My first response to the "Why I like Japan so Much" post was あんたあほちゃう？, which translates as "Are you an idiot?". I admit this response is knee-jerk and juvenile, but its also honest. Needless to say, the comment was not received well:
Actually, if you've been reading my blog and even the post you were responding to, you'd see quite clearly that I mention what I dislike about Japan, what I like about Japan, what I dislike about America, what I like about America and so on. So, I am clueless as to where or how you get that I am seeing the world or issues with a black and white view?
Anti-Americanism is bigotry the way I see it. Anti-Americanism is not a person. So, if it is not an "it", than what pronoun do you suggest?
Mr. Expert on Complex Subjects, like I had mentioned in my disclaimer, I define Anti-Americanism MY WAY (subjectively). Can I not be subjective in my blog? Or do my views have to represent yours? Are you offended by views that differ from your own?
I see Anti-Americanism as having prejudicial feelings about the American people as a whole. Perhaps you see it differently. And I respect that. But how I SEE Anti-Americanism has nothing to do with seeing the world with a black and white view.
Don't you think if someone were to talk about [insert noun or adjective], they would define it first so that there wouldn't be any confusion? And if you were to read the literature written by other NON-AMERICANS, you will see that most people see AA as a form of bigotry and not simply criticizing a government.
Additionally, the Anti-Americans use the term "black and white" and "overly-simplistic" to define Americans. Can I not point out where their hypocrisy lies? Seriously, if you want to go after those that mindlessly label and look at things with a "black and white" perspective, you've got your work cut out for you regarding (since the term Anti-American offends you) those that blindly hate all Americans. Or do you just go after only those people who counteract their arguments and defend themselves?
The Japanese, generally, they ARE nice people and ARE nice to foreigners. That is truth. That is not an opinion. If they treat you like shit, it is well-deserved.
Perhaps you should think a bit more critically about your own black and white thinking before accusing others 'out there' of it.
You mean these people?
virgomonkey then went on to list a bunch of anti-American websites and facebook accounts.So, I elaborated:
You talk about nation-states as if they were singular entities with personalities and traits. ‘Japanese’ do this, ‘Americans’ are like this, all the ‘anti-Americans’ say this. You even talk about anti-Americanism as an object that does things
“But this is what Anti-Americanism is all about. It’s mindless bigotry. It doesn’t listen.”
Anti-Americanism is an it?
Perhaps you should think a bit more critically about your own black and white thinking before accusing others ‘out there’ of it.
The criticism I offered (albeit with little tact) suggested that virgomonkey makes a mistake by discussing nation-states and their entire populations as if they were individual actors. For example, in the post I initially responded to (Why I like Japan so Much), virgomonkey states that:
Japanese people don’t bring politics (they are generally not political people) into the mix when meeting foreigners and welcome them with an open heart.Later, she writes:
The Japanese very rarely make mistakes and put forth an incredible amount of pride in their work. The same applies to the way Japanese treat their food. In the US, people like cheap and fast especially because of our crumbling family structure over here where mom and dad are overworked and too exhausted to think about real food. In Japan, the people prefer QUALITY and NATURAL INGREDIENTS as opposed to the triple processed crapola you can find in the states.Both of these statements are gross generalizations and their veracity is questionable. What, for example, is the basis for making a statement such as "The Japanese very rarely make mistakes and put forth an incredible amount of pride in their work"? One could find measures for these things, but not on a scale that makes it appropriate to make a statement about "the Japanese". Also, how does virgomonkey know that people in Japan prefer quality and natural ingredients, or that moms and dads are overworked in America but not Japan? The ludicrousness of these broad generalizations was the gist of my criticism.
I could go on, but I'll leave it at the above couple of examples. Also, to be fair, at the end of her post, virgomonkey did write the following:
Anyway, this is just MY personal experience. Yours may have been different, so please spare any knee-jerk incoherencies in my comment section.However, it's from this very statement that I think virgomonkey should use greater caution in her use of meaningless generalizations about "the Japanese" (whomever those Japanese may be). In other words, for virgomonkey's statements to hold any water they must be contextualized within HER personal experience to reflect the diversity of the Japanese nation and its various people. Notice also that even in this sentence she's already taken the liberty to label any criticism she disagrees with as "knee-jerk incoherencies".
Now, on to virgomonkey's post, "The Most Hilarious Comment I’ve Received to Date" directed specifically at me. Basically, instead of addressing my criticism, virgomonkey creates a straw-man argument that she can easily 'knock-down' through an ad hominem attack on me. Using a set of pre-defined terms (no, virgomonkey, I wasn't too lazy to read them) that you can find in her glossary, virgomonkey sets out to charaterize me as a moralist out to defend what she labels "anti-Americanism". Essentially virgomonkey wants to make me out to be a "multicultural elitist", which is another of her pre-defined terms that you can find in her glossary.
Virgomonkey begins by calling me the "PC police". However, my criticism had nothing to do with political correctness. Rather, it was directed at virgomonkey's extreme overgeneralizations and the factual flimsiness of her arguments.
She goes on to misrepresent my questioning of her generalizations about anti-American discourseS (yes, there are more than one) as a sign of my support for these kinds of notions and ideas. Virgomonkey then goes on to link me with the Westboro Baptist Church, white supremicists, and anti-semites. This is an amazing leap of (il)logic to say the least. Yet, it works to virgomonkey's advantage because she can now masquerade herself as a crusader against the, as she puts it, "sheeple who blindly attack the American people".
Having now set me up (like a straw-man) as a hateful bigot along the lines of white supremicists and such, virgomonkey feels confident that she can push me over easily. Hypocrisy is her tool of choice. In other words, she attempts to criticize me for what I criticized her for. Since she's using my criticism perhaps she realizes--deep down somewhere--that it had some legitimacy. In her attempt to expose me as a hypocrite, virgomonkey used the following section of text from my post "日本のサンバ：浅草 Samba in Japan: Asakusa Festival":
And in his carefully written and balanced blog, he stereotypes the Japanese. You can find one example here.
For those who don’t know samba, most of the outfits are quite skimpy and t-back bottoms are the norm. Also, for those who don’t know–Japan is quite famous for chikan, and for odd-varieties of chikan. Anyway, the whole thing was almost too much to take. Some of these lecherous folks had arrived at the wee hours of the morning to secure a good spot for their ass hunting. What surprised me most was that there were quite a few older women getting in on the action too (apparently they sell the photos to websites and magazines–yuck).
These perverts were totally unabashed in their quest for bum shots. Good god all mighty.
First of all, I have never characterized my blog as being carefully written or balanced, but thanks for the compliment, sarcastic as it was.
Second, virgomonkey never points out where exactly I am stereotyping Japanese people, she simply tosses the quote out and says, "Hypocrisy at its finest, might I say?" Well, you MIGHT say, but you might also actually say what's hypocritical about this passage. In this particular post I was recounting an personal anecdote, never do I generalize about or characterize Japanese people as a whole. "Some of these lecherous folks. . .", I say, or "these perverts", referring specifically to the people I saw first-hand, not to the Japanese people as a whole. Virgomonkey might be able to make a case out of the sentence where I state, "Japan is quite famous for chikan, and for odd-varieties of chikan", but even here I'm only stating that within the country these kinds of people exist, which they do--something even virgomonkey verifies with her reference to "touch men" (I didn't even limit the gender, because I saw women doing it too).
Anyway, I apologize for taking so long to make a simple point, which is that virgomonkey has an agenda--it's laid out clearly on her blog--anyone who doesn't agree with that agenda, she attacks and labels as being elitist. If virgomonkey had responded in any substantive way to my criticism I wouldn't have taken the time to respond to her post, but since she felt compelled to spew on in an ad hominem diatribe characterizing me as some sort of racist, anti-American, anti-semite, anti-gay "doorknob", I felt a thorough response was appropriate.
So, keep up the good fight virgomonkey. God bless and do America proud.
Warmest Regards,
Your most multiculturalist of elitists, Nippon Blogger
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