I mean by this that there is no such thing as quantum violence (something that can be wieghed and compared evenly - apple to apple, orange to orange). I only had a slight acquaintence with Japan, there is much to like about the country, but personally I could not live there as the constraints run against what I am accustomed to. The difference is not the level of violence per se (this is a silly proposition), Japan is just as capitalistic as the US, but socially it has quite a different history and culturally it is another thing again.
The fact is that criminal violence is almost non-existent compared to the US. A specific social relation which adds considerable chaos to already chaotic relationships. The Japanese way of dealing with frustration and alientation cannot applied to the US (which deals with it in a hamfisted and judicial way after the act). Taken together both examples point to a level of social alienation which should be unexceptable to us but makes up our social context.
No-one I think is raising Japan as an example to follow (how could it be when its present state is historically derived from a complex evolution hidden from clear understanding), rather Japan is posed as an example which refutes this particular study and its assumptions.
Even if the question is reduced to one of regulated violence and chaotic violence (which I think is silly abstraction as well) who would choose chaotic violence? But that is not even being posed, rather a much more simple point in regard to a particular field.
Your point about collateral damage as against intended damage is a valid one, my point if we could actual choose between these two indexes, would be that an intentional, socially controlled form probably makes everyone very much more aware of what is going on (and hence in a better position to change conditions) then being subjected to the possiblities of becoming a victim to "collateral" damage. Moreover there is the simple body count involved (even when including suicides) human beings are taken out of the struggle in the US at a rate which suggests an ongoing civil war, while that in Japan appears much less severe.
Perhaps conditions in the US could be described as ongoing low intensity social war - this anyhow is how it looks from the outside as the yearly death by gunshot wound far outstripes Australia's entire losses during the Vietnam war, indeed if my memory is correct (and probably isn't) I believe about 30,000 Americans suffer from gunshot wounds per year which is about the size of the entire Australian armed forces (I know that the US is more then ten times the population but the causuality count is enormous even when this is taken into account).
Another aspect is political maturity, in Japan considerable political consciousness rests on well developed (however much they might be criticised) working class parties, in the US the entire country seems split between two avowedly bourgeois parties and the political consciousness as a social expression is at very low levels even compared to Australia. I cannot discount that part of the reason for this rests in what I view as chaotic social relations which exist across the US which are no-where as profound as found in other advanced capitalist countries.
None of this is meant to be taken too literally, but I think we must always take into account the pecularities of historical development and avoid abstract comparisons. In otherwords I think your point is true enough but in itself does not take us anywhere. Yes, Japan is no example to follow and sits on no pedestal, but as an example to think about and draw general conclusions and pointers for our thinking it has its purpose in this context.
On Japanese mores there are multi-deminisions to them and I for one would not be jumping to conclusions as I have seen the formality used to do things which elsewhere would be nearly impossible (very junior people telling their superiors off in a way which is protected by custom). In Australia we have a different way of doing this (called telling the boss to "bugger-off"). My point is social custom is not easily dismmissed or categorised.
My overwhelming problem is that concepts like violence have no meaning outside context, yet there is a tendency to use this as some absolute point of reference. My point here would be that violence describes nothing at all, it is a mere descriptive attached to something else to illustrate a single aspect dependant on whatever is being discussed.
I am neither for violence or against it, any more then I am against, or for the colour red. There is violence in confronting a boss and violence in beating a child, even these cannot be taken out of context, beating a child may be reprehensible or may not, confronting a boss may be laudable or may not - it is what else is going on which makes the point of judgement.
I am against simplistic notions and absolute abstracts. Both of which are promoted in an age of quasi-science becoming the morality of society. At least old-fashioned moralists knew that life was complex and placed their moral nostrums within a relative framework (often supporting counter nostrums, balances and exceptions within their very expression). The new moralism, knows no such constraints, it frames public debate around abstract absolutes and the end effect is to empower the powerful with even more arbitrary powers who only have to identify something as being "violent" or "inappropriate" (which is becoming my most hated word in the English language) to act in the most bureacratic and arbitrary fashion.
Jean-Christophe, I am saying all this to point out what I consider an error in your reply, of moblising such an abastraction to frame your response. Because of the vital role of abstracted violence in your reply what you say is becomes a truism (true enough but also true in every circumstance). But I am not trying to have a go at you in this, rather I think this is a general problem and one which we all fall into to, too often.
Greg
--- Message Received --- From: jean-christophe helary <suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 09:20:24 +0900 Subject: Re: TV & violence & studies
<Miles Jackson>-----
>
>
> On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Greg Schofield wrote:
>
> > I can assure you that TV in Japan makes what we get in Australia (which
> > is mostly US TV) look mild and petit vis a vis violence. Yet Japan is
> > undeniably one of the least violent countries in the world (as per
> > personal assaults).
> >
> > I thought the purposes of these experiements was to show a causual
> > relationship between representations of violence and socially expressed
> > "violence"? In which case Japan does offer a direct contradiction.
> >
>
> --Only if the U. S. and Japan are equivalent in every other way, besides
> prevalence of violent media. The difference in aggressive conduct
> could be due to any of numerous cultural and/or historical factors that
> overwhelm the causal effects of media violence. The media hypothesis
> is typically stated "media violence is one of many causal factors that
> provoke real-life aggression". Thus the Japan case (or any cross-
> cultural research) provides no clear evidence in favor of or against the
> hypothesis.
>
> Miles
i don't know about cross cultural research, but it seems to me kids are pretty violent here. they have channels to express their violence that even the school system supports: senior/junior relations expressed through verbal violence (a function imbedded in language) or physical violence (ijime pb, club life etc). my image of japanese society is one of regulated violence. it seems to be a violence with less 'collateral dammage' than the one in france (afaik) or the us (that you seem to discuss). i mean by collateral dammage everything that breaks the rule (ie yakuze killing commoners, kids beheading other kids etc). but the intended dammage is very real and not discussed at all in the main stream. well, no, they say there is an ijime pb but their solution is to say 'let's be nice to each other', not to actually question the senior/junior structure.
jc helary
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Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Modular And Integrated Design - programing power for all
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