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June 10, 2008

Comments

Edward

That last sentence made me think of the Classic period of Western culture being our 'idealized past' - and of course she used the word 'classy' as one of the adjectives to describe hinkaku. I guess many cultures suffer from this association of some aspect of their past with idealised behaviour and standing. I wonder what the Classical Greeks thought was ideal - I suspect they were a confident bunch and considered themselves as creating the ideal as they went along.

MC

I think she means people who look back fondly to the 50s as a simpler time or even the Reagan 80s. Both are fictions of people's short sighted memory.

I'm sure there were Greeks sitting around saying that things were SO much better 40 years ago as well...

Edward

I didn't think it would be such a recent time that would evoke hinkaku - surely the pre-industrial days would represent the Japanese ideal of class and dignitiy? Perhaps as an American you don't naturally think so far back, but most Europeans would think back prior to the last century if they were looking for their own version of hinkaku. I'd be surprised if some of the old bushido values (the non-violent bits) weren't finding their way into the various hinkaku attributes.

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