{"id":17215,"date":"2023-02-19T16:34:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T00:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17215"},"modified":"2023-02-19T20:12:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T04:12:39","slug":"my-sna-visible-minorities-43-salute-to-the-author-of-cartels-of-the-mind-an-obituary-of-influential-japan-studies-scholar-and-mentor-ivan-hall-1933-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17215","title":{"rendered":"My SNA Visible Minorities 43: “Salute to the “Author of Cartels of the Mind’,” an obituary of influential Japan Studies scholar and mentor Ivan Hall (1932-2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0My latest SNA column 43 is a tribute to old friend, mentor, and influential scholar Ivan Hall. \u00a0I blogged about him shortly after he died here<\/a>. \u00a0This is a fuller treatment, excerpted. \u00a0RIP. \u00a0Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Visible Minorities: Salute to the Author of Cartels of the Mind<\/strong>
\nBy Debito Arudou<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, February 20, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) — Ivan Parker Hall, author of landmark book Cartels of the Mind: Japan\u2019s Intellectual Closed Shop, died in Berlin on February 1, 2023, at age 90.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I start writing another obituary, please let me pause and talk about our very close relationship: Ivan Hall fundamentally changed my life into an activist researcher in Japanese Studies.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way. When I first arrived in Japan during the latter 1980s, I was in fact a cultural relativist. Carefully trained in the non-judgmentalism of the liberal arts, I had the mantra of \u201cWho am I to judge Japan?\u201d It had its own way of doing things, and would get along just fine without one white Western interloper (or even the outside world) telling it what to do. As per my classic Edwin O. Reischauer Ivy League training, Japan was one of those precious \u201cculturally unique\u201d jewels that should just be left to flourish in its own way.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why at first I was a devoted scholar of the “Japanese Way.” After all, Japan must be doing something right. Its people were living the longest in the world. Its economy measured per capita had just surpassed that of Americans. It was buying up major world assets on the strength of the Yen. Our next boss, according to movies such as Back to the Future II, was going to be Japanese.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It took just one stint working for an abusive Japanese trading company–and the bursting of Japan\u2019s asset bubble–to disabuse me of those early notions.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until I became a Japanese university professor that I saw just how much the Japanese system was wasting talent due to racism. Japanese faculty hired full-time were getting permanent tenure from Day One, while almost all foreign educators (who were often more qualified than their Japanese counterparts) were getting permanent contract work.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Enter Ivan Hall, who summed this situation up most pithily as \u201cAcademic Apartheid.\u201d…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the rest at the Shingetsu News Agency at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2023\/02\/20\/visible-minorities-salute-to-the-author-of-cartels-of-the-mind\/<\/a><\/p>\n

======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ivan Parker Hall, author of landmark book Cartels of the Mind: Japan\u2019s Intellectual Closed Shop, died in Berlin on February 1, 2023, at age 90.<\/p>\n

Before I start writing another obituary, please let me pause and talk about our very close relationship: Ivan Hall fundamentally changed my life into an activist researcher in Japanese Studies.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way. When I first arrived in Japan during the latter 1980s, I was in fact a cultural relativist. Carefully trained in the non-judgmentalism of the liberal arts, I had the mantra of \u201cWho am I to judge Japan?\u201d It had its own way of doing things, and would get along just fine without one white Western interloper (or even the outside world) telling it what to do. As per my classic Edwin O. Reischauer Ivy League training, Japan was one of those precious \u201cculturally unique\u201d jewels that should just be left to flourish in its own way. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why at first I was a devoted scholar of the “Japanese Way.” After all, Japan must be doing something right. Its people were living the longest in the world. Its economy measured per capita had just surpassed that of Americans. It was buying up major world assets on the strength of the Yen. Our next boss, according to movies such as Back to the Future II, was going to be Japanese.<\/p>\n

It took just one stint working for an abusive Japanese trading company–and the bursting of Japan\u2019s asset bubble–to disabuse me of those early notions. But it wasn\u2019t until I became a Japanese university professor that I saw just how much the Japanese system was wasting talent due to racism. Japanese faculty hired full-time were getting permanent tenure from Day One, while almost all foreign educators (who were often more qualified than their Japanese counterparts) were getting permanent contract work.<\/p>\n

Enter Ivan Hall, who summed this situation up most pithily as \u201cAcademic Apartheid.\u201d…
\nRead the rest at the Shingetsu News Agency at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2023\/02\/20\/visible-minorities-salute-to-the-author-of-cartels-of-the-mind\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,18,19,34,50,20,5,26,4,14,16,13,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-academia","category-education","category-exclusionism","category-gaiatsu","category-history","category-human-rights","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-labor-issues","category-media","category-nj-legacies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17215"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17221,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17215\/revisions\/17221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}