Identity, club-culture, and the Gospel

"As identities can be picked up from a variety of media sources, the construction of 'who we are' arises increasingly from how we imagine ourselves, rather than from where we live."

- Ian Condry, "Japanese Hip-Hop and the Globalization of Popular Culture" in Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City, 384.

And, at the same time, as Condry points out, there are places where imagined identity "shows up" and is developed. Condry borrows from the Japanese term genba, used in the hip-hop world to denote the hip-hop clubs as the "actual scene" where hip-hop happens. The word genba is used "in the hip-hop world . . . to contrast the intense energy of the club scene with the more sterile and suspect marketplace" (italics mine, Condry, 386). Condry uses the term genba to describe how within globalization there are global cultural forms that, instead of imposing a cultural imperialism of homogeneity, tend to get interpreted and shaped according to local culture so that there is heterogeneous multiplication of global cultural forms. The diversity and characteristic Japanese-ness of Japanese Hip-Hop is a prime example, and the clubs - the genba - is where it happens.

Condry (after spending over 18 months attending over 100 club events around Tokyo all held between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.), describes how even though club culture is extraordinary and exotic it still is "embedded in Japan's political-economic structures, characteristic social relations, and the contemporary range of cultural forms. . . It is largely predictable what kind of pleasures can be expected, and also the generally unpleasant consequences for work or school after a night without sleep" (Condry, 380). This tension is most clearly seen when the clubbers board the first trains at 5 a.m. to return home as the businessmen and women get off the first trains to go to work. Even the train schedule dictates the socializing patterns of the club culture.

It's no wonder that the church has struggled to grow in Japan. When the leading edge of cultural change is centered in smoke-filled clubs between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., a Sunday morning worship service that has more in common with a "sterile and suspect marketplace" rather than a place of intense energy and life such as the clubs will by default not capture the imagination of the kinds of people that shape culture in the clubs. Are there any Christians that are part of this club culture? Does anyone know? I sure hope so, because the energy of the club is only a shadow of what could it could be, and what it could lead to, when transformed by the Gospel.

Confessions #11: The Real World

As a young guy in Carthage, Augustine was "captivated by theatrical shows". He loved them because he identified with them; their performances moved him; he craved to feel response to suffering on stage without having to suffer it himself. Looking back, it seemed strange to Augustine, foolish and grotesque even, that he and others would find pleasure in the pain induced by the sufferings on stage which they would never wish upon themselves or their friends and family.

"What is this but amazing folly?" Augustine remarked in his Confessions. What use is it to excite grief without the opportunity to show mercy because the object of that grief is fictitious? Is it not sadistic that for the spectator "the greater his pain, the greater his approval of the actor in these representations"?

"Tears and agonies," Augustine says, "are objects of love. Certainly everyone wishes to enjoy himself."

But Augustine does see some light to this experience of feeling grief and compassion if it then in turn moves one to mercy so that there would be no cause for sorrow. But this is not possible for the actor, because it is all an act. Right...?

So then, Augustine recounts his miserable state,

"But at that time, poor thing that I was, I loved to suffer and sought out occasions for such suffering. So when an actor on stage gave a fictional imitation of someone else's misfortunes, I was the more pleased; and the more vehement the attraction for me, the more the actor compelled my tears to flow. There can be no surprise that an unhappy sheep wandering from your flock and impatient of your protection was infected by a disgusting sore. Hence came my love for sufferings, but not a kind that pierced me very deeply; for my longing was not to experience myself miseries such as I saw on stage. I wanted only to hear stories and imaginary legends of sufferings which, as it were, scratched me on the surface. Yet like the scratches of fingernails, they produced inflamed spots, pus, and repulsive sores. That was my kind of life. Surely, my God, it was no real life at all?"

It was no real life because there was no real grief, no real mercy, no real objects of compassion but only "representations of [his] own miseries", and no real effect, but instead they only "fueled [his] fire" to continue in his pernicious lifestyle.

The Real World, circa 4th century A.D. "Surely, ... it was [not] real life at all."