Resistence vs. Lines of Flight

shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
it's good living in america coz even if you read the uk news every day when you get back to the UK you're always like 'yeah this is much less fucked up than america' even if you have the vague impression that the uk is somehow going wrong
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
I dont have a problem with economic migrants particularly, nor with venality, vice, greed....but everyone despises a hypocrite
 
M

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
Mr. Tea said:
You're obviously right that things are far from rosy in the UK, but are they really all that much better in Japan? I don't mean for you personally, I mean for ordinary Japanese people in general. It's my understanding (I've never been there) that the economy has been more or less stagnant for 30-odd years, so while your Fujitsus and Toyotas and so on are still headquartered there, most of the manufacturing jobs that once powered the economy have been outsourced so it's mainly service-oriented these days. Then you've got the demographic problems, with a crazy number of lonely, miserable old people, young people with tons of mental health problems who've almost given up reproducing, and far too little immigration to offset the low birth rate (unlike a lot of Western countries, and certainly the UK, where immigration means populations are growing even while birth rates are falling).
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Yeah it has been stagnant but overall living standards are still high, certainly in the big cities. Cost of living is becoming more of an issue because, although wages are now going up in a more sustained way, they're not necessarily keeping up with inflation, which has been high by Japanese standards the last few years but still nothing like what it is or was in the US or Europe. Insofar as people are struggling, it's nothing like to the same degree. And then looking at Tokyo more specifically, it's still an affordable city, especially when compared to other major world cities like London or New York. Rent is a fraction of what it is in those places, for example.

For all Japan's economic issues, and they definitely exist, I don't think there's anything like the economic disparities or resulting social dislocations seen in other countries. You do definitely feel a gap between cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Kyoto and the rest of the country, but even those worse off places don't feel as bleak or shitty as much of the UK can. I think in the Japan thread Shakahislop talked about capitalism feeling "bounded" and I definitely think there's something to that. It is a supremely capitalistic country in many ways — business has such an immense influence over politics, for example — but for various reasons companies don't want to or unable to shaft people in quite the same way they can in the West. Japan has embraced neoliberalism to an extent, but there is still this underpinning of community and social cohesion.

Although that's also not to deny that the demographics do cast a shadow over things. And long term I do wonder about Japanese competitiveness particularly in relation to how it is approaching the energy transition (I don't think things look good for carmakers, a major employer and economic pillar, for example). But if you came here I think you'd see that your image of Japan is fairly wrong.

Really my privilege as a foreigner is I largely exist outside of Japanese cultural norms. Some Japanese people naturally find those suffocating and look to leave in search of more freedom, but even then they sometimes come to see that actually Japan is just a nicer place to live and then return.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
mrfaucet said:
Yeah it has been stagnant but overall living standards are still high, certainly in the big cities. Cost of living is becoming more of an issue because, although wages are now going up in a more sustained way, they're not necessarily keeping up with inflation, which has been high by Japanese standards the last few years but still nothing like what it is or was in the US or Europe. Insofar as people are struggling, it's nothing like to the same degree. And then looking at Tokyo more specifically, it's still an affordable city, especially when compared to other major world cities like London or New York. Rent is a fraction of what it is in those places, for example.

For all Japan's economic issues, and they definitely exist, I don't think there's anything like the economic disparities or resulting social dislocations seen in other countries. You do definitely feel a gap between cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Kyoto and the rest of the country, but even those worse off places don't feel as bleak or shitty as much of the UK can. I think in the Japan thread Shakahislop talked about capitalism feeling "bounded" and I definitely think there's something to that. It is a supremely capitalistic country in many ways — business has such an immense influence over politics, for example — but for various reasons companies don't want to or unable to shaft people in quite the same way they can in the West. Japan has embraced neoliberalism to an extent, but there is still this underpinning of community and social cohesion.

Although that's also not to deny that the demographics do cast a shadow over things. And long term I do wonder about Japanese competitiveness particularly in relation to how it is approaching the energy transition (I don't think things look good for carmakers, a major employer and economic pillar, for example). But if you came here I think you'd see that your image of Japan is fairly wrong.

Really my privilege as a foreigner is I largely exist outside of Japanese cultural norms. Some Japanese people naturally find those suffocating and look to leave in search of more freedom, but even then they sometimes come to see that actually Japan is just a nicer place to live and then return.
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Ha, you've more or less agreed with everything I've said and then told me I'm "fairly wrong"!

Sounds like the biggest difference is a relatively lower degree of inequality, then. I've just looked it up and Japan has relatively few billionaires against the size of its population, and actually a pretty low Gini coefficient, as these things go.

It's interesting that that's the case when, as far as I know, there hasn't been much of a Left that's really all that left in Japanese politics for a long time now. As you say, though, it's not like they're not enthusiastic capitalists but it's capitalism that's constitute along different cultural lines from what we're used to.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
vershy versh said:
It's because she's a hypocrite and an opportunist.
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By your logic she should be making herself acceptable to the culture there by becoming Muslim, but then that would mean you expect Muslims to give up their religion when moving here, which would make you in favour of Islamophobia.

The point is if you move there you will not be able to continue your Western liberal degenerate ways unless you are in a ring-fenced enclosure. Islam does not want to mix with degenerates if it can help it. Muslims may feature in your ideal societal end-state but non-Muslims do not feature in theirs. Just get on with it and read the Koran so that you can get a little insight at least.
 
version

version

Well-known member
mixed_biscuits said:
By your logic she should be making herself acceptable to the culture there by becoming Muslim, but then that would mean you expect Muslims to give up their religion when moving here, which would make you in favour of Islamophobia.

The point is if you move there you will not be able to continue your Western liberal degenerate ways unless you are in a ring-fenced enclosure. Islam does not want to mix with degenerates if it can help it. Muslims may feature in your ideal societal end-state but non-Muslims do not feature in theirs. Just get on with it and read the Koran so that you can get a little insight at least.
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Her logic, not mine.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
luka said:
I dont have a problem with economic migrants particularly, nor with venality, vice, greed....but everyone despises a hypocrite
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It's only hypocritical if you're dumb and don't understand how the logic works. In a multicultural society you only need to adapt to the shared rules and principle of toleration of ways which you may not approve of. She's asking immigrants here to adapt to a multicultural society, whereas your misunderstood 'anti-hypocritical' principle is requiring her to adapt to a mono-culture...the situations are not analogous so there is no hypocrisy.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
It's things like this that show why HM Gov and I went to an elitist educational institution and everybody else spent another 3 years getting drunk.
 
Murphy

Murphy

cat malogen
dm the o.p with a self-portrait pic throwing up variables of Romans (not bible quotes)

they’ll be proper fuckin thrilled
 
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