knowing it before you see it
7 May 2010 06:02 pmWhen I did that post about my neighbors unexpectedly demonstrating every cliché when it comes to hidden racism, at least one person observed that being mostly unaware of anime styles makes it harder to assess the question at hand ("why do anime characters look anglo?"). I mean, if you don't even really know what anime characters usually look like, you probably wouldn't feel too confident taking a stand on whether (or how) the question is valid or offensive, because you're not sure about the specifics.
A few days after doing that post, I was reading an architectural magazine when I came across an article featuring three different landscape designs by the same firm. The second project, a Japanese-influenced front garden, was titled, "I think I'm turning Japanese... I really think so".
I think I stared at that page for almost an entire minute, trying to wrap my head around the notion of using the catch phrase from a thirty-year-old pop song. Hell, I barely recall the song -- although the refrain is certainly catchy enough and has become a sort of iconic phrase in its own right, if divorced from whatever context there is of the song -- and while to some extent I could identify that my annoyance had something to do with the trivial context of the landscape article itself, I couldn't articulate why, exactly, my offensive-statement alarm bells were clanging.
I don't mention that to get into the wherefors of the article's title, but as illustration for how difficult it can be, sometimes, when instinct tells one that something is not-okay, but the lack of articulate logical explanation renders one unable to explain to someone else what's wrong. And I do think it's important to understand why, and to be able to explain it, or else one's left with sounding like that oft-quoted judge in one of the landmark obscenity cases, who declared he couldn't say what obscenity is, only that he knew it when he saw it.
To know it when you see it requires that you see it, after all, and if you don't know what you're looking for (or don't understand what you're looking for), then likely you may never find it. ( And since I can never pass up a chance to deconstruct anything I don't fully and cogently grasp, here we go. )
A few days after doing that post, I was reading an architectural magazine when I came across an article featuring three different landscape designs by the same firm. The second project, a Japanese-influenced front garden, was titled, "I think I'm turning Japanese... I really think so".
I think I stared at that page for almost an entire minute, trying to wrap my head around the notion of using the catch phrase from a thirty-year-old pop song. Hell, I barely recall the song -- although the refrain is certainly catchy enough and has become a sort of iconic phrase in its own right, if divorced from whatever context there is of the song -- and while to some extent I could identify that my annoyance had something to do with the trivial context of the landscape article itself, I couldn't articulate why, exactly, my offensive-statement alarm bells were clanging.
I don't mention that to get into the wherefors of the article's title, but as illustration for how difficult it can be, sometimes, when instinct tells one that something is not-okay, but the lack of articulate logical explanation renders one unable to explain to someone else what's wrong. And I do think it's important to understand why, and to be able to explain it, or else one's left with sounding like that oft-quoted judge in one of the landmark obscenity cases, who declared he couldn't say what obscenity is, only that he knew it when he saw it.
To know it when you see it requires that you see it, after all, and if you don't know what you're looking for (or don't understand what you're looking for), then likely you may never find it. ( And since I can never pass up a chance to deconstruct anything I don't fully and cogently grasp, here we go. )