Soapbox: A Matter of Culture
by otaking on Feb.16, 2010, under Soapbox
So... if the story says I'm a senior, but I LOOK like I'm 10, and my story was written yesterday, am I 17 years, 10 years, or 1 day old? What about, I'm a CARTOON you morons!
So many of you are aware of the Christopher Handley decision by now, where apparently customs officials opened up a package from Japan addressed to Mr. Handley which contained manga depicting minors ‘engaged in sexually explicit acts and bestiality’. Last week our intrepid manga fan was handed down a six-month sentence for violating the US Protect Act, which which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and which lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
The interesting is that the Protect Act is actually narrower in scope than the so-called Anti Hentai Bill authored by Rep. Nikki Teodoro of my very own district in Tarlac. (As if she weren’t irritating enough to begin with.) The Anti-Hentai Bill covers persons in possession of “any representation, whether visual, audio or written combination thereof, by electronic, mechanical, digital, optical, magnetic or any other means, of a child engaged or involved in real or simulated explicit sexual activity”, and appoints cybercafe owners as sort of a cyber-Gestapo, requiring them to police what their customers are surfing.
I’m sure the legal and moral implications of these things have been combed over by many other writers. Privacy concerns, what constitutes child pornography, and so on. I’m not interested in covering old ground, despite the fact that both laws are so broad they will get you in jail if you so much as draw a big stick figure riding a small stick figure.
What I am interested in is that the US and Philippines have higher crime rates and cases of pedophilia than the demonic Japanese culture that is churning out this filth despite this sort of official prudery, based on local ‘standards of obscenity’. So we know for sure that this isn’t an effective deterrent per se.
So what happened? The key is a difference of culture. The U.S. (and therefore by extension the Philippines) revolves around a belief system that punishes you for thinking wrongly. Even thinking about sinning is a sin. We are societies founded around the idea that the stories in a particular book are literal truth instead of allegorical fiction, and this is why we think playing violent video games will turn us into serial killers, despite the fact that the evidence does not reflect this assertion. But we’re not big on evidence as a society anyway.
On the other hand, Japan distinguishes from one’s private and public persona, one’s tatemae and honne. We read books and watch movies and tv shows with plots involving murders and rapes all the time. (CSI comes to mind, whatever the flavor.) Japan understands this. In fact the whole idea of being a salaryman during the week and then cosplaying as an anime character on the weekends is understood as simply exercising one’s free choice to do whatever the hell one wants to do over their free time, provided that during the rest of the time one pays one’s debt to society. The Japanese also understand the difference between the symbol and the symbolized.
We don’t. Or at least we like to pretend that we don’t. Actually each one of us goes through the day filled with thoughts of murdering the driver of the car in front of us, or messing around with a co-worker on the sly, or lifting the wallets of obnoxious, pushy, overweight businessmen. We just pretend we’re not like that, because the thought of committing a sin is a sin.
So we throw the people who make the mistake of getting caught thinking these thoughts into jail, and the rest of us publicly denounce them as monsters and fiends, and we turn a blind eye to our own growing corruption, which is reflected in the corruption of our entire society. So the moralists continue to pretend their shit doesn’t stink, telling us that every new trend comes from the devil. Every new thing is a threat to the orthodoxy, and a threat to the orthodoxy is a threat to people in power. So we persecute imaginary crimes, and we ignore real ones.
Meanwhile, Japan quietly advances into the future, leaving us cultural prudes behind, focusing on the real but frolicking in their imaginations, unburdened by our prudishness or self-righteousness or the thought that somewhere, imaginary crimes are being perpetrated on imaginary people.
It’s just a matter of culture.
February 16th, 2010 on 9:59 am
Angas. I think some day you and I are going to have a very heated discussion over this. Good job.
February 16th, 2010 on 8:02 pm
Why thank you. I look forward to our heated discussion.
February 18th, 2010 on 10:34 am
Oh goody. Lemme prepare.
On a somewhat related matter, have you seen the form of their judgment? It’s like a template with boxes that you just tick off. I’ll email it to you. Weird. Hehe.
February 16th, 2010 on 12:03 pm
whoah this is why sinasamaba kita Otaking *bows to your greatness* pardon for my lack of comments. Fried brain is FRIED.
February 16th, 2010 on 8:04 pm
Thanks
If you imagine that I fried your brain, do I get thrown in jail for imaginary homicide? 
February 16th, 2010 on 11:51 pm
oh you didnt fry my brain but if you did then Thank You XD
December 20th, 2011 on 8:12 pm
hi everyone, I became just checkin out your blog and i also really enjoy the cornerstone , once, and have absolutely nothing to do, in case anyone wants to produce an engrossing conversation about it, please visit my site on yahoo, i’m kim smith
December 21st, 2011 on 10:56 am
We love to if you want to recognition all the other online businesses over the web, although most people aren’t in connection with u . s ., caused by link building to your potential customers. Undergoing handful of pages and posts genuinely opportunities…
December 21st, 2011 on 3:50 pm
I love what you guys are usually up too. Such clever work and exposure! Keep up the great works guys I’ve you guys to our blogroll.
December 21st, 2011 on 7:10 pm
This is a substantial and a extremely fascinating publish to examine on this amazing site! Practically never ever post any suggestions but now i just did not resist
December 22nd, 2011 on 5:33 am
Surfing around reddit.com I noticed your blog book-marked as: Soapbox: A Matter of Culture – Project Otaking. Now i’m assuming you bookmarked it yourself and wanted to ask if social book-marking gets you a ton of visitors? I’ve been thinking about doing some social bookmarking for a few of my sites but wasn’t sure if it would yield any positive results. Thanks.
December 22nd, 2011 on 10:25 am
nice and an really facinating submit to examine out on this wonderful web site! In no way compose any input only now just could not resist ..
December 22nd, 2011 on 5:14 pm
Wow! This blog looks exactly like my old one! It’s on a entirely different topic but it has pretty much the same layout and design. Wonderful choice of colors!
December 22nd, 2011 on 6:25 pm
Hi, are you aware antyhing relating to computer loudspeakers as well as dell computers or perhaps apple personal computers? Or even verify my own weblog plymouth pc repair. If You are looking for dog groomers that website advised through nationwide puppy groomers connection.
December 22nd, 2011 on 6:44 pm
TY, good post! This was the things I had to have.
December 22nd, 2011 on 7:30 pm
I saw a lot of website but I conceive this one has something special in it. “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” by Lee Iacocca.
December 23rd, 2011 on 5:33 am
I’m rumoring this evening.
December 23rd, 2011 on 3:25 pm
Realy good work cheers mate!
December 23rd, 2011 on 3:50 pm
Hiya, I’m really glad I have found this information. Today bloggers publish just about gossips and internet and this is actually frustrating. A good site with interesting content, this is what I need. Thank you for keeping this website, I will be visiting it. Do you do newsletters? Can’t find it.
December 24th, 2011 on 3:44 am
Thanks for the marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you will be a great author.I will make sure to bookmark your blog and will come back later in life. I want to encourage you to continue your great job, have a nice holiday weekend! 2012 hostgator coupon: 25PERCENTOFFSAVE
December 24th, 2011 on 7:19 am
I’m getting a small difficulty I cant subscribe your rss feed, I’m employing google reader fyi.
December 24th, 2011 on 1:37 pm
Great write-up, I am regular visitor of one’s website, maintain up the nice operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a long time.
December 24th, 2011 on 2:49 pm
I have noticed that car insurance corporations know the vehicles which are liable to accidents and various risks. Additionally they know what sort of cars are given to higher risk as well as higher risk they’ve got the higher your premium charge. Understanding the straightforward basics involving car insurance will assist you to choose the right sort of insurance policy that could take care of the needs you have in case you happen to be involved in an accident. Many thanks sharing a ideas on the blog.
December 24th, 2011 on 4:23 pm
I have to consider chance to do with thanking users for its trained some ideas I regularly prized finding out about your websites. We’re anticipating the retailer’s beginning about my personal or perhaps quest plus wide placement of feet wouldn’t appear to have been finished whilst not having on up to your blog site. Just may very well be from a assistance to other products, We are fortunate to assist us to of what You will find trained came from here.
December 24th, 2011 on 7:29 pm
I admire the beneficial information and facts you provide inside ones posts. Ill bookmark your weblog and also have my kids examine up the following usually. Im quite sure theyll discover a lot of new things right the following than anybody else!
December 24th, 2011 on 8:00 pm
Thank you, great submit! This was the thing I necessary.
December 24th, 2011 on 10:50 pm
I’ve said that least 520645 times. The problem this like that is they are just too compilcated for the average bird, if you know what I mean
December 25th, 2011 on 4:53 am
I’ve been browsing online greater than three hours today, yet I by no means discovered any fascinating article like yours. It is beautiful price enough for me. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made excellent content as you probably did, the net shall be a lot more useful than ever before. “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” by Lawrence Peter Berra.
December 25th, 2011 on 9:16 am
I was just seeking this info for some time. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, at last I got it in your site. I wonder what’s the Google’s issue that does not rank this kind of informative websites closer to the top. Generally the top websites are full of garbage.
December 25th, 2011 on 11:15 am
I gotta favorite this internet site it seems handy extremely valuable
December 25th, 2011 on 3:40 pm
Thank you for your thoughtful post!
December 25th, 2011 on 6:50 pm
I would like to express my passion for your generosity for people that absolutely need assistance with that topic. Your personal dedication to passing the solution up and down became surprisingly powerful and have without exception helped ladies just like me to arrive at their endeavors. Your own warm and friendly help means a great deal a person like me and extremely more to my office colleagues. Thanks a lot; from each one of us.
December 25th, 2011 on 11:07 pm
I have fun with, lead to I found just what I was looking for. You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day. Bye
December 25th, 2011 on 11:55 pm
Howdy! Quick question that’s entirely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My site looks weird when viewing from my iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to correct this issue. If you have any recommendations, please share. Thank you!
December 26th, 2011 on 12:42 am
Good – I should certainly pronounce, impressed with your site. I had no trouble navigating through all tabs and related info ended up being truly easy to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it at all. Reasonably unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or anything, site theme . a tones way for your customer to communicate. Excellent task..
December 26th, 2011 on 1:00 am
It’s in point of fact a nice and helpful piece of information. I’m happy that you simply shared this helpful information with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.
February 16th, 2010 on 1:01 am
This whole thoughtcrime thing is very 1984. Also, I think moralists like to police our imaginations because of the atheists’ accusation that God is an imaginary being. Imaginary crimes definitely concern Him if the accusation were true!