Coorporate Powerhouses and the News

      Media stations are a target to blame for various problems that occur in the world today. Many people are aware that the media controls how they censor the news mainly because of the financial interests of the media companies. However, without the internet, not many people would be aware of this problem. The internet has allowed us to access many types of information easily, without any hassle. The Google search engine allows us to search any topic with incredible accuracy. We can get answers to questions instantly, and if you are experienced and wise, it is possible to get answers from various viewpoints, allowing you to gain a balanced opinion.

     Rab emphasized that the media is controlled by enormous companies and that  owning the media means controlling the media. Advertisers have great power in the media as they are the main source of profit for media companies. Information is censored so that the advertiser's image isn't harmed. This means that the news is filled with biased information that is controlled by advertisers. It is easy to present only one side of the argument to make it seem like it is a  fact instead of it being one way of looking at the problem. This is harmful because this leads viewers to believe in a set of ideas that the media outlets promote. This makes it easy for companies or politicians to control what the masses believe.

     This is obviously a problem, but I believe that it is something that cannot be prevented completely. First off, there will always be a bias no matter how the media tries to report the news. Secondly, in a capitalist world, there will always be money involved. As long as business is involved, the information presented in the news will be controlled so that the advertisers do not lose profit. I think it is somewhat useless to pressure news media to try to report unbiased information for this reason.

     However, what we can do is educate ourselves so that we have a more balanced view on the news. We can do this by using the internet effectively, looking at problems from various viewpoints. We need to gain information from alternative media sources such as those Rab introduced to us today instead of relying on mass media. This way we can control what kind of information we take in, instead of blaming the media of censoring the news. I believe it is a realistic and effective way to deal with mass media.

Cultural Gaps

 

     Because Stream 1 students all come from different backgrounds, one of the topics Rab gave us to discuss was about what culture dominates us. Personally, I lived in the states for 8 years, and it's been roughly 6 years since I came back from the states. I remember being incapable of speaking "keigo", bowing to teachers and "senpais", and acting like I was shy. A lot of students that come back from the states (including myself) at first absolutely hate Japan, and would do anything to return to their home country where they grew up. This is because we know that the cultural differences between America and Japan are enormous. We know that it is not easy to adapt to Japan's way of socializing. We become to hate Japan as a result of such cultural gaps.

     However, as we get used to the way of Japanese living we slowly adapt to the culture, and become more and more Japanese. Our values and the way we see things change as we adapt to the new environment. I believe that which culture dominates us depends mostly on how long you have been in the environment. The longer the time, the more time there is to adapt to the environment.

     I have made an observation that although we do adapt much to the environment we are currently in, we do not turn into complete Japanese or complete Americans, but rather a mix of the two with one more dominant than the other. When I was in the states, because my parents are Japanese, I was partially Japanese but mostly American. Currently, I am partially American and mostly Japanese. I believe the ratio of the mix depends on the duration we lived in the certain cultural society as I stated earlier, and also the kind of education we were given. Students that went to international schools in Japan obviously have more of a chance of being American than Japanese, when students that went to Japanese public schools have less of a chance of being American. The values taught in Japanese schools and American schools are extremely different and contradict each other at times. It may be only myself, but I found myself confused of which value system to trust.

     This kind of chaos led to me to realize that this is the reason for bad relationships, interpersonal or international. It is difficult to understand each others values because a lot of times, their values contradict each other. However, we must understand that everyone has different values and we must respect them, even if they are the exact opposite of what you believe, instead of trying to force your opinions and beliefs to them. I believe this kind of mindset is necessary in order to understand cultures and races, and also to think critically so we do not have harmful biases.

(image source:http://japanesestudynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/logo-hash-mark-400x200.gif)

Christopher Columbus was Evil?

Having spent my childhood in the states, I've never thought that Christopher Columbus was an evil person. James Loewen states that Christopher Columbus is falsely portrayed in history textbooks, but I believe that it is not just the textbooks that are the problem, but other media such as television animations also. I remember seeing Christopher Columbus star in Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network shows, and him being portrayed as a hero, and sometimes somewhat like a god. Never did I see or hear anything negative about him. The following video shows exactly what I learned in school and from American television.

Even in Japan, I was taught the exact things that were stated to be false by James Loewen. It might have been that the history teacher I had referenced American history textbooks, but nevertheless I believe the stories of Columbus might not just be an American problem, but a global problem. If the things Loewen stated were true, it is probable that textbooks all over the world have the same problem.

The way Loewen presents the information in this book is very convincing, and makes it seem like all of the stories that appear in history textbooks are fairy tales. I was surprised to read about how the "facts" and stories sometimes have little or no evidence. The way I viewed history has changed dramatically, mainly because in Japan, I was trained to memorize "history" as an absolute fact inf stead of a series of theories.

Having heard and seen only positive things about Columbus, reading a bunch of negative words about him was somewhat shocking. Loewen points out that it is false to view only the positive sides of history. However, we need to be careful not to view only the bad sides of history as well. Loewen puts a spotlight on the negative sides of Columbus because that is the purpose of this book, but there is a need to put things into perspective after reading it. We need to be careful not to believe everything an author of a controversial book says. Otherwise, we would fall for the false information being sold commonly in today's market that tries to deny common sense.

Stereograms, Mother of all Funk Chords, and Angels

      Rab introduced us to magical images that somehow turn into 3D images called stereograms. It would be impossible to see the 3D image just by looking at the image flatly, but by looking at it with depth, or looking at it as though you were trying to look through the screen, you are able to see the image pop up. This was a metaphor of looking at things from another perspective in depth. It was entertaining being able to see the images, but I couldn't experience the importance of looking at things from another perspective. It was cool, but I felt that it only taught me how to see the 3D images on a stereogram and nothing more.

This video "Kutiman-Thru-you - 01 - Mother of All Funk Chords", famous on YouTube is a compilation of top musicians performing different songs, compiled into one original song made by Kutiman. Rab pointed out that Kutiman selected skillful musicians that played different genres, instead of finding musicians that fit the song. The opposite example of this is the following video:

This video is a montage of fans covering Thriving Ivory's "Angels" and compiling them into one song. In Kutiman's video, the song was composed by combining completely different songs and making it into a completely new song., but in this video the song was composed by combining covers of the same song and molding it into the same original song.

The creator of the first video extracted high quality music from different genres while the creator of the second video extracted different people sings the same song. The first song was more interesting and creative than the second, and it shows how choosing high quality material from different genres and mashing them can produce a great sound. Rab made a point that when gathering information, often times we tend to find information that fits our view point instead of finding information without a complete bias. For example, if I was trying to make a point that Macs were better than Windows, instead of extracting information only from articles supporting Macs, I would need to extract information from articles supporting Windows also to have a more balanced view point. I thought that it was an interesting metaphor to show this. Funky Fridays will probably be one of the most interesting and favorite classes this semester.

ARW: April 24

     The points Rab made about democracy were interesting. He pointed out that in Japan, if you work part time before you are 20 years old, despite having to pay taxes, you cannot vote until you are 20 years old. Moreover, Rab himself pays taxes to the Japanese government, but he cannot vote because he is not a Japanese citizen.　He pointed out that this is not actually democratic. I also think that it is unfair to be paying taxes while not having the right to vote on matters that affect ourselves directly.
     Most students in our class including myself did not understand the difference between communism and socialism. Rab explained to us that in a communist country, people tend to slack off because there is no incentive to work hard. This is because the money that the people earn from working goes to the country, which is used for building roads, bridges, etc. The remaining money then gets distributed to the people. In a capitalist country, the country doesn't take care of healthcare and other welfare, but doesn't charge as much taxes. Therefore, the people that have money survive and the people that don't will suffer. Socialist countries are somewhere in the middle of communists and socialists. The government takes a fraction of the money from the people and uses it for welfare. I've always had an image that socialism was somewhat evil, but as Rab and other students pointed out, the ideas themselves are very much agreeable.
     Somewhere in the class, Rab mentioned the "Great Man Theory" where the world is seemingly evolving around great people, and great people make the world. He explained that this theory is flawed because it ignores the people outside of the top 1% who have power, even though those people have tremendous influence on the world. This theory reminded me of American television, because they have a tendency to heroify history characters and make it seem like the world revolved around them. I have never thought about the way history characters were portraied, but I realize now that the television shows imprinted a false image of the "heroes".
    

Handicapped in History

     I consider myself handicapped in history. I have never had an interest in history, mostly because my history education has been shallow. Leaving the states when I was in 7th grade and having an incomplete American history education, and then coming back to Japan without ever taking a Japanese history lesson, I found myself lost in history. I could not figure out how I could memorize all of the "facts" in "history", because "history" taught in America and Japan were completely different. Therefore,  I became uninterested in "history".

     However, I realize that this is only an excuse for not having the discipline to memorize "facts". I never had the motivation to force myself to become interested in history. How could I become interested in a story where pieces of the puzzle were missing? History textbooks seemed like a terribly constructed novel, where motives and connections of the characters and events were constantly missing.  Memorizing these pieces of information was like trying to memorize the fragmented pictures printed on the pieces of a puzzle, instead of the whole picture of the completed puzzle. There was no way I could manage to memorize these facts unless I crammed the information into myself.

     James W. Loewen, the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" gave me a different perspective on how to view history. He states that textbooks are often too clean, and understates the bad side of the country's history. I don't have enough knowledge to say that this is true, but looking at his education in history, I can tell that what James Loewen is stating is somewhat true. Reading the first chapter of the book, I instantly got hooked. However, since I am "Handicapped in History", I cannot tell if the statements made in the book are true. As Rab said, I felt that there is a need to think critically, and do some research on my own. 

ARW: April 19th

     It was the first time I had an intense discussion in class. Coming back from the states about 6 years ago, I have had a Japanese education from junior high school. Discussions were rare in classes, and when there were discussions, my peers were often too shy to debate about anything. The discussions would almost always end in meaningless conversations, discussing nothing particularly interesting at all. This was not just because of the educational curriculum in Japan, but also the characteristics of Japanese people in general.
   
     This point came up when we were discussing if what Meiland is saying in his article is applicable in Japanese universities. I personally think that it is possible to change the education system in Japan to encourage an education which cultivates creativity instead of the cramming of knowledge. However, I believe that changing the hierarchical　relationship between students and teachers is somewhat impossible in Japan, not just because of the educational system, but because of the culture in Japan in general. Japanese people often have a vertical relationship (sennpais, kouhais, etc) for any kind of social group and it's been that way for longer than we can imagine. This can be found evident by reading Japanese history textbooks, where social statuses can be found for everything. Not only that, Japan in the past have even created low social statuses (eta, hininn) so that people of the lower and middle class have a target to exhaust their stress and frustration. It's just the way Japanese people are, and changing that is not realistic. Other members also pointed out that people in Japan in general tend to look at the status of the person (their education, where they work, etc.) more than people living in America or Europe. I agreed with them because I also think that Japanese people work too much to achieve higher status of themselves or their children by trying to enter "good" schools or "good" companies by cramming knowledge and killing their creativity in the process.
   
     The discussion we had about the basis of belief was also interesting. We discussed if religion should be something that needed reason or evidence to believe, or if Meiland was contradicting himself considering that he was a Christian. I feel that religion and god is something spiritual and needs no rational reason to believe, because we feel it somewhat from our souls. However, the beliefs that come with the religion are something that cannot be felt from the inside spiritually, and needs a rational reason to believe in. To make this more understandable, for example if rabbits were my gods, and I felt love from them, that would be something that is spiritual and can be felt from the inside, meaning it needs no reason for belief. On the other hand, if the sacred writings of the religion worshiping rabbits told me that I was not allowed to drink orange juice, this would not be something that I would be able to feel some kind of inner relationship with, and therefore needs rational reasons to believe. I would need reasons for why I am not allowed to drink orange juice instead of plainly believing it just because the rabbits told me so. However, I now realize that this is not always true because if I had a spiritual connection with the rabbits and felt instinctively that I should follow what the rabbits say, then I would not drink the orange juice, therefore there would be no need for a reason to believe that drinking orange juice is forbidden.
 
     I never thought that discussing an article that I personally found to be boring would be this much thought provoking. The topics given to us by Rab were very interesting and challenging, especially because I have an interest in education. Gaining insight from other members was particularly interesting because students in ICU have very unique backgrounds. I look forward to discussing a variety of subjects with other students.