn't be worrying about the dangling sword of unemployment, such as this Mauritius seminar.
I was skeptical, but realized that, as we were all required to attend the seminar*, I would see soon enough what was up.
When the appointed day came, the human resources people all rounded us up and led us to the corral...err...meeting room. We sat down, and the presentation began. Over the course of the next hour, we watched a video produced by a company that sells products intended to increase workplace morale. In the course of watching this video, we were informed that the people of Mauritius are the ever-so-nicest people ever who completely accept each other despite religious, ethnic, and language differences, and gosh don't you know that in Mauritius there isn't ever any form of prejudice or bigotry because we are all ever-so-happy being one big family, and isn't it so great and makes you feel so warm and fuzzy seeing this so why don't you apply all of these ever-so-special and sugary sweet lessons to your job and have the ever-so-bestest work place ever!
Hmmmm....perhaps I should insert more "ever-so's" into the above paragraph...nahhh...
When the video was done, the human resources overlord who was running the show turned a whiteboard around to face the captive audience, and on it were printed three questions. I don't recall questions #2 or #3, but questions #1 was:
What do you most admire about the people of Mauritius?
It was at this moment that I came up with the term Culture Porn. The producers of this video had clearly taken another culture, stripped it of its complexities and vitality, denied the real hardships and hence the acomplishments of the people of the culture, and packaged it as a consumer product to sell to corporate managers who were more interested in placating their employees than solving the real problems within their own corporate culture. I was thoroughly disgusted.
We had been shown a completely false image of Mauritius. In truth, there is much to admire about the people and the culture (or rather cultures) that they had developed. There was also much to be wary of. Like any nation, Mauritius has both admirable and damnable qualities. Within a year of sitting through this indoctrination session, I had re-entered the world of anthropology, and learned that, Mauritius did indeed have high rates of literacy and education, that it did function remarkably well as a civil society despite many economic and social problems, and all of this was certainly remarkable and well worth taking note of. At the same time, the claim that the island was free of prejudices and bigotries was an outright lie - ethnic and religious prejudices play a significant role in Mauritian politics, for example. Likewise, like many other physically constrained societies, the compact population leads to a society in which one is not exactly free to puruse ones own interests when they don't mesh with the often irrational prejudices of those around you.
In other words, Mauritus is, in many respects, a remarkable place, and it has a compelling story that is of value and interest to the outside world. However, to deny its problems is to deny the realities of life there, and also to deny the adversities that the people of the island have had to overcome, and is to cheapen the truth of their lives in favor of creating a consumer product.
To make matters worse, the entire presentation was rather disturbingly reminiscent of the racist "happy savage" stereotype that had been very much a part of 19th century colonial discourse.
Which brought us back to the question that had been scrawled on the white board.
What do you most admire about the people of Mauritius?
I was at this point so disgusted that I decided to speak my mind about this. I commented to the room that the image that had been portrayed was obviously false, that it was quite offensive and borderline racist, and that it was impossible from such a false image to say if I admired the people, much less what I admired about them.
The HR people looked surprised, then annoyed that I had commented as I had. A few minutes later we were dismissed without further question. A few other employees thanked me for expressing sentiments that were, apparently, also on their minds.
*Like most large companies, the one for which I worked had developed a number of strategies to try to increase the morale of the work force, and as simple things like being honest with the employees regarding whether or not they would be laid off right before Christmas was apparently off the table, they did all manner of rather weird things instead. Amongst these were requiring us to read a book about finding happiness at work even if your job is a drag and makes you long for the sweet release of death (what I referred to as the "happy drone book"), and attending seminars on how people in harder situations have good lifes and so we really shouldn't be worrying about the dangling sword of unemployment, such as this Mauritius seminar.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Culture Porn
My friend Holly has a sister who was, in her early 20s, "looking for meaning in life" and, as tends to happen, ended up with a weird cult living in Oregon on a parcel of land that they call, appropriately enough, The Land.
Now, what separates this from the commonplace, run-of-the-mill "gee golly, my sister ran off to join a cult" story* is the fact that this is a "shamanic" cult. I use quotes because, frankly, as far as I can tell, this is just a bunch of suburban whiteys who've seen Dances With Wolves one too many times and who know as much about shamanism as Lindsay Lohan knows about organic chemistry. However, they have fun dancing about wearing mock animal heads and pretending to be in touch with nature spirits, when all they're really in touch with is their own pretentiousness**.
I live in Santa Cruz, which means that I have encountered these sorts of people before and will, no doubt, encounter them again. They're a dime a dozen**, and generally not that interesting. However, their obsession with attempting to create (or as so many of these people claim resurrect or continue) a shamanic religion is kind of interesting to me, though not for the reasons that most of them would hope.
Typically, the desire to have a shamanic religion seems to come not from an understanding of shamanism, but rather from a desire to "get in touch with the Earth, y'know, like the Native Americans!" (but, again, see the ** footnote). I have written about the social fetishization of Native American peoples before, the tendency to ignore who these people really are and instead focus on (and/or try to emulate) a stereotyped or oversimplified caricature.
We see similar patterns play out with many different cultures. For example, there are those who claim to be deeply interested in India and Hinduism, but know little more than that for Hindus there is a belief in both ascendance and reincarnation. these people are generally more interested in posing as "spiritually deep" than in actually finding out why some Indian mystics choose to leave the world or why Hindus generally hold certain animals sacred.
Odds are that you know at least one person who claims great knowledge of Japanese culture, but who has gained their...ahem..."extensive" knowledge from reading comic books and watching cartoons. And so many of these people have never even seen a Godzilla movie...they should be ashamed.
And then there are the wanna-be shamanists, who use the trappings of shamanism found in any low-grade 50's jungle movie and mix it with a heaping dose of new-age philosophy and claim that it's how the Native Americans/People of Africa/Australian Aborigines/insert-group-here view the universe.
I refer to this as Culture Porn: it's the creation of a sleek, sexy, but ultimately empty simulacrum of another culture, produced and packaged for easy availability to any consumer. Just like pornography, the simulacrum is airbrushed, free of the blemishes that real people and cultures have, often modified to suit the desires (or perceived desires) of the consumer. The consumer of culture porn is no more looking to understand the other culture (as it really is, warts and all) than the consumer of pornography is looking for real, messy sex. And like pornography, the consumer may forget that they are looking at a construct, and begin to think that this is not only what truly exists, but what they deserve to have.
Unlike pornography, however, the consumer of culture porn typically doesn't see himself/herself as a consumer, but instead manages to convince themselves that they are "culturally sensitive" or "coming to understand the superior spirituality of these others" or some such thing.
Some strains of culture porn have their roots in the past. The tendency for many to obsess over the religious and/or medicinal practices of Asian cultures without regard to the context in which these practices developed and exist bears more than a passing resemblance to the racist 19th century view of Asians as "celestial people" of the "mystic Orient." Likewise, the naive shamanism described above seems to be descended from the fascination of 18th and 19th century Europeans with the "mystical" practices of the native people of colonised regions - often espousing attitudes towards these people, such as that they were "closer to nature" or "part of a mythic past but irrelevant to the present and future", that were often used in justifying their subsequent second-class position within colonial and post-colonial societies. That these qualities are now viewed as admirable rather than detrimental doesn't change their origin or their falseness, nor does it change the bigotry inherent in them.
Other strains of culture porn seem to be rather more modern. The suburban kid obsessed with Japanese pop culture but possessing little real knowledge of Japanese culture or history often begins their interest because of an aesthetic or thematic interest in the material - and there is nothing wrong with this as long as it does not develop into a hubristic belief that the pop culture fan has become an expert on the nation that produces that pop culture.
And none of this is to discourage people from genuinely trying to learn about and understand other cultures. Hell, I'm an anthropologist by training - how would that have happened if I did not think that trying to understand others was an absolutely worthwhile pursuit. Likewise, there are those who truly do come to understand cultures other than their own, but they do so not by putting the culture up on a pedestal or treating it as a thing to be admired or aspired to, but rather by getting truly into it, working to understand the context of the culture, and knowing that it has both its positives and negatives.
However, this degree of effort and engagement is, in my experience, typically lacking. More common, we see people ignore the reality, brush aside the real people, and purchase the porn. And so, at this moment in Oregon, there is probably someone wearing a paper mache bull's head doing the cultural equivalent of masturbating.
Special link: I love the Onion.
*Holly and I have learned quite a bit about this group, and despite their weird, and frankly laughable, ways, they are quite harmless. Otherwise I wouldn't be making light of the situation like this.
**And these sorts of groups should not be confused with groups that do genuinely carry on an older shamanic tradition, or with groups who have actually bothered to learn about the nature and history of shamanism before attempting to create their own, new practices. Whatever else one may say about these groups, they generally are something other than a bunch of pretentious people who want to feel special.
Now, what separates this from the commonplace, run-of-the-mill "gee golly, my sister ran off to join a cult" story* is the fact that this is a "shamanic" cult. I use quotes because, frankly, as far as I can tell, this is just a bunch of suburban whiteys who've seen Dances With Wolves one too many times and who know as much about shamanism as Lindsay Lohan knows about organic chemistry. However, they have fun dancing about wearing mock animal heads and pretending to be in touch with nature spirits, when all they're really in touch with is their own pretentiousness**.
I live in Santa Cruz, which means that I have encountered these sorts of people before and will, no doubt, encounter them again. They're a dime a dozen**, and generally not that interesting. However, their obsession with attempting to create (or as so many of these people claim resurrect or continue) a shamanic religion is kind of interesting to me, though not for the reasons that most of them would hope.
Typically, the desire to have a shamanic religion seems to come not from an understanding of shamanism, but rather from a desire to "get in touch with the Earth, y'know, like the Native Americans!" (but, again, see the ** footnote). I have written about the social fetishization of Native American peoples before, the tendency to ignore who these people really are and instead focus on (and/or try to emulate) a stereotyped or oversimplified caricature.
We see similar patterns play out with many different cultures. For example, there are those who claim to be deeply interested in India and Hinduism, but know little more than that for Hindus there is a belief in both ascendance and reincarnation. these people are generally more interested in posing as "spiritually deep" than in actually finding out why some Indian mystics choose to leave the world or why Hindus generally hold certain animals sacred.
Odds are that you know at least one person who claims great knowledge of Japanese culture, but who has gained their...ahem..."extensive" knowledge from reading comic books and watching cartoons. And so many of these people have never even seen a Godzilla movie...they should be ashamed.
And then there are the wanna-be shamanists, who use the trappings of shamanism found in any low-grade 50's jungle movie and mix it with a heaping dose of new-age philosophy and claim that it's how the Native Americans/People of Africa/Australian Aborigines/insert-group-here view the universe.
I refer to this as Culture Porn: it's the creation of a sleek, sexy, but ultimately empty simulacrum of another culture, produced and packaged for easy availability to any consumer. Just like pornography, the simulacrum is airbrushed, free of the blemishes that real people and cultures have, often modified to suit the desires (or perceived desires) of the consumer. The consumer of culture porn is no more looking to understand the other culture (as it really is, warts and all) than the consumer of pornography is looking for real, messy sex. And like pornography, the consumer may forget that they are looking at a construct, and begin to think that this is not only what truly exists, but what they deserve to have.
Unlike pornography, however, the consumer of culture porn typically doesn't see himself/herself as a consumer, but instead manages to convince themselves that they are "culturally sensitive" or "coming to understand the superior spirituality of these others" or some such thing.
Some strains of culture porn have their roots in the past. The tendency for many to obsess over the religious and/or medicinal practices of Asian cultures without regard to the context in which these practices developed and exist bears more than a passing resemblance to the racist 19th century view of Asians as "celestial people" of the "mystic Orient." Likewise, the naive shamanism described above seems to be descended from the fascination of 18th and 19th century Europeans with the "mystical" practices of the native people of colonised regions - often espousing attitudes towards these people, such as that they were "closer to nature" or "part of a mythic past but irrelevant to the present and future", that were often used in justifying their subsequent second-class position within colonial and post-colonial societies. That these qualities are now viewed as admirable rather than detrimental doesn't change their origin or their falseness, nor does it change the bigotry inherent in them.
Other strains of culture porn seem to be rather more modern. The suburban kid obsessed with Japanese pop culture but possessing little real knowledge of Japanese culture or history often begins their interest because of an aesthetic or thematic interest in the material - and there is nothing wrong with this as long as it does not develop into a hubristic belief that the pop culture fan has become an expert on the nation that produces that pop culture.
And none of this is to discourage people from genuinely trying to learn about and understand other cultures. Hell, I'm an anthropologist by training - how would that have happened if I did not think that trying to understand others was an absolutely worthwhile pursuit. Likewise, there are those who truly do come to understand cultures other than their own, but they do so not by putting the culture up on a pedestal or treating it as a thing to be admired or aspired to, but rather by getting truly into it, working to understand the context of the culture, and knowing that it has both its positives and negatives.
However, this degree of effort and engagement is, in my experience, typically lacking. More common, we see people ignore the reality, brush aside the real people, and purchase the porn. And so, at this moment in Oregon, there is probably someone wearing a paper mache bull's head doing the cultural equivalent of masturbating.
Special link: I love the Onion.
*Holly and I have learned quite a bit about this group, and despite their weird, and frankly laughable, ways, they are quite harmless. Otherwise I wouldn't be making light of the situation like this.
**And these sorts of groups should not be confused with groups that do genuinely carry on an older shamanic tradition, or with groups who have actually bothered to learn about the nature and history of shamanism before attempting to create their own, new practices. Whatever else one may say about these groups, they generally are something other than a bunch of pretentious people who want to feel special.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Notes on Japan
I should probably put up some photos from this trip, but I would have to re-size them, and as such, I will have to do some work before I can post them. Nonetheless, three weeks later, I figure that I should write something about the trip to Japan – which was, it must be said, pretty damn cool. For the sake of brevity (and because it makes it easier for me to make cheap cracks about things that I should probably not be making cheap cracks about), I will divide this post into themed sections.
Food
I had been warned that food in Tokyo would be prohibitively expensive – stories of $20 (or approximately $2000 Yen) bowls of soup and cups of coffee abounded. I was prepared to have to take out a line to buy ramen – even had the paperwork ready. So, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that these prices were rare and limited to very high-end places, and that in general, food cost about the same as it does in a large city in the U.S., say San Francisco or Los Angeles.
The food was also generally of very high quality. Well, actually, what the hell do I know, really? It tasted good, and didn’t cause anyone to get sick. For all I know, I could have been eating in the Tokyo equivalent of Arbys. But, regardless, I was very pleased and very much enjoyed my meals.
What did seem remarkable to me was how very few surprises there were. The food was very familiar to me from Japanese food that I have had or seen in the U.S. There was nothing really new or odd to me – and I was on the lookout. Much of it was better – the noodles, for example, seemed to be better prepared and were never soggy as they often are in the U.S., but it was nonetheless very familiar. Interestingly, the only times that we had or saw something that was truly alien, it was invariably when the Tokyo chefs were attempting to make European or American foods – and we ended up with very strange stuffed omelets, watery orange scrambled eggs, and crepes that had either gone very, very wrong or were amazingly good (really, the Japanese seem to have taken a weird fascination with the crepe, and have developed it to a deliciously high level – though there have been some casualties along the way). Come to think of it, the number of mangled western foods that involved egg is really rather interesting.
One of the strangest moments for me came when Kay and I went to an allegedly “Tex Mex” restaurant (because, when you’re in Asia and see a “Tex Mex” place, you HAVE TO go in). In the course of the next hour, I had a curry prepared by a Japanese cook and served by a Nigerian man in a “Tex Mex” place that had an Indiana Jones movie playing in the monitor at the front. Very strange.
Transportation
The Tokyo subway system is both a marvel and a mess, though a well-articulated and highly efficient mess. There are numerous different companies running numerous different trains along numerous different lines. It is tempting to get day passes for one of the lines, but this often leaves you having to shell out more money when you decide to use another line. There were day passes available for most of the lines, but even these would occasionally not work.
And yet, somehow, the system manages to get by fairly well. Once we had learned the basic rules, we managed to get around Tokyo, and even outside of Tokyo, quite efficiently, and at less than the fuel and parking costs to travel equivalent distances in California. Nonetheless, especially in the first day or so, confusion about which train to get on, which entrance to use, and where to exit the train created a lot of trouble.
And then there is the subway stations themselves. Some of these spanned several city blocks, and contained numerous shops, restaurants, and resting places. I suspect some of them may even have had apartment buildings built over them, though I was not clear on that. Regardless, there was a virtual second city built underneath Tokyo consisting of the tunnels and hallways that made up the subway stations. This, naturally, made it easy to get lost. There were numerous occasions when we would walk around in circles looking for the correct exit or train, only to end up at the wrong place and spend another half hour trying to get our bearings.
Luckily, being the only tall and white people nearby, the locals often took pity on us and would help to direct us. And we did eventually get the hang of things. By the end of the trip, we were perfectly comfortable navigating the system.
Cultural Mish-Mash
People from the U.S. love to make fun of “Engrish” – the linguistic part of the perceived tendency for the Japanese to take elements from U.S. and European culture and mash them together into nonsensical or horribly garbled new forms. This tendency includes the seemingly random use of English words or phrases in everything from pop songs to shop names (indeed, it was truly bizarre to see shops with names like “Snobbery” or “Nudy Boy” or a bar named “Ooze Charm”), not to mention the hilarious and common mistranslation (even on government documents, where you think they’d at least spring for a native English Speaker to help out – there’s three continents that contain us, we’re not hard to find). However, it extends beyond language and into many other aspects of culture. As mentioned above, Japanese attempts at producing western foods ranging from pizza to omelets often resulted in strange creations that were foreign and either exotic or disgusting both to the Japanese and to the culture from which the food was allegedly borrowed.
At first, we would see these sorts of things, chuckle, and think to ourselves “wow, the Japanese are just not getting it.” And then I came across something that put the whole thing into context. In one of the guide books I read about a theme restaurant that is designed to look like the interior of a Catholic church (we didn’t go, not due to lack of interest, but rather due to lack of time), and we thought that this was simply beyond bizarre. And then we visited a Shinto shrine, and realized that many U.S.-run Japanese restaurants are designed to resemble these shrines, which, when you get down to it, is not at all different than the restaurant being designed to look like a Catholic church.
Since I returned, I have not been able to help noticing the number of places in the U.S. that either make nonsensical use of words from other languages (“Del Taco” anyone? And how many people have tattoos of Japanese writing elements without any real way of knowing what their tattoo says?) or else are themselves a rather silly mish-mash of different elements from the culture allegedly being paid tribute*. Regardless, this is one place where the outsider (in this case, us) tends to laugh without realizing that, really, they do the exact same thing**.
Regardless, when you are from the culture from which elements are being borrowed, it leads to a surreal experience.
People
Before I left, I had been told that the Japanese people were very formal, and that breaking with formality, even unintentionally, was likely to cause offense. I was delighted to find that this was not true. I suspect that we benefited from being in Tokyo – where folks are accustomed to visitors – and from being obviously white and non-native, thus signaling by our very appearance that we weren’t from ‘round them thar parts. Regardless, we found the people we dealt with were very friendly, willing to lend a hand, and would try to instruct us in the social niceties in as polite and friendly a manner as possible. In other words, they were pretty damn cool.
Now, perhaps they went home and complained about the crazy German guy they dealt with today, and I certainly would not blame them if they had, but at least to my face, they were never less than cordial.
That being said, as happens when one travels, we did have to get used to many customs that were easy to forget (especially when it comes to handling cash – there is a simple but important custom involving trays on which cash is placed).
However, I have heard that while the Japanese people tend to be very friendly to visitors, they are far less friendly towards foreigners who wish to become residents (and you can find some descriptions of this at the Tokyo Damage Report). This is made more difficult by the fact that Japan’s native population is shrinking due to low birth rates, and as such foreign workers are becoming increasingly important to the Japanese economy. Indeed, a similar trend is happening over much of the industrialized world, and will likely result in some major demographic shifts in the next couple of centuries***.
Architecture
The architecture was generally faimiliar – while there was the occasional pagoda or more traditional house, most of the buildings would not have looked out of place in San Francisco –except for one thing. Because real-estate is at such a premium, most buildings had the smallest footprint that they could, resulting in very tall AND skinny buildings everywhere. Otherwise, we saw the range of buildings from bland and utilitarian to amazingly ugly to rather beautiful. Other than the more traditional structures, even the beautiful buildings themselves did not appear to have any particularly “Japanese” quality to them, but rather were what one would expect in any major city. Nonetheless, some of them were amazing.
I would write more here, but really, it’s probably better to just show pictures. So, once I get the photos resized, I’ll post some.
One interesting quirk to Japanese architecture – the concept of privacy in the restroom is a bit different in Japan than in the U.S. As a result, men’s rooms were often either open for all to see, or at least had a large window so that passers-by could see the urinals. In fact, our hotel room had a great view of the men’s room in the office building opposite us. Brings a whole new perspective to the desire to have a room with a view.
However, the stalls were more enclosed than they are in the U.S. Each of the walls and the door proceeded all the way to the ground, rather than have the large gap between the wall and ground that we are familiar with. However, given that the toilets were typically porcelain basins in the ground with a flushing mechanism attached, rather than the seat toilets with which we are familiar, the full walls are not surprising.
Home-Grown Weird
Like everywhere else, Japan has its own home-grown weird. By weird, I don’t mean a patronizing “oh, look at those cute little non-Americans and their quaint customs” kinda’ of stuff, I mean that many of the Japanese seem to see much of this stuff as pretty damn weird. A lot of it is the general generation gap stuff that you see everywhere, but it is nonetheless of a particularly Japanese flavor and therefore noteworthy.
So, as I say, this home-grown weirdness was primarily found within youth culture (which, let’s face it, is where it’s found in many different societies). There is, for example, the tendency to see “cosplay” (or costume play) among teenagers – in one area of town, we ran across numerous teenagers dressed in all manner of clothing that would have done Liberace proud. It was rather fun to watch, and I expect that, provided that you have the time and patience necessary, fun to do. I didn’t get any particularly great photos, but I would again direct you to the Tokyo Damage Report for some wonderful examples.
There is one form off oddity that was not found primarily within youth culture (though it may have started there), and that was “cuteness.” This includes the cartoons, toys, and pop-culture stuff that is ubiquitous even outside of Japan (such as the Pokemon craze that hit the U.S., leaving millions of casualties in its wake), but is spread much, much farther than that. For example, warning signs pertaining to not sticking your fingers into automatic doors all had a rather cute “crying face” sign, which seemed to be universal, appearing in both public places and private businesses. Airplanes were painted with cute images. Cell phone charms (which are ubiquitous in Asia, but rather unusual in the U.S.) often sported cute animals or humanoid figures, and so on. Even the music played to indicate when the subway was about to depart was often “cute” in nature.
In Total
Anyway, on the whole it was a wonderful trip, and I hope to return someday – though I think that next time I’ll go to Kyoto to see more of the historical/cultural side of Japan (Tokyo is considered the economic/political capital, and Kyoto the cultural capitol), and perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to travel about the country more next time. Regardless, I’m glad I went, and I fully recommend such a trip to anyone who has the means.
*Much of the Japan-o-phile anime sub-culture does this with Japanese culture. The same is true of the culturally pornographic fetishization of India and Tibet by many young white people, which often seems to owe more to an atavistic resurgence of the imperial/colonial-era obsession with the “Mystic Orient” than with a fair assessment of the regions, cultures, and people in questions. All the funnier, or more offensive if you’re the sort who takes offense, when you consider that these are the same people who tend to protest against “imperialism.”
**I’ve been laughing at us as well ever since I returned, so I figure I’m just going equal opportunity in making fun of shops with names like “Nudy Boy.” Or I’m being a honky imperialist. Either way, the shop name is funny.
***Many right-wing people and organizations see this as being absolutely disastrous. While there are things that I would prefer not to see spread – any form of militant religion, for example – this sort of demographic change really is just part of the life of humans as a species and always has been, though it can be painful for those living through some of the major phases of it and current population dynamics give it a bit of a twist. It’s nothing new, and really, is going to happen even if everyone on the planet wanted to stop it. It’s just happening on a larger scale because of the concurrent growth of population and technological development. However, it’s how all of our current ethnic groups came to be, and no doubt will simply create new ethnic groups down the line, which will in turn face the same things themselves eventually – unless a comet hits the planet first.
Food
I had been warned that food in Tokyo would be prohibitively expensive – stories of $20 (or approximately $2000 Yen) bowls of soup and cups of coffee abounded. I was prepared to have to take out a line to buy ramen – even had the paperwork ready. So, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that these prices were rare and limited to very high-end places, and that in general, food cost about the same as it does in a large city in the U.S., say San Francisco or Los Angeles.
The food was also generally of very high quality. Well, actually, what the hell do I know, really? It tasted good, and didn’t cause anyone to get sick. For all I know, I could have been eating in the Tokyo equivalent of Arbys. But, regardless, I was very pleased and very much enjoyed my meals.
What did seem remarkable to me was how very few surprises there were. The food was very familiar to me from Japanese food that I have had or seen in the U.S. There was nothing really new or odd to me – and I was on the lookout. Much of it was better – the noodles, for example, seemed to be better prepared and were never soggy as they often are in the U.S., but it was nonetheless very familiar. Interestingly, the only times that we had or saw something that was truly alien, it was invariably when the Tokyo chefs were attempting to make European or American foods – and we ended up with very strange stuffed omelets, watery orange scrambled eggs, and crepes that had either gone very, very wrong or were amazingly good (really, the Japanese seem to have taken a weird fascination with the crepe, and have developed it to a deliciously high level – though there have been some casualties along the way). Come to think of it, the number of mangled western foods that involved egg is really rather interesting.
One of the strangest moments for me came when Kay and I went to an allegedly “Tex Mex” restaurant (because, when you’re in Asia and see a “Tex Mex” place, you HAVE TO go in). In the course of the next hour, I had a curry prepared by a Japanese cook and served by a Nigerian man in a “Tex Mex” place that had an Indiana Jones movie playing in the monitor at the front. Very strange.
Transportation
The Tokyo subway system is both a marvel and a mess, though a well-articulated and highly efficient mess. There are numerous different companies running numerous different trains along numerous different lines. It is tempting to get day passes for one of the lines, but this often leaves you having to shell out more money when you decide to use another line. There were day passes available for most of the lines, but even these would occasionally not work.
And yet, somehow, the system manages to get by fairly well. Once we had learned the basic rules, we managed to get around Tokyo, and even outside of Tokyo, quite efficiently, and at less than the fuel and parking costs to travel equivalent distances in California. Nonetheless, especially in the first day or so, confusion about which train to get on, which entrance to use, and where to exit the train created a lot of trouble.
And then there is the subway stations themselves. Some of these spanned several city blocks, and contained numerous shops, restaurants, and resting places. I suspect some of them may even have had apartment buildings built over them, though I was not clear on that. Regardless, there was a virtual second city built underneath Tokyo consisting of the tunnels and hallways that made up the subway stations. This, naturally, made it easy to get lost. There were numerous occasions when we would walk around in circles looking for the correct exit or train, only to end up at the wrong place and spend another half hour trying to get our bearings.
Luckily, being the only tall and white people nearby, the locals often took pity on us and would help to direct us. And we did eventually get the hang of things. By the end of the trip, we were perfectly comfortable navigating the system.
Cultural Mish-Mash
People from the U.S. love to make fun of “Engrish” – the linguistic part of the perceived tendency for the Japanese to take elements from U.S. and European culture and mash them together into nonsensical or horribly garbled new forms. This tendency includes the seemingly random use of English words or phrases in everything from pop songs to shop names (indeed, it was truly bizarre to see shops with names like “Snobbery” or “Nudy Boy” or a bar named “Ooze Charm”), not to mention the hilarious and common mistranslation (even on government documents, where you think they’d at least spring for a native English Speaker to help out – there’s three continents that contain us, we’re not hard to find). However, it extends beyond language and into many other aspects of culture. As mentioned above, Japanese attempts at producing western foods ranging from pizza to omelets often resulted in strange creations that were foreign and either exotic or disgusting both to the Japanese and to the culture from which the food was allegedly borrowed.
At first, we would see these sorts of things, chuckle, and think to ourselves “wow, the Japanese are just not getting it.” And then I came across something that put the whole thing into context. In one of the guide books I read about a theme restaurant that is designed to look like the interior of a Catholic church (we didn’t go, not due to lack of interest, but rather due to lack of time), and we thought that this was simply beyond bizarre. And then we visited a Shinto shrine, and realized that many U.S.-run Japanese restaurants are designed to resemble these shrines, which, when you get down to it, is not at all different than the restaurant being designed to look like a Catholic church.
Since I returned, I have not been able to help noticing the number of places in the U.S. that either make nonsensical use of words from other languages (“Del Taco” anyone? And how many people have tattoos of Japanese writing elements without any real way of knowing what their tattoo says?) or else are themselves a rather silly mish-mash of different elements from the culture allegedly being paid tribute*. Regardless, this is one place where the outsider (in this case, us) tends to laugh without realizing that, really, they do the exact same thing**.
Regardless, when you are from the culture from which elements are being borrowed, it leads to a surreal experience.
People
Before I left, I had been told that the Japanese people were very formal, and that breaking with formality, even unintentionally, was likely to cause offense. I was delighted to find that this was not true. I suspect that we benefited from being in Tokyo – where folks are accustomed to visitors – and from being obviously white and non-native, thus signaling by our very appearance that we weren’t from ‘round them thar parts. Regardless, we found the people we dealt with were very friendly, willing to lend a hand, and would try to instruct us in the social niceties in as polite and friendly a manner as possible. In other words, they were pretty damn cool.
Now, perhaps they went home and complained about the crazy German guy they dealt with today, and I certainly would not blame them if they had, but at least to my face, they were never less than cordial.
That being said, as happens when one travels, we did have to get used to many customs that were easy to forget (especially when it comes to handling cash – there is a simple but important custom involving trays on which cash is placed).
However, I have heard that while the Japanese people tend to be very friendly to visitors, they are far less friendly towards foreigners who wish to become residents (and you can find some descriptions of this at the Tokyo Damage Report). This is made more difficult by the fact that Japan’s native population is shrinking due to low birth rates, and as such foreign workers are becoming increasingly important to the Japanese economy. Indeed, a similar trend is happening over much of the industrialized world, and will likely result in some major demographic shifts in the next couple of centuries***.
Architecture
The architecture was generally faimiliar – while there was the occasional pagoda or more traditional house, most of the buildings would not have looked out of place in San Francisco –except for one thing. Because real-estate is at such a premium, most buildings had the smallest footprint that they could, resulting in very tall AND skinny buildings everywhere. Otherwise, we saw the range of buildings from bland and utilitarian to amazingly ugly to rather beautiful. Other than the more traditional structures, even the beautiful buildings themselves did not appear to have any particularly “Japanese” quality to them, but rather were what one would expect in any major city. Nonetheless, some of them were amazing.
I would write more here, but really, it’s probably better to just show pictures. So, once I get the photos resized, I’ll post some.
One interesting quirk to Japanese architecture – the concept of privacy in the restroom is a bit different in Japan than in the U.S. As a result, men’s rooms were often either open for all to see, or at least had a large window so that passers-by could see the urinals. In fact, our hotel room had a great view of the men’s room in the office building opposite us. Brings a whole new perspective to the desire to have a room with a view.
However, the stalls were more enclosed than they are in the U.S. Each of the walls and the door proceeded all the way to the ground, rather than have the large gap between the wall and ground that we are familiar with. However, given that the toilets were typically porcelain basins in the ground with a flushing mechanism attached, rather than the seat toilets with which we are familiar, the full walls are not surprising.
Home-Grown Weird
Like everywhere else, Japan has its own home-grown weird. By weird, I don’t mean a patronizing “oh, look at those cute little non-Americans and their quaint customs” kinda’ of stuff, I mean that many of the Japanese seem to see much of this stuff as pretty damn weird. A lot of it is the general generation gap stuff that you see everywhere, but it is nonetheless of a particularly Japanese flavor and therefore noteworthy.
So, as I say, this home-grown weirdness was primarily found within youth culture (which, let’s face it, is where it’s found in many different societies). There is, for example, the tendency to see “cosplay” (or costume play) among teenagers – in one area of town, we ran across numerous teenagers dressed in all manner of clothing that would have done Liberace proud. It was rather fun to watch, and I expect that, provided that you have the time and patience necessary, fun to do. I didn’t get any particularly great photos, but I would again direct you to the Tokyo Damage Report for some wonderful examples.
There is one form off oddity that was not found primarily within youth culture (though it may have started there), and that was “cuteness.” This includes the cartoons, toys, and pop-culture stuff that is ubiquitous even outside of Japan (such as the Pokemon craze that hit the U.S., leaving millions of casualties in its wake), but is spread much, much farther than that. For example, warning signs pertaining to not sticking your fingers into automatic doors all had a rather cute “crying face” sign, which seemed to be universal, appearing in both public places and private businesses. Airplanes were painted with cute images. Cell phone charms (which are ubiquitous in Asia, but rather unusual in the U.S.) often sported cute animals or humanoid figures, and so on. Even the music played to indicate when the subway was about to depart was often “cute” in nature.
In Total
Anyway, on the whole it was a wonderful trip, and I hope to return someday – though I think that next time I’ll go to Kyoto to see more of the historical/cultural side of Japan (Tokyo is considered the economic/political capital, and Kyoto the cultural capitol), and perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to travel about the country more next time. Regardless, I’m glad I went, and I fully recommend such a trip to anyone who has the means.
*Much of the Japan-o-phile anime sub-culture does this with Japanese culture. The same is true of the culturally pornographic fetishization of India and Tibet by many young white people, which often seems to owe more to an atavistic resurgence of the imperial/colonial-era obsession with the “Mystic Orient” than with a fair assessment of the regions, cultures, and people in questions. All the funnier, or more offensive if you’re the sort who takes offense, when you consider that these are the same people who tend to protest against “imperialism.”
**I’ve been laughing at us as well ever since I returned, so I figure I’m just going equal opportunity in making fun of shops with names like “Nudy Boy.” Or I’m being a honky imperialist. Either way, the shop name is funny.
***Many right-wing people and organizations see this as being absolutely disastrous. While there are things that I would prefer not to see spread – any form of militant religion, for example – this sort of demographic change really is just part of the life of humans as a species and always has been, though it can be painful for those living through some of the major phases of it and current population dynamics give it a bit of a twist. It’s nothing new, and really, is going to happen even if everyone on the planet wanted to stop it. It’s just happening on a larger scale because of the concurrent growth of population and technological development. However, it’s how all of our current ethnic groups came to be, and no doubt will simply create new ethnic groups down the line, which will in turn face the same things themselves eventually – unless a comet hits the planet first.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Mind-Bullets Against the Dream Catcher
When I was in high school, my class read a short story (I don’t recall the name of said story) in which a young British boy is sent to live with his aunt in England. He detests her, and takes solace in spending time with his pet mongoose (that he eventually comes to revere as a god). At the end of the story, the aunt goes to remove the mongoose from her house, only to have the cage open and the mongoose kill her as the nephew listens on while calmly eating breakfast.
My senior-year literature teacher, Nancy Barr, suggested that the boy had willed his aunt’s death. She then proceeded to ask various members of the class if we believed it was possible to actually do this – to imagine a situation and believe in it so strongly that it becomes physical reality.
Ten years later, I got the chance to put this hypothesis to the test.
I spent a year and a half as an intern in the environmental conservation office at Vandenberg Air Force Base. During this time, a group that was dedicated to establishing a walking trail that covered the entirety of the Californian coastline decided to walk the proposed path, from the Oregon border all the way down to the border of Mexico. However, this meant walking through Vandenberg Air Force Base – and it probably goes without saying that the officers running the base were uneasy about allowing these “long-haired-hippie-type pedestrians” wander about the base, and so my boss and I were dispatched to act as guides and chaperones.
For the most part, it was enjoyable – we shepherded the trail-advocates across the base, and found most of them to be pleasant, if sometimes comically idealistic, folks (for example, the leader of the group spent a good deal of time talking about his rank in the Peace Corps, why he loved Birkenstocks, the number of Nalgene bottles he owned, and the joys he found in a tofu burger – I managed to not ask him how it felt to be a walking stereotype). The weather was nice, the scenery beautiful, and the work easy. All in all, a damn fine day.
Except for one conversation.
During the lunch break, one of the hikers, a woman of about 45 or so, approached me and asked what my function on the base was.
“I’m an archaeologist,” I responded, thinking nothing of the question at the time.
“Oh, that’s what I thought! Are you interested in Native American Culture?”
I knew where this was going, but could think of no gracious way to not answer. “Well, I kinda’ hafta’ be in order to do my job.”
“Do you have any of THAT blood in you?” She asked eagerly, clearly hoping that she had met some mystical creature of the sort that doesn’t exist outside of the mind of a modern white suburbanite.
“Pardon?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Do you have any of THEIR blood in you?”
“Well,” I looked up, thoughtfully, “I’ve managed to avoid needing a transfusion, so I don’t have anyone’s blood in me except for my own.”
She blinked, looked momentarily confused, and decided to phrase her question in a more plain and straight-forward way. “Do you have any Native American Ancestry?”
“Yeah. My grandmother, on my mother’s side, was half Cherokee and half Choctaw.”
“Oh!” She believed that she had found her prey – the elusive Injun Nature Mystic, so popular in the imaginings of wanna-be Sierra Club members who don’t get out much, “what was her name?”
“Buna” (pronounced “B-YOO-NA” for those of you who aren’t familiar with English butchering of words adopted from other languages) I stated.
She looked frustrated. “What was her REAL name?”
I looked at her blankly and said, again, “Buna.”
“Right, but what was her REAL name? You know, her REAL name?”
It was at this point that I decided to try testing Ms. Barr’s hypothesis, and I imagined, with as much force as I could muster, this woman getting a clue. It didn’t work.
“I told you her REAL name.”
She looked confused. Then she looked frustrated, as if I was somehow hiding a secret from her, and if only she knew how to ask correctly, or could complete some task, I would open the door and let her into the world of true Native American ecological enlightenment.
I decided to again test Ms. Barr’s hypothesis, this time imagining, with all of the will I had in my mind and body, that this woman’s tongue would shrivel and fall out. It didn’t work.
“Well,” she looked both confused and determined, “how do you know that THAT was her real name?”
“You mean aside from the fact that it was on her birth certificate, on her driver’s license, was what she called herself, and is what everyone else called her?”
“Oh.” She slunk away, and I tried to test Ms. Barr’s Hypothesis a third time, this time imagining that the woman’s head would explode. It still didn’t work.
The sad thing is that this woman probably doesn’t realize that her assumption that all Native Americans have names like “Deer Who Frolics in the Rain” or “Bear Who Hunts Walks in the Night” is based on a bigoted belief that all Native Americans are wilderness-dwelling mystics who are out of place in the modern world –with people making life frustrating for many Native Amaericans because so many folks believe that the “Indians aren’t capable of running businesses/being a lawyer/becoming a doctor/serving as a police officer/etc.”, because they are, apparently, only capable of being icons for a lost idyllic past in which humans had mystical connections to the trees and streams. This sort of cultural pornography, the titillating display of another culture to show only those aspects that appeal to the viewer without an acknowledgement of the reality of the individual or group of people being put on display, really gets under my skin - it's essentially a vestige of the racist 19th century notion that white Europeans were rational and responsible, and the rest of the world nothing but brown-skinned superstitious mystics and witch doctors. The fact that the white people are now revering the superstitious and the witch doctors doesn't change the fact that this is still a racist portrayal of the rest of the world.
I’d like to think that my responses helped slap this woman back to reality, and led her to ponder the fact that Native Americans are humans, just like the rest of us, and deserving of some basic respect, not pseudo-reverence where they are put up as bizarre inhuman idols of magic.
But the truth is that she probably walked away thinking of me as the ignorant one, and is still clinging to her racist stereotypes of my grandmother’s ethnicity.
And unfortunately, Ms. Barr’s hypothesis failed, but my high school physics teacher would be happy to know that his dismissal of such things as psychic powers was further confirmed.
So it goes.
.
My senior-year literature teacher, Nancy Barr, suggested that the boy had willed his aunt’s death. She then proceeded to ask various members of the class if we believed it was possible to actually do this – to imagine a situation and believe in it so strongly that it becomes physical reality.
Ten years later, I got the chance to put this hypothesis to the test.
I spent a year and a half as an intern in the environmental conservation office at Vandenberg Air Force Base. During this time, a group that was dedicated to establishing a walking trail that covered the entirety of the Californian coastline decided to walk the proposed path, from the Oregon border all the way down to the border of Mexico. However, this meant walking through Vandenberg Air Force Base – and it probably goes without saying that the officers running the base were uneasy about allowing these “long-haired-hippie-type pedestrians” wander about the base, and so my boss and I were dispatched to act as guides and chaperones.
For the most part, it was enjoyable – we shepherded the trail-advocates across the base, and found most of them to be pleasant, if sometimes comically idealistic, folks (for example, the leader of the group spent a good deal of time talking about his rank in the Peace Corps, why he loved Birkenstocks, the number of Nalgene bottles he owned, and the joys he found in a tofu burger – I managed to not ask him how it felt to be a walking stereotype). The weather was nice, the scenery beautiful, and the work easy. All in all, a damn fine day.
Except for one conversation.
During the lunch break, one of the hikers, a woman of about 45 or so, approached me and asked what my function on the base was.
“I’m an archaeologist,” I responded, thinking nothing of the question at the time.
“Oh, that’s what I thought! Are you interested in Native American Culture?”
I knew where this was going, but could think of no gracious way to not answer. “Well, I kinda’ hafta’ be in order to do my job.”
“Do you have any of THAT blood in you?” She asked eagerly, clearly hoping that she had met some mystical creature of the sort that doesn’t exist outside of the mind of a modern white suburbanite.
“Pardon?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Do you have any of THEIR blood in you?”
“Well,” I looked up, thoughtfully, “I’ve managed to avoid needing a transfusion, so I don’t have anyone’s blood in me except for my own.”
She blinked, looked momentarily confused, and decided to phrase her question in a more plain and straight-forward way. “Do you have any Native American Ancestry?”
“Yeah. My grandmother, on my mother’s side, was half Cherokee and half Choctaw.”
“Oh!” She believed that she had found her prey – the elusive Injun Nature Mystic, so popular in the imaginings of wanna-be Sierra Club members who don’t get out much, “what was her name?”
“Buna” (pronounced “B-YOO-NA” for those of you who aren’t familiar with English butchering of words adopted from other languages) I stated.
She looked frustrated. “What was her REAL name?”
I looked at her blankly and said, again, “Buna.”
“Right, but what was her REAL name? You know, her REAL name?”
It was at this point that I decided to try testing Ms. Barr’s hypothesis, and I imagined, with as much force as I could muster, this woman getting a clue. It didn’t work.
“I told you her REAL name.”
She looked confused. Then she looked frustrated, as if I was somehow hiding a secret from her, and if only she knew how to ask correctly, or could complete some task, I would open the door and let her into the world of true Native American ecological enlightenment.
I decided to again test Ms. Barr’s hypothesis, this time imagining, with all of the will I had in my mind and body, that this woman’s tongue would shrivel and fall out. It didn’t work.
“Well,” she looked both confused and determined, “how do you know that THAT was her real name?”
“You mean aside from the fact that it was on her birth certificate, on her driver’s license, was what she called herself, and is what everyone else called her?”
“Oh.” She slunk away, and I tried to test Ms. Barr’s Hypothesis a third time, this time imagining that the woman’s head would explode. It still didn’t work.
The sad thing is that this woman probably doesn’t realize that her assumption that all Native Americans have names like “Deer Who Frolics in the Rain” or “Bear Who Hunts Walks in the Night” is based on a bigoted belief that all Native Americans are wilderness-dwelling mystics who are out of place in the modern world –with people making life frustrating for many Native Amaericans because so many folks believe that the “Indians aren’t capable of running businesses/being a lawyer/becoming a doctor/serving as a police officer/etc.”, because they are, apparently, only capable of being icons for a lost idyllic past in which humans had mystical connections to the trees and streams. This sort of cultural pornography, the titillating display of another culture to show only those aspects that appeal to the viewer without an acknowledgement of the reality of the individual or group of people being put on display, really gets under my skin - it's essentially a vestige of the racist 19th century notion that white Europeans were rational and responsible, and the rest of the world nothing but brown-skinned superstitious mystics and witch doctors. The fact that the white people are now revering the superstitious and the witch doctors doesn't change the fact that this is still a racist portrayal of the rest of the world.
I’d like to think that my responses helped slap this woman back to reality, and led her to ponder the fact that Native Americans are humans, just like the rest of us, and deserving of some basic respect, not pseudo-reverence where they are put up as bizarre inhuman idols of magic.
But the truth is that she probably walked away thinking of me as the ignorant one, and is still clinging to her racist stereotypes of my grandmother’s ethnicity.
And unfortunately, Ms. Barr’s hypothesis failed, but my high school physics teacher would be happy to know that his dismissal of such things as psychic powers was further confirmed.
So it goes.
.
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