Saturday, September 20, 2003
Kafka's private eyes are her new God in Tokyo.
Just this morning over a cup of coffee, I had a friend of mine (a Japanese female in her mid-40s) tell me that her マイブーム is trying to find all of the cameras that pepper the city: on trains, in the heads of dildos, in stations, on the street, webcams galore, built into the cell phone of every self-respecting non-technophile (there are no technophiles here really, since everyone is "up to speed"), and wherever else you can (and can't) imagine. I remember seeing some interesting posts to this effect on Roddy's and Jean's blogs the other day. Anyway, what struck me as interesting wasn't the world-wide proliferation of live cameras, but the way in which my friend was conducting her search in relation to the way the the cameras were being placed (i.e. random searching vs. systemic/non-systemic placement). Something in the turn of her phrases gave me the impression that such surveillance and the paranoia that it instills has taken the place (in functional terms) of what surely must have been felt by Thomas when he quotes Jesus as saying, "Lift up the stone, and you will find me there. Split the piece of wood, and I am there." But here the interesting thing is that the preemptive move here is one based in guilt/sin. In Tokyo (at least with folks not under 20), what's being played upon are feelings of shame/honor.
Take for example the subway in three different countries: France, Japan, and America.
In France (and you'll know this if you've ever been to Paris), there are a variety of formidable barriers and objects designed to impede those who would attempt to ride for free. Here I refer to various gates, snares, cameras, turnstiles, and so on which will only succeed in making the members of the bourgeois who aren't unethical enough (or poor enough, as ethics and poverty follow an inverse equation in France) even that much angrier when they are "tailgated" by a young kid in a hood with more "street cred" and actual credit in the bank. But it is a silent anger. The cops also look the other way, even though there are 2 or 3 in the area, some of them with assault rifles. The chase and the possibility of incuring physical harm isn't worth the risk, and they know it.
In America the problem is less complex. First of all, there are no subways.
So it is a loss of soul on the one hand, and a loss of face on the other; each are, in their own way, non-recuperative. (To be continued . . .)
Take for example the subway in three different countries: France, Japan, and America.
In France (and you'll know this if you've ever been to Paris), there are a variety of formidable barriers and objects designed to impede those who would attempt to ride for free. Here I refer to various gates, snares, cameras, turnstiles, and so on which will only succeed in making the members of the bourgeois who aren't unethical enough (or poor enough, as ethics and poverty follow an inverse equation in France) even that much angrier when they are "tailgated" by a young kid in a hood with more "street cred" and actual credit in the bank. But it is a silent anger. The cops also look the other way, even though there are 2 or 3 in the area, some of them with assault rifles. The chase and the possibility of incuring physical harm isn't worth the risk, and they know it.
In America the problem is less complex. First of all, there are no subways.
So it is a loss of soul on the one hand, and a loss of face on the other; each are, in their own way, non-recuperative. (To be continued . . .)
