Liberal Japan

People often argue whether Japan is ethnocentric, xenophobic, and insular.

My personal opinion is that the average person in Japan probably doesn’t want to be viewed this way at all, and for the most part is probably in many ways quite liberal as far as these issues go. However, I think as a result of education and even more so mass media, the typical person has taken on board a host of theories that are in fact ethnocentric and xenophobic. So you have a lot of people holding nearly racists ideas that probably aren’t really compatible with their core beliefs.

Why?

Simply because they haven’t cross examined them.

Having said this, I do think there is a segment of society that is decidedly ethnocentric and xenophobic and vocal. And worse, they’re accepted as having reasonable opinions because of the situation I’ve described above.

While I strongly support the free market, and don’t look favorably at all upon laws that attempt to control what people can say and not say, it disappoints me to learn how strong a market there is for racist rants. Apparently, people really like this stuff in Japan.

Case in point a magazine purporting to be about foreign crime turns out to be nothing but sensationalism along the lines of the Daily Star or the National Enquirer combined with various disgusting stereotypes for various ethnic groups. What’s worse is this, for the publisher, it’s a hot seller!

The details on this magazine are here.

As best I can tell this magazine is currently, as I write this, the publishers number one seller at Amazon Japan. It’s sales rank last I looked being at about 800. When I did a search on other products by the publisher, nothing else came up higher.

Given the magazine’s popularity, I dread the anticipated sequel.