The Intellectual's Daydream

It was only a few weeks ago that I ran into a ridiculous orientalist Seed article making the manifestly false argument that Asians are sooo much more intellectual than slack-jawed Westerners because the odd Fields Medalist or Nobel Prize winner had appeared in a Japanese advertisement - as if the Western media had ever been short on scientist-celebrities - but I think this Yomiuri opinion piece ought to illustrate the emptiness of all such talk; while it too goes in for the "grass is greener" fallacy by painting American television as a bastion of vigorous debate rather than the echo chamber for loudmouths like Bill O'Reilly and company that it is, the one thing the article does make clear is that contrary to stereotype, the Japanese are no more or less "intellectual" than anyone else, their media is just as obsessed with chasing ratings as that anywhere else, and the sort of fare which gets high ratings is the pretty people, scandals and low-brow fare which thrives in every other part of the world.

The notion that there exists some faraway modern land where eggheads are worshipped like pop stars and athletes is nothing but an idle fantasy of intellectuals who feel neglected in their own countries; far more Japanese people are aware of and interested in the doings of Aya Ueto and Ichiro Suzuki than ever have been or will be in whatever it is Leo Esaki and Heisuke Hironaka are getting up to, and much the same sort of thing can be said of Korea, Taiwan and the rest of East Asia. The only half-exception I know of to this universal human tendency is France, but even there it's the gibberish-spouting, highly telegenic pseudo-intellectuals who get the airtime rather than the ones who actually know what they're talking about - you'll never see Jean-Pierre Serre on TV being interviewed by a sexy anchoress.

Comments

[Frank McGahon]

"The only half-exception I know of to this universal human tendency is France, but even there it's the gibberish-spouting, highly telegenic pseudo-intellectuals"

Even then, the emphasis is on the "highly telegenic" part - I don't think BHL would get as much airtime if he looked like Jean Paul Sartre (and Arielle Dombasle looked like Simone De Beauvoir!)

[Chuckles]

[...that I ran into a ridiculous orientalist Seed article making the manifestly false argument that Asians are sooo much more intellectual...]

So you noticed that too! I went "whaaaaa?" when I read that article. You know why? Some years ago (this is hyperbole) I started keeping a notebook to record everytime I asked a Japanese person something like "Have you read any Oe"? And they go "Oh Oe! I have heard of him" Of all the hundreds plus I have asked this question, only one even knew who Esaki is! and I dont think any knew who Tomonaga was. I mean, the list is endless! The impression I have is that Japanese intellectuals/scientists live in perpetual obscurity, suffocating under industrial demands, work hours and the awful cutesiness of contemporary culture - dwarfed by boy bands, violable girls and restaurant hosts: forced to compete, not only with these, but also with *foreign* intellectuals; thus, I have had more Drucker and Stiglitz quoted to me as intellectuals than any of their Japanese contemporaries. There is a reason why the blue diode guy was referred to as slave-Nakamura. There simply is no comparable market for intellectuals in Japan (and the fact that they lack the clonegate inducing fervor of the Koreans doesnt help things). In fact, I would say that for all the supposed American anti-intellectualism, intellectuals here have a far greater status in the public view, what with interviews on Jon Stewart, Colbert etc and cameos on The Simpsons, Family Guy, et al. I mean, look at Brian Greene or Steven Jay Gould and all their media dabblings. Not that I subscribe entirely to the position in the Yomiuri piece (doesnt it borrow a tad from Yoro Takeshi's Baka No Kabe?) but I do think the author has a point. American intellectuals get far more media time than their Japanese contemporaries. CSPAN does a good job with this - I mean, I have seen everybody on CSPAN: Chomsky, Horowitz, string theorists, Zinn, Shelby Steele, Stanley Crouch, McWhorter, Dembski, Eldredge, Soyinka, Bloom, Bhagwati, Sen etc etc (not to mention Charlie Rose's many guests).
So when I saw the Seed article, I put it down not to mere "The Grass is Greener" but to that strange tendency of some intellectuals and some scientists to desire to hegemonize every sphere of existence even when they have been given a space that far outstrips many of their contemporaries. While the Japanese may worship their *prize winners* more, that this translates into "scientists being famous in Asia while we get Federline" is laughable.

[Abiola]

"CSPAN does a good job with this - I mean, I have seen everybody on CSPAN: Chomsky, Horowitz, string theorists, Zinn, Shelby Steele, Stanley Crouch, McWhorter, Dembski, Eldredge, Soyinka, Bloom, Bhagwati, Sen etc etc (not to mention Charlie Rose's many guests)."

Not that the numbers who actually bother to watch such luminaries on CSPAN can hold a candle to the millions who tune into "Hannity and Colmes" or "The O'Reilly Factor" ...