Day: February 1, 2009

上京する

What is the current purpose of 上京する, or the ‘move to the big city’ that is present in much of the 20th century literature?

To ‘move to the city’ had concepts of growing up/maturation involved as well as a step toward modernity. It was romanticized, but also economically necessary in many situations due to a lack of work in some places or particular industries/professions being particularly located (art – jazz, hollywood, broadway, gallery scene – being the most obvious examples).

However, people now posit the death of the city. Castells points out that the city has lost the previous purpose/meaning in the move to the information society and different types of city structures. In essence, the city should no longer have the same purposes.

And yet, we are still very much in the era of Sex in the City and Nana. Both are city dominated narratives that either tell of the maturation that comes from moving to the big city (Nana), or encourages an entire generation to live in the city despite its alienation, irreality et cetera (Sex in the City).

So, what becomes the new maturation scheme? What does the old form of maturation mean in a new society? One example is male army stories in a non militaristic society – this could be linked to the disconnect of the present youth to mid to late 20th C in the US, or the different martial moments within Japan – pre/post Tokugawa, Meiji-45/post war.

on the stranger

On the link between economy of fear, Bin Laden in the Suburbs know thy neighbor enemy [impossibility] and movement of the sranger from a liminal good to necessarily [but not necessary] feared/evil.

The stranger has never been incontrovertibly good, however, there is a history of strangers and lack of knowledge of who people are (connections, wealth, power) that encouraged people to not dismiss strangers as evil or useless. There was a benefit in confronting the unknown and the strange. The benefit was similar to the exploration of science, discovery, adventure: stress and fear as beneficial for some human soul or idea of progress.

In contrast, the current era, from cities to the war on terror (eg: fear) links the unknown and the strange with negative results. The stranger (and fear, the strange, the unknown) is separated from the possibility of benefit and must be fought against, but not through revealing of knowledge (enlightenment progress against the unknown), but determining of overlaying one’s own identity, one’s own truth on top of the strange.

The other is no longer a dialectic, but a task project [word].