Is the BBC Slipping? Or Just Business as Usual?
A couple of articles on the BBC website have got my goat. Nothing personal, I don't know these people, but I do know the BBC. And I didn't like what I saw.
Japan succession debate to go on
It's a fairly long piece, and shows Chris Hogg understands the underlying political dynamics between the devoted traditionalists who are a core element of LDP support and the lukewarm but increasingly prevalent supporters of a female Empress. Yet he misses the point that Mr. Abe will, if anything, abandon Mr. Koizumi’s plans. Mr. Abe is a traditionalist, and he has no intention of “tak[ing] on the forces of conservatism” in the first place. In fact, I suspect he will be quite willing to accept an Empress, but under traditionalist terms. This omission and misunderstanding occurs because Mr. Hogg misses completely the other, more crucial divide between the supporters of patrilineal and matrilineal succession, respectively. That's surprising, given BBC's reputation. But then, BBC standards may be slipping. See the next article:
The Japanese Jesus trail
For those of you who can't be bothered to read the whole story, the lead paragraph goes like this:
"A Japanese legend claims that Jesus escaped Jerusalem and made his way to Aomori in Japan where he became a rice farmer. Christians say the story is nonsense. However, a monument there known as the Grave of Christ attracts curious visitors from all over the world."
And the article ends on this note:
"Yet many Christians have discovered that the Japanese view of religion can be rather baffling - as the grave of Christ the rice farmer reveals."
What is disappointing is that Duncan Bartlett has taken a fascinating phenomenon, tied it into the treatment of Christian motifs that devoted Christians would find as blasphemous as, say, the White Man's crass commercialization of Christmas, and wraps it up in shallow bemusement. If he’d bothered to consult serious scholars, he could have put it in the context of the Shinto tradition, where everything and everybody is a potential object of worship as kami, or god, from the head of a sardine to the most heinous of traitors. Or explained it in the context of the Kishhu Ryuritan, the long-standing tradition of local legends featuring religious and political personages of note from the centers of civilization exiled to the hinterlands, and their variations. (One legend says Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a 12th Century noble samurai hero fled Japan to become Ghengis Khan.) Instead, it becomes yet another run-of-the-mill feature in the longstanding media tradition of securing bylines with “gee, aren’t those people funny” stories.
Speaking of "gee, aren't these people funny" stories, do you think BBC would do one on Christianity in the US? It seems to me you can do and say anything short of advocating incest and murder and remain respectable by calling it Christianity. Just in case they fail to figure out a good closer, I'll write it for them:
"Many Christians have discovered that the American view of Christianity can be rather baffling - as the [say, that snake handling cult, to mention one of the more benign offshoots] reveals."
Japan succession debate to go on
It's a fairly long piece, and shows Chris Hogg understands the underlying political dynamics between the devoted traditionalists who are a core element of LDP support and the lukewarm but increasingly prevalent supporters of a female Empress. Yet he misses the point that Mr. Abe will, if anything, abandon Mr. Koizumi’s plans. Mr. Abe is a traditionalist, and he has no intention of “tak[ing] on the forces of conservatism” in the first place. In fact, I suspect he will be quite willing to accept an Empress, but under traditionalist terms. This omission and misunderstanding occurs because Mr. Hogg misses completely the other, more crucial divide between the supporters of patrilineal and matrilineal succession, respectively. That's surprising, given BBC's reputation. But then, BBC standards may be slipping. See the next article:
The Japanese Jesus trail
For those of you who can't be bothered to read the whole story, the lead paragraph goes like this:
"A Japanese legend claims that Jesus escaped Jerusalem and made his way to Aomori in Japan where he became a rice farmer. Christians say the story is nonsense. However, a monument there known as the Grave of Christ attracts curious visitors from all over the world."
And the article ends on this note:
"Yet many Christians have discovered that the Japanese view of religion can be rather baffling - as the grave of Christ the rice farmer reveals."
What is disappointing is that Duncan Bartlett has taken a fascinating phenomenon, tied it into the treatment of Christian motifs that devoted Christians would find as blasphemous as, say, the White Man's crass commercialization of Christmas, and wraps it up in shallow bemusement. If he’d bothered to consult serious scholars, he could have put it in the context of the Shinto tradition, where everything and everybody is a potential object of worship as kami, or god, from the head of a sardine to the most heinous of traitors. Or explained it in the context of the Kishhu Ryuritan, the long-standing tradition of local legends featuring religious and political personages of note from the centers of civilization exiled to the hinterlands, and their variations. (One legend says Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a 12th Century noble samurai hero fled Japan to become Ghengis Khan.) Instead, it becomes yet another run-of-the-mill feature in the longstanding media tradition of securing bylines with “gee, aren’t those people funny” stories.
Speaking of "gee, aren't these people funny" stories, do you think BBC would do one on Christianity in the US? It seems to me you can do and say anything short of advocating incest and murder and remain respectable by calling it Christianity. Just in case they fail to figure out a good closer, I'll write it for them:
"Many Christians have discovered that the American view of Christianity can be rather baffling - as the [say, that snake handling cult, to mention one of the more benign offshoots] reveals."
posted by Jun Okumura at 9:36 AM
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