NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/culture/japan/14174

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-24 | 8.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!sun-barr!sh.wide!wnoc-tyo-news!news.u-tokyo.ac.jp!ccut!twics!dcroz
From: [e-mail] (DAVID CROSSLIN)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: What is Culture?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 24 Jan 93 11:16:07 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan
Lines: 179


Bill Lambert writes:

=}I found it pretty interesting form that he includes previous replies that I
=}wrote in response to his previous posts, but then conveniently omits most of
=}his text that I was responding to.

     "Conveniently?"  I have an ulterior motive?  I simply presumed that
anybody who was interested would know what the quoted passage referred to.
Didn't realize you needed to be prompted *every* time.  Sorry for making things
so difficult for you.

=}Secondly, there seems to be no extreme to which you would not go to classify
=}any and all behavior by Japanese as racially based and motivated, an example
=}of which can be seen in a reply to Mr. Ohtsuka about baseball, in which you
=}tried to make baseball games between Japanese and American teams into a race
=}war.

     I haven't quite decided whether you're misinterpreting my arguments out of
malice or out of stupidity, and until I do, I won't know exactly how to
respond.  For now, I'll just try to explain to you that, rather than "trying to
make baseball games between Japanese and American teams into a race war," as
your vicious slander would have it, I merely reported, correctly, that for the
Japanese all issues--including baseball--ultimately reduce to a matter of "our
race against all others."

     There is overwhelming support for this position, from Robert Whiting to
van Wolferen and Hane.  Check out "The Pacific War" for a primer.  Or don't, I
don't care.  If you'd been here when the American All-Star team came here for a
"series" you could have seen and heard it for yourself in all the media.

     Oh, sorry, I guess you couldn't.  World-famous authority-on-Japan Bill
Lambert doesn't speak or read Japanese well enough for that.  But he knows the
Japanese aren't racist.  He knows because they told him so.  Everybody
convinced?

     Don't expect that *everyone* will swallow your attempt to discredit
through ad hominem attack any troublesome argument that you are incapable of
rebutting through reference to fact and reason.

You:
>>=>=}I think you tried to define the limits, not me, and pretty clearly as
well.

Me:
>>=>Yes, I did:  "If it's racism when it happens in America or South Africa,
>>=>then it's racism when it happens in Japan."  A proposition you have been
>>=>fighting tooth and nail.

and you again:
=}The above quote came from my buddy Mr. Alton Harkcom, I believe... not you

     Think again.  This only goes to show how little real command you have of
the issues in question or the arguments advanced.

=}and I happen to agree with that statement.

     No, you don't.  You know you *should* agree with it, and that if you
oppose it openly you'll look like an idiot; but you still try to argue that
behavior that would clearly be racism in an American is something else in a
Japanese.

=}you seem quite adamant that Japanese racism is somehow different than other
=}racism.  More vile, more systematic, more endemic, and the like.

     I wondered how long it would take you to descend to flagrant lying.  You
cannot cite a single statement of mine that can by any stretch of the
imagination be interpreted to mean that Japanese racism is qualitatively
different from any other racism.

     Note that anyone of at least average intelligence (which may or may not
include you) can see at a glance that racism being more systematic (i.e., more
institutionalized) or more endemic in no way connotes a qualitative difference.

=}In doing so, you fail to recognize

     As stated above, your statement that I do so is a lie, and you are a liar.
It is you who "fails to recognize" the salient facts--or perhaps denies what he
knows, because he's on the payroll.

=}So what is the point of getting into this newsgroup and saying things such as
=}"find me one Japanese who is not a racist?"

     "What is the point of telling the truth," you ask?  I almost believe that
question could be a stumper for the likes of you.  Just as an exercise, though,
one possibility would be the hope someone would prove me wrong.  No one has.

=}Is that approach constructive

     How would you know?  Constructive for you is not offending the people who
write your paycheck.

     But yeah, if it sends one person out on a serious attempt to prove me
wrong, it was constructive.

     And you shouldn't presume that *everyone* has reacted like you.  There are
some people reading this group who are neither bigots nor quislings.

=}or even very bright given the audience?

     I don't think you're in much of a position to be passing judgement on the
intelligence of others.

     If you're asking me if I think it's dumb to offend racists and their
shills, I can only ask, what are you going to do about it?  Hunt me down and
beat me with an axe handle?  That'd be about your style, I guess.

=}Such conduct makes your postings look like some sort of personal vendetta to
=}tell the truth.

     How things look to you has become a matter of less than no interest to me.

Me:
>>=}Okay.  And we're all clear now that you're calling anybody who agrees with
>>=}the statement I made just above, with regard to racism being racism
>>=}wherever it  occurs, a racist.  Anybody who doesn't recognize that n*gg*r
>>=}passbooks in Japan  are different from those in South Africa is a racist,
>>=}right?  Anybody who  doesn't buy the proposition that Japan's unique
>>=}position in the cosmos exempts  them from normal standards of human
>>=}behavior is a racist.  The Gospel According to Bill Lambert.  Got it.

You:
>=}Of course you're putting words in my mouth that I never said.

     Nonsense.  I'm extrapolating from what you did say to the necessary
implications thereof.  The positions I attribute to you above are the
inescapable conclusions of the arguments you made.  I am aware, of course, that
you haven't thought your position through with enough rigor to be aware that
this is where it ultimately leads, but that's tough bananas.

=}It looks to me like you are the one who is exempting the Japanese from normal
=}standards of human behavior by continually citing that they operate outside
=}of those standards.

     Now *this* is truly funny.  Or pathetic, it's hard to tell which.  Maybe
both.

     You say that I have exempted the Japanese from normal standards of
behavior.  That is, that I have "freed them from an obligation, a duty, or a
liability to which others are subject," and that the action of mine which has
released them from their obligation to discharge this duty was my criticism of
them for failing to do so.

     Errr. . .had you been, maybe, nipping at the cooking sherry when you wrote
this, or are you really dumb enough to say something like that?

     One more time:  it is *you* who are making excuses for their failure to
meet normal standards of human behavior.  I am the one saying they should be
held to those standards.  Got it?

=}Racism, btw, is a human behavior. Not a good one, but one that history has
=}shown to be fairly common.  Got that?

     Ooooooo, yes sir!  It's totally irrelevant, of course, but I got it.

=}Failing to realize that "racism is just racism" by assigning it to some level
=}of national conspiracy and plan

     This is exactly the sort of tactic that worked so well for little Joe
Goebbels and big Joe Stalin.  Never mind the truth, just find a lie that would
discredit your opponent and keep screaming it.  Eventually, after enough
repetition, people will start believing it.

     It was filthy when they did it, and it's filthy when you do it.  I've
explained your error both here and in private e-mail.  I can only conclude that
your lie is deliberate.

=}Failure to differentiate the human issues of racism for some humans and not
=}some others means that you don't really understand racism at all.

     This looks like it should mean something, but it really doesn't.  It's
totally devoid of semantic content.  And you've written things like this often
enough that it becomes apparent that you just don't think too clearly.

     I think I can now answer my question from the top of this note.  You
misinterpret my arguments out of both malice *and* stupidity.  Tell you what,
put me in your kill file, okay?  You're going in mine.  You're not worth
talking to.