there could be a bird on the chimp's shoulder. that would make it even better.

awwww, big white fluffy dogs. who don't like those.

I feel like Seasame Street characters will eventually be scolding them for this type of behavior.

Trevor wrote: "There could be a bird on the chimp's shoulder. that would make it even better."

Hmm, or a couple of decontexualising swastikas on their caps. No! Scratch that thought immediately!

How long until they have the monkey imitate a black person, then pull the commercial for being racist, as in the "Gatsby" commercial for face wipes?

You, horrible PC thugs! Those Gatsby commercials were an earnest attempt to remove the racist meaning from blackface. Stop trying to make blackface always be a sign of racism when it could be the next teen fashion look.

joey made a funny

>

they already do. His name is Bobby.
Anyone see this guy on telebi?
If this is what Japan thinks about the black culture/people, I will tell my friends to never visit.

oops I meant to start off the last post with this quote
""How long until they have the monkey imitate a black person, then pull the commercial for being racist, as in the "Gatsby" commercial for face wipes?""

I wrote a bit about Bobby here.

And I really didn't mean to spin this comment thread into a rehash of the swastika one. Especially since blackface is not an arbitrary signifier... And the monkey in this ad does not seem to have anything to do with racism to start with.

Oops, sorry for knocking this thread off topic. I just keep thinking about that every time I see a chimp now. Anyhow, off to the conbini to buy more face wipes, doobies, and bananas.

Especially since blackface is not an arbitrary signifier

All signifiers have an arbitrary relationship with what they signify.

Colour is not an objective quality inherent in objects (or faces), the way it's perceived depends completely on context, as the most amazing optical effect in the world reveals. YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!

Note to readers: please add blackface to the list of "possible fashion items" along with Nazi swastikas. I'm thinking about pitching a Blackface special to the Japanese hip-hop fashion magazines with a "how-to" section based on Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

maybe it would be best for momus to spend more time in Japan where it's hard to get your hands on psychoactive substances.

Oh, I don't think Momus needs drugs to find his ultra-Contrarian ideas. Just figure out the "common sense" position and say the opposite - and without even acknowledgement that there are any possible reasons for the "common sense" position being common sense. For example, swastikas are obviously good and the kids in Harajuku are obviously wearing them in some kind of futuristic sort of intellectually-sound way. And anybody who is therefore against swastikas is worse than the Nazis... and so on.

I hate that I wind up attacking momus so often. I like the project he's after, and I think most of the readers here have a lot of sympathy for his idears.

Everything he posts here is so contrarian and deliberately controversial though... especially lately.

I totally agree. I am sympathetic to the Momus position, but he seems to divide any issue into extreme dogmatic poles - either you support Harajuku kids wearing Nazi iconography they don't understand or you are a horrible PC, Neo-conservative shrill planning on the bombing of innocent children in third-world nations.

Honestly, mine was by no means the most extreme position in that swastika debate. I was arguing for the subtly shifting meanings of signs in culture. Chris B, meanwhile, was telling us he beat up cosplay people at conventions because of the meanings (apparently rigid and forever fixed) of the clothes they were wearing. Only one person criticized him (though he did somewhat apologize for himself later).

please add blackface to the list of "possible fashion items" along with Nazi swastikas

Blackface is, in the form of ganguro / buriteri / yamamba, the last major Japanese youth culture phenomenon of any note. If we're only adding it to our fashion notes now, we're five years behind.

Well, ganguro is tangently related to blackface (even though the word literally means "face - black"). They aren't watching The Jazz Singer and taking down notes.

The swastika I was complaining about is EXACTLY the Nazi symbol.

But how about those Pyrenees dogs!

>All signifiers have an arbitrary relationship with what they signify.

Yes, broadly speaking they do, but that's not what Marxy is saying.
The both of you are talking about two different things:
The shape of a signifiant such as the word 'black' or the word 'face' (or rather, the sound waves caused by humans pronouncing them, or their representations on paper or digital media etc.) is not directly determined by the object it refers to, but by the speakers of the langue, that is, the system it is part of. In other words, there is no intrinsic reason why the word 'black' should signify the quality of a surface regarding the reflection of visible light. This relationship is called arbitrary in Saussure's theory.
The compound 'blackface' refers to that which is called a 'face' in English, and which also has the property 'black'. The arbitrarity of both constituents seen as signifiers notwithstanding, it is easy to see or at least guess for any proficient speaker of the English language what the term 'blackface' signifies. This category is called motivation, and it concerns semantics and etymology, but makes no statement about arbitrarity in the Saussurean sense.

if anyone cares, that african 'foreign talent' bobby was recently involved in a scandal about him lying about his age. he was saying he was in his early 30s, and now it seems that he's in his late 30s! oh, my...and now he's doing some kind of probation upon the orders of his 'jimusho'...

Nice correction from someone who seems to knows something about structuralist linguistics.

What are they going to do with "Foreign talent" Bobby when they find out he can speak fluent Japanese?

david be sayin': What are they going to do with "Foreign talent" Bobby when they find out he can speak fluent Japanese?

r. be sayin': i guess if he's japanese is really good (i know it is...i met him in club harlem in shibuya one day with one of his special lady friends) and if he is NEARING 40 years of age, i suppose the thane camus 'jimusho' (where he is employed) will have to make him 'sing for his supper' even harder...or WORSE!

...sorry, i SHOULD have said: he will be made to 'sing for his supper' in the Saussurean sense!

actually, thanks me_vs_gutenberg (great fucking NAME) for clearing that up...

I would simply add to me-vs-gutenberg's comments that "semantics" is not just do to with etymology, but also to do with culture. Semantics is political, cultural, negotiable and contextual. One of the very refreshing things about Japan is that it recontextualizes semantic relationships that we in the West take for granted. For instance, anyone educated in the US in the 80s and 90s takes it for granted that blackface is outdated and demeans black people. But the ganguro movement doesn't assume that. An ethnocentric reading of this situation is that yes, blackface must inevitably demean black people (for instance, blackening your face to become more like a black person could never be read as a tribute and an elevation of black style) and that yes, therefore Japanese people who blacken their faces are racist. For some reason, the people offering this opinion never seem to consider that they themselves are being racist, both towards the black people they think they're protecting and the Japanese people they're condemning.

i think momus had a good point. that's why we don't believe about his 'scottish lips'! everybody here in tokyo knows that that african guy bobby has the best lips!

arbitrary does not equal meaningless.

people are welcome to try and overturn established convention, but the binding thread of society is our ability to tell them that, arbitrary or not, our symbols, beliefs and rules are good, or at least correct and meaningful.

(If a early-mid 20th century Londoner were to look at the world and his heritage the way momus endorses, there's no reason that he or she should have opposed the nazis. He or she could quickly deduce that, had he been born in Hessen, he would be waving a nazi flag and cheering the fuehrer. So why adopt anything so gauche as a moral stance?)

incidentally, bobby's gonna be on that terrible fortune-teller old lady's show next week. In the preview, she calls him a big liar and says he speaks pera pera.
Maybe this is the payback.

The humpty-dumpty theory of semantics is amusing. Again, a case of appropriation of half-understood ideas. The whole next chapter in the cours générale is actually devoted to avoiding such run-away interpretations as apparently intended here.

Momus is a journalist, not an academic. He is never forced to think things through, or is subjected to real academic debate with academic standards, it's all one-hour essays and blog entries, with haphazard references to big names and big books or the anecdotal ("I have a friend", "when I met x in 198x") for support.

(Nothing against blogs, but I would find it unsatisfying never to try to develop my ideas into a form where they can actually be criticised because they make a full argument. Which is why Marxy's posts tend to be more interesting: they argue for a discernible thesis that can be wrong.)

nate sez I think most of the readers here have a lot of sympathy for his idears.

Count me out on that one. momo-chain aint dumb but lately I aint learnin a thing off his idears.

momus sez Chris B, meanwhile, was telling us he beat up cosplay people at conventions

Well not quite. I dont advocate violence. I said I spat on em and chased em around the parking lot till they peed themselves. Did I mention I was laughing at the time? And yes I did express that I was an asshole to have done that but that I unfortunately don't regret it. "bad karma" on me tho I dont believe in the cosmic spreadsheet.

der sez: Momus is a journalist

While I agree with all you said after that, I think you were being a bit generous. He earns his beans by playing with words but that dont make him a journalist.

me_vs_gutenberg: what r said. great name.

All: To the best of my knowledge ganguro/yamanba have nothing to do with blackface. To try and bring that into the question is another diversion.

another jap: and thats why bobby can be a tarento while momus cant.

marxy: I think the dog is cuter than the monkey myself. I'm looking forward to his repeated appearances on one of Sanma's wide shows. I'm afraid the monkey is doomed to guest on one of Takeshi's shows a few times then fade into obscurity.

so is the only excuse for being 'gauche' being japanese? what about 'turning' japanese? if momus can do that, then he won't have to worry about worrying about the difference any longer!

considering it was slang for masturbation, I bet he can turn japanese

The humpty-dumpty theory of semantics is amusing.

You're pretty smug, der. What has my point that semantics is not just etymological but political and cultural got to do with Humpty Dumpty? This ridicule (followed by an equally non-substantive ad hominem attack) is a pretty poor form of "analysis" from someone who then goes on to advocate "real academic debate with academic standards". Are you going to actually address my point, which, by the way, would be considered a perfectly vaid one in most universities, but is apparently considered insane around these parts?

I dont advocate violence. I said I spat on em and chased em around the parking lot till they peed themselves. Did I mention I was laughing at the time?

This, meanwhile (from Chris B, describing his treatment of people at a cosplay convention) constitutes "sanity".

people are welcome to try and overturn established convention, but the binding thread of society is our ability to tell them that, arbitrary or not, our symbols, beliefs and rules are good, or at least correct and meaningful.

Established where? Binding whom? Whose society? Tell whom? Good to whom? Correct by whose standards? Meaningful to whom?

I cannot believe you guys are mostly ex-patriots and yet you haven't worked out this basic stuff yet. Chris B in particular is a semantic barbarian. Nobody has the right to go to another country and beat up people for the way they interpret symbols there, especially not at a cosplay convention, for Christ's sake! You're lunatics!

If a early-mid 20th century Londoner were to look at the world and his heritage the way momus endorses, there's no reason that he or she should have opposed the nazis.

I have a strong political commitment, I am by no means someone who takes relativism to the point of nihilism. I would certainly have opposed the Nazis and, as Porandojin (who I beleve is Polish) pointed out on the swastika thread, the deep irony is that the person here acting most like a Nazi is Chris B, and you're all "collaborating" with him.

Momus is so hyper-political that he has even transcended the need to vote, apparently.

The only thing Momus is in danger of is transference: his megalomania onto the people of Japan.

It's megalomania to say that symbols change their meaning over time and through space? News to me, Virginie.

It is not. But, as symbols change over time, Momus does not, or so it seems. Enter megalomania, enjoyable for us, no?

Virginie

You might want to look at today's entry on Click Opera, which criticizes a Japanese film for trying to situate beauty in a conventional place and praises a British film for locating it in a new and surprising one. Don't expect to find beauty when people push "beauty buttons". Beauty is evanescent. Look for it in a new place!

This is exactly the same point I was making on the swastika thread. 60 years after World War II, don't expect to find Nazism still conveniently marked with a swastika. Look a little deeper, find where the modern equivalent is. I suggested it may be in the plan to build a highway through Shimokitazawa. Yes, more criticism of Japan! From Momus!

You're pretty smug, der. What has my point that semantics is not just etymological but political and cultural got to do with Humpty Dumpty?

Where are your google skills? (Or your knowledge of theories of meaning, as this is in just about every textbook on philosophy of language.)

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,"
it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

What semantics is not just etymological but political and cultural is supposed to mean is unclear to me. Semantics is only cultural (which includes political). Hence not arbitrary in the sense you seemed to use it in your argument. (Defending what is basically shameful ignorance of the outer world, not any volitional de-signifying operation.)

Yeah, I guess I have to plead guilty to No. 1, but I accuse you of at least Nos 2, 3, 6, 17, 18, 19, 22, 36, 37 of course, and 41.

And actually, I was kind of serious there. I would read with interest a longer text of yours where an actual thesis is developed and argued for. The continously shape shifting discussion here is pretty unsatisfying. And I do believe that this is immanent in the inconsequential form where tomorrow everything starts anew.

Also, I find the practice of discussing bits here and then using your own podium for ex cathedra summarisations of your points, well, not nice. And being cited as a prime resource for "moronic cynicism" is hard not to construe as ad hominem.

So by this, are we to then to conclude that the juveniles of Harajuku are being lauded by you for the singular reason that they are wearing a sign that symbolizes something now marked in a different way?

What have they done that is so worth? You seem to put them up so high on these imaginary pedestals, but they have not done a thing! You wish to praise Japanese girls for wearing crosses? Why not praise Nietzsche instead?

Or for that matter, simply remember that...

"Heilge Kreuze sind die Verse,
Dran die Dichter stumm verbluten"

Nice to see you've been googling fallacies, der. I didn't cite Neomarxisme as a prime resource for "moronic cynicism", by the way. But it's interesting that you associate the two.

The continously shape shifting discussion here is pretty unsatisfying.

Funny, most people seem to think I bang on about exactly the same two points here! And you're saying I have no consistent message?

der say: Also, I find the practice of discussing bits here and then using your own podium for ex cathedra summarisations of your points, well, not nice.

r. say: THANK YOU for finally saying what we've all been thinking. if any 'pakkuri' is going on anywhere, it may be found in the point that you bring up!

Virginie, I am neither praising nor blaming Harajuku youth. Everything in Japan is out of context, and everything is a kind of cosplay. My default position, in these circumstances, is "do not terrify, tolerate". Chris B's default position, as he proudly informed us, is "do not tolerate, terrify".

Which of those positions do you think best?

r: So you're going to stop making ex cathedra remarks on your own blog about topics that come up on mine, are you?

Hey my friend, I ain't need to google that, I've been committing fallacies before you were even born! The link was solely for your convenience (and for having numbers for your misdemeanors).

Indeed, you don't cite neomarxisme, that is true (I remembered that wrongly); it's just that this post came immediately after you threw around the term here, and the post contains several lines that are culled directly from your comments here. So saying "interesting that you associate the two" is a bit disingenuous. Jesus. (But true, at least you didn't use real hyperlinks to make the connection.)

And yes, your claims are always more or less the same, it's just that the supporting arguments shift their shape whenever someone attacks them.

nick: 'ad hominem tu quoque' proves your statement to be factorial at best.

and before you tease 'der' for "googling fallacies" why don't you take the time to check out the root page of that blog...

http://www.nizkor.org/

nick: 'ad hominem tu quoque' proves your statement to be factorial at best.

You might find mea culpa a quicker way to say the same thing.

nick sez: you might find mea culpa a quicker way to say the same thing.

and i say: functionally speaking, you might find just coming out and saying "red herring" a faster way to say what you just said.'

are you confortable, nick? i can do this all night long, baby!

With no disrespect to "r.", I would suspect that his cathedra is a tiny bit smaller. This cannot have escaped you. It's things like this, such unbelievable, purposeful misunderstandings just to score a measly point and to avoid the issue...

Maybe it's also a question of style. How about saying "I see your point" or "that's interesting, but I think maybe" every now and then, instead of the dogmatic tone? Let it at least appear like you are interested in the argumentation, not just in coming out good?

well, that isn't the first time my 'cathedra' has been called tiny...but as long as it is by this interesting 'der' person, i don't really mind.
i think that 'der' does have an interesting point about nick's argumentation. we've seen marxy concede points often here. what about nick? and if nick really feels the way that he feels about some of the people here...

"I cannot believe you guys are mostly ex-patriots and yet you haven't worked out this basic stuff yet. Chris B in particular is a semantic barbarian."

then i would ask why does he spend so much time here? he isn't preaching to the choir...far from it. things probably just get a little old on his blog when most of the people agree with him for the sake of agreeing with him. here, it might have turned into the opposite, but at least for this situation nick can 'practice' his rhetoric and debate skills. that is the only reason why he keeps coming back, i think. nick?

why does he spend so much time here

I'm seriously asking myself the same question. I don't think mere argument will ever resolve the differences between us. These are deep cultural and aesthetic divides, to do with the basic ways we hear and see and feel, our ways of being in the world. I feel so much closer to Yuki's blog, or Jean's blog. But then, I never feel the need to comment there, precisely for the reason that I agree with them. It is somewhat fascinating to disagree.

please don't lump her in with jean. you need to meet yuki and talk to her. her blog may say one thing, but if you meet her, i think you'll get quite a different picture. not so with jean. his may be the 'life unexamined' that you seem to deride. i think, nick, your blog is very 'you'...i've learned a lot from it! david tends to filter out personal stuff...

How can you agree or disagree with statements like "The Shibuya Apple Store is opening this Saturday!" and "I arrived at my grandparents' house"?

But please don't go away (I say as a fellow guest here, with no presumption of speaking for anyone but myself), I find this much more interesting then Claqueur Opera.

please don't lump her in with jean. you need to meet yuki and talk to her. her blog may say one thing, but if you meet her, i think you'll get quite a different picture.

Are you insinuating that she actually agreed to meet you? She put a thing on her blog about "how many times do I have not reply to my mails for this guy to get the message?" and then you put some sarcastic comment on yours about "sorry, of course I should have guessed that not answering means no". So I assumed (to get back to the Latin terminology) you were persona non grata.

Oh I got a great laugh out of Momus's post there.
1 where did I mention sanity?
2 it wasnt a cosplay convention. It was a toy show. I said that quite clearly. I never used the word cosplay in this context.
3 I never laid a hand on em. I dont raise my hands to another except in defence.
4 This here ex-pat does well enough locally. I'll tell you this that my japanese friends who were with me at that toy show also laughed at me chasing those pussy wannnabe Waffen SS guys around. BTW can you see the difference between wearing the regalia of elite death squads and having a swastika t-shirt cuz its so punk rawk?
5 There is some old saw about the probability of someone calling someone else a Nazi in a flame thread is 1. I'd like to take this moment to give a big shout out to all my colaborationists!
6 Yeah there's alot of talk about 60 years on in Japan lately. Lots of opinions from all directions. Discourse is good.
7 Semantic barbarian? I like the sound of that! Thanks, that was pretty clever, I think I'll use it as a repurporded identity word from now on.

it wasnt a cosplay convention. It was a toy show. I said that quite clearly. I never used the word cosplay in this context.

Wait, so they were dressed up as toy Nazis?

I never laid a hand on em. I dont raise my hands to another except in defence.

But your account is that you terrified them so much that they couldn't control their own bladders! If you'd done that at Abu Graib, whether you laid hands on them or not, you would have stood trial for torture.

not that anyone else needs to be carrying on a direct dialogue with momus, but...

I think lots of folks would favor thinking that the values of our symbols grow organically from lotsa different places, but that those who would presume to rewrite them (de/recontextualize) for their own bemusement are a touch self-involved.

What if we just left the black swastika tilted on its axis in a white circle over a red field a symbol of nazism and world war 2 germany? Would that really be so bad?
If the crowd here is telling people what to think about the swastika, what is momus doing but telling us what to think about every symbol everywhere?

Nice try Ashita No Joe! They werent restrained or under any duress not to fight back.

BTW momo-chan, did your girlfriend ever explain about Ashita No Joe to you? Did you try to figure it out for yourself?

But if you thought they were really Nazis, didn't you expect them to respond with Panzer divisions and real Lugers?

I always secretly thought that this would be my most controversial post ever.

I don't think we need to particularly rehash Momus-attacks, so I'm not going to get into this debate. Put a couple of points:

It is somewhat fascinating to disagree.

I am happy to have people with opposing opinions and to be corrected. I get stressed out by personal attacks, "faux outrage" from the farther Left, and anti-Americanism masking as argument. But otherwise, yes, debate is more fun than agreement.

An ethnocentric reading of this situation is that yes, blackface must inevitably demean black people

I've never thought that the Japanese use of the swastika or blackface are particularly colored by racist intention, but I get bothered by the fact that they symbolize a general ignorance of history and global social issues. We are all sitting at the same international dinner table, and since I don't stick my chopsticks straight up in the bowl, I'd like it in return if other people don't accidentally wear Nazi t-shirts.

Momus: You've illustrated a real problem with the net as a medium of resolving disputed points by stating that my default postion is "terrify then tollerate". This taking one confessed istance of foolishness on my part and twisting it into my "default postion" ends up being grandstanding on your part to try and claim a higher moral ground.

Let me remind you of something; I live and work here, I have family here. Like anyone else I loose my temper from time to time but in order to maintain a life here, I tolerate far more than you could ever know. As stated before, you've never lived here, you dont really know what its like or what those of us who do go through on a daily basis. Additionaly you've never worked in a local company and dont know what it entails except by second hand experience of reading or hearing the reports of those who have. For the most part those reports are different from the real experience due to the nature of expressing one's self in the two languages and of the standards of behavior here and there. I respect that you have chosen a different path, but I don't believe you are qualified to understand mine.

For the public record: what I did in frightening those men to the point where they lost control of their bladders was wrong, but I regret it no more than any instance of schoolyard horseplay, and frankly it doesnt even compare to the local standards of ijime.

you've never lived here

This is not so, I lived in Meguro for much of 2001 and 2002, and spend three months of each year in Japan. This year I spent two months working in a university in Hokkaido and will return later in the year for a month in Kansai.

But yes, I'm sure you do tolerate a lot, and that life isn't easy for you, so respect on that score.

and since I don't stick my chopsticks straight up in the bowl,

if the dude chose to wear his shirt on his next HIS discount trip to poland it would be a somewhat different issue. And it'd be to the local people to decide.

btw. I've had my fusion, new asian food served with chopsticks stuck straight into the rice (as decoration!?) once in the us once in australia.

How quaint your view of a pre-globalized world! You're making me nostalgic for borders and "nation-states."

can you actually elaborate? i get the feeling you're talking shit.

i tend to see it bit more simply.

how does your vision of a globalized world work? we add up all major and minor taboos and create one big hierarchy of static taboos which would ultimately include just about everything. we apply the same to customs , ways of eating etc (eg. adding the fact that it's considered improper to hold a fork in your left hand in some places to the fact that it's improper to hold the fork in your right hand in other places). Evidently not, I mean you're not doing it either. Or we select a sort of meta-criteria as to what taboos are globally more important than others (i'll abstain from any GWB& co analogies). or try keep a bit of common-sense and an eye on the relativity of it all.

I mean the guy with the swastika is not offending anyone in the sphere he's moving. If he's offending you, fair enough coz you or me or momus are often on some level offending as well just by being here. You must have felt that sometimes , huh. Like it or not, as David Bowie once sung 'this is not america'. I get your basic point but you are barking up the wrong tree. (and god, do you contradict yourself as you struggle along) The nazi swastica in japan simply does not have the weight it has in other places and trying to enforce that now is as absurd as trying to enforce the eating manners of the Maoris.

On the other hand,( i feel so stupid having to make something so basic even more basic), if the guy wore his shirt while visiting auschwitz that might be somewhat insensible, and i'm convinced the guy would be quite aware of that. And that's exactly what you were saying in regards to chopstick manners - so i really don't get what you're actually fighting. it is some sort of farce like m said.

It's plain simple. I mean the guy's negotiated his (offensive, rebelious) position in regards to whatever authority he's having to deal with and is cool about , shoud he be terrified to go out lest this american blogger dude might see him. gee, who is the nazi?

man, outside the academia, borders do sort of exist, you know? which reminds me i have to get my passport renewed and leave the country again coz my visa expires.

that's it ////. is Himmler haunting your dreams yet?

i feel so stupid having to make something so basic even more basic

If the burden/boredom of correcting me becomes too much, let me know and I'll get someone else to take over.

gee, who is the nazi?

I was waiting so long for someone to call me a Nazi! Why did it take 67 comments!? Internet trolls: you are slipping.

There's an interesting, and tragic, corollary to Marxy's position in the last posts of an American journalist in Basra to his blog, as reported in today's Guardian. He almost has a fight with an Iraqi man staring over at the unveiled woman by his side, and fumes against the left wing cultural relativists who say you should respect "the Other". "Sometimes, the American way really is better," he concludes. The following day he's killed.

That'll learn 'em to respect the Other!

Whoa. This (Momus') comment would also work coming from someone trying to smear his position. ("Look here. Basic human rights. Murder. But hey, I bet Momus would get some relativism in here as well.")

You really are far out.

Also, interesting style of argumentation again. The section actually reads:

"No, believe me," Layla exclaimed. "These religious parties are wrong. Look at them, their corruption, their incompetence, their stupidity. Look at the way they treat women. How can you say you cannot judge them? Why shouldn't your apply your own cultural values?"

[ .. ] only to have a flesh and blood representative of "the Other" declare he was incorrect, that discriminations and judgment between cultures are possible - necessary - especially when it comes to the unacceptable way Middle Eastern Arabs treat women. I couldn't resist. "You know, Captain," I said, "sometimes American values are just ... better."

(Layla seems to be this guy's Hisae, so don't claim that she's a straw woman..)

The parallel situation would be if I'd actually invaded Japan and was wondering whether to judge its customs negatively or take a relativistic stance, and Hisae were telling me to go ahead and condemn it freely. Encouraged by her, I'd then have to say something boneheaded like "You know, Captain, sometimes Scottish values are just... better."

Alin said: "I mean the guy with the swastika is not offending anyone in the sphere he's moving."

Doesn't that make him a bit of a failure as a punk then? How provocative is an offensive symbol that offends no one?

...I guess that's the difference between punk orthodoxy and punk orthopraxy.

Come to think of it, Orthopraxy could be a good name for a crust or grindcore band, huh?

The parallel situation (where you introduced the parallelism, not anyone else) would be if I'd actually invaded Japan

OK, lets leave aside that the guy was a journalist, not a member of the invading force (difficult to do, but OK, lets follow you there). Now lets see what to make of the rest of your statement.

and was wondering whether to judge its customs negatively or take a relativistic stance,

I take you are intending a universal quantifier here: all its customs. I don't think that reading is validated by the text.

and Hisae were telling me to go ahead and condemn it freely.

What does the anaphor "it" refer to? It, the country, or it, the customs (wouldn't work, but maybe you were not precise here.)?

Would such a statement count as supportive or not? Sometimes you treat individuals as representing "their culture" (Hisae for Japan, Marxy for the US), sometimes you deny them that (basically, everyone in favour of positions you don't agree with).

Encouraged by her, I'd then have to say something boneheaded like "You know, Captain, sometimes Scottish values are just... better."

Are you reading the original statement as meaning "all American values"? Not impossible, but again disingenious (accidentally so when it serves your argument).

If it's not "all values", but just this one in particular (which someone from that same culture, who is on the receiving end of this "custom", just told you to condem), would that not be OK?

So, in what sense exactly was this a "corollary"? Please do explain, as you just seemed to have said it is not after all. If you don't think it is, please do say "I was wrong, I don't think it is."

I'm glad to see Momus is getting into the spirit of the whole "back to the 90s" thing by bringing up "Asian values!" Lee and Mahathir were the Lennon and McCartney of authoritarian government back in the day, but things just haven't been the same since the financial crisis. Then again, who knows, maybe someplace like Burma is looking for a cute Western apologist-in-residence?

Human rights are a recent human invention, yes, and they are largely a Western invention, yes, but that doesn't automatically mean they aren't valuable.

But why take my word for it? Read these lecture notes about "Asian values" by a Japanese academic (in English):

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~kosukes/Nangking_Comfort.htm

You know, speakig of 'imposture' I'm sure that it is really Hisae that is posing as Momus!