Comment by edblarney | Hacker News Reader

Comment by edblarney | Hacker News Reader

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'The only way for Japan to progress is to abolish Japanese culture in favour of multiculturalism'.

... is how many people in the other parts of the world would view that position.

Maybe it's hard to understand for 'New World' people, who don't really have a sense of their own ethnicity, but it's very different elsewhere.

'Japan' is not so much a 'nationality' in the modern, Western sense.

'Japan' is the place where the 'Japanese' live.

The 'nation' of Japan is a legal construct around an ethnic group.

While I agree some degree of openness will definitely help the 'GDP' and on some other measures, it's important to grasp that other people will see it differently.

In new 'New World' - we generally focus on culturally secular measures, such as 'the GDP' i.e. a benchmark for the economy, which 'helps everyone' - and it avoids difficult socio-cultural arguments.

But almost everywhere else it's not like that.

I live in Quebec - and the Quebecois are an 'ethnic group' - and so politics here is totally different. We have state-sponsored child care for example - partly due to the very socialist political perspective, but partly because of the coherence of the community: it's really easy to get others to grasp the social benefits. They naturally seem themselves as part of a community, at least more so than the Anglo universe.

No culture has escaped appropriation and mixing, especially not Japan. So much of modern Japanese life has been molded by the American occupation.

Why do you think more non-Japanese people in the country means the end of Japanese culture? I know many foreigners who live long-term in Japan and have absorbed many ways of working in the society. Why do you think they stay?

Ultimiately, the base belief behind the anti-multicuturalism position is that culture cannot/will not be learned.

Think about the trope of all the people moving to the US for the American Dream. Have they not accepted American culture? People move place for reasons beyond economics.

I think your example is more a case of the Protestant work ethic coming into play (people should help themselves)

" So much of modern Japanese life has been molded by the American occupation."

Very true. But it's also fundamentally different than if the American influence were to have come from 10 or 20 million actual Americans living in Japan.

"Have they not accepted American culture?"

America does not have a culture in the classical sense of the term, or to be more fair - it's a new kind of culture.

Ergo - there is a 'lot less to accept'.

In America, you can 'do as you please' so long as you're not out go hurt anyone.

In Japan, there are a myriad of rules, spoken and unspoken, that one must adhere to.

It's easy for immigrants to 'get along' in the New World.

It'd be exceedingly hard to do so in places with more established classical culture.

This can be seen in Europe: they are very much intellectually and political open to newcomers, and yet have a really, really hard time integrating them.

There are dangerous, 'no go' zones in Sweden.

There are zero 'no go' or dangerous places here in Canada (or at least not based on migrant residence), where we have a lot more immigrants than Sweden.

In Canada we don't have our own language, customs, no cuisine, few social expectations other than fairly secular ones: go to school, get a job, be good, pay your taxes.

It is demonstratively untrue that the US doesn't have a culture. You think the people on the Mayflower had mindwipes before landing? The country is full of people with a certain mindset.

One could argue that American culture is shitty, but it's a direct extension of western European culture. Why else are so many movies retellings of Shakespeare and not Romance of the three kingdoms?

Obviously Canada also has a culture.

Every 'no go' zone claim I've seen is followed by debunking , so forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt.

No go zones are not a thing, seriously.

> no cuisine

I dunno. Poutine is pretty tasty.

Poutine is Junk Food sold at McDonalds and CostCo. I would not call it "Canadian Cuisine".

If you go to any food court in Canada what you will find is a myriad of ethnic foods: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese, etc.

that's the same everywhere. Tokyo's department store restaurants contain a bit of everything. Paris is filled with ethnic food.

I was confused about your use of the word "nation in the modern Western sense" first there. It used to mean more or less same thing in the West, especially in Europe. Of course the construction of nation-states and their borders in Europe during the 19th century was often quite arbitrary compared to the Japanese who live on an island and have done so for ages.

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