Ishmael
Practically Family
- Messages
- 546
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
Well, I think it's more than that Americana has some objective or timeless appeal.
It is certainly true in Japan's case that the postwar love affair was with the culture of the country that had vanquished it. However, the US didn't just conquer Japan. It conquered the world, economically. Becoming the hegemonic state within the world-system. The hegemons (first the Dutch, then the British, then the Americans, now nobody) have always been the trendsetters of that system, the avant garde of modernity. Japan didn't just look to the US as its conqueror but also, along with most other cultures, as hegemon.
But there is also a whole history of former colonies turning later to an admiration for their former colonizers. Its rooted, perhaps, in nostalgia, a longing for authority amidst flux and also related to the above in that the post-colonizer is still usually more wealthy than the post-colony.
It is certainly true in Japan's case that the postwar love affair was with the culture of the country that had vanquished it. However, the US didn't just conquer Japan. It conquered the world, economically. Becoming the hegemonic state within the world-system. The hegemons (first the Dutch, then the British, then the Americans, now nobody) have always been the trendsetters of that system, the avant garde of modernity. Japan didn't just look to the US as its conqueror but also, along with most other cultures, as hegemon.
But there is also a whole history of former colonies turning later to an admiration for their former colonizers. Its rooted, perhaps, in nostalgia, a longing for authority amidst flux and also related to the above in that the post-colonizer is still usually more wealthy than the post-colony.
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