your fannishness does not make you an authority on anything except your fannishness

[meitachi]

Okay, here's maybe an unpopular opinion:

Being a fan of a work/band/whatever from a certain country does not make you suddenly an authority on that country's culture, history, or politics, nor does it erase the country's imperfections (because no country is perfect) or justify your deliberate attempts to dismiss those imperfections to keep that country on a pedestal.

Or, summed up: being a fan of something from a certain country does not excuse you from being a decent human being.

So Japanese weeaboos, wherever you're actually from, stop defending Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking and the rape of Korean comfort women. Stop attacking every other country that has issue with Japan because Japan can't have ever done anything wrong! It is the land of shiny bishies and kawaii things!

So Korean idol stans, wherever you're actually from, stop defending racism and homophobia and misogyny in Korea because it's just part of the culture and, omg, oppa totally didn't even mean it that way. Stop attacking Japanese pop groups because they're so much ~lesser~ than Korean pop groups, like you're the most objective person ever.

So Chinese fans... Okay, I'm not in Chinese fandoms. I don't even know what to say here, but I highly doubt fans of Chinese media or Chinese fans themselves are free from any of the above. China loves nothing more than a great big persecution complex. It also loves a closed environment and is, as far as I can tell, not particularly interested in soliciting outside interest into their entertainment bubble. The better to maintain control and spin your propaganda, eh, CCP?

I'm not saying you can't have opinions - just stop having fucking ignorant opinions. Understand that just because you have some insight or experience or relevant thoughts, you have not become an expert. Unless you are from that country, unless you live in that country, you don't have the same insight and experience. Your perspective is lacking.

So once in a while it may behoove you to listen with an open mind instead of being so eager to share your opinion, which is SO relevant and SO informed just because you happen to like SHINee or Naruto or whatever.

There's little I hate more than the cultural relativism argument. Culture matters a lot, absolutely. Differing cultural norms may often cause people to miscommunicate due to those differences. Diversity should be respected and celebrated! But there are some universal standards for basic human decency and fundamental human rights. I absolutely believe this, and using cultural differences - whether by governments or individuals - to excuse or justify the abuse of those human rights is disgusting to me.



That's my screed for the day, sorry. I kept meaning to post happy fun fandom things here, but another time.

Comments

[peachpastiche.livejournal.com]

There's little I hate more than the cultural relativism argument. Culture matters a lot, absolutely. Differing cultural norms may often cause people to miscommunicate due to those differences. Diversity should be respected and celebrated! But there are some universal standards for basic human decency and fundamental human rights. I absolutely believe this, and using cultural differences - whether by governments or individuals - to excuse or justify the abuse of those human rights is disgusting to me.

Everything right there.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

c/ps our entire conversation here.

All the rage aside, I love when we have thoughtful conversations about us, life, where the world will be, etc. (Proving to myself that, yes, occasionally I can still give the ol' brain a workout!)

[peachpastiche.livejournal.com]

Me too!! I am glad my brain can come up with something other than tinsel and ponies and green screen tbh

[transitorial.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to lie - I remember doing shit like that when I was young and stupid. zomg I know Japanese! I learned it from anime! This makes me an expert in all things Japan!

...in my defense, I was really fucking stupid when I was younger.

But basically I'm here to say fucking WORD to everything posted here. I can't really be ~in fandom~ so much nowadays and a lot of it has to do with this exactly. Love your fandom. I'm not saying you aren't allowed. But sweeping the dirty parts under the rug doesn't make them any less dirty - it just makes you an apologizer for some really awful things.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

I think I was overly defensive of China, actually, but that probably stemmed from other reasons...

I do remember when I was really into my anime/manga phase, my parents were appalled and asked me why I had to be into Japanese things and tried to give me a lecture on the evils of Japan, which I blithely tried to refute based on my awesome knowledge of Japanese culture as garnered through manga. Um. Issues on all sides!

Thankfully, we grow up, you know? Love your fandom! Love the new things you learn from it! But it's okay to recognize and acknowledge its problems too.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

I don't know who this guy is, but I am glad he approves!

Seriously, though. Loving your fandom does not necessitate being blind to its problems or, worse, defending its problems with pigheaded offensiveness.

[chaos-harmony.livejournal.com]

THIS.

THIS.

THIS, SO HARD.

I might have to link your post, provided that that's okay with you, because good god, you totally just articulated a lot of the frustrations I have with... well, fandom culture in general, but especially weeaboo culture. Gahhhh.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Totally fine with me to link!

I love learning about new cultures and fandom is often a great vehicle for that! It can definitely help make things more accessible. But the way some people will appropriate from rather than learn about and the way some people will become offensively defensive about a culture/country they don't actually understand...

[lil-blossom.livejournal.com]

OH THIS!

Though, when it comes to school, I have to put on my cultural relativism hat. But that's because when you study anthropology they'd like you to be as objective as possible, which I understand. That doesn't mean the teachers expect us to justify human indecency, or support it in any way. I mean, I very much doubt they'd justify the coming of age trials of the Sambia tribe (shoving sticks in their noses until it bleeds, consuming semen via oral fellatio) in any way other than trying to understand where they're coming from. When it comes to the real world, it always bothers me when people will gloss over some major problems with a country, just to make it seem better.

I remember when I went to Korea, there were a couple times where older males would just cut in line if the line only had females. I uhh ... got kind of mad. I remember in Japan, males swearing wasn't that big a deal, but a female swearing was appalling.

I will say that being in Japan was like being in the land of Kawaii things ... so much it was hilarious and disturbing at times. I could not believe some of the things they had.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I suppose I should make clear that I mean specifically the cultural relativism argument as applied to human rights. I ranted a bit about it way back in March (http://meiface.livejournal.com/266608.html) and I don't think it's evil in itself or anything, but it's so often used to support the continuing of human rights abuses on the pretext of maintaining cultural values.

See, I love cultural differences! They're so interesting to learn about and what gives our world such richness and diversity. But they should definitely not be used to justify terrible things. D:

[meiface.livejournal.com]

lol I am glad you agree, Cici.

[catskilt.livejournal.com]

Are there people who are trying to defend the rape of Nanking and WW2, etc? :O

[catskilt.livejournal.com]

If this is the case, let me at them please, it's beyond tolerance!

[meiface.livejournal.com]

The post that specifically sparked this one was from arama, where fan girls were telling comfort women to just get over it, or implying that they were greedy or whatever. Japan has suffered too! Why are people sob insistent on being mean to Japan when it's all in the past? Also horrible things about rape. But I've unfortunately seen defenses/excuses/justifications of the rape of Nanking (shit happens in war, get over it) and Pearl harbor too (it's not like the US didn't pay them back through the A-bombs!). Which, yeah, I hate overzealous Americans who try to posit that Japan ~deserved the bombings, but basically extremism is bad on both sides. Don't be dismissive of any of the horrors of war, you know? Ugh people are so blithe for such stupid reasons. >:(

[catskilt.livejournal.com]

Argh that maddens me to no end. If they knew even the slightest bit about what horrors Japan committed during WW2, they would be shocked. It wasn't a simple affair of marching into another country and taking over (though that in itself was already a cruel thing to do, the British empire anyone), they raped, pillaged, and tortured their way through the countries that they invaded, and continued raping, pillaging, and torturing during their reign! Yes, shit happens in war, but that doesn't mean that you should condone it in any form or allow it to be forgotten - that's the whole reason why we learn from history!

Why should comfort women get over it? They've been largely ignored since the war ended, they haven't been given compensation, they've had to live with the trauma and humiliation for so many years - why should they "get over it"?! Do those fan girls think that being taken away from your home to become a whore for Japanese soldiers during wartime is sexy? Are they going to write fanfic about it? God!

The Rape of Nanking was one of the most horrific things to ever happen, the Japanese soldiers committed atrocities that are not any less horrific than the way the Germans treated Jews, gypsies, etc. Yes, the Japanese experimented on South-East Asian people too, yes they ill-treated and tortured civilians and prisoners of war, yes they made people dig their own graves, yes they stuck bayonets through women's vaginas, yes they made fathers have sex with their dead daughters, yes they did all that! Face it!

It is not fair to blame modern-day Japan for these wartime atrocities but you should never NEVER excuse such behaviour, even if you fangirled the entire Japanese population and want to become a Japanese citizen - it is NOT condonable or excusable.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

I think you've definitely studied more on it than I did. Oh god, war atrocities. Just reading about them makes me sick. But that's the thing isn't it? A lot of these fans don't know anything about what actually happened; they're just on the defensive anyway, as if Japan (or Korea or whatever country it is) being imperfect is somehow an attack against the fans or their fandom. No! Like a said above, you can love your fandom without blindly defending it or its country of origin. Just try not to be fucking ignorant. It's not people can know everything, but acknowledging that there's so much we don't know is a start. Then maybe trying to learn...

Anyway, see also my comment below to kasugai_gummie.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the exam! I mean, if we really want to get down to it, society and culture are essentially man made. So biologically speaking, human rights don't exist except as we've created them and assigned value to them, right? And that definition will of course be influenced by whatever surrounding culture we've created, because they only matter in context of that reality. So I suppose what I think are universal human rights are those rights I believe inherent to people in the context of the shared humanity, regardless of where different societies diverge. It's where we overlap in our value-assignment and "definition" of being human that I think think the "universal" rights spring up. Of course, I am just babbling theoretical nonsense now but yeah.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

I also don't get people who don't care (even when you've made it easy for them!) and are proud of that fact. Why is apathy the new cool thing? Bafflement.

THIS ENTIRE POST.

[kasugai-gummie.livejournal.com]

Unless you are from that country, unless you live in that country, you don't have the same insight and experience.

And quite often, even when they are from that country, have lived there, they still may lack the foundation for non-fucking ignorant opinions. :\

[meiface.livejournal.com]

So true! But living there will give you certain insight you can't get from not living there, at least.

Idk I have a lot of feelings about this issue. I don't think we should crucify the current Japan for the past, because that certainly won't change the past or even make up for it. Plus, it's not that helpful whenever an Asian country feels like a persecuted noble martyr. At the same time, Japan's apologies have been half-assed at best and I definitely don't think people have a right to tell victims to just move on because it's in the past.

For example, I don't think many people hate the current Germany for the atrocities of the past...and maybe that has to do with genuinely felt apologies/reparations and prosecution of war criminals rather than denials and honoring of them. I get that there are different cultures involved, but somehow teaching the true horror of what happened so that future generations can learn better rather than covering up the shame and lying through omission just seems like a more appropriate path to take.

But alas, no matter what governments do, stupid ignorant people will be stupid and ignorant.

[papered.livejournal.com]

I agree so much with everything in this post. I can never understand why some people believe loving a certain band means you automatically have to agree and defend everything about its country of origin. It's not the same thing, regardless of how patriotic the idols you love happen to be, and it used to drive me nuts when I was still in kpop fandom. :|

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Yeah I got to see it in both anime fandom and then in kpop. It never gets any better. :S Nothing is perfect; you don't have to like only perfect things. If that country/manga/idol is flawed, it's okay to acknowledge it! We're not perfect either. It's okay to acknowledge that too! @_@

The main point, I think, is reaching the point where we know there are many things we don't know and therefore being more open to learning rather than leaping before we look into defensiveness.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I can only imagine some of the shit that's gone down in Hetalia - I remember hearing from the fringes the wank that erupted when South Korea expressed unhappiness with Hetalia.

Yeah. I just don't really understand the leap to defend something 1) not yours and 2) that you know you couldn't possibly know everything about.

[acornmama.livejournal.com]

Nice soapbox! I applaud heartily.

[meiface.livejournal.com]

Every once in a while I climb on one, have my screed, step back off, and return to...reading Regency romances in this case!