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Philip Burgess wrote:
Or, we follow and support the philosopy of O'Sensei thereby surrendering or compromising our own religious leaders, other leaders or our hero's etc. philosophies. We look to a Japanese to show us peace and happiness above anyone in our own culture. Which all is a way of saying their are superior.
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I don't look to O Sensei and other Japanese spiritual leaders because they are Japanese though. I think anyone who would do so would be foolish (i.e. doing a "right" thing for a wrong reason)...which is, I guess, part of the criticism against nihonjinron: which culture a person is born in is arbitrary when it comes to virtue. I look to a Japanese person to show me something about peace because of what that person seems to have expressed...for all intents and purposes those people could have been Irish or from Saskatchawan...or even hippies!
In other words: the Japanese cultural affectations are circumstantial and their importance lies along the periphery; they're merely a vehicle for something more central to the human condition.
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A musican doesn't sign on to Japanese customs etc. but we as Aikidoka's do sign on. And should realize it comes with the territory and deal with it ( Nihonjinron ) and other things that make us uncomfortable. That is what I was getting at.  |
A musician will learn Japanese cultural affectations if they learn it from a traditional Japanese teacher. When a Japanese artist learns from a German artist, chances are good the Japanese person will perform the art with the German cultural affectations. Formal learning of any kind tends to resemble the form of its parent culture.
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Man what a family reunion that is! I would hate to be the relative who did the family tree. |
The funny thing is that most of that was easy to track down: I learned about it simply from asking my grandparents and parents. It was the French-American history itself, which spans about 400 years, that took the most amount of work...but we Ganos have always liked our history!