This is why I never, ever visit Tokyo or Osaka and rarely any other major Japanese city in Japan since seeing their obligatory historical tourist attractions years ago. I stick to third-tier cities and villages in the countryside.
The older generation of Japan gets this implicitly, because they're still actually proud of the distinctly Japanese trappings of their culture. Years ago on my first non-business and non-sports related trip, I was asked by a group of 60-something salarymen I ran into at a remote ryokan up north what a foreign tourist was doing up here, especially one from NEW YORK CITY.
I replied in my then very basic Japanese:
New York is not America. Tokyo is not Japan.
I was bought a lot of drinks and it devolved to karaoke.
Thanks to my subscription to the Yipster Times, I was well aware that back in that day, before the Deforestation of the rain forest got rolling , McDonald's was known around the Stockyards for buying cancerous cows with their heads half eaten away by carcinoma and had no interest in anything but crippled, cancerous and " Downer" cows.
Besides , their food is awful, especially the Big Muck.
Thousand Island dressing on a burger is just disgusting...
I like the conclusion because it seems to go on a direction of individual freedom: Consume whatever you want, including bad coffee and burgers (that I actually like!). But also reject anything that you want, including mass-produced stuff or being part of the masses.
I don't like the middle so much because it seems to suggest that the people that like Starbucks in these places are not acting on their own benefit. I disagree. I think that they compare Starbucks with the alternatives and freely choose starbucks. There is no government/police forcing them to do that.
The idea that "people are dumb" is also difficult to reconcile with the idea that individuals should be free to live as they please. If they are dumb, we need a "benevolent" government to force them into living correctly, right?
Finally, I agree that democracy only works when people have the exact same interests (which is impossible). Otherwise we have things like lockdowns in which the majority simply sends the police with guns after the minority.
I would say "stick to similar people", but also drastically reduce the power of the government. The state should only punish violent people and absolutely nothing else: No climate change, income transfer, lockdowns, masks, education, health services, race legislation, regulations of any kind. This makes it easier to live with different people.
If you take "localization" to the extreme, you end up in a sovereign individual. Which is what I defend. This is probably why I agree with the essence of your posts.
BTW, my ideology is also simplistic: The government can only exist to defend the individual from violence (obviously, it cannot start violence against anyone).
It's the traditional libertarian principle... And yes, there is a problem with taxation in this story because the government currently collect taxes by threatening the individuals. So, ideally there should be a way for people to refuse to pay taxes (and refuse the service of protection).
The way I see this last bit happening is by making sedition easy. If people don't want to pay the taxes (or anything else for that matter), just leave... "be local".
While I agree wholeheartedly with the ultimate thrust of this essay, I think the writer gets the Lennon vision completely wrong. John was not singing vaguely of some overriding non-national superstate, but rather of a hoped-for devolution from the atavistic values that have gathered us into the large artificial groups we call "nations." France, Italy, Germany, Spain: these are all just constructs bringing together disparate but usually linguistically similar regional groups under an abstract umbrella to which power then accrues, representing effectively in microcosm exactly the sort of centripetal vacuum embodied in the corporate superstate the author rightly denounces.
The author seems to be too young, and perhaps misinformed, to understand what the '60s were really about. If even half of the vision of the most enlightened souls of that era had somehow been made a reality, we would not be in the bind we are in today. Instead, we got assassinations, broken lives, propaganda, division, near-complete social destruction, and, of course, more war . . .
It's true that I wasn't alive for a couple decades after the sixties. I've consumed a lot of media covering that time period, though. Your interpretation of what "Imagine" meant is generous, but maybe not totally wrong. The problem with a lot of this stuff is theory vs. practice.
That, and the reality of the physical world which does not feature empty sky.
I was alive then.Many of the Culture Heroes were what was then known as " Plastic Hippies" such as Neil Young and his fellow Censorship/Death Jab advocates David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell.
It's sad that some people imagine a bright shining light whose existence is dubious.
Did Neil Young rush
" Ohio" on to the charts as a cry for justice, or a lucrative sure fire hit single?
This is why I never, ever visit Tokyo or Osaka and rarely any other major Japanese city in Japan since seeing their obligatory historical tourist attractions years ago. I stick to third-tier cities and villages in the countryside.
The older generation of Japan gets this implicitly, because they're still actually proud of the distinctly Japanese trappings of their culture. Years ago on my first non-business and non-sports related trip, I was asked by a group of 60-something salarymen I ran into at a remote ryokan up north what a foreign tourist was doing up here, especially one from NEW YORK CITY.
I replied in my then very basic Japanese:
New York is not America. Tokyo is not Japan.
I was bought a lot of drinks and it devolved to karaoke.
i've had very similar experiences. minus the karaoke.
I love your post, but espcially the last three lines.
I still fondly recall the Yippie's
" You deserve a brick today" campaign.
Thanks to my subscription to the Yipster Times, I was well aware that back in that day, before the Deforestation of the rain forest got rolling , McDonald's was known around the Stockyards for buying cancerous cows with their heads half eaten away by carcinoma and had no interest in anything but crippled, cancerous and " Downer" cows.
Besides , their food is awful, especially the Big Muck.
Thousand Island dressing on a burger is just disgusting...
I like the conclusion because it seems to go on a direction of individual freedom: Consume whatever you want, including bad coffee and burgers (that I actually like!). But also reject anything that you want, including mass-produced stuff or being part of the masses.
I don't like the middle so much because it seems to suggest that the people that like Starbucks in these places are not acting on their own benefit. I disagree. I think that they compare Starbucks with the alternatives and freely choose starbucks. There is no government/police forcing them to do that.
The idea that "people are dumb" is also difficult to reconcile with the idea that individuals should be free to live as they please. If they are dumb, we need a "benevolent" government to force them into living correctly, right?
Finally, I agree that democracy only works when people have the exact same interests (which is impossible). Otherwise we have things like lockdowns in which the majority simply sends the police with guns after the minority.
I would say "stick to similar people", but also drastically reduce the power of the government. The state should only punish violent people and absolutely nothing else: No climate change, income transfer, lockdowns, masks, education, health services, race legislation, regulations of any kind. This makes it easier to live with different people.
A lot of my ideology boils down to one admittedly simplistic maxim: localization good, globalization bad
If you take "localization" to the extreme, you end up in a sovereign individual. Which is what I defend. This is probably why I agree with the essence of your posts.
BTW, my ideology is also simplistic: The government can only exist to defend the individual from violence (obviously, it cannot start violence against anyone).
It's the traditional libertarian principle... And yes, there is a problem with taxation in this story because the government currently collect taxes by threatening the individuals. So, ideally there should be a way for people to refuse to pay taxes (and refuse the service of protection).
The way I see this last bit happening is by making sedition easy. If people don't want to pay the taxes (or anything else for that matter), just leave... "be local".
You might have been an Ayn Rand fan if you would have lived 50-60 years ago. Taxation is theft.
https://youtu.be/lHl2PqwRcY0
Yes, I know her... She is right! I completely agree that taxation is theft.
If you make a practice of fast food and Starbucks you should not be surprised that people perceive you as less than intelligent.
A lot of garbage fans want to imagine " it's not that bad", but it's actually worse.
You are not merely poisoning yourself, you are contributing to exploitation and genuine ecological devastation.
I posted this on another forum:
While I agree wholeheartedly with the ultimate thrust of this essay, I think the writer gets the Lennon vision completely wrong. John was not singing vaguely of some overriding non-national superstate, but rather of a hoped-for devolution from the atavistic values that have gathered us into the large artificial groups we call "nations." France, Italy, Germany, Spain: these are all just constructs bringing together disparate but usually linguistically similar regional groups under an abstract umbrella to which power then accrues, representing effectively in microcosm exactly the sort of centripetal vacuum embodied in the corporate superstate the author rightly denounces.
The author seems to be too young, and perhaps misinformed, to understand what the '60s were really about. If even half of the vision of the most enlightened souls of that era had somehow been made a reality, we would not be in the bind we are in today. Instead, we got assassinations, broken lives, propaganda, division, near-complete social destruction, and, of course, more war . . .
And it has not been by accident.
It's true that I wasn't alive for a couple decades after the sixties. I've consumed a lot of media covering that time period, though. Your interpretation of what "Imagine" meant is generous, but maybe not totally wrong. The problem with a lot of this stuff is theory vs. practice.
That, and the reality of the physical world which does not feature empty sky.
I was alive then.Many of the Culture Heroes were what was then known as " Plastic Hippies" such as Neil Young and his fellow Censorship/Death Jab advocates David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell.
It's sad that some people imagine a bright shining light whose existence is dubious.
Did Neil Young rush
" Ohio" on to the charts as a cry for justice, or a lucrative sure fire hit single?
I LOVE John Lennon’s work. That said, the idealism and naïveté of Imagine makes me blush.
John's annoying drivel has utterly zero basis in reality.
Fire and Brimstone are indeed below us, and above us is a LOT more than empty sky.
I lost all respect for him after that brain dead Lefty nonsense.