In the show House M.D, Dr. House explained his desire to become a doctor as based on an experience as a kid with the Japanese caste system:
"When I was 14 my father was stationed in Japan. I went rock climbing with this kid from school. He fell, got injured and I had to bring him to the hospital. We came in through the wrong entrance and passed this guy in the hall. It was a janitor. My friend came down with an infection and the doctors didn't know what to do. So they brought in the janitor. He was a doctor. And a Buraku. One of Japan's untouchables. His ancestors had been slaughterers, grave diggers. And this guy, he knew that he wasn't accepted by the staff, he didn't even try. He didn't dress well. He didn't pretend to be one of them. The people that ran that place, they didn't think that he had anything they wanted. Except when they needed him. Because he was right. Which meant that nothing else mattered. And they had to listen to him."
The burakumin are the best argument against genetic causes of heritable lower intelligence (often invoked when talking about African American populations). In Japan many burakumin show significantly lower scores on standardized intelligence tests, however when they migrate out of Japan their scores recover to normal levels. Social caste is heritable. This was a favorite zinger that my evolutionary biology teacher liked to spring on unsuspecting students that tried to argue that they could demonstrate that low iq among AAs was due to genetic differences.
They really are not a good argument against genetic causes of heritability of lower IQ scores in other groups.
Their example (if true) only serves to proof that in their cases low IQ was cause by environment, which as partial cause for low IQ is not debated by anyone credible. It says nothing about genetic causes in other groups at all.
Fair enough. But I think it is a good reminder that the gut reaction to invoke genetics when confronted with a heritable phenotype should be met with suspicion, especially given the tendency to treat 'intrinsic' traits as excuses for continued poor treatment/disregard.
I think better yet would be to condemn discrimination (i.e. favor social fairness) even if a certain genetic group is found to be causally associated with lower IQ. I think assuming we're all equal is as crippling to science/society as genetic supremacism. Understanding nuances of ethnic and cultural groups is something we should strive for. Diversity of traits, cultures is great.
Inasmuch as it makes sense to claim one's gut has any notion of genetics, I'd say the gut reaction of the vast majority of people is to reject any suggestion that there are intelligence differences between groups caused by genetics.
I hope you're right. My experience growing up makes me believe the opposite, but I know that my adolescence is only anecdotal in the scheme of things. I think the best we can do is silently acknowledge that black people are likely to have had a different set of opportunities than white people and apply that knowledge judiciously as necessary.
I'm not sure if the vast majority of people actually believe in that. Most educated Americans probably do. But I think there are a lot of people out there who still hold the older outdated incorrect view.
My gut supports group differences in intelligence. As Heinlein once wrote, if intelligence weren't heritable, you could teach calculus to a horse. It takes the entire intellectual edifice of modern radical egalitarianism to rob people of their common sense.
>It takes the entire intellectual edifice of modern radical egalitarianism to rob people of their common sense
It's not just 'radical egalitarianism'. The seemingly obvious explanation that such and such group are poor because they are genetically low IQ does not stand up to scientific investigation on the whole.
If you don't think intelligence is heritable, you're delusional. Its quite easy to see in the field -- I bet the smartest kids in your class, I'm talking about the naturally quick learners not the hardest working, also have naturally bright parents.
Intelligence and social class are both heritable traits:
>> the best argument against genetic causes of heritable lower intelligence
> If you don't think intelligence is heritable, you're delusional
GP was saying intelligence is heritable, but not necessarily via genetics. Bright parents are likely to be fairly successful and better able to provide a stimulating environment & nutrition that's needed for a kid to be smart (i.e. provide a nurturing environment)
From the wiki article: adoption studies show that by adulthood adoptive siblings aren't more similar in IQ than strangers (Bouchard 1998), while adult full siblings show an IQ correlation of 0.6.
An interesting survey summary of the studies by Kaufman 2009 of IQ correlation between groups:
* Same person (tested twice) .95
* Identical twins—Reared together .86
* Identical twins—Reared apart .76
* Fraternal twins—Reared together .55
* Fraternal twins—Reared apart .35
* Biological siblings—Reared together .47
* Biological siblings—Reared apart .24
* Unrelated children—Reared together—Children .28
* Unrelated children—Reared together—Adults .04
* Cousins .15
* Parent-child—Living together .42
* Parent-child—Living apart .22
* Adoptive parent–child—Living together .19
This also seems to support genetic heritability being large and environmental heritability being small (and almost insignificant by adulthood).
> This was a favorite zinger that my evolutionary biology teach liked to spring on unsuspecting students that tried to argue that they could demonstrate that low iq among AAs was due to genetic differences.
And what happens when AAs migrate out of America, or when Africans migrate into America, hmm? The debate is not that simplistic and easily resolved, and your professor did you a disservice by pretending that it is and not discussing why his anecdote is not airtight (for example, immigrant samples are almost always contaminated by serious selection effects which are hard to measure and vary by group). By the way, how sure are you that your professor was even right in the first place (https://unsafeharbour.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/burakumin-and...)?
At least domestically, it is more of an open secret than an actual secret. (By the way, the politically correct way to refer to the Buraku is "Douwa")
This open secret history of persecution has been utilized by these communities to attain some more political and economic power. People who do not have a Douwa ancestry will sometimes move into these communities to be associated with the region and put themselves under the implied protection of the Douwa (since companies / government must tread very lightly around them).
Interestingly, I recently learned that the school curriculum is starting to remove sections about the Douwa history. Once the "open secret" is less known, the caste will be able to wield less political power, and this change is obviously intentional.
This is one of those sad human truths right? Put 1000 babies on an island and let them grow up free from influence. Somehow a group will find another group and marginalize them. Maybe skin color, maybe hair color, maybe height, maybe weight. Seems like humans do this in just about every culture, and although we try to "hide" it in political correctness - it still happens.
Wonder if this is just some part of the bad side of the "humans need other humans to connect and bond" coin - "humans need enemies so they can bond together against, and if there is a lack of a real enemy they will somehow construct one". I mean go to a nice middle class soccer match. Some mom will be the outcast for her kid always being late to practice, or something...
In the competition for (real or abstract) resources, individuals will align along whatever differences suit them. If they are all the same race, they might align along religious differences. If they are all the same race and religion, then its which side of the tracks, football team, musical tastes, editor and programming paradigm...
If we don't find aliens soon, someone needs to send up a secret satellite, that randomly broadcasts messages about the imminent arrival of the most evil aliens in the galaxy.
Actually I thought the film had the better ending. A giant fish like monster that could be sold as an alien invasion is less plausible than a radiation signature that matches Dr. Manhattan.
The way I see it, it comes down to external vs. internal threat. As campy as the terrible interdimensional creepy things are, they are a clear external threat to the people of Earth. Making Dr. Manhattan the fall guy internalizes the threat as he is-was "of us".
With Dr. Manhattan as the patsy you get some superficial solidarity while every nation tries their hardest to recreate him--to obtain their own WMD+/God. With the terrible interdimensional creepy things humanity faces a clear external threat; Unite, people of Earth, for the Universe will fucking eat you.
Maybe the monsters could've been done in a way that wouldn't have people laughing at their implausibility. Using Dr. Manhattan destroyed the message. The film's ending wasn't worth the sacrifice, IMHO.
Many churches and temples in Ogaki have a sign in the window saying "We will under NO CIRCUMSTANCES assist with third-party ancestry investigations (身元調査)." This is largely because parish records (and the analogous paperwork at temples) can leak burakumin status or Korean ancestry, both things which Japanese people have ample reason to not want publicized about them.
A sidenote:
I debated during college (in the US, prior to ever living in Japan, where I've been for about 10 years now).
I was mildly notorious in debate circles for running a particular "case" (proposed instantiation of a government policy supporting the resolution which one would, as the government side of a debate, have to win was beneficial) on any resolution which would support it. For example, the resolution might be "The government shall limit the information it records about it's citizens." One team of the debate has to convince the judge that they have a concrete idea for how to do that. The other team opposes either that concrete idea and/or says "That case doesn't actually support the proposition our opponents are forced to support."
The case was "abolish the koseki", a family register in Japan which was once considered semi-public information (this has been tightened up rather severely, but it still exists and companies often still ask to see yours) and which has a variety of ways to leak extraordinarily sensitive facts about one's family, in addition to being an odious institution for a host of other reasons. I say "notorious" for this case because, by American collegiate standards, the koseki is straight-out evil, and the reason we chose to run this case is because there are few ways to debate in favor of retaining it and all of them require you to be better versed at Japanese politics/policy than my debate partner and I were, which is unlikely to be true of any US debate team picked at random.
I like to believe that my one lasting contribution to debate is convincing a lot of tournament directors to change the traditional wording in resolutions "The government shall $DO_SOMETHING" to "The United States federal government shall $DO_SOMETHING", because when we interpreted the government to mean "Japanese government" the other team invariably said something along the lines of "That's not what the resolution writer intended", to which I would say "You being ignorant of a major first world nation whose internal political issues are well-reflected in the academic literature may make this debate inconvenient for you to win but that does not mean I'm not allowed to pick something which fits within the clear definition of the word 'government.'"
This drove people nuts.
Ten years later I just had to get a copy of my family's koseki to apply for an apartment lease, upon which the renting agent said "Oh, you're American. Do you even know what this is?" Yep -- funny how life works out. (Why does my apartment renting agent need my koseki? To determine whether I'm the right sort of people to live in the really nice apartment we're moving to. Does "right sort of people" sound ominous to you? YEP, exactly as bad as you think it is.)
>To determine whether I'm the right sort of people to live in the really nice apartment we're moving to. Does "right sort of people" sound ominous to you?
Couldn't this possibly be unconstitutional? In Article 14 (I don't have my Japanese copy at hand):
>All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
That said, this only applies to citizens only, and you did mention the renting agent noticed you are an American.
It's certainly illegal, much like gender discrimination in the workplace, requiring excessive work hours of salarymen, and racial profiling by police officers are illegal.
I think it's a familiar pattern: first the attitude changes, then the law changes, and then the attitude continues to change. See: segregation, most of the rest of history.
In practice, other than being burdensome for foreigners, does it have consequential effects on ordinary Japanese, in their view?
I mean family registries are fascinating. In some places people are obliged to register people coming in and out of a household etc, like a living census. And for some jobs people have to provide family histories and professions, etc., but nevertheless the people I've spoken to aren't much bothered by as much as I seem to. For many, if not most or all, it just is. And, anthropologically it's fascinating.
Tangent, but it actually happened, and I'm doing my best to recollect the conversation:
I once met a young lady for coffee. (It wasn't quite a date, but a situation which could eventually lead to being retconned as a date.) She asked me, in a fashion which struck me as out-of-the-blue, "Do I strike you as a typical Japanese girl?"
I figured that she was fishing for a compliment (thought process: "Who would want to be as-sent-by-central-casting?") , so I said "Oh no, you strike me as different."
She immediately burst out crying, and asked "How did you know?"
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be taken that way. I thought you wanted me to say that you were a unique person."
"No no I want nothing other than to be a typical Japanese girl."
"What does that... OH GOD. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry no it is absolutely not possible that anybody could guess that you're ethnically Korean." (The word in Japanese is "zainichi", for 在日韓国人, the literal translation of which is "A Korean who lives in Japan.")
"... Wait you know about us?"
"I studied a variety of esoteric things in college."
"So you don't think less of me for being... you know..."
"NO NO NO NO."
Cue about an hour of talking about it. She said that none of her friends knew. I said that 2007 was a very different time than e.g. 1970 and they'd probably be understanding. "Maybe, but I can't unring that bell. What if one of them hates Koreans? What if all of them hate Koreans? What if I told? I'd never get my life back."
Tangent over.
Do you believe a piece of paper which says "My grandfather is named Kim" fails to have a consequential effect on this young lady?
(Controversial opinion for Japan incoming: She's Japanese, not Korean, under all the laws of earth and heaven. She was born in Japan, she speaks no language but Japanese, she carries a Japanese passport, she carries no other passport nor desires one, she is entirely culturally Japanese, she feels no feelings of belonging to Korea, actual Koreans would not treat her as being Korean, etc etc ad nauseum, but there exists a not-tiny contingent of her fellow countrymen who would immediately fire-in-the-eyes hate her if they somehow came to believe she was Korean.)
I've met a few people in Japan of Korean ancestry and they have all mentioned they have a very hard time fitting in and meet a lot of discrimination still everyday. I was always reluctant to dig deeper because you can definitely feel that it's a still a very open wound and something they're still actively dealing with every day.
Some similar anecdotes, while working in a Japanese office there is one co-worker whose great-grandfather was Italian. I haven't seen any actual discrimination against him, but some people are definitely happy to let you know that he is not full Japanese, so I'm certain he's ran across some for his ancestry.
Interesting. (And you're right, most Koreans won't consider her as Korean, which is probably the right judgement but it feels like neither nation is willing to claim her as their own, which is kinda screwed up.)
Now that Korea is mentioned... until 2008 Korea used to have that "koseki" thing (called "hojeok" in Korea, with the same Chinese characters, I believe). At least it wasn't used to discriminate against ethnic minorities (largely because Korea didn't have any ethnic minorities who had lived for generations, other than a handful of Chinese immigrants, who were discriminated anyway, but I digress).
What it was used for was to bind people in patriarchal Confucian ideology and make life miserable for some people. E.g., if a woman has a child, divorces but keeps custody of the child, and marries again, she couldn't change the child's family name to that of her new husband, because paternal ancestry is fucking important. So now her child must grow up being asked by everybody "Wait, why is your surname different from your dad?" That kind of thing.
And there were people who would defend this kind of idiocy.
That's quite poignant. Of relevance, but not particularly interesting is that I've known Koreans and Japanese who have dated over the years and who don't seem to care about their interesting nationalities. On the other hand, they are of middle to upper middle class and 40ish and under.
Not sure if this is one of those things that'll disappear as the newer generations displace the older. Or if the black car squad will somehow keep the attitude alive.
Quite interesting is that there are degrees of zainichi, those who adopt Japanese names and who have assimilated and on the other end those want to retain more of their Korean identity and nationality.
There's also the intersection where some people of Korean ancestry in Japan express sympathies for North Korea, a country which is typically Japan's current arch-enemy,
One thing that conflicts with people's preconceptions, is that Japan isn't as racist as people believe. Usually the reverse is true, Koreans and Chinese claiming Japan is racist, while being racist themselves.
Take a look yourself. They did several scientific studies. They found Japan is less racist than France, and equal to most European countries:
That entire line of reasoning is reliant on truthful answers to a survey that, at least based on my level of Japanese cultural knowledge, would be answered falsely by a significant number because either they mentally argue that not being Japanese is from a different culture not a race, or they have internalised the logic of "we all do this but must not openly say so, because saying so is wrong, but everyone knows we do this anyway, so its ok as long as we don't say this is how we feel". That's just the start of "broad survey interpretation failure" I see here.
You don't think they took those factors into account? They did. Did you even read the article? They didn't ask people outright "Are you a racist?" They tricked people by asking them other indirect questions. Like, "Would you mind if <insert race/nationality> lived next door to you?" Those kinds of questions get to heart of the matter. And they didn't just ask Japan those questions, they asked every country on Earth the same questions.
The question just forces the person being asked to think, "Would I mind if this researcher saw me as someone who would mind if a foreigner lived next door to me?" And the degree to which this second-order question matters depends heavily on social mores.
Japan is a country where people are expected from a young age to compartmentalize their tatemae (external appearance) from honne (true thoughts), and consider it perfectly normal to do so. So I wouldn't be surprised if they were simply better at hiding perceived-as-negative sentiments from naive researchers.
Koreans, on the other hand, admire Americans and Western Europeans but look down upon Africans and South/Southeast Asians, and often express outright contempt for the Japanese and Chinese. Depending on their political views, they may even feel socially compelled to express a hatred of one or another nationality. Meanwhile, Korean culture doesn't acknowledge the tatemae/honne distinction, which makes it a lot more difficult for people to compartmentalize.
tl;dr: We're all racists, but some forms of racism are easier to measure.
I have a problem almost like that, not as severe though.
I was born in Brazil, and I am mixed race (about 2/3 mediterranean european and 1/3 black, with a tiny bit of native american somewhere in my black ancestry)
No group of people consider me one of them.
And I don't think of myself as truly brazillian either, I don't like things most brazillians like, and I don't do things that most brazillians do, and I don't feel physical attraction for the average brazillian either.
It kinda suck, to have no nation, despite having a legal citizenship.
Well, I consider you one of us. A person. A flag might be something to die for, but a culture is something to live for.
> I don't feel physical attraction for the average brazillian either.
Well, maybe you are not one of us after all ;-) Then again, who feels attracted to average people? Don't we most often feel attracted to those that in some way stand out?
Being mixed race myself, I faced a similar problem; too white for brown people, too brown for white people. The only thing you can really do is to learn to love yourself, because that's one thing you can't change.
That sounds like it's nowhere close. Choosing to not self-identify with one's country of birth or naturalization is very different from the fear of rejection discussed above.
It is not just fear of rejection, I actually got rejected.
Example: My parents live in a neighbourhood where most people are mixed race, but heavily black (ie: people have a obvious brown skin, and have facial features and bone structure of black people).
More than once when walking on the street, I had people follow me with weapons or dogs, and one time when I was buying coca-cola in a bar on the neighbourhood, some people playing snooker stopped playing, made a circle around me, and said in a threatening tone that I was "not from here", I then pointed them my house (it was distant, but visible), then they left me alone.
Similarly, when I am visiting white-heavy areas, specially if people are slavs/nordic (russian, swedish, etc...) they also treat me as an outsider, for example they prefer to talk to other white people.
Or when I am with my uncle (that is more dark skinned) in my grandpa car (he has a expensive car for brazillian standards, a Toyota Corolla), police stop us, thinking we are thieves or thugs.
Well, while in this case there was a very specific reason for her question/doubt -- I don't think it's entirely far-fetched to claim that that'd be the "wrong" answer with a lot of Japanese that didn't have any such "secret".
It's not clear how you phrased "different" - but as you probably know, "different" has a very negative connotation in Japanese in general. I'm suppose there are more positive ways to frame a similar sentiment ("No, I think you're special" - in this case that'd probably be taken as just as bad, though).
Either way, interesting anecdote. (FTR, of course there are lots of Japanese that would be more happy to be considered different, rather than conformist -- but I'd say that even today, that is much more rare in Japan than in eg. most of Europe, America (north and south) etc)
I think to "belong" is an innate human drive. Some groups make it harder to belong -- "you don't have the right ancestry, your great-grandfather has a foreign last name", "your skin is a bit too dark", "eyes are too squinty" and so on.
Other groups make it easier to belong. Say being an American is easy. Not to sing praises to America in general, but that part is easier. I was born in another country, but I can say I am American and most American could agree with that, even if I have a funny accent going on. They would say nothing to my kid, won't dig into their history either. That is a nice thing to have. So "belonging" is easier.
It is harder not to belong to any group. I think that is part of your acquaintance problem. If somehow she felt she was Korean, that would be more comforting perhaps.
Old societies and cultures seem cute, quaint or reverent to many, but there is that stuff about being prejudiced and bigoted.
In a some kind of a Darwinian way one can argue "ok, good, that society and culture will eventually lose out and be at a disadvantage", let them be exclusive and patriarchal and bigoted, they will wither way eventually. Of course that doesn't make it easier to for those born in those cultures.
A typical Japanese will not hate a person because of having a Korean ancestry. Actually there are many celebrities who have a korean background and also are very respected.(e.g. Masayoshi Son, Akiko Wada, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Akira Maeda)
Typically, Japanese people are kind and generous, and they will closely look at the person's attitudes.
The people who are not liked are the people who hate Japan and the Japanese people.
As an example, people who graduated from the Korean School (Chousengakkou) will be given an Anti-Japanese education. I heard from a Korean background person that at a Korean School, if you speak Japanese at the school, you will be beaten by your mates.
Few years ago, there were K-POP trend in Japan, and people were very interested in Korean culture and the Korean people. But when they start knowing that the majority of Korean people have huge hatred towards Japan and also the Japanese people, now many Japanese people are becoming suspicious when they hear the word Korea. It is not because they are racist or not. It is just a rule of thumb or statistics.
I admit that many Koreans have unhealthy level of hatred towards Japan as a nation, but your description neatly sidestepped the whole issue of "why", didn't it.
Koreans do remember the times when Japanese teachers would beat up Korean boys at school for using Korean, force Koreans to adopt Japanese-style names, and send young Koreans to the Pacific to be slaughtered, for the glory of Emperor Hirohito.
Personally, all the Japanese I met were nice people, and I normally don't talk history with them (I mean, what's the point?), because there are more pleasant stuff to talk about. Hopefully many others in Japan would also meet some Koreans some day and realize we are all the same people, with different historical baggages, trying to make sense in a world that doesn't make sense.
But then there are always some jerks who would say "Koreans are so mean, why do they hate Japan so much?"
Sidenote: the "Korean Schools" mentioned here are specifically North Korean (Chosen) schools. There are South Korean schools as well, but far fewer, and both are a dying breed.
It's self-perpetuating. People do mean things to other people because other people have done mean things to them or their group because of that group and the cycle continues. It doesn't help that people often fail to recognize the fundamental attribution error in play, either.
Many argue that an arbitrary division among the disenfranchised and poor is an effective barrier for them to rise up against the minority that hoard the resources for themselves. So one could argue that it does help someone.
One theory would be that humans have a biological sense of other. In-group, out-group, etc. People fight for the same resources, preferentially for their genetically similar groups.
If there are 10 people at a table about to starve to death, and only 5 of them are related, it helps their genetic lineage to prefer to feed relatives.
Racism, as an outgrowth of us-versus-them, most likely helped with keeping a lineage alive.
I know. But dennisgorelik's original comment was about prejudice against Zainichi Koreans specifically, so I was just addressing that. I probably should have commented up a level.
They have a long history of not getting along and the chains of hatred from the past have continually bound new generations as grudges transfer from one generation to another in the form of prejudicial actions.
We can only hope that these chains loosen over time as people reject the prejudicial treatment of others.
> does it have consequential effects on ordinary Japanese
To quote the article:
> Though generally considered offensive, the term Eta is still in use today. One of the letters received at the abattoir expresses sympathy for the animals being killed "as they're being killed by Eta."
> "Nowadays it's still a well-known fact that people are buying this information, but rather than corporations, it's individuals buying it to check on future in-laws ahead of marriage. That's one of the biggest examples of discrimination that we frequently face."
> "I remember once when my wife and I were visiting with some of her father's relatives. When I told them what I did, they stopped pouring me beer."
> I like to believe that my one lasting contribution to debate is convincing a lot of tournament directors to change the traditional wording in resolutions "The government shall $DO_SOMETHING" to "The United States federal government shall $DO_SOMETHING", because when we interpreted the government to mean "Japanese government" the other team invariably said something along the lines of "That's not what the resolution writer intended", to which I would say "You being ignorant of a major first world nation whose internal political issues are well-reflected in the academic literature may make this debate inconvenient for you to win but that does not mean I'm not allowed to pick something which fits within the clear definition of the word 'government.'"
(His post and my post are intelligible to people who spent a few years of their lives on a very specialized academic sport. I'm going to elide explaining all the jargon here.)
Reminds me of why I was so happy to leave school debate and focus on math and computers where arguments were productive;, and how sad when I realized how relevant school debate nonsense was to actual political and legal reality (about the same time I realized that I should drop out of law school because I cared too much about finding logical answers to questions)
> Does "right sort of people" sound ominous to you? YEP, exactly as bad as you think it is.)
But does it have good predictive value? Statistics don't care about individuals, and neither does the reality they describe. Are one's family's behaviours good predictors of one's own behaviours? I strongly suspect that the answer is a resounding YES. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all—at least not usually.
And shouldn't it be the responsibility of the outliers to demonstrate that they are, in fact, outliers, rather then the responsibility of the rest fo society to extend the benefit of the doubt to every last person who turns up to claim it?
This gets repeated a lot (the whole "Japan is racist!" trope) but it's nonsense. Actual studies carried out proved Japan is not only the least racist country in Asia, it's equal to most European countries. They're actually less racist than France. South Korea and India on the other hand, are orders of magnitude worse. See the study yourself:
The reason why the myth gets perpetuated is because young, white affluent males go over there for whatever reason (teach for a while, anime, exotic extended trips, etc) and don't get treated like little princes. So they go back home, hop on their favorite "gaijin forum" and claim they were discriminated against and that Japan is racist. That's why young hot Japanese girls weren't throwing themselves at them, or why people weren't bending over backwards for them.
I've been to Japan, and I didn't want to be treated like a little prince, I wanted to be treated like everyone else. Not better and not worse.
But it wasn't like that. People always tried to speak to me in English even when I demonstrated I could speak in Japanese. I saw onsen with "no foreigners" sings in front. Because my "race" can't be easily identified, I was more often than not asked where I am from, where my mother is from and where my father is from. I've heard of incidents where people of Arab-looking descent are stopped and questioned by police officers.
Are these examples of racism? Probably not (at least from my experience and perspective), however they are in my view, examples of a deep "us and them" attitude which ignores the fact that culture can be learned. Maybe it's naive of these people (or me), or there is some xenophobia etc.
I think perhaps the most convincing thing for me (not an example of racism) is where we have the situation of someone who has taken up a "Japanese" life in that he has become a citizen, has lived in Japan for an extended period of time and interacts daily within society. Most Japanese would not consider this person Japanese - but what more could such a person do to be Japanese?
This identity issue is provided from the outside, for inside he can feel as Japanese as he wants and get nowhere. On the other hand, if we were to put the situation with the US or perhaps a Western European country, we would see that a person would probably be more readily accepted as an American or a Brit.
Does racism exist? Probably, but it's certainly not as plain and commonplace as little hints of xenophobia and anything foreign being perceived as not-belonging or a little novelty.
Japan is the only country I've ever been refused a cab ride or entry to a business solely on account of being a 外人. In both occurrences I was completely sober, well dressed, and in the presence of native Japanese.
That's a purely personal experience, but these happened in Tokyo. The cab incident was even in Ginza - one of the most international portions of Tokyo.
Yes, plenty of white males go over to Japan and expect to be immediately accepted/worshipped/whatever, but just because their claims of racism are often able to be safely ignored, it doesn't mean that all accounts of it can be chalked up to unrealistic expectations and self entitlement.
I don't think your one-off experience (a personal anecdote)invalidates an entire academic study. My point, and the point of the article I linked, is that all countries are racist to one extent or another. It's just that relative to other countries, Japan isn't racist. In fact, they're one of the most tolerant countries around according to basically every research study. Yes, they're not as tolerant as America, but they're pretty darn close. I think people underestimate just how racially tolerant America is in relation to everyone else. It's one of the least racist countries in the world.
I flat out acknowledged that that is a personal anecdote in my comment.
Regarding the study, it requires that people self-report a negative attribute about themselves. We already know it's basic human nature to lie to cover up faults. Why do you expect a study that relies on self reporting is going to be accurate?
Go try to rent an apartment or lease a house as a foreigner in Japan. You will find it extremely difficult to do if you are not specifically looking in one of the expat housing areas. The Japanese may say they wouldn't mind a foreigner living next door in a study, but they make it an extremely difficult process for this to actually happen. This thread has already discussed the family registry, but another important aspect of it is what replaces the credit check in most Western countries - a contact at the company you work for. For a Japanese salaryman, all disputes with a landlord go through his boss. Didn't make rent? Boss talks with the salaryman. Landlord hasn't fixed the running water? Boss talks with the landlord. This isn't something you get as a foreigner unless you've been with the company for a very long time.
Buying a house? You better be doing it outright, or already have your citizenship. Even permanent resident status isn't going to be enough at many banking institutions.
You can read the accounts of plenty of expats who have lived in Japan the frequent struggles they face as foreigners, with the entire system being set up to put them at a disadvantage. There's quite a few of them that have talked about it on HN, even. And maybe Japan isn't more racist than most other countries - but it certainly is racist enough for people to have valid complaints.
> You can read the accounts of plenty of expats who have lived in Japan the frequent struggles they face as foreigners, with the entire system being set up to put them at a disadvantage.
I've read them, and I disagree with 99% of them. Sure, there's a couple legit ones, but the vast majority are massively exaggerated. Especially sites like Debito. If you go on reddit's Japan forum (/r/Japan), you mention debito, you'll get laughed at. The guy literally profits from pointing out discrimination and intolerance in Japan. That's how he makes his money so it's in his interest to exaggerate everything. He's written books on the matter.
I don't really want to come across as some overly liberal social justice warrior, but most of those complaints you speak of aren't justified. As I stated above, it's just 20-something white kids not getting treated the same as they did back home and they're not used to it. They're used to people bending over backwards for them, receiving handouts and not being ignored. They were sheltered most of their lives (as were the majority of all millennials) so when they get to Japan and get treated differently, all of the sudden it has to be "racism".
That's really what's happening here. They're conflating their culture shock with racism. I'm an expat myself. I've spoken of my time in Japan here on hackernews several times. I find it's no more racist than any other country I've traveled too. In fact, it's probably the least racist country I've been to, only behind America. Hell, I saw more racism in Sydney the last time I was there.
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that "less racist than France" means "not racist". And even if you buy that silly study as an objective measure of the deeply complex topic of racism, it still marks Japan as less racially tolerant than the Anglo countries those who perpetuate that "myth" likely hail from.
I love how the study doesn't agree with your preconceptions so it must be "silly". The study was done by 2 Swedish researchers at a university, not by some online poll. It's backed up by academic rigor. That's about as hard science as it gets.
This is a bit controversial, as it is very arguable that some of those groups that's charted to eliminate discrimination against those groups exists for the sake of their existence.
In many of those areas, there are so many inflow/outflow of population (perhaps a majority, especially younger demographics, not aware of even such notion existed in the area) from "buraku" areas really doesn't mean anything. So some argue what they are doing is reopening a closed issue.
That's doesn't mean these discriminations do not exist, but there seems to be a lot of conflict of interest in the way the issue is handled.
There are some strange superstitions w.r.t. death in Japanese culture. In Japanese the number 4 sounds sort of like death so it's a number they avoid a lot (it's missing from many elevator options, similar to how 13 is skipped sometimes) and patterns of squares are sometimes avoided to prevent having 4 corners meet (especially with straw mats).
I had never heard of this, though. The class of untouchables who work close to death. Really interesting stuff.
As other comments pointed, this caste system itself isn't really a "secret". We learn in school that it had existed, and there are quite a few stories dealing with it (A novel "The Broken Commandment" (破戒) by Touson Shimazaki, and an epic manga series "Kamui" (カムイ伝) are among the best ones; both have been translated to English).
However, things got complicated in modern society; officially the government denies the discrimination exist; some people still keeps prejudice; and the topic is used as a political tool.
"Based on records of buildings with Otis brand elevators, as many as 85 percent of the high rises in the world don't have a 13th floor, says Dilip Rangnekar, spokesman for the Farmington, CT-based elevator maker."
- http://realtytimes.com/todaysheadlines1/item/15685-20020913_...
Superstitions are alive and well around the world. In the U.S., the number of people who still turn to astrology when it comes explaining success or failure in dating and relationships will astound you. Even in places like New York City.
In reply to tsotha, 1801 Century Park East, Los Angeles, CA 90067 is an example. At least it was when I worked there after law school (ahem some time ago).
Not sure what world you live in but I have never heard students argue in favor of African Americans having heritable lower intelligence. Such a discussion would instantly be shamed and publicized. Pretty sure your making this up.
when someone uses a personal experience to bolster an argument, it is appropriate for someone to question the validity of how likely it is. It's not an ad hominem or a personal attack.
Perhaps. But "pretty sure you're making this up" is not an appropriate tone or argument to question validity. Especially when the basis for your argument is your singular person experience. Your never having heard the argument in no way counters the original assertion that their instructor had students make that statement, unless you attended every single course and class the original commenter refers to.
Next time, perhaps phrase your argument around your experience. "While I don't know where you're from, I never experienced this. Where I grew up in XYZ, people were quickly corrected regarding their misconceptions."
Actually his/her comment was anecdotal, in that no one can verify. My comment is a noting a shared cultural understanding that everyone confirm or reject. (specifically: the likelihood of people saying your classmates are genetically inferior is taboo) It's not anecdotal.
"I think those claims are unsubstantiated due to lack of sufficient evidence" or even "I think those claims are unsubstantiated" alone comes across better than "pretty sure you're making that up".
Best not to be 'pretty sure' with accusations, even mild ones, especially when you're apparently wrong. And why are you pretty sure? Seems like you have some reasoning, mention why with your accusation or your viewpoint will be 0 on the contribution scale. It comes across like a child discussing whether or not he thinks Santa is real "Yea I'm pretty sure he exists and you're making it up"
was in 1994. I wouldn't call it common. Though occasionally Andrew Sullivan would comment in this area.
Regardless, I think the parent post was just exaggerating some hypothetical conversation in class to improve his/her argument. The probably of students arguing in class that some of their classmates are genetically inferior is highly unlikely. And if they did the probability of it not causing a massive twitter shit storm is close to 0.
It's like trying to debug a SIGSEGV when you hold an unshakable religious belief that a certain pointer cannot be NULL. If your debugger tells you it's NULL, the debugger is biased, or at least is unconsciously exhibiting its page table privilege. If a colleague tells you that the pointer is NULL, he's a bigoted memoryist. You try to fix the SIGSEGV by renaming variables, refactoring functions, or changing data structures, but all you do is make the program slower and more complicated, and the damn thing still crashes.
In the end, customers are unhappy, you can't ship, and you lose your job because you don't allow yourself to see what's blindingly obvious and in front of your nose.
That's what the western world's identity politics fad feels like. The science tells us that there are important group differences. As long as we don't allow ourselves to see them and instead attack people who show them, we're not going to get anywhere.
Nobody has a problem with finding and researching group differences.
The problem is when you find them claiming they are genetic and innate while being completely blind to all the other things that can cause those differences. The bigger problem is when you go looking for differences specifically so you can "prove" the group is inferior. Usually inferior to the group you belong to.
It's like finding that null pointer and coming to the conclusion that the pointer is null due to nature and that's just the way it is. Nothing I can do about it.
So it's okay to conduct research so long as you like the findings? Read the books mentioned in this thread and others. IQ is 60-80% heritable. Of course there are environmental effects (consider, say, fetal alcohol syndrome), but for the most part intelligence is strongly heritable, and intelligence (or whatever you want to call g) is strongly correlated with life outcomes. These are facts. If you think that facts go on to "prove" the "inferior[ity]" of certain groups, that's a problem with your interpretation. It's easier to just deny the facts, isn't it?
I do have high hopes for what we can "do about it". These hopes rest on genetic modification. There's no reason in principle that the next generation, or the one after that, couldn't be made all geniuses. It'd solve a huge number of problems. But first we have to recognize the fact that intelligence is largely hereditary!
I noticed you removed the part of your comment where you claimed that everyone is treated equally.
And no, I never said (or implied) "it's okay to conduct research so long as you like the findings." It's perfectly ok to conduct research even if you are disgusted by your data. (and I've heard some researchers say they have been disgusted with their data) However, this type of research has a long history of being conducted solely to "prove" racial inferiority.
I really don't think there is any hard science to say 60-80% is heritable. It's all soft science as people can disagree and agree on that all they want. Until someone can build a computational model of brain function related to the genome (inc. RNA) it is an open question.
By studying a) identical twins who are raised together, b) fraternal twins who are raised together, c) identical twins who were adopted and raised apart at birth and d) fraternal twins who were raised apart, it's possible to tease out the effects of nature and nurture.
For example, you're far more likely to be schizophrenic if your identical twin is schizophrenic compared to your fraternal twin. This strongly suggests that schizophrenia has a major heritable component as no other explanation would account for this. This is as much "hard science" as anything else we study.
Interestingly "fetal alcohol syndrome" has a history of being misdiagnosed as genetic and this false conclusion being used to support eugenics before the true cause was established.
Almost any biological race discussion is taboo. No doubt there are people who are going to cross these lines but it's not a common argument and not one biologists are comfortable venturing into. A good discussion here on what is taboo in biology http://www.nature.com/news/ethics-taboo-genetics-1.13858
.. And any type of race/iq inquiry is something that has to be taboo and outside of the scientific community. For a society that values egalitarianism there are some questions that we need not try to confirm or deny
Willful ignorance of the natural world has never led to anything good for humanity. That we have to ban certain lines of inquiry because we might not like the answers is positively medieval. As a technologist, I find the idea abhorrent.
I can understand that position, but dealing with inquiries outside the hard sciences gets complicated Keeping some things taboo is the better path especially with something like evolutionary biology which is no where near a hard science.
Evolutionary biology is absolutely a hard science. It's rooted in both empirical evidence and models derived from statistics and game theory.
You haven't presented an argument: you've presented a fear-based assertion. I absolutely disagree that it is ever better not to know. Every single time someone has made that argument and tried to enforce it, it's retarded our progression as a species.
The Catholic Church in medieval Europe did tremendous harm, and all it was trying to do was save our immortal souls. It was doing good work. It was better not to know, right? How much progress might we have made in mathematics had Hippasus not been murdered for providing the existence of irrational numbers?
People who share your views do us all tremendous harm. We could make life better for billions of people if we gave up our taboos on researching ourselves.
That said, I do appreciate the honest. It's not often that I see people out right admit to wanting to ban certain lines of research. Your doing it is refreshing.
Note that sociology is deeply rooted in empirical evidence statistics as well. I think we can agree that that it is a soft science. Hard science requires no subjectivity, no hidden variables, and re-creatable experiments. Soft sciences have a place, but not in telling us what is true.
Until you can take a genome and build computational models of intelligence it is foolish to be so confident to draw any conclusions in IQ research.
"When I was 14 my father was stationed in Japan. I went rock climbing with this kid from school. He fell, got injured and I had to bring him to the hospital. We came in through the wrong entrance and passed this guy in the hall. It was a janitor. My friend came down with an infection and the doctors didn't know what to do. So they brought in the janitor. He was a doctor. And a Buraku. One of Japan's untouchables. His ancestors had been slaughterers, grave diggers. And this guy, he knew that he wasn't accepted by the staff, he didn't even try. He didn't dress well. He didn't pretend to be one of them. The people that ran that place, they didn't think that he had anything they wanted. Except when they needed him. Because he was right. Which meant that nothing else mattered. And they had to listen to him."
I always liked that little monologue.