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Joi Ito on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In a New York Times op-ed piece, Joi says that Japanese of his generation don't really think much about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when they do, it's more of a remix.

To be sure, the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still plays a part in the imagery of popular culture. But more meaningful references to Japan's nuclear past, like those in the story of Godzilla (awakened from his slumber by American atomic tests) or the cartoonist Keiji Nakazawa's best-selling series about a Hiroshima survivor, have morphed into the cultural equivalent of elevator music.

Indeed, Japanese culture is unusual (although by no means unique) in its ability to take shocks or disturbances and gradually transform and neuter them. In that respect, today's atomic imagery in pop culture is not so different from the mohawked punks who apologize profusely if they bump into you in downtown Tokyo: the T-shirts they wear with violent, antisocial slogans (in English) are an aesthetic statement, not a moral one.

jon posted this at 1:05 AM
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