The interviewer, Alan Cummings, posted this response on the Japanese Psych list: i thought that a response from me was in order, so here goes... I can see how some of those statements could be read with a racist context, and I did worry about how to justify them myself when I was writing the piece. here are a few of the arguments that did occur to me. first, setting aside the often detrimental effects that US and European economic and cultural power has had upon indigenous cultures around the world, one vital point is that each culture is free to define what makes it great/unique in its own way. American culture has always promoted the benefits of diversity, progress, dynamism, heterogeneity, the ideal of the melting pot - facets of its culture which reflect US historical realities. Japan, on the other hand, has never had the same traditions of immigration, of having to meld multiple ethnic identities into a whole, and has tended therefore to define its strengths in terms of homogeneity and continuity. is one of these viewpoints intrinsically any superior to the other? secondly, what I think Haino was getting at is, the link between physicality and culture, and more general Japanese attitudes towards their own culture. for better or worse, Japanese culture was created over many centuries, largely in isolation, and for and by people with certain physical characteristics. this to a large extent has determined Japan's material culture. in terms of architecture, for example, houses are still built using certain standard and long-fixed measurements - doors are a fixed height, shoji and tatami mats are a fixed length, and the harmonious relationships between these things have developed over long periods of time. or in terms of musical instruments, koto, shamisen, traditional wind instruments etc have developed to fit both the physical characteristics of the people who play them (length of fingerboards, distance between frets, holes on a flute etc), and their lifestyles, ie most of them are designed to be played while sitting on the floor rather than standing or sitting on a chair. all of these factors influence the way these things sound. i'm sure you can extend these analogies for yourselves into art, food, clothing, theatre, etc. if Japanese body shapes have changed that much in such a short period of time, one effect is to divorce people from their own culture - they can no longer get through doors, their arms become too long for kimono, they can't finger a shakuhachi properly, their height is out of balance with the dimensions of a noh stage, etc. the nature of the physical relationship with musical instruments is at the root of Haino's music. for example, Nijiumu sounded the way it did partly because the group played sitting on the floor. I think he talked about this in the Halana interview in more detail... I don't honestly believe that he was saying that one body type was superior to another, just that people should be aware of the change. of course, physical bodies and culture do change over time. but one characterstic of Japanese culture is that it has "preserved" a wealth of cultural practices and forms that other cultures would have discarded. how much the transmission and preservation of these forms has depended upon continuities in the physical bodies or diets of Japanese is one question that remains to be answered. the whole area of how Haino in particular, and Japan in general, perceives the West is one that's far too complex for me to want to get into at this time in the morning. finally, i would have thought that Haino's music alone would refute most charges that he fetishizes purity! alan At 12:46 PM 7/4/2002 -0400, MorMovies@aol.com wrote:
I love Keiji's music but hasn't he ever heard of EVOLUTION?! I don't quite get his point and the interviewer doesn't pursue the matter. There is physical, mental, cultural and many other types of evolution. Nothing stays the same. Any animal population either gets taller, shorter or completely dies out. But nothing ever stays the same!
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Chris Selvig