For those of you disappointed by 2001...
Don't worry, the millennium may still be upon us! I'm reading "The Name of the Rose" right now and it's making my mind wander in strange directions. Interesting passage:
"The millennium is not calculated from the death of Christ but from the donation of Constantine, three centuries later. Now it is a thousand years...."
Which means we've been living in the Antichrist's reign (dual Antichrists, according to medieval superstition). So the true millennium may well not be until, say, 2300, and we'll all be dead and never know, assuming the Antichrist's reign is also a thousand years as the rule of the Just was. One problem with this calculation...the Donation of Constantine is a forged document. It was used to justify the Pope being above the Emperor and was itself in some ways a satanic document.
Anyway, monastic order of this time like the Franciscans and Benedictines are so fascinating, living for copying, illustrating, translating, and commenting on books from all over the world...seductive as the modern Jesuits. It is just so frustrating that they have to bring religion into it. Not just because of their ridiculous notions of God, which to some extent I could pander to, to be given access to such erudition. More because the politics of religion and heresy get so in the way of any real progress, as the novel points out rather well.
Even modern universities entirely lack the purity of Plato's Academy. Their assumptions are so limited, backed by other, dead, people with the same assumptions...and once your authorities are dead, there's no stopping them. They become truth itself. Even to the so-called educated.
Anyway, this is one of my internal rants I've been mulling over recently. Nothing much interesting to report. Work is ridiculously busy. Which brings me to another rant...things I don't like about Japan. Obviously, there's a lot I love, but there are some things, from mere annoyances, to deep social problems...
1) Businesses own their employees: there are all sorts of legal ways to exploit your employees so that when you are making on paper, say, $20/hr, and working only 30 hours, in fact you are working 45 hours, hence making about $15/hr. Protection for Japanese employees is even worse than that in America, which from experience I can say needs some serious revision.
2) Japanese toilets. This is just a minor annoyance, and if you ever see one you'll see what I mean. It's a simple matter of historical efficiency: anatomically, my ancestors are incapable of the position required for this device, so Europeans developed seats for their holes in the ground. This is more bother than is necessary if you can sit so well on your heels as the Japanese, so they stuck with just holes. Hence the modern hole, which is quite awkward if your body is constructed without this ability.
3) Fickle social attitudes. The dark side of "wa," communal harmony, is that whichever way prevailing opinion goes, thus goes the crowd. It's simply a stronger version of the same phenomenon everywhere, but it does not seem to be as condemned in media, does not receive harsh criticism, because communal unity is more important, for right or wrong. Thus when characters are suddenly popular that were once hated, they go along and become friends with the people who hated them for no good reason, and in "Hana Yori Dango" you can see this go back and forth several times. (I think this attitude is becoming outdated, though...Hana Yori Dango is a bit older.)
4) Submissiveness in females. Women's lib hit Japan in a really weird way...so now women are schizophrenic. More than usual. I mean, they can be both submissive and aggressive, strangely alternating between the two attitudes. At least there is some vestige of respect and genteel conduct in Japan, but my idea of respectful behavior owes much to the Greeks as much as the individualism of the States. Humbleness and abasement is not respect, it is deference shown between equals. But of course, I have little use altogether for those "slave morals," as Nietzsche calls them, humility and all that. Suphrosune is a much better virtue.
I'm sure there are some other minor ones, but that's what comes to mind lately. I see some very strange interactions...on trains or what not...male/female interactions are the most interesting to observe, though students are also fascinating. I don't know why, but you'd swear riding the trains that the girls outnumbered boy students three to one, and the girls also go in packs of three, perhaps adding to the illusion. Cookie-cutter kids in uniform, they huddle and chatter, I'm told about nothing, though I can rarely follow as much as a topic, mostly just words here and there.
Anyhow, that's enough for now. I plan a short essay on cultural relativism, but I haven't time or inclination at the moment. Kaori will be off work soon, and I need to be doing things. Here are the pics of the Halloween party I promised and failed to deliver:
Here's some of my kids...Dai on the right, Gakuto and Kenta (pirate) on the left, Haruya, Chris's student, in the middle, being a dinosaur. He was quite cute.
My manager with Dai.
Chris as Harry Potter. Not the best pic of his full costume, but he has all the good pictures.
Me with Dai. He left a bit late, so we all took pictures with him. I don't have my leather jacket on, which were my wings.
My monsters for Pin-the-Nose-on-the-Monster.
The mother is way more creepy...
More pics:
Kaori and I at Muse in Roppongi. Not the best pic, but it's what I've got at the moment.
Left to right (also at Muse): Kieran the Irishman, Red Becky the Brit, Phil the crazy Aussie.
Shinjuku from 54 stories or something. Damn glass wouldn't give me a better shot.
Catching the first train the morning after...
"The millennium is not calculated from the death of Christ but from the donation of Constantine, three centuries later. Now it is a thousand years...."
Which means we've been living in the Antichrist's reign (dual Antichrists, according to medieval superstition). So the true millennium may well not be until, say, 2300, and we'll all be dead and never know, assuming the Antichrist's reign is also a thousand years as the rule of the Just was. One problem with this calculation...the Donation of Constantine is a forged document. It was used to justify the Pope being above the Emperor and was itself in some ways a satanic document.
Anyway, monastic order of this time like the Franciscans and Benedictines are so fascinating, living for copying, illustrating, translating, and commenting on books from all over the world...seductive as the modern Jesuits. It is just so frustrating that they have to bring religion into it. Not just because of their ridiculous notions of God, which to some extent I could pander to, to be given access to such erudition. More because the politics of religion and heresy get so in the way of any real progress, as the novel points out rather well.
Even modern universities entirely lack the purity of Plato's Academy. Their assumptions are so limited, backed by other, dead, people with the same assumptions...and once your authorities are dead, there's no stopping them. They become truth itself. Even to the so-called educated.
Anyway, this is one of my internal rants I've been mulling over recently. Nothing much interesting to report. Work is ridiculously busy. Which brings me to another rant...things I don't like about Japan. Obviously, there's a lot I love, but there are some things, from mere annoyances, to deep social problems...
1) Businesses own their employees: there are all sorts of legal ways to exploit your employees so that when you are making on paper, say, $20/hr, and working only 30 hours, in fact you are working 45 hours, hence making about $15/hr. Protection for Japanese employees is even worse than that in America, which from experience I can say needs some serious revision.
2) Japanese toilets. This is just a minor annoyance, and if you ever see one you'll see what I mean. It's a simple matter of historical efficiency: anatomically, my ancestors are incapable of the position required for this device, so Europeans developed seats for their holes in the ground. This is more bother than is necessary if you can sit so well on your heels as the Japanese, so they stuck with just holes. Hence the modern hole, which is quite awkward if your body is constructed without this ability.
3) Fickle social attitudes. The dark side of "wa," communal harmony, is that whichever way prevailing opinion goes, thus goes the crowd. It's simply a stronger version of the same phenomenon everywhere, but it does not seem to be as condemned in media, does not receive harsh criticism, because communal unity is more important, for right or wrong. Thus when characters are suddenly popular that were once hated, they go along and become friends with the people who hated them for no good reason, and in "Hana Yori Dango" you can see this go back and forth several times. (I think this attitude is becoming outdated, though...Hana Yori Dango is a bit older.)
4) Submissiveness in females. Women's lib hit Japan in a really weird way...so now women are schizophrenic. More than usual. I mean, they can be both submissive and aggressive, strangely alternating between the two attitudes. At least there is some vestige of respect and genteel conduct in Japan, but my idea of respectful behavior owes much to the Greeks as much as the individualism of the States. Humbleness and abasement is not respect, it is deference shown between equals. But of course, I have little use altogether for those "slave morals," as Nietzsche calls them, humility and all that. Suphrosune is a much better virtue.
I'm sure there are some other minor ones, but that's what comes to mind lately. I see some very strange interactions...on trains or what not...male/female interactions are the most interesting to observe, though students are also fascinating. I don't know why, but you'd swear riding the trains that the girls outnumbered boy students three to one, and the girls also go in packs of three, perhaps adding to the illusion. Cookie-cutter kids in uniform, they huddle and chatter, I'm told about nothing, though I can rarely follow as much as a topic, mostly just words here and there.
Anyhow, that's enough for now. I plan a short essay on cultural relativism, but I haven't time or inclination at the moment. Kaori will be off work soon, and I need to be doing things. Here are the pics of the Halloween party I promised and failed to deliver:
Here's some of my kids...Dai on the right, Gakuto and Kenta (pirate) on the left, Haruya, Chris's student, in the middle, being a dinosaur. He was quite cute.
My manager with Dai.
Chris as Harry Potter. Not the best pic of his full costume, but he has all the good pictures.
Me with Dai. He left a bit late, so we all took pictures with him. I don't have my leather jacket on, which were my wings.
My monsters for Pin-the-Nose-on-the-Monster.
The mother is way more creepy...
More pics:
Kaori and I at Muse in Roppongi. Not the best pic, but it's what I've got at the moment.
Left to right (also at Muse): Kieran the Irishman, Red Becky the Brit, Phil the crazy Aussie.
Shinjuku from 54 stories or something. Damn glass wouldn't give me a better shot.
Catching the first train the morning after...