Global CultureIndividual Identity by Gordon Mathews

Author:Gordon Mathews [Mathews, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415206167
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2000-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

There are broad parallels between the different groups of Japanese artists examined in Chapter 2, and the different groups of American religious seekers examined in this chapter. Japanese traditional artists may see Japaneseness as the essence of their arts, but an essence now forgotten by most of their fellow Japanese; American evangelical Christians may see America as a once-Christian nation now Christian no longer. Some Japanese contemporary artists see Japan as a cultural obstacle blocking their pursuit of their universal arts; some American liberal Christians see their Christianity as a path given them because of their culture, but only one of many paths to universal truth. Some Japanese artists see themselves as world citizens pursuing their arts within the global cultural supermarket; some American spiritual seekers seek wisdom through their choices as consumers from the global “spiritual supermarket.” Some Japanese contemporary artists seek to reinvent Japaneseness from their imported art forms; some American Buddhists seek to reinvent Americanness, a new “Buddhist America.”

This parallel is remarkable, I think; but it masks a fundamental difference between Japanese artists and American religious seekers, in their conception and use of the cultural supermarket. For Japanese artists, the cultural supermarket, whether seen as eroding Japaneseness or as providing materials for the reconstruction of Japaneseness, tends to be thought of as other than Japanese; it is foreign, or, as more typically put, “Western.” For some American Christians, the cultural supermarket may be seen as bringing strange “Eastern” religions to America’s shores, subverting Christian values, but more typically, the global cultural supermarket is seen as American, embodying the pursuit of happiness that is thought to be every American’s birthright. To a degree anyway, Japanese artists’ consumption from the global cultural supermarket is a threat to their Japaneseness; American religious seekers’ consumption from the global cultural supermarket is a confirmation of their Americanness. A Japanese anthropologist friend has said that when he eats a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, he is criticized by some Japanese for having become “Westernized,” but when his friends in America eat sushi, they are simply enjoying one more taste that is part of contemporary America.54 Indeed: Japan is ever under threat from the foreign, but America simply swallows the foreign. This is not only because the principles of consumption from the cultural supermarket are the American cultural principles of free individual choice and the pursuit of happiness; it is also because of America’s global power in shaping cultural images and cultural consumption. East Asia may in recent decades have come to rival the United States in economic power; but the United States and (to a lesser extent) Western Europe continue to wield dominant cultural power. Thus, while Japanese may still fear “Westernization,” few Americans fear “Easternization”: rather, “the East” is rendered one more kind of Americanness.

In the course of American religious history, as paralleled by the different groups of religious seekers depicted in this chapter, we see the ongoing expansion of the cultural supermarket: from a largely Christian America, to an America with a multiplicity of homegrown creeds, to an America open to all the world’s religions.

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