Lettow thread

[sbr]

I've never heard anyone other than you call you crazy.

[Eddie Teach]

I've never heard anyone other than you call you crazy.

I just think he likes to hit people.

[Razgovory]

I've never heard anyone other than you call you crazy.

Well of course, everything here is in text.

[Caliga]

Wow

I'm hard now.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Aside from losing wars with America - and refusing to admit moral culpability for them despite being cleansed by fire - what do Japan and the South have in common?

[Lettow77]

  Compared to mainline America, the old South and Japan both had more of a warrior culture backed by what you could call feudalism, both were less direct and more introverted, and had a non-materialistic culture with alternative value sets for how someone's worth was reckoned. Both failed to place much of a premium on human life, and integrated violence into their culture as something acceptable and proper.

Both were sublimely assured of their own superiority to the entire world, uninterested in change, and shocked out of their conviction. In particular, the South and Japan both were absolutely defined by in-group out-group thinking; the world was very much a series of scaling "us" and "them", with a great deal of insularity and hostility or indifference to "them", in whatever form that might manifest itself.

  Of course, there are not an enormity of things they have in common. A lot of the cultures I like do not have great overlap- a lot of food tastes I like do not have great overlap, and similar with music. I do not believe there is one perfect set of cultural values- different ways of organizing society work for different people in different circumstances, and the world is more interesting for having the variety. (That said, if there is no right way to do it, there certainly seem to be plenty of wrong ways..)

Edit: Honourable mention goes to tsugaru shamisen and the plinkety-plink, which sounds shockingly nostalgic and familiar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgN_xIHqLUA

[Syt]

alternative value sets for how someone's worth was reckoned

vs.

[Admiral Yi]

  Compared to mainline America, the old South and Japan both had more of a warrior culture backed by what you could call feudalism, both were less direct and more introverted, and had a non-materialistic culture with alternative value sets for how someone's worth was reckoned.

I wouldn't mind living in a non-materialistic plantation house with 30 or so non-materialistic house slaves.

[Razgovory]

I was under the impression that Japan was a pretty materialistic society.

[Queequeg]

I was under the impression that Japan was a pretty materialistic society.

It is, Lettow is an idiot.

[Eddie Teach]

I think Lettow may be thinking of some romantic notion of pre-war Japan.

[Razgovory]

I think Lettow may be thinking of some romantic notion of pre-war Japan.

Perhaps, but unless he has a time machine he has a big problem.  And Yi is right, the South was fairly materialistic as well, I mean they did consider human beings as a marketable commodity.  It's not like the Planter class lived in Spartan huts.   They were a pretty decadent bunch.

[CountDeMoney]

And Yi is right, the South was fairly materialistic as well, I mean they did consider human beings as a marketable commodity.  It's not like the Planter class lived in Spartan huts.   They were a pretty decadent bunch.

Nor did they share.

[mongers]

I'm beginning to think Lettow should go look into the dark corners of that closet, Marti oh so tentatively left a couple of years back.  : :

[Lettow77]

 I was indeed speaking about the old Japan. Japan today is enormously materialistic! Zeitaku wa teki da has shifted permanently to Zeitaku wa suteki da, and that's all there is to it.  I don't necessarily mind, really. Regarding the South, while it certainly had a sense of luxury, the censure of the newly rich was very much in effect. Who your daddy was mattered for an awful lot- self-made men with a lot of money were secondary figures by comparison to the psuedo-aristocracy.  (And of course, no amount of money could make a black man have real societal standing..)

But uh, Mongers- I give you my word that i'm not the least into that sort of thing, goodness. For the first time in a long time I've been speaking with women I am interested in- all it took was leaving the South.

This point deserves elaboration- When you take a room with 10 random Japanese girls, the quality is going to be significantly higher than 10 random girls from Memphis. First of all, half of the girls in our second sample are black, and thus right out. Of the remainder, two or three are too obese to consider, which is the only thing that precludes me from calling the Memphis singles scene slim pickings. Martin, Tennessee is significantly worse- intellectual attainment there died in a mudding accident.