this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Look at right now and consider that Japan still has something appearing to be a democracy. USA and the EU are in the "trade and denial" phase, countries like Russia and Turkey - the obvious, LOL.
That's because Japan isn't yet so compromised under the guise of progress.
The only reason Japan isn't in the same boat as America and Europe (yet, far-right parties are slowly rising in popularity) is that they never got on the immigration train, so their population is mostly homogenous and there are few things for bigots to complain about. Of course, this came with a price; the dismal state of Japan's industry, academia and economy compared to other first-world countries is at least partially due to their rejection of immigrants. Of course, they can't keep this up forever, which is why they've been recently allowing more immigrants in, fueling the rise of the far-right. Unless they can change rapidly, what Japan is "enjoying" now is the calm before the storm. "Still has something appearing to be a democracy" is how the EU was described five years ago.
I think you've incorrectly guessed what I call honeypots.
It has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with unaccountable authority.
Perhaps. But I'm charmed by how they describe Japan as a nation where omnipresent surveillance is still not considered normal. This wasn't the case with the EU 5 or 10 years ago.
I mean, they're two sides of the same coin. Authority capitalizes on bigotry (and division, more broadly) to avoid accountability.
Fair enough.
Not really, it seems sane, but not always true. Bigotry should be replaced with xenophobia. A phobia of any other group or opinion or anything you haven't accepted before.
That is - when you call someone a bigot (suppose they are certainly a bigot, a confident Nazi) with the meaning that you don't have to conduct yourself honorably with them, as if they were guilty just by association, you are likely doing same amount or more of xenophobia than that bigot.
So - EU and USA have plenty of xenophobia which doesn't fit into their narrow ideas of bigotry. Much more than Japan or any East Asian country, in my subjective feeling.
And, if you have met some real-life nationalists, they might be pretty tolerant people in the sense of xenophobia. Having some idea of society they want to build, but no hate, hostility and dehumanization against you (suppose you are of a different ethnicity). They usually have a project of what the nation looks like, not a cleansing rage.
Those are a really distasteful association, but some of the "separate but equal" types I've met were like this too.
In general, the western idea of bigotry has lost its meaning completely. It started with Voltaire, Christian love, openness of mind and preference for resolving conflicts peacefully and with dignity.
Now there are lots of arrogant apes thinking they are enlightened people, sorting everyone around into groups by markers and deeming some unworthy of understanding, attention or honorable conduct. There's literally nothing in them of the philosophical traditions of liberalism and humanism they pretend to follow.
That's not what an enlightened human is. And since most people wouldn't even understand what I said here, I'd say the civilization we took for the final step before some heaven in the 00s is over.
And yes, this means that acceptance of bigotry is clearly good, if it means acceptance of all other similarly divergent ways of thought.