1/Alright, you (might not have) asked for it: A thread on why anime is neoliberal.
2/Many have expressed skepticism of this idea, since many alt-right trolls use anime avatars - or at least used to.
But this is purely posturing. Rightists use the avatars ironically. Meanwhile, the anime industry in Japan has traditionally attracted more leftists.
3/But this is beside the point. Anime itself, as an institution, is clearly neoliberal.
The first (and simplest) reason is that anime is a global industry, bringing people together through shared enjoyment of products they consume.
4/The industry has also helped Japan diversify into services, and boosted its exports - both monetary and cultural. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
5/Anime often depicts explicitly globalist themes - characters with names and appearances implying that they're from all over the world, themes of international cooperation and peace, etc.
6/The most neoliberal anime is probably Cowboy Bebop, which depicts a hardy band of entrepreneurs trying to make it in a fully globalized, capitalist future.
7/But the ultimate reason that anime is neoliberal, as I see it, is something more subtle.
Anime depicts thriving technological civilizations that are *explicitly nonwhite*, and not associated with the colonial legacy of Old Europe.
8/Perhaps the central idea of neoliberalism - at least the left-leaning 1990s version rather than the reactionary-libertarian 1980s version - is that global trade and a mixed economy can make the developing world rich. bradford-delong.com/2018/12/delong…
9/Since decolonization in the mid-20th century, we've seen a remarkable flowering of industry, technology, and mixed-economy prosperity, especially in Asia but also increasingly in Africa.
10/As a side note, If I were waxing philosophical, I'd point out that Japan was the first country to explode the idea that European countries were the world's natural masters, when they won the Russo-Japanese War...but perhaps that takes us too far afield. history.com/topics/korea/r…
11/In any case, to bring us back to the point, anime is a force that brings together people from every background, and every country, to celebrate fun stuff that they like.
Which is, ultimately, the whole point of globalism.
12/The world neoliberalism has created has a great many problems, and we need to fix those problems. The solutions won't always be neoliberal ones, either.
But in the meantime, enjoy some anime.
(end)
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FWIW, I think "culture war concessions" works only at the level of the candidate, not at the level of policy -- when it works at all. Nothing could ever have convinced America that Obama was socially conservative, even though he was and is.
Biden is making all kinds of compromises and concessions on immigration, and no one is recognizing it or caring (except for progressives who notice and get mad).
You saw the same exact pattern with Jimmy Carter. By the end of his presidency he had tacked so far to the Right that progressives primaried him with Ted Kennedy and almost won. But Republicans kept on thinking he was leftism incarnate.
3/Biden got off to a good start, passing a Covid relief bill that included a pioneering Child Tax Credit similar to Canada's successful program, passing an infrastructure bill that repaired roads and did some other good stuff, and passing a semiconductor industry support bill.
1. NYC building styles range from "fairly ugly" to "very ugly", but Americans love them because NYC is our only dense city, so Americans associate those building styles with urban density
2. Star Trek DS9 was neocon. It glorified a morally inspired leader engaging in preemptive war with an enemy who would never see reason and only respected force.
All the usual suspects are jumping all over Lisa Cook's paper from 2014 and pointing out small errors. But Ken Rogoff served on the Fed Board of Governors and I bet you nobody combed over his papers for errors before he was confirmed! And I bet you he made a few.
Econ academia has very little quality control for data errors. When people do comb over papers for mistakes, they generally find them.
We need a Xillennial-Zillennial alliance, of people who are just a little too old for Millennial bullshit and people who just are a little too young for Millennial bullshit.
Anyone who was born 1980-1986 or 1997-2003 is in the Xillennial-Zillennial alliance. We must unite against the people whose brains were broken by coming of age between the Great Recession and Trump.
The people in that middle decade shall be known as the Harry Potter Generation