Open letter to kowalski_afc

Day 2,151, 16:58 • Published in Japan Japan • by synhro




Wanted to try this new 'open letter' trend which I don't completely understand, so don't expect much from it.


Earlier today I went out to the hypermarket with some friends to do some shopping for the tomorrow's party. While waiting in line we've noticed a fat(larger), bald(with a receding hairline) gentleman whose shopping cart were literally stacked full with sugar..like, a cubic meter of the stuff. We couldn't help but question the reasons for such a purchase, since he (and/or his wider family) couldn't possibly consume all that. The 'best' wild guesses, which we came up with, are that he's a doomsday prepper or that he's running an illegal schnapps distillery, since his face had sort of a criminal expression..or maybe he was simply making a homemade jam in his suburban home, but we discarded that theory since it was too plain.



Long story short.. this situation and the fact that we unanimously decided to open some of the liquor reserved for tomorrow, (in)directly led to a more 'profound' discussion regarding social/civilizational standpoints.


And after a heated debate we arrived to a somewhat understandable and valid 'theory'.. which I'll try to elaborate.


Ehem..any social/civilizational standpoint can be categorized as a part of one of the four major groups. In here a 'civilization' isn't percieved geographically or linguistically and isn’t bounded by country borders or nationality..in here a civilization is percieved as a social tool or a standpoint that deliberately or unintentionally creates (somewhat)radical rifts and distinctions among people.



Anyway, the four major civilizations I'm talking about are: global, consumer, national and individual. To make things clearer, here and only here I'll label the national one - as nationalistic, and individual one - as individualistic. Namely, we live in an age in which, despite of the existing borders, one can’t simply claim that a nation is purely autochthonous even with the strong presence of conservative elements. The actions of these conservative elements are in fact turned against them, although they are usually not aware of this because young and middle-aged population is already under the strong influence by either consumer, individualistic or globalistic civilizations. I’ll have to mention that there are two groups that are especially close and similar – global and consumer civilisations. And again those, who in their course of life and cultural development leave their respected groups (glob/nat/cons), are easy pickings for the remaining one – the individualistic civilization, and in that proces some of the newly recruited members often retain closely tied mindset to the civilization they ‘left’ previously. Naturally, all of these groups I’m talking about are not completely different or isolated from one another. Furthermore, they are founded on that basic element of familiarity, based upon which is easy to form cross-groups or correlations in any conceivable way.


In my humble opinion (and also absurdly) the consumer civilisation seem the most 'normal' of the bunch. They usually take the road of least resistance, avoid any extremes, take good care of their families and regularly go to church. In general they avoid politics, although they might be a member of some political party. Everything is ok, as long as they're only mildly damp by the rain and not completely wet.



So you might ask how these civilizations came to be..which is not an easy question to answer. It isn't just the case of blurring the known and recognized boundaries. A nation (people) isn't necessarily defined within the country borders which they reside in. The truly 'interesting' activity for me is to observe the divisions of the people (..of the same nation) through these civilizations AND links between people (..from diferent nations), created by belonging to the same civilization. This distinct four groups mostly came about in the last few decades through increased cultural influences, that are now spreading at unprecedented speed. And by 'culture' I literally mean everything: from movies and books to public institutions and organisations..some are desperately trying to save the polar bears, while some of us are diligently consuming anime series. All these intentional and unintentional correlations of philosophies, mottos, lifestyles, orientations and fashions created something 'new' and interesting to observe. When you mix global and individualistic civilization, for example we get a non-governmental organizations, the ones working against nationalism. A countermeasure would be when you mix nationaistic and individualistic to get a nationalistic movements. When you mix consumer and individualistic, we’ll get social associations, movements for the rights of workers, police unions..and so on, and so forth. So again..you might ask where does kowalski_afc stand in these ramblings? Not so sure myself..probably somewhere mildly damp and not completely wet.


Dear eJapanese,
Thanks for reading the ramblings of your humble and moderately-intoxicated citizen.


Turt037