“The Cove” Debate — From the Japanese Perspective

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The Cove

So I finally watched The Cove, the Academy Award winning documentary about the slaughtering of dolphins in Japan. It was certainly painful for me to watch it. Even though I don’t think of myself as Japanese (nor American), other people certainly do, so there is no escaping of the impact this film has on my identity and how people perceive me. Because Japan is essentially the only nation that kills and consumes dolphins, this issue is clearly seen as a national issue, and the film certainly angles it as such also. When I saw the faces of the angry Japanese fishermen in the film, I could see how the Westerners see those faces and how the Japanese see them. Unfamiliar faces are easy to project negative feelings to, and the opposite is true of familiar faces. I can see both ways. The divide is so huge that I don’t have much hope for reconciliation. It’s like getting involved in a war where the people on both sides are actually your friends. A no-win situation.

I also watched some Japanese news clips about the reactions to the film in Japan, and also read some Japanese blogs. It appears that the Japanese are quite defiant about this. The issue that keeps coming up among the Japanese is this: Why is it OK for the Americans to slaughter thousands of cows and pigs, but it’s not OK for the Japanese to slaughter dolphins? What exactly is the criteria? After all, the number of dolphins they kill is a drop in a bucket compared to how many cows and pigs the Americans kill. The Japanese feel that the Westerners are imposing their own standards and values on the Japanese. One vocal intellectual in Japan calls it ethnocentrism. This is the question that the Japanese have been asking for decades, since the Westerners started complaining about the whaling in Japan. So, anyone who is familiar with the issue should know that this is the central question in the minds of the Japanese. I would therefore expect that this film would try to address it out of the respect for the Japanese, but it didn’t. This was a big disappointment.

The film does touch on it vaguely. It appears that the criteria for Ric O’Barry (the main activist in the film) is “self-awareness”. But this is a very human-centric way of looking at life. The only reason why we humans would value “self-awareness” is because we too are a self-aware creature. This view conveniently assumes that our own lives are the most precious and valuable form of life on this earth, and from that criteria, we conveniently put price tags on all the other forms of life in a hierarchical manner. But let’s think for a moment: how could we assume that we are in a position to determine the value of all the life forms on earth?

In the Japanese culture, there is a common belief that all forms of life are equally precious. So, by eating anything, we become guilty. That is, the Japanese starts from the assumption that we are all guilty. It’s quite different from the typical Western, particularly Christian, view where guilt is not something you accept as a norm. From this perspective, anyone pointing out the guilt of anyone eating anything is hypocritical. And, the defiant position that the Japanese is taking towards the anti-whaling activists is driven by this principal. Yes, believe it or not, they are acting defiantly out of principal, not out of their financial interest or their desire to eat dolphin. Many Japanese people are actually pissed about it, not ashamed. Most people have never even eaten dolphin meat. I certainly haven’t. Yet they are not coming out to support the activists. Many of them are angry because they see the situation as unfair and hypocritical, and they do not want to give into it.

Now, I would expect that some Americans would tell me, “Forget the reason; can’t you see the suffering of these dolphins?” That is, many people believe that this is not an issue open to a logical debate. Our heart should know immediately what is right and wrong by looking at the footage of the slaughter. The whole cove turning red from the blood of the dolphins. The assumption here is that these emotions are universal, not cultural. For those who have never grasped the huge cultural divide between the East and the West, it is inconceivable that such ground-shaking emotions are cultural. Yet it is.

After all, how is it possible for the Americans to slaughter so many cows and pigs? Would the average Americans have no emotional reactions to a video footage of the live cows getting slaughtered into pieces? The Japanese for a long period of their history ate just vegetables, rice, and fish. No animal meat until the West reintroduced the custom. During that period, the Japanese considered the Westerners to be savages for eating meat. If the Japanese had seen a slaughter house in the West then, they would have been horrified. If those dolphins could be captured without bleeding, they could freeze them before cutting them apart. If that was possible, the cove wouldn’t turn red at all, and it wouldn’t look any different from the slaughter houses in the US. How we react emotionally to these visual signs is indeed cultural. The Inuit people get covered in blood as they eat seals, but think nothing of it. Even their kids do it.

The film repeatedly makes fun of the fact that the town in which the dolphins are slaughtered have iconic images and sculptures of dolphins everywhere. That may be strange and surreal to an outsider, but just think of how American steakhouses might look to a complete stranger whose culture does not consume cows. Many steakhouses and fried chicken restaurants use iconic images of cows and chickens too. The only reason why this does not appear surreal to us is because we are used to it. It’s easy to point our fingers to someone foreign and make fun of these things because we are numb and blind to what we see every day.

O’Barry also paints the picture of the Japanese prison system as something uncivilized and unjust because they can detain people for no apparent reason. Let’s put this in a proper perspective: The Japanese incarceration rate is 48 prisoners per 100,000 people. In comparison, the US is 754 prisoners per 100,000. That’s over 1,500% of Japan. Is any American in a position to criticize Japan’s legal system?

This is not to say that the Japanese are blameless. Their politicians are just as corrupt as those of the Western world. How the Japanese essentially bought the votes from those poor countries to support whaling is the same political tactics the Americans used to form the “Coalition of Willing” to invade Iraq. I do not see Japan as any more corrupt than any other countries. And, it’s terrible that they were feeding dolphin meat contaminated with mercury to children, but that is not anything that any Americans should complain about. That is Japan’s own problem. There is much pollution in the US that can potentially harm American children (particularly junk food contaminated with chemicals which are served in school cafeterias), and imagine if some Japanese people came here to protest about that. I’m sure most people would say, “Hey, mind your own business.”

And also, it’s true that they could slaughter the dolphins more humanely. I think there is much room for criticism there too. But, the American cattle industry was not always humane either. In fact, I see an interesting parallel between this film and the film I saw about Temple Grandin. She is a Doctor of Animal Science who consults the cattle industry to implement more humane ways of slaughtering cows. She is autistic and has uncanny understanding of how animals feel, much like how Ric O’Barry understands dolphins well. The difference however is that Grandin does not stand on a moral high ground. She is just committed to treating animals humanely and does not make moral judgment about the slaughtering. Because of her modest attitude, she was able to make a significant impact on the whole industry and transformed the way cows are slaughtered in the US.

The secrecy of the Japanese fishermen were disappointing too. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I would hope that they would stop hiding the slaughter. And, if they truly believe that they are not doing anything wrong (or no worse than what other cultures are doing), then there is no reason why they should hide. (Well, but the slaughter houses in the US aren’t exactly open to tourists either.) But unfortunately, that’s cultural too. The Japanese tends to reserve confrontation as a last resort. They prefer to smooth things out any way possible. So, I would not expect any public figures to come out and speak up about this to the West.

The irony of all this is that what the filmmakers are doing is ultimately prolonging this problem. They are trying to force Japan to shut it down. This is not about negotiation. They want to shut it down with the brute force of PR which relies heavily on the audience’s cultural ignorance and appeals only to knee-jerk reactions. This is what the Japanese are objecting to. They do not want to give them the satisfaction of winning. At the end of the day, they could careless about eating dolphins. Very few people are going to miss it, and the vast majority of them had never even had it in the first place. This is not about that.

When some of the Japanese in the film explained that this is a tradition to be respected, their point wasn’t that it is a nation-wide tradition. Their point is that any tradition, regardless of whose it is, deserves a certain degree of respect. It’s not something we should reject based on our knee-jerk response. It should require more careful consideration. O’Barry misunderstood that and called it a lie just because many Japanese people did not know about it. There are plenty of local American traditions that many Americans are not aware of. These filmmakers went to Japan and acted like cowboys (“Oceans Eleven” they called themselves), blinded by their own self-righteousness, wielding their cameras like they are guns, and showing no real desire to understand the Japanese culture.

As I said in my post about whaling, when you let the situation escalate to the point of emotionally wounding one another, all you are doing is guaranteeing the conflict to last forever. In this sense, I see this film to be quite unfortunate. As one Japanese said in the film, eating of dolphin is declining in popularity anyway. But if we wound one another in this fashion, it could go on forever. Some people might start eating dolphin meat for the first time in protest. The only real benefit of this film would be to boost the careers of these filmmakers. It is a perfect strategy for that purpose. If their objective was to convince Japan to stop slaughtering dolphins, they picked the worst strategy.

Indeed I often wonder if the filmmakers of this type of moralized documentary films are actually interested in resolving the conflicts they choose as their topic. Conflict resolution and winning (and becoming heros) are not one and the same; they require different strategies. This goes beyond the filmmakers; even the audience who advocates this type of film may not be interested in resolutions. Some may simply consume it as an exciting piece of entertainment, while others may use it to project their own guilt onto others in order to feel better about themselves (like a form of exorcism.). An effective conflict resolution requires respecting and understanding of both sides especially when it involves two different cultures. To use such a situation as an opportunity to be a hero is a form of exploitation, and it can escalate the conflict further. Given how angry many Japanese are about this, I would say the filmmakers of The Cove are guilty of this. I feel this is a very unfortunately situation.

Updates

A few issues/questions came up after I wrote the post above, so I’m going to address them below:

Regarding extinction: The whales and dolphins that the Japanese are slaughtering are not the species in danger of extinction. This is often ignored. However, even if the Japanese were slaughtering whales and dolphins in danger of extinction, addressing this particular concern, which is a practical problem (biodiversity), is different from the film’s main point which is moral. Practical problems are easier to resolve than moral problems because there are objective standards that we can agree to. Standing on a moral high ground and taking on a self-righteous attitude is not the appropriate way to address them. Such a tactics can only damage the very cause they are trying to support.

Depletion of marine life: If the argument of the film is an environmental concern, then let’s look at the whole picture, not just this small instance of dolphins. When we consider the amount of damage that each nation is causing and has caused in the past to the environment, the US is one of the worst (see the charts on this page). The Americans are in no position to point their moral fingers at any other nations. If they want other countries to conform to their own values and standards, they need to work on fixing their own problems. (Also, keep in mind Japan’s human population is rapidly declining.) The Japanese are certainly not ignorant of environmental concerns and have been better about it than the Americans. So, picking just a specific instance and standing on a moral high ground is not a fair way to negotiate and work together to resolve the environmental issues. I suspect that their tactics will someday backfire on them, and their cause would be severely damaged. Appealing to people’s knee-jerk reactions and exploiting shock-values never have a lasting effect. As soon as their effects wear off, people start to reconsider. At that point, it will backfire because people begin to realize that their emotions have been manipulated.

Seafood has always been a major part of the Japanese culture, so any change would not come quickly. The Americans face a similar problem with air pollution because automobile has been a major part of their culture, so the changes cannot come so quickly either. These problems should be negotiated and compromised. It’s not something we should pick on as an isolated problem and use a guerilla tactics for.

Tradition as an excuse: I agree that something being a “tradition” cannot be used as a justification to do anything you want. However, the point of bringing up “tradition” is to ask people to learn more about it, and not to rush to judgment based on the facade, because it has a long history and is not a simple matter to explain. The filmmakers of The Cove are clearly ignorant of the Japanese culture and show no real desire to learn anything about it. If they demonstrated their deep understanding of the Japanese culture, the film could actually be effective in achieving their goal.

I agree that it is sad to see these dolphins get slaughtered but this sadness does not give you the right to turn it into anger and point your finger at Japan when your own country is slaughtering cows and pigs every day in far greater number and causing much greater damage to the environment. Death of anything is sad but we should not use anyone else as a scapegoat to absolve ourselves of our own guilt. Hypocrisy and double standard are not effective ways to resolve any conflict.

151 Responses to ““The Cove” Debate — From the Japanese Perspective”

adamgn says:
March 12th, 2010 at 2:17 am
As an American meat-lover, I thought this film was a sham. I completely agree with the Japanese in that this film was one big piece of ethnocentric propaganda.

As you said, the film never even attempted to address the issue that other nations (primarily America) kill millions of animals…

And the fact that Ric O’Barry was one of their main supporters… he was a joke. His main argument was something along the lines of “I was on Flipper (the show) > I really liked Flipper (the dolphin) > Flipper was smart > we shouldn’t kill Flipper because Flipper was kind of my pet.”

All that being said, I did think the movie was filmed brilliantly and it was certainly one of the most intense and edge-of-your-seat documentaries I’ve ever seen.
wolverian says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:46 am
As a vegetarian I can understand the indignation against pretty well. One difference between dolphins and cows though: the former are internationally protected, the latter are not. This kind of an agreement—that Japan is party to—is one reason to criticize the dolphin hunt.

I did not know why the Japanese would feel defensive about this. The tradition thing is interesting. Thanks for the great post.
JLRivers says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Always insightful..! Loved the contrasting of east versus west views on this matter, and specially the analogy to killing millions of cows and pigs in the US, under the same inhumane conditions depicted in the film, but nobody says anything.
j.b. says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I’d say one of the bigger distinctions going on in the Westerner’s implicit perspective is that cows are one of a handful of domesticated food animals, raised in the hundreds of millions. Dolphins don’t mass-breed in captivity, and are not being farmed or raised in herds for the specific purpose of being eaten. They’re being hunted.

I’m not saying this is logically consistent. Obviously, we all fish a lot of protein out of the sea that didn’t come to us via aquaculture. But because the dolphin is perceived to be more intelligent, a mammal, self-aware, cute, etc., it separates itself out from the tuna or even the manatees.

There is a minor point to be made that, by and large, dolphin and whale populations are much more at risk of extinction due to overhunting than cows, sheep or goats.

The environmental impact of raising all these food animals is an important question, but it seems more of red herring (ha) in the context of this specific conversation about subjective, emotional distinctions.
Frank Luo says:
March 12th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
“Yes, believe it or not, they are acting defiantly out of principal, not out of their financial interest or their desire to eat dolphin. Many Japanese people are actually pissed about it, not ashamed. Most people have never even eaten dolphin meat. I certainly haven’t. Yet they are not coming out to support the activists. Many of them are angry because they see the situation as unfair and hypocritical, and they do not want to give into it.”

This paragraph can just as easily apply to countless issues and causes that the western media — primarily American media — have taken up. Take China for example — with all the publicity surrunding Tibet, you would think the American public knows the issues there very well, to think themselves entitled to make judgments about the matter. But no one ever seems to know that Buddhism is not the only religion in Tibet, that religion in Tibet has deep roots in shamanism in which the local shaman act as political rulers who mete out punishment such as gouging out eyes or dismemberment of limbs for offenses against their own code of conduct, including challenges against the shaman’s power. Some will probably say that this is just a myth propagated by the Chinese government for its own self-interest, to which the response would be: how do you know that the “oppression” of Tibetans is not a myth propagated by the American government for ITS own self-interest? If you require a negative proof of one, you should require a negative of the other.

Similarly, during the Xinjiang riots, the truth is no one outside of the particular area really knew what the hell happened. The Chinese government called a terrorist attack by Islamic separatists, but media made it look like some sort of attack by the Chinese government on the local population, implying that it was some kind of racially motivated suppression of the Uighurs by the Han Chinese with Central Chinese government backing, ignoring the fact that a very large majority of the civilian dead were actually Han Chinese. So, instead of a picture of a bunch of Chinese soldiers marching into town and opening fire on defenseless Uighurs, the picture told by the number is more like a bunch of Han Chinese small business owners who were dragged out of their stores and homes and hacked and beaten to death on the streets by Uighur mobs while people looted and burned their businesses and homes. Add that to the fact that this would be unthinkable if there were Chinese troops on the streets, and the logical deduction is that the troop mobilization was AFTER and therefore in RESPONSE to the riots and widespread murders, rather than an unprovoked preemptive attack on the local populace.

It’s a pretty familiar story that extends beyond China — I remember hearing complaints from my friends from the former Soviet Union about how American media was making the Soviet and then Russian actions against Chechnya into the same kind of belligerent invasion as the Soviet invasion of Poland, with the additional tinge of racism involved with its large muslim population, while in fact Chechnya was a sort of failed state that was was used as a base of operations by various criminal elements, many really just independent bands of armed bandits, that would frequently make forays into Russian territory and engage in theft, robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and other criminal activities, completely ignoring national borders. This background of the history between the Chechens and Russians was never made knwon by a media that was more interested in fostering the paranoia that used to exist about the Soviet Union against the Russian Federation.

It is very easy to jump on the bandwagon being promoted by media and think of those foreign to oneself as bugbears, icons of evil to be rallied against — for example the Russian government for attacking Chechnya, the Chinese government for mobilizing troops against riots in Xinjiang and Tibet (seriously — what would you expect a government to do against a riot of thousands? Send hall monitors?), or in this instance the dolphin fishermen. The reasoning is basically that:

“We find what these people do morally repulsive” -> “These must be bad people” -> “These people must be doing this for some self-interested/greedy/malicious motive” -> “We must do something to stop them”

…ignoring that the first and last pieces of it depend on the “We” — in this instance American mainstream culture — having the authority to make that determination, and going further, that it is somehow entitled to enforce this determination on others. The unquestioning acceptance of these premises is the core of ethnocentrism that should be challenged.
woundedduck says:
March 12th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I tried to have this argument with a friend, “Killing cows is no different than killing whales,” but he argued whales are endangered. Which, of course, isn’t true of the species hunted by the Japanese. Same goes with seals in Canada. No worse than cows.
UG says:
March 12th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Standing with one foot in the USA and the other in Japan I both hear and feel the pride.

I feel growing up in the United States we were taught to be self righteous, unfortunately they also some how reinforce that the Americans are the “Most self righteous”

I feel growing up in Japan we were taught to be self righteous , Unfortunately they also some how reinforced that Japanese are the “Most self righteous”

Personally I grew up watching flipper but I don’t live on grub cereal with soy milk
I enjoy a fat steak but hate the concept of farms and slaughter houses but don’t have the time to go hunt a roaming buffalo nor would I have the fridge space to store the entire carcass.

If I lived on the ocean and the hunt of the day was dolphin I would savor every bite
Living in the city I never thought about ordering dolphin, I usually order farm slaughtered cow meat
Michael Kay says:
March 13th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Nice column, right on the money. I eat cows and pigs regularly; and I agree it is babaric. I have never eaten dolphin nor whale, but to classify the eating of one mammal as ok and another as not, just for what it is, is barbaric. Especially the way in many countries, the consumer’s relation to the cow or pig is sanitized by hermetic packages of reddish food.

I have not seen the film, but what you mention about the Japanese fisherman hiding the slaughter is definitely a mistake, and probably did something to increase the wrath of the filmmakers.

I also agree that it is a common crime of US international politics to impose its values on other societies with no attempt to understand the other culture. From right wing warmongers to leftist filmmakers.
tea says:
March 13th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
As a vegetarian, I think eating cows and pigs are just as savage as eating cats, dogs and seals. And eating tuna are just as savage as eating dolphins and whales. So I think 99% of the people in the world are barbaric, savage and uncivilized… As you can see that doesn’t do very well to my social life (that’s why no girl likes me)… So long ago I accepted the fact that self-righteous is not a very healthy mental state.

In fact I think self-righteous is a mental disease. We treat love like the 1st law of thermodynamics. We all seem to think that in order to love something; we have to hate something at the same time. Like the conservation of energy, the amount of love given must be equal to the amount of hate produced. So in order to love dolphins and whales, we have to demonized and hate the Japanese. In order to love cats and dogs, we demonized the Chinese. In order to love seals, we demonized the Canadians… etc etc…

Frank, I’m not sure how the topic of Dolphins relates to Tibet… but I can assure you Chinese (as I’m one of those) are just every bit as self-righteous as the Americans, so are the Japanese, Europeans and Ethiopians… In fact, self-righteous is a worldwide epidemic that no one is immune to… (as you can see I am self-righteously accuse everyone of you being self-righteous.)
Melissa says:
March 14th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Trawling for some of America’s favorite seafood causes MUCH MUCH more environmental damage than killing a few whales. Americans just are too tied to individualism and too ignorant of ecology. They would rather destroy entire ecosystems than see a few charismatic megafauna die.

I can respect vegans, but vegetarians have no high horse. Do you think Bessie the dairy cow gets retired when her milk flow slows down? Do you think her male calves get let free on the range? Drinking milk is ethically the same as eating veal or hamburgers, because those foods are the consequences of milk.

Viewing death and killing as barbaric is a sad consequence of our alienation from nature and our own econiche. Are lions barbaric? Killer whales? Native Americans? It’s a very sad life and vitality-hating philosophy to view things this way.
Frank Luo says:
March 14th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
@ tea

My main point was actually neither about Tibet nor Xinjiang nor Chechnya. The reason I wrote about those things is that the sentiment I see reflected as pertaining to them are the same as that Dyske wrote about. I read Chinese blogs and news sources, and speak to people from various parts of China, regardless of their current places of residence. And the sentiment I detect in them about Tibet and Xinjiang, and in the former Soviet/East European friends who talked to me about Chechnya, was uniformly anger. There is just this… Indignant fury that random people from other parts of the world are for whatever reason asserting the right to force them to conform to their values and judgment.

On the self-righteous thing — you are completely right. People from every culture do do it. Along with the anger I see in the Chinese blogs about Tibet, I read all kinds of crazy stuff that seem to follow the same reasoning that I outlined, for example accusations that Richard Gere is an agent of the U.S. government, etc. There is a desire to assign motives or malice to others, especially in some familiar pattern, is the same.

However, ask yourself this: when was the last time you heard about a foreign government official protesting, say, racial inequality in America with the American president in a state visit? Or some foreign celebrity creating a foundation dedicated to forcing the American government to tighten gun control, or even to allow Alaska to secede from the union?

There is a cultural difference in there somewhere.

As a final aside, I think whale is delicious and wish that I could buy it at my local supermarket. Anyone who thinks eating whale is a barbaric tradition that is below America needs to reread Moby Dick.
tom says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Just for your information, there is controversy about the mercury issue, if it’s really harmful, please take a look at:
http://luna.pos.to/whale/jwa_v22_freeman.html

And thinking about the Inuit people who also eat a lot of mammals with high levels of mercury and apparently, it’s not harming them.
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:24 am
Hi Tom,

That is interesting, but I would still argue that it’s better to leave dolphin meat off the school lunch in Japan (just in case) because some school lunches are mandatory in Japan. Unlike the Inuit people, there is no health risk to stopping the consumption of dolphin meat in Japan. There are plenty of other nutritious food products they can eat.

Thank you for sharing that info.
Christopher Carr says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:14 am
Hey Dyske, thank you for reading my review of the film at: http://www.theinductive.com/culture/2010/1/21/the-cove-and-the-self-righteousness-of-activists.html and inviting me to join the discussion here. I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of what you’ve said and the vast majority of what’s been said in the comments. It’s good to find other people who considerably disliked this film!
Mike Kato says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:00 am
A very provocative post. I am a friend of Mike Kay’s. We went to school together in LA many years ago. I’m of Japanese descent and I’ve lived in Japan now for more than 23 years.

I don’t agree with everything you, but I think you do make some valid points. I don’t like the slaughter of cattle and pigs any more than that of the dolphins. Although I do eat meat, I would very much welcome a world in which cattle and pigs are slaughtered in a completely different manner than now.

However, the same slaughterhouses are used in Japan as well, although there are some extremely expensive operations which lead to extremely expensive beef and pork, which are outside of the budgets of most Japanese. I don’t think that there is a moral grounding upon which the Japanese stand, nor a cultural tradition for valuing the life of other living beings, but rather a mere general disdain for the Americans who have come to crucify the Japanese fishermen.

I believe, too, that the general attitude towards the Japanese on this matter is rooted in the nation’s overwhelmingly antagonistic attitude towards any restrictions on fishing. Any time a nation with less than 2% of the world’s population uses more than 80% of the world’s annual accessible resources, others in the world will take issue with that. When the world’s scientists overwhelmingly insist that this is endangering multiple species, yet the nation questions this, even demonstrates complete disdain for the international laws enacted to protect these species, the attitude of many people in the world will be disdain – at best.

I am particularly fond of dolphins, mammals that are capable of amazing feats of endurance and intelligence, and see no reasonable comparison between them and cows or pigs. This is not to make a claim that there should be a hierarchical system in the treatment of other species. I subscribe wholly to the primary importance of biodiversity. I am not only fond of a tremendous variety of plant foods, which form the basis for my diet, but also enjoy many land and water-based animal food products. I would much rather see many meats, dairy, and fish products cost more, consumed less, and handled more ethically. The quality of these is much more important than quantity availability.

Sorry for the long post. But I will be pleased when the gruesome killing of the dolphins and whales, overfishing in general, and horrific practices in raising and slaughter of cattle and other primary table meats are all stopped – in Japan, the United States, and throughout the world. I don’t eat at McDonalds nor eat dolphin and whale. Tofu steak anyone?
Jess says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:40 am
Frank – you offer some bizarre comments about the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the subjugation, imprisonment, and torture of the Tibetan people – not to mention the stealing of their land.

If you’re so willing to eat whale meat, my guess is that you’d probably eat ANY kind of meat, including Tibetans!
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Hi Mike,

Thank you for your interesting comment. I agree with the importance of biodiversity and sustainability, but “The Cove”, in my opinion, does a disservice to these causes because they use these causes in a disingenuous way to support their cause which is fundamentally different. They are making a moral point about killing of dolphins and whales. Even if Japan were to implement a perfect plan for sustainability and biodiversity, it would not resolve their issue at all. So, it’s only a distraction and adds confusion to the whole debate. Besides, as far as I understand, dolphins they are killing are in fact growing in population and consuming other types of fish that have sustainability problems. So, from the perspective of sustainability, slaughtering of dolphins is not causing any problems. Correct me if I’m wrong here, because I might be.

I have a few questions.

“Although I do eat meat, I would very much welcome a world in which cattle and pigs are slaughtered in a completely different manner than now.”

This surprises me. I thought the slaughtering of cattle and pigs was as humane as it could be. I thought it was a single shot to the head that kills them instantly. Is this not the case?

Does the Japanese consume 80% of the seafood in the world? Or, do they export the seafood?

Seafood consumption and sustainability is a big problem, and it is unfortunate because seafood is good for us humans. American consumption of seafood is growing which is a good thing from the perspective of our health, but not good from the point of view of sustainability. It appears that the biggest problem in this sense is the overpopulation of humans in general.

But, on a positive note, I see a growing movement here in New York for local, sustainable seafood. My parents who moved here from Japan rave about how good the fish is here. The consumers should be just as responsible as the producers too. Each of us can make a difference in this sense by choosing how we consume food.

“I don’t think that there is a moral grounding upon which the Japanese stand, nor a cultural tradition for valuing the life of other living beings,…”

I’m not exactly sure what you meant by this but I was referring to Shinto religion in Japan where nature is worshipped, God is believed to exist in everything, and where the Japanese view humans merely part of that system not above it. In comparison, the Western (Christian) view pits humans against nature, and we humans are seen to be at the top of the hierarchy. Is your understanding of Shinto and Christianity different from this?
Frank Luo says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:22 am
What’s bizarre is to make a leap from eating whale to cannibalism. This is exactly the kind of nutty accusations that actually pisses people off and actually make them want to continue doing what self righteous people find offensive.
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I just found this on Wikipedia. It’s an interesting read about “Anthropocentrism” where the traditional Western view does pit humans against nature, but there is a different interpretation of The Bible that is closer to the Eastern view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocentrism
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 10:24 am
I don’t want to go too far off topic here, but for the debate about Tibet, I found this book to be invaluable.

The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947

It is written by a Tibetan, and offers a detailed history of the whole conflict with China. Regardless of who is at fault, it is quite obvious that the mainstream American understanding of Tibet is overly skewed and romanticized. It’s essentially Hollywood-nized where Tibetans are presented as some sort of angels. They too are humans just like the rest of us, as such, their conflict is a human conflict with stories from both sides. Too many people are too quick to judge these kinds of conflicts based solely on how Hollywood depicts them. In this sense, this topic of Tibet is quite closely related to this issue of The Cove.
Mike Kato says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Thank you Dyske. Great questions.

First, I haven’t seen the Cove. I want to, but the movie is still not out yet officially in Japan. On the other hand, I’m not fond of spending money on movies in movie theaters. They are run by major studios in an extremely poor way, which I don’t condone. Thus, I can’t really speak for what message that they are trying to portray. I don’t think that the morality of killing dolphins and whales are the primary issue, though as I said in my first post, I have a very strong admiration for what I believe to be an extremely intelligent being.

If dolphins and whales are making a dent against populations that are endangered, it is only because human activity are endangering them in the first place. If we change our habits that result in the assault against other life forms on the planet, one that places emphasis on domination and control or other species, then it is likely that nature will inevitably strike a balance between various species. Human intervention has proven historically to create, rather than alleviate most unbalances.

Japan does consume more than 80% of many seafoods. Bluefin tuna, several other tuna species, sea urchin, some shrimps, and a few other fish are on the list. Part of the reason that most of these are imported into Japan is that the prices paid by Japanese importers are much higher than elsewhere. So naturally many fisherman worldwide are willing to export to Japan. Many in the ocean ecology community – founded or unfounded in science – think of this like prostitution – it is only because people are willing to buy at very high prices that the bad business prospers.

There is definitely a relationship between production and demand. Seafood, too, can certainly be a more healthy alternative to meat, especially beef, but also other meat that is fed not just GMO grain, but also an incredible amount of hormones and antibiotics. But so, too, are fisheries. Raising animals – including fish – in captivity and in single species environments is an open invitation to predators of that species. In the real world, there are not enough of a single species in one place and time for the predators to become very prevalent. But just as single crops become susceptible to particular insects, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other ills, so too are animal “crops”.

Cattle, broiler chickens, pigs, and other animals are treated inhumanely throughout their lives. There is a plethora of writing about practices in the modern ranch and slaughterhouse. Though the times are very different from Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” treatment today is, if anything, worse. There have been a number of films and books about this, especially in the US, but attempts to make major investigative reports on this subject have led to murders and sabotage, in addition to overall harassment of the researchers and collaborators. Meat is, of course, big business, and its perpetrators are willing to protect it at all costs.

What I meant on the “moral grounding” is that most Japanese are not happy with “The Cove” not because of some strong traditional moral stance for life, but just because they take it as a slight against themselves as Japanese. I think of it much like people in Japan who say that they are for Peace, that Japan is a Peaceful nation. But Japan is the world’s 4th biggest arms exporter. So, by not engaging directly in war, but selling planes, ships, rockets, bombs, and guns to countries that do, not only is the country being hypocritical, but is like a drug dealer that doesn’t smoke or shoot up.

I am a Christian, because I grew up in a completely Christian nation with a Christian ideology deeply embedded in its culture. But I really like Shinto concepts. And, I don’t believe that Christianity necessarily puts humans above nature. I don’t have a hierarchical view of the world, including human organizations. I’ve never functioned very well in them. I like cyclical systems and system-based thinking. I love community-based organizing. I love life – all of it. So I do everything I can to protect as much of it as I can.
Christopher Carr says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Anyone who wants can watch the Cove here: http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/the+cove#watch%3Dv19564718n3wWA6EZ
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Hi Mike,

Thank you for that. Very informative.

Since you seem to be very knowledgeable about ecology, I have one more question if you have time.

Although I appreciate the idea of biodiversity and the “balance” of nature, the cause of the biggest imbalances in nature historically appears to be nature itself. For instance, a massive asteroid hitting the earth and causing the whole planet to go into ice age. Or, a large volcanic eruption that wipes out all living things around it. In other words, nature itself does not seem to be advocating for biodiversity. That is, shit just happens, and nature has no particular agenda of its own.

If this is the case, human activities that severely damage the environment can simply be looked at as another shit that’s happening to the earth. If we end up making the earth unlivable for ourselves, it may ultimately be good for the earth because it will rid itself of the biggest polluters. This extreme view of ecology brings up a point that even the advocates of biodiversity are in the end advocating for themselves (for humans), not for mother nature or for the earth, which we are lead to believe. What do you think of this view?

On another note:

I just did a little research about the Japanese consumption of seafood because 80% seemed like an astronomical number for a nation of 127 million people. According to this report the per capita consumption of seafood in Japan is roughly 3 times that of the US. That’s a pretty big difference but for the nation of 127 million people to consume 80% of seafood world-wide would require each Japanese to eat roughly 210 times the average person eats in the rest of the world. That’s hard to fathom. Backing out the percentage from the ratio, if we were to assume that the American consumption of seafood is just about the average for the world, Japan would be consuming roughly 5.5% of all the seafood in the world, which is nowhere near 80%. Where did the number 80% come from? It may be possible that Japan catches 80% of all seafood in the world, but if so, the majority would have to be exported because they couldn’t possibly be eaten by the Japanese.
Jess says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
The reference to cannabalism is a joke! (obviously???). However, please don’t let it distract you from your comments on Chinese military suppression, takeover and ultimate subjugation of Tibet and its peoples – most of whom now live in exile. The Chinese have created a nice little ghetto – apartheid style – for those Tibetans who dared to remain.
Mark says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I just abhor the idea of these Hollywood activists who ‘care’ about causes because it boosts their image. Half of these people are going to move along to the next cause after the bulk of the uproar has subsided. It’s like the actors/actresses who talk about environmental protection yet show up on the red carpet wearing ridiculous amounts of gold and diamonds. The effects of mining precious gems and metals has a much more significant impact on the environment than driving an SUV, yet these people think that because they drive fuel efficient Prius they are, in some way, above reproach. They will also be the first to complain if the Japanese do stop killing whales and dolphins, and the price of their catered sushi skyrockets.
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Hi Mark,

I was just reading this article entitled “The Cove” and the Problem of Documentary ‘Solutionizing’. I think he makes an interesting point, and I left a comment there.

I think the same mechanism is at work at a much more fundamental level. For instance, saying “I love you” seems to take care of the need to actually love that person. So your action would be lacking. In many abusive marriages, the word “love” is uttered frequently, as if to make up for the lack of true actions of love.

Similarly, watching the film takes care of everyone’s need to do something. In other words, they don’t really want to do anything. They just want to feel good. These moralizing documentaries are ultimately just a piece of entertainment for the viewers which makes them feel good about themselves, and they are more than willing to pay for that rush of moral superiority.

When the documentary films are objective and not moralizing, the filmmakers have a hard time finding any audience for it, because there is no feel-good value in them. In fact, in most documentaries that are objective, there is always a healthy dose of self-criticism where we are encouraged to question ourselves. So, I would fundamentally question the motives of the people who advocate these feel-good documentaries. Ultimately, they are just self-serving, and it shows in their actions.
Frank Luo says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
>Chinese military suppression, takeover and ultimate subjugation of Tibet and its peoples – most of whom now live in exile

There are about two and a half million ethnic Tibetans living in Tibet. According to the Tibetan government in exile itself, there are about 150,000 Tibetans in disaspora. Since their criteria is not actually even based on ethnicity but based on the birthplace of the applicant or a parent being in Tibet, and the verification of this eligibility is accomplished by an interview. How scientific and iron clad.

There are some “ethnic Tibetans” who have always lived in the rest of the world in neighboring regions, like Bhutan, India, and Nepal. These people never lived in Tibet to begin with.

Assuming that there are some errors here and there, 150,000 is still a very, very small minority compared to 2.5 million. That most Tibetans now live outside Tibet is sheer make believe, just like the rest of your claims.
Mark says:
March 15th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I couldn’t agree more. One of the fundamental problems is that people, especially in the west, are conditioned not only to think in absolutes, but also to believe in their own inherent superiority (although this sentiment is also expressed in the Chinese concept of Jung Gwo, the only difference being that the Chinese were content with their feeling of superiority whereas westerners sought to spread their ’superior’ ideas to every corner of the globe). This combination makes it significantly easier to galvanize opinion and sway people based on emotional response. It’s also interesting to note that many people who are against dolphin/whale killing are the same people who in the next breath advocate cultural understanding and celebrate diversity; so long as it doesn’t offend their sensibilities I guess.

I read through all the comments above and also thought that it was interesting that the topic of Tibet was mentioned. It always used to baffle me how many “Free Tibet” stickers and t-shirts that I would see worn by people who had only the most perfunctory grasp of the Tibetan situation. Like you said, buy a sticker and you can feel better. I myself have very little knowledge of the situation, but I would not rely on any western news source if I sought to learn. It always seemed to me that the attention paid to Tibet was more of a means of casting a negative view of the Chinese government. As was noted above, there are always two sides to a story.

What always baffled me more, however, was that these same people had little to no opinion on the US government’s response to Waco, some even positing that the actions were necessary to stop this “insane religious cult”. And, these are the same people who denounce the Iranian government’s response to protesters without thinking that if the masses in any western country were out in the streets rioting and setting fires, their government would respond with the same measures, as was the case in Seattle in 1999, where protesters were gassed, beaten, and shot at.

Sorry if that strayed far from topic, but I get annoyed when people form judgments about the actions of other cultures without realizing that their own culture acts in essentially the same way. Which I guess brings it back to topic. I joked earlier today about today being the first day of the Taiji Convention on the Banning of Selective Judgement and Good Guy Badges.
Mark says:
March 15th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I also just noticed the tagline on the cover of the movie, “Man is their biggest threat and their only hope”. That is a perfect example of how people who make movies like this try to polarize an issue. Kind of like, “If you’re not a part of the solution then you’re a part of the problem,” or “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us.”
haruko says:
March 15th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Who knows, it may only be Repablican propaganda. Here in Canadia, government is trying to see possible Seal meat markets. If people become acceptable to the idea that seals and dolphins and other sea creatures are alternate, safe, farmable and marketable food, there will be much less burger eaters. Actually, we see great increase of seafood eaters in North America for health reasons. Don’t stop there, if seal and dolphins market expands, there could be less starving population on earth. That means less importance of non profit organization, less donation, less underground financial market, less money in the pocket for the selected few. If you had some money to through around, why not brainwash large population with likes of this movie. It may be USA’s “Non-weaponary” war against changes.
Mike Kato says:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Thanks Dyske.

2 quick responses:

1. I agree completely about nature/human sustainability. The natural Earth environment will survive any catastrophe inflicted by humans on it. I am concerned about human inhabitance of the planet. I have two small children. I am very concerned about the quality of life on this planet in their lifetime. I believe that their quality of life is dependent on their expectations of quality of life for their children. The Iroquois tribe of North America used to consider the impact of their actions for something like 6 or 7 generations. I consider this to be the natural extension of good stewardship on Earth.

2. On the consumption of seafood, I will repeat for the 3rd time, my reference is to specific species, not the overall consumption of fish. In particular, I have referenced specific species, which have been listed as either endangered or at-risk species. There are many specific varieties, including – I repeat – bluefin tuna, sea urchin, some shrimp varieties, whale, and even some varieties of squid or cuttlefish, as well as many kinds of fish roe, that Japanese consumption accounts for 80% or more of the world’s total. This does not even account for the amount consumed in Japanese restaurants overseas.

Again, I care about the very long-term availability of these species, not only because I enjoy a variety of sashimi once in awhile, but because I believe that biodiversity is the primary reason that the Earth is an ideal ecosystem for human and primate life forms. As long as we fish for survival needs or sport – not for the quick-fix, high animal protein, high cholesterol, high fat, energy intensive, low human labor diets that make meats, dairy products, and fish the “main dish” at every meal, consequently creating a “surplus” of grains and legumes, which are fed to table meat animals or “recycled” into fertilizers, biofuels, or junk food fillers and not used as a primary food source for humans – I’m fine.

I love fishing, but hate most commercial fishing. I love farming, but dislike most commercial farming. I don’t particularly like ranching or even raising pets. So I try to eat less meat, more fish, and even more organically grown fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and herbs. I avoid dairy products, except some cheeses, and instead use soy milk.
Dyske says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Hi Mike,

Thank you for the clarification. I needed it because you said: “Any time a nation with less than 2% of the world’s population uses more than 80% of the world’s annual accessible resources, others in the world will take issue with that.”

I interpreted “80% of the world’s annual accessible resources” as 80% of all seafood caught in the ocean every year. If this is true, yes, I would agree very much that the world would take issue with that. But according to the paper I found, each Japanese consumes roughly 3 times the amount of fish each Americans consume. While this is still large, American population being 307 million and Japanese being 127, it is only 24% more than what the US consumes. So, there is a big difference here depending on how you interpret what you said. That’s why I wanted to clarify it especially because manipulation of statistical data is another common method used for shock value.
Ellie says:
March 15th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
I’m a bit confused about the slant of this article, because while I agree ethnocentrism is a pretty disagreeable trait of almost every nation on earth, was the point here really that it happened in Japan? This seemed to me to be about some people who fundamentally believe that this shouldn’t be happening, for a variety of reasons. Yes, Ric O’Barry’s stance is one that dolphins are intelligent and he is possibly trying to assuage his guilt re Flipper and his experiences on that show. Others of the crew believe that oceanic biodiversity is important for all. Other points, possibly marginalised too much, were on the more directly human impact – mercury in the lunches of children and the inanity, both inherent and propagated, in any zoo/marine park display where a wild animal is treated like a toy for humans.

I think your article possibly takes more of a tribalistic view than the documentary does. To suggest that this is ‘America’ attacking ‘Japan’ is way too simplistic, surely? There are many documentaries and books that have pierced through the walls to reveal the disgusting practices of abattoirs and meat production plants all over the world, and Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent book has done much to try to publicise the horrors of it particularly in America. The situation in Taiji seems to be one that has not been examined, and one that the film-makers feel very strongly about. Should they just ignore it because it is happening in another country? To what extent should you take that argument? Should we ignore anything beyond our own nose?

I can’t even begin to understand all of the cultural issues that lie behind the decision to hunt these dolphins (and from my ethnocentric viewpoint the fact that Japan was buying nations into the IWC suggests that cold, hard cash might be at least something to do with it), but similarly I cannot understand what makes a farmer decide to breed chickens in depraved conditions. To say that ‘America’ does this and ‘Japan’ does that and other places do other things seems to be to miss the point, surely? The old adage that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ seems really appropriate here. The fact that these issues are still nationalised and made political is part of a very convenient propaganda for various people with a vested interest.

Big business across the world has seemingly decided that the bottom line is more important than any other issue. If you are happy to accept that the constant plundering and rape of this planet is fair enough and that we are all going to hell in a handbasket – that we can become the first species to *knowingly* wipe ourselves out (while taking a plethora of others with us) – then that’s entirely your decision and fair enough. But if people have a different viewpoint, I’d suggest it is less to do with jingoistic certainties and more to do with a desire to try to restrain rampant and maniacal greed and try to make a stand for their own, personal ethics, and ones that don’t lie in a bit of paper with a number printed on it. These people find their ethics rooted in a sense that the environment is inherently invaluable and our destruction of it unforgivable. I can see why this film has caused upset in Japan as an attack on its culture, but I didn’t perceive it as that at all. I have no grievance with Japanese culture after watching it, but only with those people that defended it where they had something to gain, mostly monetary. I’d suggest at least some of the upset displayed by these people in the film sprouts from the same ground as the outrage of factory farmers when they are challenged about their practices: less a cultural indignation but more denial, and a revolt against an attempt to restrict selfishness and unmitigated desires that we are increasingly resistant to in an ‘I want’ culture.
Dyske says:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Hi Ellie,

You are being quite disingenuous to say that this film was not about Japan. That is a big “slant”, I must say. Do you actually believe that the main theme of the film was “biodiversity”? If so, wouldn’t you say it is an extremely biased and narrow-minded view of the topic? How could the problem of biodiversity be reduced down to these dolphins? Why should anyone focus on such a small location for such a big problem?

If we were to make a film about air pollution, do you think it’s fair to single out one specific factory somewhere in the US and use the name of the company all over the film as if they are the only guilty company? Don’t you think such a tactics would distort and confuse the whole issue?

If that company happens to be responsible for the majority of the problem, I could understand, but when you look at the problem of biodiversity, the problem in Taiji is a drop in a bucket. It is like singling out a small local factory and making it look like it’s responsible for the global warming.

If I followed your logic, I would be entitled to go into your house, find one small thing that you are guilty of in terms of carbon footprint, or any unhealthy food that you might be feeding to your kid (if you have one), criticize it as a selfish behavior, and have your name all over the film so that you could be shamed in public. And, not even bother to understand your position. And, on top of all this, how would you like it, if I happen to be guilty of the same thing in my own house?

You then say, why are you attacking ME? Why just ME? I’ll then tell you, “I think you are taking more of a personal view than my documentary does. To suggest that this is ‘me’ attacking ‘you’ is way too simplistic, surely?” I then further argue, “Should I just ignore it because it is happening in your house? Should I ignore anything beyond our own nose?”

I would have to be extremely dumb to believe that such a tactics would be effective in solving any human conflicts.

I myself believe in biodiversity. I can respect those who believe that dolphins’ lives are more valuable than the lives of cows. I can also respect the people who are against whaling. In other words, it is not about WHAT, but about HOW the film was made. Just because you see a problem that needs to be fixed, it does not mean that you can solve it in anyway you want. We cannot ignore HOW we solve our conflicts. It is not just up to you to decide it. The Americans thought that the problem of terrorism can be fixed by invading Iraq. And, they went ahead with it unilaterally. Just like you suggest; they saw the problem. They were convinced of their solutions. So they went in and bombed the hell out of the place. That is ethnocentric.

In order to have a large audience for the film, the filmmakers needed to moralize the film, pick an easy target for the audience to project their own guilt onto, and get the most visually shocking footage possible. In that process, the audience was able to feel all sorts of exciting emotions like thrill, suspense, horror, and best of all, a feeling of moral superiority. So, they are more than willing to pay to watch it. But this completely distorts what the true issue of biodiversity is. We need to get everyone to be aware of their own part in the problem, so that they can change the way they live and help resolve the problem. Instead, all that the film did was to let the audience point their fingers at Japan, and ignore their own part in the problem.

In this kind of problem where everyone is guilty, the best way to resolve it is to solve our own problems first. If I could decrease my carbon footprint at my house, I should do that before I even consider criticizing you. The latter is not productive or effective.

My wife is an American and some of her friends told her that if she watched The Cove, she wouldn’t want to be married to me. It is disingenuous beyond belief to me for anyone to claim that this film is not about Japan, and that it treated Japan fairly as just an example of the type of problem everyone has. What you are saying is extremely offensive.
Jess says:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:05 am
Frank – the rest of my claims? And what are “the rest” of my claims? I’ll tell you what the subject of our little debate within the debate is. China invaded Tibet because they wanted the space and the resources. The Tibetans resisited (of course) which the Chinese expected, which is why they came armed. They used brute force to imprison and torture the citizens of Tibet into submission. Brute force won out as it usually does. Is there something about this that you don’t understand?
Barracuda says:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:40 am
I am a Mexican- American woman living in an eastern influenced protectorate of the United States, Guam. Guam is very close to Japan. I have actually visited Japan before. Many sushi places here, I am not a fish lover though I grew up eating ceviche (equivalent mexican sushi) my husband is a fisherman, if you were a fish lover you would love the fish my husband catches. My husband respects the oceans and releases larger fish that are coming close to extinction, for example blue fin tuna, which JAPAN CONSUMES 90% OF. Now being said I understand American ethnocentrism and the notion we seem to be telling Japanese people in Taji that they are wrong. They are doing what they know culturally, who are we to tell people how to live and what to eat…. Slaughtering self aware, intelligent dolphins is absolutely appalling. Slaughter is slaughter, I have watched my grandmother slaughter animals on our ranch in Mexico. We never slaughtered highly intelligent mammals. Then the argument of pig and cow slaughtering. Well I understand the perspective. Many of my friends cringe when I tell them I eat cesos and thripas (cow brain and pig intestine) it is my just two of my culture’s delicacy. However, to say that American’s are being ethnocentric again is wrong. ALMOST EVERY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD WOULD AGREE SLAUGHTERING DOLPHINS is an inhumane act and I basically read that Christians are hypocrites, all religions are hypocritical, people are habitually this way. We as Westerners do consume a lot of cow and pig we raise them to slaughter, which I believe the way we do it is disgusting because the impersonal killing of these animals and mass production, but that is our world…faster and got to have it now. Imagine that we can shop online and talk to strangers without even seeing their faces. Well I think it is wrong because the intelligence of these creatures and well the high mercury levels are unsafe, really unsafe. When my husband catches marlin or sailfish we have to get them tested. If the Japanese want to consume mercury engorged intelligent mammals and consume most of the fish in the world, have at it…what culture has the right to tell another culture they are wrong…You know Fijians were still practicing cannibalism in the mid 1900’s. Food for thought.
I was never conditioned to feel a certain way as an American, I don’t think in absolutes, I think for myself. I have been torn between two cultures. I know my heart and mind. I do want to say I respect every culture. We all are socialized differently no culture or way of life is better. Just search your conscience.
Barracuda says:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:57 am
Their are plenty of misspellings and fragmented sentences I do apologize, especially about my tone. I wanted to clarify that this addressed to the people who advocate and turn a deaf ear to slaughtering highly intelligent creatures dolphins. I am not trying to attack the people, culture, or country of Japan. JUST THE FACT THAT I FEEL AS HUMANS IT IS WRONG to kill highly intelligent species. The same goes for the people who slaughter and distribute BUSH MEAT, the meat of apes, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Tea says:
March 16th, 2010 at 5:56 am
“ALMOST EVERY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD WOULD AGREE SLAUGHTERING DOLPHINS is an inhumane act” is a claim to universal moralism. Universal moralism, like Plato’s form,is assuming somewhere in the Universe, there exist a perfect form of universal value that is eternal (maybe divine) and should be agreed by all human… To claim “Universal” there must exist consistency… let’s see how consistent is our human moral values….

1) Intelligent prejudice – Dolphin is more intelligent therefore we should not eat it => living things with more intelligent has more rights than living things with less intelligent => So if we have a person with mental disease and is prove less intelligent than a cow… than it is OK to….well… let’s just say “mistreat” him/her?

2) Aesthetic prejudice – If Dolphin looks as ugly as a cockroach, is it more OK to kill it and eat it? Our “moral” value seems to prefer beautiful thing than ugly thing. We save the butterfly from the spider because butterfly is prettier and we care not if the ugly spider starve to death. But when it apply to our own species, do we think beautiful people has more rights than ugly people?

3) Majority prejudice – If most people think it is right it must be right… All Countries agreed eating dolphin is inhumane (except Japan)… All Countries agreed eating cats and dogs is inhumane (except China & Korea)…. All Countries agreed XXX is inhumane except country YYY…. A few centuries ago, “All Countries” in the world thought slavery was OK…. And a decade ago, “All Countries” in the world thought Y2K was a big deal… Well… I don’t think that guy call “All Countries” is as reliable as everyone think he is.

Food for thought: Cannibalism must be Universally wrong, right? A cannibal chief once commented, “is killing a deer for leisure more humane than hunting a deer for food?” “Those civilized people seems perfectly fine to kill a million in war… and call us the savage?”

So do I think killing dolphin is wrong? Yes, definitely but more in pragmatic issue than any arbitrary moral values. I think everyone is already aware of the pragmatic issue so I’m not going to repeat that.

One thing about biodiversity: nature is blind it does not prefer nor hate diversity. Diversity give better chance of group survivability. Like diversifying the stock investment will generally give better return and less risk.
Dice says:
March 16th, 2010 at 5:56 am
This is sort of OT, but Mike Kato mentioned this and it probably needs to be clarified.

“I think of it much like people in Japan who say that they are for Peace, that Japan is a Peaceful nation. But Japan is the world’s 4th biggest arms exporter. So, by not engaging directly in war, but selling planes, ships, rockets, bombs, and guns to countries that do, not only is the country being hypocritical, but is like a drug dealer that doesn’t smoke or shoot up.”

Japan currently does not export any weapons that they manufacture specifically for military use. Rockets and bombs made in Japan are specifically for the use of the SDF. And unfortunately Japan does not have a thriving airplane manufacturing industry. The guns and ammunition that Japan export are for hunting. Japan does have the 7th largest military budget in the world which is the budget of the SDF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters

There’s an interesting discussion here, so it would be a waste if it went to the wayside because of sloppy numbers. . .

With regards to the film, I’ve been to Taiji a few times over the past thirty years. Dolphin hunting was not a secret, open or closed though I’ve never eaten any dolphin meat (knowingly).

Japan relies heavily on the riches that the ocean provides them and us Japanese definitely need to take care of the limited resources that the ocean has to offer. The disappointment with the Cove is that the filmmakers chose the sensationalism of vilifying the people of Taiji and Japan as opposed to presented the issue in a light that we actually care about, the proper management of our oceans.
Dyske says:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Hi Barracuda,

Tea has already done a great job of explaining this matter (“anthropocentrism”), but I’d like to add a few more to it because this problem goes far beyond different species. The formula is this: The more similar something is to yourself, the more you feel it deserves to be treated better. A good example of this is the American media coverage of child kidnapping. When a Black child gets kidnapped, the media hardly pay any attention to it, and even if they do, nobody pays attention to the coverage. But as soon as a White child is kidnapped, it is all over the front page of every newspaper. In some instances, they even get international coverage (among the White dominant countries, that is). People are just reacting to their sense of self-preservation. That is, they are just being self-serving, and not being fair to others who are not similar to them. So, this isn’t actually about intelligence. In fact, many intellectuals have been executed in history because the majority of the people around them could not understand them and therefore felt foreign to them. This made it easier for them to distance themselves and kill them. This is also why we do not think anything of killing plants. They are at the opposite end of the spectrum, and we can hardly identify ourselves with them.

When you see dolphins get killed, your sense of self-preservation kicks in because they behave very similarly to us, but by treating them preferentially, you would be unfairly treating others. When I search my conscience, it tells me that privileging dolphins is unfair to other life forms on this earth, and I cannot justify defending dolphins on this moral basis. Prejudice manifests in many different forms and we are all prejudiced. I’m no exception. So, I try my best to detect prejudice in myself and try to be fair and just to others. So, I ask you to search deeper into your conscience and see beyond your own prejudice.
Dyske says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Hi Dice,

Thank you for the clarification.

I share the same sentiment you have. This finger-pointing of Japan is a huge distraction from the primary issue that we should be discussing and learning. Thanks to the film, the Internet is now filled with people leaving comments on various sites saying things like “I hate Japs”.

Even though I do care about biodiversity, I cannot ignore the injustice of the moral finger-pointing, vilification, and scapegoating.

To use Barracuda’s position, suppose my child was killed by a Mexican American person. And, suppose someone came along who is very eager to help me prosecute the killer. But suppose what is motivating him to help me is his hatred for Mexicans in the US. I’m not going to accept his help even if it means that nobody else will help me. I’m not going to fight injustice with injustice.
Frank Luo says:
March 16th, 2010 at 10:00 am
@ Jess:

Oh I understand it alright. You are the one who don’t know the facts and is just making up numbers in the ridiculous attempt to justify your position.

Given your position in “our little debate” you obviously think it’s wrong to invade another country. I guess your country has never invaded another country then? Or gone to wear to prevent some member states from seceding?

If you think that invading other countries is wrong, why are you working so hard to prevent another country from doing it, while your own country is still benefitting from the resources of other those that it has invaded and/or prevented from seceding? As a voting citizen of a nation, is not your first obligation to ensure that your nation is acting in accordance with its own stated moral norms, instead of going around wagging your fingers at others in complete ignorance demonstrated by your number being are off by a factor of twenty-fold, which only demonstrates that your knowledge of the subject is next to nothing? If you were really outraged by invasions you would be working to stop your own country from doing it. But instead you are here, complaining about China and dolphins. With nerly zero knowledge of the facts.

Your reaction demonstrates the typical unexamined, ignorant self-righteousness that is ultimately an act of self interest at the expense of others, because the effects of this fake moral outrage are only that it makes you feel good about yourself, justify your actions, and antagonizes those you accuse of various things. Your numbers are wrong, your assumptions are wrong, yet you refuse to examine your position and why you think that way, because you would actually have to admit that your self-righteousness and arrogance might not have a legitimate basis.

On the subject of animals and intelligence:

I question the argument that people should not kill dolphins because they are so intelligent. I believe that reactions to whether or not it is abhorrent to kill (and eat) animals of any species is generally emotional, and shaped by cultural and personal upbringing.

For example — it is generally agreed upon that pigs are as intelliget or more intelligent than dogs (go ahead — Google it for the facts). There are some variations between species — for example, pot-bellied pigs are especially intelligent, a part of the reason that they are sometimes kept as pets, but on the whole, pigs are more intelligent than dogs.

So why are there people who find the killing and eating of dogs aborrent, and yet eat pork? Because they have an emotional attachment to dogs. But if you ask them why they will probably tell you that they think it’s abhorrent to kill and eat an animal as intelligent as a dog, because they would like to create a universal, moral basis for their personal emotional response, and strengthen the position of their egos. The same exact argument will sometimes crop up when it comes to other animals, such as horses.

I argue that the same principle is at work with dolphins. Most people think of dolphins as cute and cuddly and so have a sort of emotional attachment to them, and use the intelligence of dolphins as a rationalization that only adds moral grounding to a position they already hold, not as a reason for arriving at the conclusion.

Obviously, not everyone who base their abhorrence of killing dolphins thinks this way, but many are. And I believe that people should know why they feel how they feel and do what they do, especially when they are trying to change the behavior of others.
Frank Luo says:
March 16th, 2010 at 10:04 am
And one more thing:

Denmark mass-slaugters dolphins once a year as well, so any argument that includes the phrase “all nations” are flat out wrong.

As to why the filmmakers targeted Japan instead of Denmark when they decided to “expose” the mass slaughter of dolphins to the world — that’s a different issue altogether.
Jess says:
March 17th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
For all of you who are carrying on with sane, rational discussion, I apologize for this inanity ……

“Oh I understand it alright. You are the one who don’t know the facts and is just making up numbers in the ridiculous attempt to justify your position.”

I have not even mentioned a number …. If you are going to debate with me, you need be honest, otherwise you discredit yourself.

“Given your position in “our little debate” you obviously think it’s wrong to invade another country. I guess your country has never invaded another country then? Or gone to wear to prevent some member states from seceding?”

I am not my country. What politicians do in the name of power and greed is unfortunte and usually tragic.

“If you think that invading other countries is wrong, why are you working so hard to prevent another country from doing it, while your own country is still benefitting from the resources of other those that it has invaded and/or prevented from seceding? As a voting citizen of a nation, is not your first obligation to ensure that your nation is acting in accordance with its own stated moral norms, instead of going around wagging your fingers at others in complete ignorance demonstrated by your number being are off by a factor of twenty-fold, which only demonstrates that your knowledge of the subject is next to nothing?”

Again, I have not even mentioned a number and your post is absolutely full of assumptions. Do you even know what country I am living in? Do yoiu know that I support my own country or any other country in invading other countries and robbing them of their resources, killing and torturing their people in order to get at those resources? Why would anyone, in their right mind, support such actions? What country has as its “stated moral norms” to invade a country to increase its own power and wealth? My country states no such thing. Does yours?

“If you were really outraged by invasions you would be working to stop your own country from doing it. But instead you are here, complaining about China and dolphins. With nerly zero knowledge of the facts.”

Again, you make more assumptions. You have no idea what my education and background is. How can you say I have “zero knowledge of the facts”.? What a bizarre claim! As for one country invading another …. I am consistently outraged when I hear about such invasions – especially when based on greed and power. The same would have held true for me if I had been living in in Europe between 1944-48, for instance.

“Your reaction demonstrates the typical unexamined, ignorant self-righteousness that is ultimately an act of self interest at the expense of others, because the effects of this fake moral outrage are only that it makes you feel good about yourself, justify your actions, and antagonizes those you accuse of various things. Your numbers are wrong, your assumptions are wrong, yet you refuse to examine your position and why you think that way, because you would actually have to admit that your self-righteousness and arrogance might not have a legitimate basis.”

You couldn’t be more off the mark, but considering the litany of assumptions you’ve made throughout this post, I am not the least surprised that you actually wrote the above paragraph. There is nothing either ignorant or self righteous in my post, and definitely my writing is not without self examination. My outrage about what China did to Tibet is indeed a case of moral/ethical/spiritual/environmental/social justice and is completely authentic. I am not interested in antagonizing anyone. I find it much more simple to just speak the truth. As for “my numbers” being “wrong” and my “assumotions” being “wrong” – wow! One needs patience to speak to the likes of you, but worry not because I have loads. Again, I have not mentioned numbers – a bit of dishonesty on your part which you have now multiplied by 3. Assumptions? You are actually accusing me of making assumptions?
Frank Luo says:
March 17th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
What numbers?

In the quote “Tibet and its peoples – most of whom now live in exile” you make the claim that more Tibetans live in Exile and not in Tibet. Yet the Dharamsala Tibetan government in exile itself places the number of the exiles at only a hundred odd thousand while the Tibetan population in Tibet is well over two million. No you did not state a number yourself, but you made an assertion about the number of Tibetans living in exile exceeding the number of those living in Tibet. A claim that is factually wrong, and demonstrates your profound ignorance on the matter — it’s one thing to be off by a couple of percentage points, but it’s another thing altogether to be off by a factor of twenty like you did. That this thoroughly inaccurate claim — which I call ignorance rather than dishonesty only to give you benefit of the doubt — forms a part of the basis for your outrage only shows the merits of your arguments.

But why stop there — let’s look at the rest of it. A nice little ghetto? That would indicate that the Han Chinese are keeping the Tibetans in small segregated communities of some kind. The truth is that the Han Chinese are actually very much in the minority in Tibet, and are almost entirely concentrated in just two cities. If anything the Han are the ones living in ghettos in Tibet. To say that again demonstrates your ignorance (or dishonesty), and bringing up unrelated issues like ghettos and Apartheid without actually showing any connection between the issues is just a pathetic attempt to appeal to bad feelings people might have about those things, and is also dishonest.

And as long as I am on the subject of honesty — did I actually say you supported the war actions of your country?

Answer the question.

You decided to respond to that claim, WHICH I DID NOT MAKE, because it would be easier than to answer the charge. Standard strawman tactic which only discredits you. Want to put this point to rest? Easy. Answer the questions wihch I posed:

1. Is your country completely innocent of invading other countries, or going to war to prevent them from seceding?
2. (If the answer to 1 is “No”) Is your country (and by extension you yourself) still benefitting from those actions?

I specifically made no assumptions about the country you live in, because that point is immaterial. Only the answers to the above two questions, and a third question below, are of interest to this discussion:

3. Why are you not spending your time working to change that (i.e. that the answers to the above two questions are “no” and “yes” respectively) instead of complaining about Tibet and the dlphins?

Your being “consistently outraged” when you hear these things only confirms what Dyske has mentioned — that people talk about these events to feel good about themselves, as a substitute for actually doing anything about it. So you complain about Tibet, complain about dolphins, complain about everything, all the while enjoying the benefits of the actions that you decry in other nations, but which your own nation commits or has committed.

But wait there is more:

Your statement: “I am not interested in antagonizing anyone”

Did I say that you were interested in antagonizing anyone?

Answer the question.

What I said was that posts like your antagonize people and actually gives them a motivation to continue the behavior. It’s the same point that Dyske made. By antagonizing the Japanese, this film will ensure that some people will continue to hunt dolphin even if they don’t want to eat them, and some others will continue to eat dolphin even if they did not really enjoy it that much to begin with, and probably even motivate some people to whom it would never have even occurred to eat dolphin, nor have ever heard of the practice, to do so in protest of this kind of fake moral outrage.

But wait there is (still) more, that allows us to explore the issue more thoroughly:

“Self examination”? Where did I say “self”? Point it out.

I’m waiting.

Didn’t think so.

The reason why you are only *questioning* my assumptions is because you can’t even try and make a case for my having made them. If I had made any assumptions, why did you not point them out?

Let me show you how that might work:

You stated that “[your] writing is not without self examination.”

This indicates that you ASSUMED that by “unexamined” I referred to a lack of self-examination, specifically your self examination.

When I said “unexamined” it referred to the type of self-righteousness you are exhibiting, and the things you have listed as at least in part their basis — for example, the assertion that most Tibetans live in exile. That is factually wrong by a factor of twenty or so, and since the information is so easily available to anyone who obviously has access to the internet, that there are only two explanations for you getting it wrong: 1) That you are knowingly lying about it, or 2) that you heard it somewhere or assumed it or just made it up, without ever actually looking it up, i.e. HAVE NEVER EXAMINED THE BASIS OF YOUR SELF-RIGHTEOUS CLAIM.

Furthermore, you ASSUMED that it even referred to you personally, which is not only wrong but arrogant and self-centered. I spefically stated that this is “typical” because many people exhibit this behavior, just as the other posters have noted. It is a class of behavior that I assert to be antagonizing. While I certainly include you as one of those people who exhibit it, I did not mention your “self” in any way, shape, or form in the sense of “self-examination”, and your reaction of ASSUMING that it referred to YOUR writing and YOUR self examination amply demonstates your self-centered arrogance and — what’s that phrase? Oh yeah DISCREDITS YOU.

If I made an assumption, it was in assuming, in an effort to give each person the benefit of the doubt, that you had heard the information somewhere instead of knowingly and intentionally made it up as a lie. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you are not ignorant and self-righteous, but just dishonest and malicious. That would be the other explanation.

But I think you’re just another case of those who just want to make themselves feel good without actually doing anything about it, with your unexamined, ignorant, and dishonest self-righteousness.

Yes I added dishonest based on this last post from you. It is clearly shown by what you have posted. Starting your post with a dishonest combination a priori and ad populum appeal did not help.

And yes I AM accusing you of making assumptions. Actually. No really I am.
Frank Luo says:
March 17th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
So I went looking for stuff on the mass killing of dolphins in Denmark and found that they kill both dolphins AND whales! A two-in-one! It really makes you wonder why the filmmakers targeted Japan? Maybe it’s because O’Barry worked with Flipper and not Willie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_drive_hunting

Interestingly enough, though, while looking up this information, I ended up finding something that spoke of the Danish view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smkPdW0lY3E&feature=related

…which speaks quite eloquently of certain aspects of whaling that I think applies equally well to the the Japanese practice, and this discussion: I particularly liked this quote:

“The fact that people still… you know, in modern western society, with all the modern conveniences of the globalized world, are still prepared to do this — they are still prepared to kill their own animals for food, and they are conscious of the need to maintain the knowledge and the skill you need to be able to do that.”

There was another quote that highlights a few other issues — first of all, that the letters that protest this practice come primarily from the US, with Britain and Australia being numbers two and three on this “protest index.” This goes to confirm the point that this is partially cultural, that some cultures either encourage its members to protest or somehow influences them and makes them feel entitled to do so.

The other issue would be racism. The woman interviewed stated that part of the outrage directed at the Faroe Island whaling was due to the fact that this was people who looked like the letter writers i.e. caucasians doing something perceived as “aboriginal.”

This clearly shows that some portion of ethnocentrism is in fact racism — the anger being directed at the Faroe Islanders is not just that they kill whales and dolphins, but that they are in a sense embarrassing other caucasians by showing that caucasians also have traditions that western society thinks of, in a sense, to be below them. To me this seems a clear case of racism as a component of ethnocentrism — that the ethnicity of the people involved is an issue, and those who are not caucasian are thought of as being inferior in some sense.

I believe that this is part of the reason that O’Barry et al. decided to target Japan — to take advantage of the existing sense of cultural/ethnic superiority that exists in the west, and maximize the impact of the film by playing up to its prospective audience. That an animated film about the Faroe Island whaling only received a minor British award may have convinced O’barry et al that it would be more profitable to highlight the Japanese practice rather than to make a case against other caucasians.
Chisa Hidaka says:
March 29th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Great commentary. We need more Japanese and Japanese American voices on this. I think the Japanese American are particularly important as I think the makers of The Cove are most likely to read and understand these.

I am in agreement with you…and have some points of my own to add. Please read
http://thedolphindance.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/ripples-from-the-cove/

If we believe that this is an important issue, it is up to us to take advantage of the publicity placed on the situation and try to make it right by coming up with some culturally appropriate solutions.

Personally, I think The Cove should be shown by activists at or around all marine parks that buy dolphins from Taiji to encourage potential customers to boycott any marine park that would participate in the killings. That would spread the blame to the many countries that are, in fact, supporting the dolphin hunt from an economic point of view – clearly, dolphin meat is NOT the reason the fishermen are killing dolphins.

In addition, everyone – Japanese and otherwise – need to become more educated about the sad, depleted state of our oceans. Hopefully, this will help the Japanese Fishing Ministry understand that subsidizing the killing dolphins as a means to try to preserve fish stocks is a total waste of time and money.

Thanks for your comments, and for this forum.
Vegan Society of Japan says:
March 30th, 2010 at 6:48 am
Chisa Hidaka,

with all respects, you fell immediately into the same, simplistic trap as those Japanese in the slaughter industry, supporting government department and heavily censored media. That is to say, you fell into the nationalist trap.

The individuals motivated to save dolphins and whales are not motivated by nationalism. They probably even do not association themselves nationalistically. Certainly, within Japan, many of the individuals supporting the banning of dolphin and whale hunting strongly disassociate themselves with nationalistic self-identity. Without researching this, I would guess this is true of the Caucasian activists.

Nationalism, like whale hunting, belongs to an Age of Barbarism, an Age of Exploitation, that should be long forgotten.

It is not a nationalist issue. If anyone is blinded by the nationalist issue, if anyone is dragged into or engages with the nationalist debate at all … they are missing the point entirely and likely being manipulated into a position desired by the tiny minority of individuals financially benefiting from this exploitation.

It is about the money. It is only about the money … and it has reached a ridiculous point because ‘Japan, Inc’ is now losing far more money, incurring far more expensive negative PR, than the tiny few are gaining. We understand that we are talking about 26 individuals in Taiji.

Yes, let us remember that it was the Caucasian whale hunters who exploited the whale species. Yes, let us even remember that it was as a direct influence of the demands of the American whaling industry that Japan was forcibly, violently and unethically opened up by Commodore Perry and the Black Ships. Yes, let us even accept that the Japanese people of today are frequently the target of unjustifiable, endemic and institutionalized racism from the Americans and others.

But … it has nothing to do with those of us which wish Japan would return to it traditionally near vegan diet. A diet it ate for 1,000 years until, again, the influence of the American came. A sustainable diet suited to its land, climate and body type.

The defenders of dolphin hunting are correct when they point a finger back at the Americans over America’s diet and environmental record. It is not about America versus Japan.

And it is strange, when all of these great defenders of “Japanese Tradition” are confronted with Japan’s vegan tradition, that they turn out not to be “traditional” at all … in short, it is all the farce and lies the like of O’Barry accuses.

Recently the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture refused to support events promoting veggie diets, despite the clear evidence of its health and environmental benefits, on the grounds that it would “offend” the livestock farmers.

It is not only the inedible dolphin meat that is stinking.
Dyske says:
March 30th, 2010 at 7:10 am
@vegan

“Tradition” as you define it is a strange way to argue this. Firstly, Japan did eat meat at first until Buddhism was introduced and meat eating was banned. At that point in time, what was the “tradition” in Japan?

Secondly, if doing something for a few hundred years cannot be considered tradition, then what tradition does America have?

Third, diet “suited” to its “body type”? Now, because of eating meat, the Japanese are getting taller and stronger in general. Are you suggesting that they should remain shorter and weaker? Are you saying that’s what they are meant to be?

Also, please elaborate on this too, because it appears self-contradictory:

It is about the money. It is only about the money … and it has reached a ridiculous point because ‘Japan, Inc’ is now losing far more money, incurring far more expensive negative PR, than the tiny few are gaining. We understand that we are talking about 26 individuals in Taiji.

If it’s only about the money, why would “Japan, Inc” allow this? It would be far cheaper to ban the slaughter of dolphins and stop whaling.

Regarding “nationalism”: if speaking from a perspective of a nation is a “trap”, why is your society called “Vegan Society of Japan”? Why use a name of a country for your society about veganism?
Dyske says:
March 30th, 2010 at 9:03 am
@vegan

Although the topic of vegetarianism or veganism is off-topic here, I’d like to clarify my position on it.

I respect vegans and vegetarians just as much as I respect the Inuit who eat seals. The problem arises only when they preach to others about their own diet on the basis of cruelty or barbarism. Suppose you succeed in stopping all human beings from eating meat. If your moral basis is cruelty, why stop there? We should keep going and stop lions from eating zebras, dolphins from fish, fish from plankton.

If we were to stop at the human level, not stop other species from committing “cruelty”, we would have to believe that we humans are more “civilized” and less “barbaric” than other species. Here, we would create an anthropocentric view of life. So, there is no moral justification for stopping at the human level. The same moral justification you have for stopping other humans from eating meat would apply to other species.

So, what would happen if we stopped animals from eating other animals? Insects from eating other insects? Fish from eating other fish and plankton? The earth as we know it would cease to exist, including the vegetables you love. In other words, the “cruelty” and “barbarism” that vegans often criticize is an essential part of the ecological cycle of this earth, and even the vegans benefit from it. The only difference between you and I is that you don’t like to get your own hands dirty. But you are in no position to tell anyone else what they should eat and what they shouldn’t. Indirect involvement does not make you any less guilty.
Chisa Hidaka says:
March 30th, 2010 at 9:54 am
@vegan

Why are you taking sides against me? I am also on the side of trying to stop the Taiji dolphin killing.

We need to work from a place of unity. This will not get done by people working against each other. That is the main point of my blog.

I criticize the anti-Japanese rhetoric not because I do not believe that SOME people in Japan are doing something I believe should be stopped. I criticize it because that kind of rhetoric is not going to solve the problem.

In no way is my writing ’supporting government department and heavily censored media’. You are railing against your own misinterpretation! You are totally ranting at the wrong person.

We need to focus on the points on which we agree, if we want people in Japan to pay attention to this matter in a sympathetic way. And we need to appeal in a positive way to the people in Japan who can actually change the laws there.
Dice says:
March 30th, 2010 at 10:22 am
I started this as a response to @vegan, but then it kind of got big. . .

The fisherman of Taiji have been whaling since the 17th century. Before the Meiji Restoration while some Japanese did lead a vegan diet, a lot of Japanese led a pescetarian diet. It wouldn’t be a stretch to understand a diet including whale (and/or dolphin) meat was considered to be pescetarian.

My issue with the Cove (which I finally watched the other night) outside of outright falsehoods and lack of research is that I find their approach to be disingenuous at best.

While one would hope to make the assumption that the goals of the filmmakers were to educate their audience on dolphin hunting and capture in Taiji and to bring an end to this practice, I’m not so sure that the assumption would be true.

The filmmaker’s answer to the point that dolphin hunting is part of the culture is to reply that certain cultures are wrong and need to be changed, and that if it’s culture why don’t most Japanese know about it.

The fishermen of Taiji honestly take pride in their craft and have the highest respect of the dolphins even as they slaughter them. They have a whaling museum right on the waterfront (it’s hard to miss, it even shows up in the movie) as a tribute to their craft and the animals they hunt. To confront these fishermen without attempting to show any understanding for why they might hunt dolphins is nothing but an insult from the perspective of the fishermen, not the most effective way to start a conversation.

Any guilt that the filmmakers want to impose upon the fishermen isn’t going to be effective either. The guilt that the filmmakers feel is completely the filmmakers guilt. Remember, the fishermen take pride in their craft and hold the whales and dolphins in reverence, especially because the animals they hunt are noble and “intelligent”. While the practice might not always follow the teachings, growing up in Japan I was often taught that we should use all parts of whatever animal we eat, as there is no waste in whatever we catch.

This isn’t shooting buffalo from rail cars to them, it’s a craft and a tradition passed on that they are upholding. If anything, the fishermen on Taiji believe that they know more about dolphins than the filmmakers, so the filmmakers attempting to educate the fishermen by condescending is not an effective method.

There is no coverup about dolphin hunting in Japan, while it might be huge news for the filmmakers and anyone who has no understanding of Japan dolphin hunting just isn’t a big story that everyone in Japan feels the need to know. When I visited Taiji well before the Cove came out I learned about the dolphin hunting, but then most people in Japan have not been to Taiji. They might visit the Kumano shrines, but Taiji is pretty easy to mix. Dolphin hunting isn’t known nationally because it’s obscure, no one is trying to hide it. Because it isn’t practiced nation wide it is unique, but there is no coverup. The local newspaper does have an article about the hunt when it happens every year, the news just isn’t big enough to be national. Though this year with the uproar caused by the Cove, networks have put up stories here and here. The coverage has not all been positive towards the Cove.

Taiji is located in the Kumano region of Japan. In the Kumano religion, people look upon nature as their god, the waterfall of Nachi and the rock on Kamikurasan being examples but the whole Kumano region is considered to be holy. This isn’t a nationalist issue for the fishermen or the people of Kumano. It’s the natural response that the fishermen have towards outsiders coming in and expecting to be able to have their will imposed. The filmmakers were not welcome because they were being assholes, it wasn’t because they were against dolphin hunting.

The Japanese have held foreigners that come to engage in dialogue about environmentalism and nature in high regard. While C.W. Nichol is naturalized now and the Japanese do listen to him when he talks about environmentalism.

Attempt to impose anything on anyone and there’s a decent chance that the target would be unwilling. If the filmmakers truly wanted to be effective they would have done their research and found that a different route might have been more effective.

The filmmakers could have learned why the fishermen hunt dolphins, if the filmmakers showed their respect and their willingness to learn.
common ground on the issue and a route to engage in dialogue. The Japanese and the people of Taiji do care about the environment and conservationism. Making a levelheaded argument for the conservation of the resources provided by the ocean are something that the Japanese are increasingly concerned with (dolphins are not endangered now, I can imagine it will get harder to get species of dolphins classified as such).

Whether out of ineptness or by design the filmmakers chose to focus on only spinning a good yarn, whether that meant building cameras on rocks in them or creating “facts” when the reality did not support the storyline they were creating. The Cove is a fascinating movie, with the kind of research and storylines that would make Fox News proud.

Where they could have engaged in dialogue, the filmmakers did everything to offend and belittle people with whom they could have found a common ground. An issue that didn’t have to become a nationalistic one has now been turned into one. Once it’s reached that point, dialogue doesn’t matter as all sides aren’t interested in having any rational discussion, but only in pandering to their bases.

Having said that, there is no guilt on the side of the fishermen of Taiji, but it is a living they are making. The guilt is something that the foreign audience could better identify with. Boycotting Sea World and other zoos/aquariums that have dolphins could kill the business of dolphin capture.
davidattokyo says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:43 am
Your arguments are a total farce, you compare it to America & the Iraq war, & how they used a coalition of the willing. Look what that did for George Bush Jnr, & the world view of America & it’s foreign policies, it was not a success. Yet you say because of this it is OK for Japan to bribe 3rd world countries to vote as they wish in the IWC, & CITIES for its own purposes, therefore corrupting an international organization. So what you are essentially saying is someone arrested for murder, or child rape can say as their defense, “well someone else did it worse than me, so it is ok for me”. Really grow up! Whaling & dolphin slaughters are bring shame & condemnation on Japan from all around the globe, just as Bush’s war in Iraq did for America.
Well it is our tradition, well plenty of other countries used to hunt whales as well, yet none use “tradition” as an argument to continue it. The world has progressed, if it hadn’t then Greeks could say, “we feed christians to the lions, because that is our tradition”, or Americans still using Negro’s as slaves, & say “that is our tradition”. They do not continue with this behavior for quite obvious reasons.
Japans hunts of small cetaceans,(dolphins), jumped to 40,000 in the first year of the whaling moratorium, 1986, a moratorium Japan refused to abide by as a side note, & still does! As for hunting whales & dolphins for centuries as their culture, how many whales & dolphins do you actually think they caught per year back in the “edo period”? 50, or 100 max, using modern technology, hunting in the Antarctic, is NOT traditional, just as using motorized boats to round up huge pods of dolphins, banging on metal poles, sorry is this “traditional” hunting from the “edo period”, is that how you think it was done back then? If you want to use the “tradition” argument, then hunt using “traditional” methods, just as the IWC regulations on traditional whaling state.
Whales & dolphins are NOT cows or chickens, they are apex predators, therefore by destroying them, just as sharks, you destroy the WHOLE ecosystem, the same can NOT be said for cows or chickens! Also cows & chickens do NOT contain toxic levels of mercury, which causes brain damage, yet you are happy to feed it to children! These levels are higher than japans health ministry allows, yet is still sold & given to school children! Japan is the only country to suffer an outbreak of Minamata desease, yet refuses to learn from its own history! These figures have been found by doing tests on products sold in supermarkets, & conducted within Japan, so you can not argue they were tainted, or biased.
Maybe instead of being so defensive you should look at the problem from an unemotional, detatched point of view, & take a good long hard look at the FACTS, rather than argue your emotional, nationalistic arguments, & come out of the “edo period”, & join the rest of the world…
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 10:00 am
@davidattokyo
Speaking of FACTS…what is the evidence that killing top predators destroys entire ecosystems? Humans are top predators…if we all went away, I think the entire ecosystem would thrive wildly.

Also, in FACT, the movie The Cove actually showed a JAPANESE councilman speaking out to stop the inclusion of dolphin mean in school lunches. No one condones the consumption of tainted food.

What are the FACTS around the consumption of dolphin meat? Did you know that most Japanese people never eat dolphin meat? In fact, demand for the dolphin meat is so low, many of the slaughtered dolphins are used for fertilizer or simply buried in the sand.

It is very unfortunate that The Cove has stirred up so much anti-Japanese sentiment. All of us who care about dolphins – the film makers, Americans, Australians, and Japanese people – need to work together. We need to find common ground if we want to protect our oceans and marine life.

Shame on you for fanning the flames of antipathy. Your angry words will accomplish nothing. Let’s use the energy of our rage about the needless slaughter to more constructive ends.

Thanks.
http://thedolphindance.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/ripples-from-the-cove/
Dyske says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 11:38 am
@davidattokyo

You demonstrate the very problem that I’m criticizing. I clearly and specifically said: “I agree that something being a ‘tradition’ cannot be used as a justification to do anything you want.” You obviously were so emotional in reading my article that your mind was closed to my arguments. As I explained, “the point of bringing up ‘tradition’ is to ask people to learn more about it, and not to rush to judgment based on the facade, because it has a long history and is not a simple matter to explain.” In other words, all that I’m asking is not to rush to judgment and learn more about it with an open mind. Instead, most people, including yourself, reacted to their own ethnocentric emotions, and made no attempt to understand the opposing views.

The primary point of this “tradition” that I want to explain is that in Shinto religion, there is no hierarchy among different forms of life. So, it makes no sense to save dolphins but kill cows, pigs, and chickens. This is a fundamental difference between the Shinto perspective and the typical Western perspective. This view is entirely ignored by people like you, and you guys just rush to judgment, so convinced that your hierarchical view of life forms is correct.

Also, I NEVER said “bribing 3rd world countries” is “OK”. This is what I said:

This is not to say that the Japanese are blameless. Their politicians are just as corrupt as those of the Western world. How the Japanese essentially bought the votes from those poor countries to support whaling is the same political tactics the Americans used to form the “Coalition of Willing” to invade Iraq. I do not see Japan as any more corrupt than any other countries.

I’m not sure how this can be interpreted as “OK”, and extrapolated as “someone arrested for murder, or child rape can say as their defense, ‘well someone else did it worse than me, so it is ok for me’”. This interpretation is absurd and it shows your unwillingness to learn or understand the opposing views.

My point in bringing up the example of Iraq is to criticize the inciting of anger towards Japan as a nation. Given how corrupt America is also, and how much damage it has caused to the environment in the past, obviously the most effective way to improve the environment is to focus your energy on modifying your own behavior instead of pointing your finger at another nation. Attacking another nation when you have plenty of problems of your own is counter-productive. That is my point.

I never disagreed with the mercury argument. I said: “it’s terrible that they were feeding dolphin meat contaminated with mercury to children”. The fact that you keep arguing about it shows that you didn’t read or understand anything I said. You show no willingness to learn, which is the main criticism I have about the film and its supporters. Your arguments are based on ignorance and emotions, not reason.

I have searched the web extensively to learn about your side of the arguments, as well as the “FACTS” that your side brings, and I addressed them all. You are not bringing anything new here except for one: That killing of “apex predators destroys the WHOLE ecosystem”. Could you point to any articles on this topic? I’m willing to learn more about it. But, my immediate question would be that, how did the ecosystem survive when dolphins and humans did not exist on this earth?

Maybe instead of being so defensive you should look at the problem from an unemotional, detatched point of view, & take a good long hard look at the FACTS, rather than argue your emotional, nationalistic arguments, & come out of the “edo period”, & join the rest of the world

The emotional attacks originated in the film itself and then spread to its audience. There are very few people who are defending it in English, and I’m doing everything I can to argue with reason, not with emotions. Yet, that effort was lost on you entirely because you ignored my reasons, showed no willingness to understand, and simply rushed to judgment. I think you should listen to your own advice.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 12:53 pm
A fair-minded and well researched (albeit old) report
http://japanfocus.org/-David-McNeill/2306
Christopher Carr says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
After receiving every additional comment via email, I’m still confident that my review is relevant:

http://www.theinductive.com/culture/2010/1/21/the-cove-and-the-self-righteousness-of-activists.html

I think there are lots of reasons for not eating dolphins and whales. Unfortunately, none of them were explored by “The Cove”. Seriously, god awful, shitty movie.
Dyske says:
April 3rd, 2010 at 2:28 pm
That interview with O’Barry on Japan Focus is interesting. His primary argument is that the Japanese media is deliberately blocking the information about the dolphin hunt. I think he can now throw that argument out of the window. Because of The Cove, now everyone is aware: Did the Japanese people jump up and stop the hunt like O’Barry thought they would? No. That is just another proof of how little he knows and understands the Japanese people and its culture. If anything, the film made them angry, defensive, and indignant, which is the crux of my criticism. In fact, this isn’t even about the Japanese culture; it’s about human nature. Any nation would be indignant if they were attacked in the same way. The film is doing a disservice to the very cause they presumably care about.

Another argument he brings up in this interview: “These animals are not owned by Japan; they don’t have Japanese passports, they belong to the world.” The air does not belong to Americans either, but they are one of the worst offenders of mercury emission historically. They are one of the biggest reasons why we have so much mercury in the sea. Again, this is not an excuse to do anything we like, but O’Barry is in NO position to attack Japan on a moral ground. He should take care of the problems that his own country is creating and has created in the past before pointing his moral finger at anyone else. It would be far more effective in resolving the global problems we have today.

If exploiting something that does not belong to a nation is a moral concern he has, then how about telling the US to repair the damage they caused in the past by emitting so much mercury in the air? That would be far more productive to achieve the same goal than to attack Japan for hunting dolphins. If he wants to attack someone on a moral ground, attack his own government. There is no shortage of things that he could attack the US government for.

If he has reasonable arguments that he wants a foreign country to consider, approach with respect and understanding, instead of inciting anger. That’s emotional intelligence 101.

Another problem with O’Barry is that he throws every argument but the kitchen sink. Any argument that he finds or can think of, he throws at the issue. So, we have no idea what exactly his issue is. We cannot reason with him or satisfy him because he keeps shifting his reasons. He just want the dolphin hunt in Japan stopped. He doesn’t care what the reason is. Whatever reasons he comes up with are all disingenuous attempts at getting what he wants. Reason X doesn’t work? Well, let’s throw reason Y. That doesn’t work either? OK, let’s throw reason Z. We cannot resolve a conflict like that. It is no wonder the people of Taiji stopped talking to him. I mean, what’s the point in discussing anything with a man who cannot reason?

I also find it disturbing that he seems to be using Japan as a way to exorcise his own feelings of guilt. His attacks are motivated by irrational feelings.
davidattokyo says:
April 5th, 2010 at 4:30 am
Dyske, in your article you state, Japan has not done as bad as George Bush’s war in Iraq, therefore you condone Japans senseless slaughter of dolphins for the use as fertilizer! As you stated in your last comment, it is not that popular to eat, so it is used as fertilizer! Great argument that one! Just as the war in Iraq has earn’t America the ire/anger & disrespect of the world, so has Japans refusal to end whaling, & slaughtering dolphins, even though they are just used for fertilizer! So it is not nationalist pride, it is not food culture, it is simply fertilizer that Japan wants to make that allows it to destroy the oceans! Oceans that belong to the world, NOT just Japan.
The rest of the world has moved on past whaling, even Iceland, & Norway do not use the “scientific research” lie, they also DO NOT hunt in a designated sanctuary, nor do they hunt the numbers Japan does. They also DO NOT hunt pregnant females, lactating mothers, or calves. Something that is STRICTLY BANNED by the IWC, yet Japan chooses to ignore all these agreements & treaties, it continues to blatently lie, bribe, & deceive to do whatever it pleases. You can find no better example of this than in the recent vote in CITIES to protect the Blue Fin Tuna, even before the vote Japans politicians stated even if the vote did not go their way they would simply ignore the ban! They then went on a vote buying campaign, just as they do with the IWC to control the vote, therefore corrupting a world conservation group just for its own means.
It is for these reasons Japan is earning the anger of the world, NOT because of a documentary showing the facts of what is going on. Because of its continual disregard of the rest of the world, its continual bribing/corrupting of any organization that stands to preserve the oceans for future generations, because of its continual lying to do as it pleases, NOT because of a documentary. & if the dolphin hunters do not feel what they are doing is wrong why try so hard to hide it, using physical violence on journalists, & stating if the rest of the world finds out about this we will be forced to stop? Why is dolphin meat sold in supermarkets labeled as whale meat?
You state America is a polluter of the environment, yes it is, have you seen the documentary “An Incovient Truth”? A documentary made by Americans, about America polluting. Yet you state there is no interspect on America’s actions, you are incorrect in stating this. There is even a documentary about America’s obsession with guns, by Micheal Moore, you have failed to mention any of this, & if dolphin slaughters were carried out in America then “The Cove” would have been based there. They even spend much time in the film showing how “Sea World” buy’s & is responsible in these hunts. Sea World is an American franchise, NOT a Japanese franchise, so it does also focus on American companies, NOT just the business in Taiji.
As I have stated documentaries have been made about America’s failings, & these documentaries have bought about change. Just as “The Cove” has bought about changes, do you think the councilors in the movie where aware of the mercury content of the meat, the effects of, & how they were feeding it to school children before hand? FACT NO THEY WERE NOT, the making of this film bought this to these councilors attention, they were not informed by the dolphin hunters, nor by the government, neither local or national. So therefore the film has stopped these children being force fed tainted dolphin meat, NOT from any action within Japan. Since the film has come out the government has also started mercury testing local residents, with shocking results. Once again this would not have happened without the film.
You should also research the “Chisso corperation”, & Minamata desease a little more. Chisso were dumping massive amounts of toxic waste into the local environ, worse, or at the very least equal to any other polluter around the world. This was approved by the government of the time, it was even denied & covered up by the same government when the effects of came out, just as now rather than admitting there is a problem, the authorities are trying to hide it/cover it up with these nationalistic lies. It is not about racism, or not understanding local customs, it is about a problem that is being hidden from not only the consumers eating these contaminated products, but also from the world, because they are ashamed of what is going on. So therefore realize something is very wrong with there actions, & by writing articles such as this you are complicant with their arguments, rather than doing proper journolistic investigations of your own, & putting out the truth, just adding to the myths.
In filming they actually tried to do it openly & with the local government, they refused. Just as “Whale Wars”, shot by the Discovery channel has asked Japan to put film crews on Japanese whaling boats to give their side of the argument, yet the ICR has refused many times. Why would they refuse if they were not ashamed of what they are doing, or scared it would show just how the Japanese whalers are the aggressors in the clashes in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. While also mentioning whaling you stated Japan does not hunt endangered species, yet just recently in the US a Japanese resturaunt has been shut down after an investigation found them selling Sei Whale sashimi. Sei whales are endangered, so not only is Japan slaughtering endangered species, but also exporting it against treaties signed in CITIES agreements, an independant group set up by the UN.
It is for all these reasons Japan is loosing face & earning the ire of the world, NOT because of a documentary film as you have stated! It is YOU who is creating this us vs them argument wityh inflamatory article such as this.
You have asked for an example of how taking apex predators from an ecosystem destroys the whole system. Take a look at American national parks have reintroduced wolves, an apex predator. Prior to this the ecosystem had collapsed, deer grazed unchecked, therefore Beavers had no wood to build dams, etc, etc. Once reintroduced deer could no longer graze unhindered, therefore beavers returned, building dams, which in turn saw the return of duck, & other wild birds, fish, insects, etc, etc. That is why it is called an ecosystem, each part relies on the other. Just for the record to whales, dolphins, sharks, crocodiles, etc, etc, have inhabited the planet for much longer than homo sapiens, do some research before stating complete inaccuracies in print, & all these animals lived successfully without the influence of humans, now many are extinct, & many more on the brink of, eg Blue Fin Tuna. Also look at the fact humans are the only species to change the planet for our own advantage, no other species has destroyed the planet as we have, yet Japan wants to ignore this & continue destroying the oceans until all is gone…
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 7:16 am
@davidattokyo

Take it easy there. You are going off on an angry tirade about things I never said, and things I never denied or already agreed on. I’ll have to ask you to read what I wrote more carefully otherwise we’ll be wasting a lot of time here.

“in your article you state, Japan has not done as bad as George Bush’s war in Iraq, therefore you condone Japans senseless slaughter of dolphins for the use as fertilizer!”

Where did you get the idea that “Japan has not done as bad as George Bush’s war in Iraq”?! Give me the exact quote of what I said, because I never said such a thing. And where did I use Iraq War as a reason to “condone Japan’s senseless slaughter of dolphins”? As I explained in my last response to you, I used Iraq War to explain that the Americans are just as corrupt as the Japanese. One is not more so than the other, and it was not used as a way to “condone” the dolphin slaughter. I was using Iraq war to argue that the Americans have no MORAL basis for criticizing others of political corruption. Please keep these words in your head: “MORAL BASIS”. That is my primary point.

I also never discussed or used the term “fertilizer”. As I said before, you are not showing any sign of respect or interest in understanding the opposing views here. You just want to go off on your angry tirade, and are accusing me of things I never said.

And, you do not need to go off on the IWC nor about the depletion of ocean. I never denied these problems. My argument throughout this discussion has been that attacking Japan as a nation on a MORAL GROUND is baseless and ineffective. I repeat “MORAL”. If you attack someone on a moral ground, we have to look at the credibility of the person who is attacking.

Suppose person X is a thief. And, one day he witnessed person Y steal something. So, person X tells the court that he saw person Y steal something. That’s all fine and well; there is no problem with person X saying person Y is a thief. He is just stating the fact. But it would be an entirely different matter if person X started attacking person Y on a MORAL GROUND. Since person X is a thief himself, there is no MORAL basis for him to attack person Y. He needs to get his own act straight before he can criticize someone else of being a thief on a MORAL GROUND. That is my point, which you do not seem to get at all.

As for the Americans making self-critical films: Yes, I’m aware of all that. I never said the Americans make no self-critical films. Again, you are accusing me of something I never said. You are misinterpreting my arguments left and right. By the way, did you even read my follow-up post? (There is a link to it at the bottom of this post above.)

As I said, “we are criticizing the film here. The film should stand on its own merits. Aaron Copland being a great American composer does not make Britney Spears a great musician.” Let’s use the example of the thieves again. Suppose thief X is American and thief Y is Japanese. Thief Y says, “Look, you are in no position to attack me on a MORAL ground because you are a thief yourself!” Thief X then says, “Some of my American friends have never stolen anything in their lives!” This does not work as an argument. Remember, Japan has plenty of self-critical films too. This is not unique to America. Every nation is self-critical to a degree. So, pointing this out does not add anything to the merits of a specific film, which in our case is The Cove.

You said: “Yet you state there is no interspect on America’s actions, you are incorrect in stating this.” I never said there is no introspect in America’s actions. Instead of keep repeating your misinterpretations of what I said, why don’t you quote exactly what I said? (Just copy and paste what I wrote.) You are wasting both of our time.

You then go off on the mercury issue. Again, I never denied that problem. So, I have no idea why you need to go off on a tirade. My point on the issue of mercury is this: It’s true but did the filmmakers choose the right method to criticize it? Is attacking Japan on a MORAL ground an effective way to resolve this problem? My answer is no. And if you have not read my follow-up post, I suggest you do, because I provide more details on this topic. Because the film (and you) are attacking Japan on a MORAL ground, it has made the Japanese defensive and indignant. So, instead of appreciating the information, they are more interested in attacking back or defending their practice. In my follow-up post, I provided a counter example where a team of Japanese doctors comes to America to make a sensational and moralizing film about America’s obesity problem; and I explain how ineffective and counter-productive it would be.

I’m aware of Minamata disease. I learned about it growing up in Japan even though I wasn’t particularly a good student of history. You wrote: “by writing articles such as this you are complicant with their arguments, rather than doing proper journolistic investigations of your own, & putting out the truth, just adding to the myths.” Again, where is this accusation coming from? Just because I did not mention Minamata disease, why do you have to assume that I do not have proper knowledge of it? And, exactly how is my article adding to the myths? Which myths are you referring to? It’s true it happened, and it’s true that the government tried to cover it up. We all know about it now, so where is the myth? Anyone can read all about it on Wikipedia. Why do you feel that I want to hide it or suppress it? There is nothing to hide or suppress here.

I could have mentioned Minamata disease but it is just another argument that O’Barry throws at his own cause and it is a disingenuous one. Nobody is denying that it happened, and it is something we can and should study, research, and learn, but using it as a reason to stop the dolphin hunt is disingenuous. As Christopher Carr explained, the situation is quite different, and this argument is disingenuous and insincere. O’Barry does not care about the health of the Japanese people. That is just a pretense. Why would someone who is so ignorant of Japanese culture suddenly care about the health of its people? (Who happen to have one of the longest life expectancy in the world.) If no dolphins were being killed in Japan, he would not be going there to tell the Japanese people not to consume so much tuna because it has a high level of mercury. So, it’s just another disingenuous argument he is using, and pretends to care about. That is my point. I have no interest in covering up the fact that Minamata disease happened.

“It is for all these reasons Japan is loosing face & earning the ire of the world, NOT because of a documentary film as you have stated!”

Again, where did I say that the reason why Japan is losing face is because of the film? I never claimed that “The Cove” is the sole reason why Japan is losing face. Sure, there are many reasons, just as the US has many reasons why it’s losing its face also. I never said Japan has no faults. Stop accusing me of things I never said.

Your argument about “apex predators” does not make sense. You are just pointing out one instance where an apex predator happened to be the key factor in the imbalance. The apex predators are not in themselves any more important for the ecosystem than any other species. In other instances, it could be a particular type of insects that is causing the collapse of the ecosystem. So, if you want to claim that your arguments are based on well-researched “FACTS”, you will have to give us more “FACTS” to back up your claim: “Whales & dolphins are NOT cows or chickens, they are apex predators, therefore by destroying them, just as sharks, you destroy the WHOLE ecosystem, the same can NOT be said for cows or chickens!”

You said: “Just for the record to whales, dolphins, sharks, crocodiles, etc, etc, have inhabited the planet for much longer than homo sapiens, do some research before stating complete inaccuracies in print, & all these animals lived successfully without the influence of humans, now many are extinct, & many more on the brink of, eg Blue Fin Tuna.”

Huh? What “inaccuracies” did I state? All I did was to ask you how the ecosystem survived before some of these “apex predators” existed if they are essential to the survival of the ecosystem (which is your own argument). I do not believe that “apex predators” are any more important for the ecosystem than any other species. So, I cannot see how this argument can be used to save dolphins while killing other forms of life.

We humans are an apex predator too, and you are saying the ecosystem worked well even before we existed. So, that proves my point that apex predators are no more important to the ecosystem than any other species. If you disagree, please provide more “FACTS” or admit that your argument is not based on “FACTS”.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 5th, 2010 at 7:34 am
@Dyske
It’s fascinating. It seems that The Cove is being used by some people as a platform on which to express their anti-Japanese feelings. It’s as if the movie gave some viewers permission to rail about everything that has ever angered them about Japan.

The reactions on this blog are one thing…did you hear about Broome, Australia? People in the town were so outraged after seeing the movie, some people desecrated the graves of Japanese people. It was a sad event. Broome has even decided to rescind their sister city status with Taiji. Formerly, the town had been a shining example of inter racial and inter cultural cooperation.

But most people are not in Taiji’s sister city. They are just going off about Japan and ranting and raving for some reason that is not altogether clear to me.

It’s so misguided! The movie is about a group of 30 or so fishermen in a tiny town of a few thousand people! The town is hardly representative of Japan as a whole.

I suppose that the film itself lends itself to this kind of exaggerated reaction against Japanese people because there all the Japanese people portrayed in the film are either ignorant or doing something bad (except maybe the councilman who stops the school lunch thing).

Still – you would think that NORMAL, EDUCATED people would realize that this movie is not about ALL Japanese people – just a tiny minority.

And you would think that even the most passionate dolphin lovers could see that this movie is about DOLPHINS…not whales, tuna, World War II, China, etc etc etc.

Why are people so angry with Japan as a whole?
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Hi Chisa,

In my view, the reason why people are attacking Japan through this film is because it’s an easy way for them to feel superior and better about themselves. These days, we all feel guilty of a lot of things, and this is particularly true for all the developed nations. And the easiest way to feel a relief from these painful feelings of guilt is to point our fingers at others. And, Hollywood is exploiting this need. This is why all the criticisms that Hollywood makes are morally charged. They are rarely ever objective or fair-minded. They are designed to give instant gratifications to the audience. The fact that China is threatening the West economically, and the fact that the whole world is in an economic recession add to this problem. The general sense of frustration and anger is quite high these days. So, it’s not just at Japan that people are angry. Everyone is busy being angry at everyone else even though it would make so much more sense to use the same energy of anger and direct it towards themselves.

It’s an unfortunate situation, and I really hope that this type of anger and hatred would not get worse from here on. Otherwise, it could escalate to a full-blown war. Wars do not break out all the sudden; they build up momentum over time.
Dice says:
April 5th, 2010 at 8:57 am
It’s unfortunate that some folks are having problems understanding your criticisms in both of your posts about the Cove.

What’s being missed is that the criticism of the Cove really isn’t about Japan vs. the West or even about dolphins, it’s that the filmmakers did not bother to put in the research so that the film could support their views without pandering to the basest of human feelings such as hate.

It’s unfortunate because as Chisa points out, the contamination of our food chain is a real issue that affects us all, a film like the Cove just distracts from this reality. I wasn’t around to experience the Minamata news coverage in real time, but I definitely learned about it growing up in Japan, it is covered in the news and textbooks.

It’s unfortunate because if O’barry bothered to try and communicate with the people of Taiji there could have been more creative dialogue. They probably would have agreed to disagree, but O’barry probably could have created a more convincing and balanced case against dolphin hunting.

I honestly believe that the argument being used that dolphin hunting is ok because other countries eat slaughtered animals is bunk. Defenders of the tradition surely should be able to defend their trade without using the “two wrongs make a right” argument.

As you pointed out there is nothing to be proud about with regards to the politics of vote buying that the Japanese delegation engaged in, It might be par for the course, but then as a country we have decided to denounce war and isn’t war considered fair game?

It’s quite possible to denounce something that is considered tradition, but then who’s the arbiter of what’s right and wrong? There’s a lot more grey area than we all sometimes can see. While stating something is a tradition isn’t much of a defense for any practice, addressing that claim by stating the claim is an outright lie as done in the Cove isn’t that helpful either.

“Flipper died of depression” or dolphins are intelligent are effective arguments for some people but obviously not for the hunters who hunt the dolphins because of what they are.

@davidattokyo
While you certainly could be more persuasive if you actually bothered to read and understand the posts and comments surrounding the Cove on this blog, the topics that you bring up are the ones that really should form the discussion about the resources of our planet. Believe it or not, the Japanese until recent times had a tradition of sustainable hunting, farming and forestry. You bring up “An Inconvenient Truth,” an interesting documentary for sure. But, one of the differences between Al Gore and the filmmakers of the Cove is that you did not get the sense that Al Gore was pulling “facts” out of his ass. Why? Probably because he did his research and worked on his presentation for maximum effectiveness. In fact he probably tailors his presentation for each audience.

And that’s the thing, if the filmmakers of the Cove were aiming to rally those too lazy to do their own research and thinking or prone to take up easy activism and causes, then they made a wonderful film. For people that really care to know about causes they rally around or have the mind to think, the movie is has the quality of a well produced supermarket tabloid.
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 9:41 am
@Dice,

The issue about mercury is certainly unfortunate because the filmmakers are just exploiting it. If we were to take O’Barry’s arguments at face value, we would think that his primary motive for attacking the people of Taiji is his concern for the health of the Japanese people, but one would have to be quite stupid to believe that he really cares about the health of the Japanese people, especially when his own people in the US are dying at much younger ages from the obesity epidemic, and spreading the same junk food all over the world.

When the supporters of the film throw everything and anything as their arguments, we cannot address them constructively or productively. Even if we were to listen to them sincerely and succeeded in making the Japanese consumption of mercury lower than it is in the US, they are not going to stop attacking Japan for dolphin hunt. So, why use that argument at all? And, why should the Japanese listen to them sincerely if the attackers are not being sincere and honest about what’s really motivating their attacks?

Obviously they are not really interested in resolving this conflict. They just want to force their values on Japan, and they don’t care whether it’s reasonable, justifiable, or fair. If they were truly interested in resolving it, then they would not use such disingenuous and dishonest arguments.
Dice says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:21 am
@Dyske
People seem to be missing what I believe is your argument that if dolphin hunting is an issue, then the Cove isn’t the movie that’s going to be able to create the change that is needed. The Cove is an exploitation film, exploiting the dolphins for a cheap thrill.

People who will bother caring about the issues don’t need get caught up in whatever fiction and half truths that the Cove is spinning together for a good yarn. Dolphins just might need an advocate and O’barry and the rest of the Cove crew are probably not the best help they could have gotten.
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:29 am
@Dice,

Yes, correct. In fact my argument is that O’Barry and the filmmakers are just making things worse for the dolphins. Their attacks are moral when there is no moral basis for them. They are just interested in promoting their own film careers, feeling good about themselves, and/or easing their own feelings of guilt. If it were truly about the dolphins, they would not have used the strategy they did. They are just self-serving.
davidattokyo says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:34 am
“I do not see Japan as any more corrupt than any other countries. And, it’s terrible that they were feeding dolphin meat contaminated with mercury to children, but that is not anything that any Americans should complain about.”
Right there is where you condone feeding children mercury laced meat, & it is no worse than America’s war…
“This is not about negotiation.”
For years the IWC, & governments all over the world has tried to negotiate with the Japanese to end whaling, the Japanese have shown their unwillingness to negotiate, & have shown repeatedly, just as with Blue Fin Tuna most recently they are not willing to listen/negociate, they will bribe rather than make concessions. To make their point they have put Humpback whales on their whaling carne despite them being on an the endangered list, or the fact thousands travel to Aust to watch them, & create jobs/money/trade,(many from Japan) to do so.
“Japanese considered the Westerners to be savages”, this I know to be true living in Japan, I am continually called a “gaigin”, as you know which translates to “barbarian”, yet I am a vegan,I eat no meat, nor animal products, yet being a caucaisian I am nothing more than a “gaigin”, is this not the very same racism you are talking about? Do you not think Japan as well as accepting trade/money from OS should also become part of the wider world, ergo foreigners not “gaigin”, just as Japanese migrate to other countries?
“These filmmakers went to Japan and acted like cowboys (“Oceans Eleven” they called themselves), blinded by their own self-righteousness, wielding their cameras like they are guns, and showing no real desire to understand the Japanese culture.”
At the very begining of the film they explain how before shooting they went to Japan, approach officials & tried to do the film alongside the Japanese, NOT going in like “cowboys” or “oceans eleven”, once again get a grip on facts, NOT publishing inflaming comments.
“Indeed I often wonder if the filmmakers of this type of moralized documentary films are actually interested in resolving the conflicts they choose as their topic”
So what is the rest of the world supposed to do? Stand by, ignore what is happening? Or maybe just as the Japanese whalers using violent ramming actions in the Antarctic, documented as far back as 1999, long before SSCS entered Antarctic waters! So we are supposed to turn a blind eye, ignore what is happening, & if someone does not then they are eco-terrorists?
“Their point is that any tradition, regardless of whose it is, deserves a certain degree of respect.”
Once again does that mean the Americans should be able to enslave negros because of tradition? Maybe it is OK in Sth Africa because of tradition, maybe feeding christians to the lions should be reinstated because that was a tradition?
“The whales and dolphins that the Japanese are slaughtering are not the species in danger of extinction.”
Once again I produce the “Hump” restraunt in America, serving Sei Whale, an endangered species, yet Japan is quite happy to not only slaughter it, but also export it despite worldwide trade bans? & once again mentioning the 50 Humpbacks on the carnet of kills in the last few years in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary?
“Some may simply consume it as an exciting piece of entertainment, while others may use it to project their own guilt onto others in order to feel better about themselves (like a form of exorcism.)”
No other country needs an “exorcism”, you are just trying to project Japans own faults on others, to relieve your own guilt, not others! GROW UP…
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:34 am
@Dice and Dyske
You should let the film makers know this. Even if they did also have other motives – I think they earnestly want to help dolphins – so this is important for them to know!
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:43 am
@davidattokyo

If you are truly interested in learning and understanding each other to resolve this issue (not just attacking your opponent to make yourself feel better), do me a favor and demonstrate that you are capable of admitting your own mistakes if they’re indeed incorrect: Please provide more “FACTS” about the apex predator or admit that you are wrong.

If you are not capable of admitting where you are wrong, there is no point in continuing this discussion; we would be spending hours and days arguing and we would never reach any resolution.
Dyske says:
April 5th, 2010 at 10:50 am
@Chisa,

I’ve already let them know about the discussion here, and I even asked them to post links on their website to your article, mine, and Dice’s, so that their audience would have a more balanced view of the issue. They have not responded. So, I can’t keep harassing them.

Best,
D
Dyske says:
April 6th, 2010 at 9:51 am
http://www.oceanleadership.org/2009/a-total-ban-on-whaling/

Reading this article, I would conclude that stopping whaling is probably a good thing; even just to be safe, especially because most Japanese people don’t really care for whale meat. I don’t think it would be such a loss. This theory is not scientifically conclusive, but I think it’s good enough.

The only problem is that because of the way anti-whalers morally attacked Japan, the whole battle is in a stalemate. It’s not about the ecosystem. Ecology is only being used as a disguise to assert attackers’ moral superiority. I truly believe that Japan is just fighting ethnocentrism, not out of economic interest. It’s really a sad situation and both sides need to accept their own faults instead of continually pointing fingers at one another.

Shame on “The Cove” for fueling that vicious circle.
Dyske says:
April 6th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Hmmm…

The more I read about it, the more I get confused. I’m still wavering on this issue.

This “apex predator” argument is being used inconsistently. Killing off apex predators like wolves causes a surge in “mesopredator” (the second in chain). This is intuitive and makes sense, and I think it is rigorously proven. So, the message here is: Don’t kill these apex predators.

But then when it comes to whales and dolphins, we are told that killing them off would result in further depletion in the ocean. That is, the population of mesopredators do not surge in this case. So, the message here is also: Don’t kill these apex predators.

This begins to sound a bit too convenient for the animal rights activists. Which is it?

In either cases, I think the best possible way to preserve our ecosystem is to control our own population. It’s actually not the amount fish that each Japanese person eats that is a problem. It’s the population. If the population of Japan was much smaller, they could eat as much fish as they want, and it wouldn’t cause any problem to the ecosystem. So, the ultimate evil to our ecosystem is our population. In this regard, Japan is doing an excellent job with the fertility rate of 1.27, and Americans doing a bad job of 2.05.

We humans are the ultimate apex predators, and we have the intelligence to control our own population. So, any country with the fertility rate of above 2 should not be pointing fingers at another country that is far lower in fertility rate.
Jin Yong says:
April 6th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Interesting to find this website and all the articles you wrote. I just wanted to check out all the faces at first, O(∩_∩)O. You seem to be a nice person and your articles are reasonable. You said that you don’t think of yourself as Japanese nor American, yet i think i can still touch your nationalist feelings.Strangely,I appreciate that.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Dyske, I have already supplied you with an example of the damage removing apex predators has, you for you own convenience & arguments have refused to acknowledge it, much like your original article. Maybe we should look at something closer to home, Japanese trawlers have recently been sunk by catching giant jellyfish in their nets. These jellyfish have not occured in such numbers or size previously, but due to Japans “sustainable” fishing practises these jellyfish now have no natural predators to keep them in check, so therefore can reproduce, & grow as never before. More proof of Japans “sustainable” fishing practises is the fact now Japanese trawlers are now deliberately turning off there positioning devices, & fishing in foreign waters, then being fired upon, eg 2 trawler shot by Russian helicopter after encroaching on Russian national waters. If Japans fishing was conducted in a sustainable manner why would Japanese fishermen need to venture beyond Japanese waters?
You speak of Ric O’Barry saying he has not done any research, yet he has been involved with dolphins for over 40 years, he has multiple University degrees in the field, what do you have? Louis Physho also has University degrees, & has run OPS for over 20 years. Do you not acknowledged that both of these men are both more educated in the field than you? Once again what are your degrees in the subject, how many years have you spent on study in the field? Ric has been presented the keys to the city from Taiji mayor years ago, yet you state he has no understanding of the locals! Surely someone presented with such an award has spent some time with the locals, & has some understanding of them. You state he has approached the problem incorrectly, yet he has offered previously to pay the fishermen of the village more than what they would earn from hunting dolphins to just stay at home & not slaughter dolphins, yet they refused! Is this because he has no compassion or understanding for the locals as you state? Or are you just once again using emotion by twisting words to make it seem anyone who is opposed to the slaughter of dolphins is ignorant & racist? Once again inflaming emotion & racism by your own article? Once again I ask you to look at the approach of the local fishermen using violence against reporters & journolists, yet none has assulted them, so who exactly is acting emotionally & irrationally? emember it is not the journolists assulting the fishermen?
You have stated why did not Ric, & Loius do a film on American obessity, why would people with so much experience in one field do a documenty film on something totally unrelated? Once again it shows how you are grasping at straws, trying to make an emotional argument out of FACTS, FACTS you still have refused to acknowledge, so all you can do for your argument it to getemotional, & raise nationalistic issues to make it an us vs them argument, so it is you inciting hate & emotion in the debate, & making the situation worse than it already is…
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:30 am
@davidattokyo
the kind of fishing you describe takes ‘by-catch’ indiscriminately…it does not take only apex predators
humans are the very top apex predator of all…i think if we went away, the balance of Nature will be fine
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Chisa, no other species has made another species extinct, as humans have. You do understand what “extinct” means don’t you? It mean a species has been wiped out, never to return, & many of these species were on earth long before us. So I ask you do you think humans have the right to destroy other species & the natural ecosystems on the planet? & If we do how will the world balance? Do you not understand without ecosystems humans will NOT survive???
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Oh & Dyske you quote;”It’s the population. If the population of Japan was much smaller, they could eat as much fish as they want, and it wouldn’t cause any problem to the ecosystem. So, the ultimate evil to our ecosystem is our population. In this regard, Japan is doing an excellent job with the fertility rate of 1.27, and Americans doing a bad job of 2.05.”
Except Japan consumes 80% of all Tuna caught in the world! How does one small country, without 80% of the world population consume so much, yet say it is the rest of the worlds problem, not theirs? Once again please do some research, which you obviously seem to be lacking…
Chisa says:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:42 am
@davidattokyo
where did i say that humans have the right to destroy ecosystems? nowhere. please refrain from putting words in my mouth.
i am saying that if humans are THE apex predator, and that if WE went away, other species would likely be fine. do you think that is incorrect?
how about trying to find common ground, instead of propagating antagonistic arguments?
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Chisa, yes they would do fine, they have been around longer than humans, & as I have stated none have made another species extinct! Only humans, meteors, & massive volcanic action has done the destruction to the planet humans have managed to do in such a short period of time…
Whales were once in the millions, now in the 10’s of thousands, just like elephants & many other species. Yet to hunt them you would have to be a poacher, not the Japanese, apparently they can hunt what ever they want, where ever they wish, despite the rest of the world agreeing to bans on, & accepting sanctuaries. The rest of the world understands CITIES & the work it does, yet Japan feels it is just another organisation to bribe & corrupt, yet when it raises world ire doing so it the fault of a documentary film, NOT the choices they are making, or the disrespect they are showing the rest of the worlds future generations! As has Dyske has stated in his article, the US has had a war in Iraq, so it is fine for Japan to destroy the oceans ecosystems, & just lie & bribe to do so, because they are not bombing another country. What about the destruction of the planet for future generations? Japan labels SSCS as a “terrorist organisation”, yet it is happy to wipe species off the planet…
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Hi David,

From my perspective, it seems like you just don’t like the fact that I’m disagreeing with you. In other words, you seem to assume that anyone who disagrees with you is already wrong; it doesn’t matter what his argument is. He is just ignoring “FACTS” and “inflaming”. I am trying to make sense out of what you are saying, and responding to you logically. So, for now, let’s put aside judgment, so we can have a constructive discussion.

I have already supplied you with an example of the damage removing apex predators has, you for you own convenience & arguments have refused to acknowledge it, much like your original article.

I am not “refusing” at all. Did you see my two comments above? While you were away, I was researching on my own about this “apex predator” argument. I’m certainly open to it. (So, please stop labeling me as someone who is “refusing” anything out of “convenience”). As I explained in my comments above, I do not see the LOGIC of this argument. You seem to focus on “FACTS” only, and the inconsistency of logic does not seem to bother you. From my own research, there does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that apex predators are more important than others to the ecosystem. You drew your own conclusion about it from some examples but I do not see enough evidence to come to that logical conclusion. That is where I find the flaw in your arguments. Those particular examples as “FACTS” are fine. I am not refusing to acknowledge them, and I never did. But, your conclusions from those facts are questionable. To draw conclusions, “FACTS” are not enough. You have to be consistent in your LOGIC.

If killing apex predators end up increasing the population of the ones below them, then what is wrong with the Japanese fishermen’s argument that hunting for dolphins would increase in the population of fish? As far as I can see, there is nothing wrong with that argument. From what I can see, this “apex predator” argument is used inconsistently by animal rights activists. In some cases, the killing of apex predators further depletes the ones below (in case of dolphins), and in other cases it increases the population of the ones below. So the logic flips to whichever way it works for them. 1) Don’t kill X because the population of Y would explode. 2) Don’t kill X because the population of Y would dwindle. Which is it?

The only thing that I can agree here is that human interference will disturb the ecosystem no matter what we do. But, if this is your argument, then we humans cannot do anything. We would have to live like the tourists on Galapagos Island where they are not allowed to touch or do anything. We cannot survive that way. We are part of the ecosystem too.

Going back to your previous post:

Right there is where you condone feeding children mercury laced meat, & it is no worse than America’s war…

You cannot be serious here. In your mind, me saying “it’s terrible” means I “condone”? Are you sure you are not confusing the word “terrible” with “terrific”, or “condone” with “condemn”? (I’m not trying to be facetious; I’m asking in case your English is not your first language.) If you are serious about it, you have to explain your logic to me. I don’t think anyone could follow your logic.

Regarding the word “negotiation”. I believe you misunderstood what I said. Here is the context from which you quoted:

The irony of all this is that what the filmmakers are doing is ultimately prolonging this problem. They are trying to force Japan to shut it down. This is not about negotiation. They want to shut it down with the brute force of PR which relies heavily on the audience’s cultural ignorance and appeals only to knee-jerk reactions.

I am saying that it is the filmmakers who have no interest in negotiating. Let’s define what negotiation is. Negotiation is not about winning or losing. It’s about being reasonable, respectful, and understanding of one another to come to an agreement that both sides can accept. It is this attitude that the filmmakers are lacking because they show no desire to understand the Japanese culture. In most cases, these activists are actually not interested in negotiating. They just want it stopped. They don’t care what the reason is. This is why they indiscriminately throw every argument they can find.

It’s not like Japan completely ignored all opposing arguments. As the anti-whaling sentiments increased, Japan (and other whaling nations) did curb and control the amount of whaling. Because of it, some species of whales are no longer in danger of extinction and it has been scientifically shown that it’s now sustainable to catch a certain number of whales per year. But this is where the dishonesty of the anti-whalers comes in. Even though they used sustainability as an argument to stop whaling, they were not satisfied even after we reached the point of sustainability. This is not fair. If sustainability was not the issue in the first place, they should not have used it. The whaling nations negotiated and listened to their concerns and resolved the problem, but the anti-whaling nations now changed their reason for their stance. This is not a fair way to “negotiate” anything. The anti-whaling nations are not negotiating; they are forcing.

this I know to be true living in Japan, I am continually called a “gaigin”, as you know which translates to “barbarian”, yet I am a vegan, I eat no meat, nor animal products, yet being a caucaisian I am nothing more than a “gaigin”, is this not the very same racism you are talking about?

If you do a Google search on “racism in Japan”, the second article that comes up after the Wikipedia article is the article I wrote about that subject. So, yes, I am well-aware of racism in Japan.

How long have you lived in Japan? Gaijin means “foreigner”. “Gai” means “outside” or “foreign” and “jin” means a person. “barbarian” in Japanese is “yabanjin”, not “gaijin”. If you thought “gaijin” meant “barbarian”, then I wouldn’t blame you for feeling angry, but you probably should study a bit more before you rush so quickly to feeling offended. There is a controversy over whether “gaijin” is politically correct or not; so it is not entirely inoffensive but you cannot confuse “gaijin” with “yabanjin”.

At the very begining of the film they explain how before shooting they went to Japan, approach officials & tried to do the film alongside the Japanese, NOT going in like “cowboys” or “oceans eleven”, once again get a grip on facts, NOT publishing inflaming comments.

It’s besides the point that they tried it in a different way. The cowboy attitude is NEVER effective in a “negotiation”. By taking on a cowboy attitude (calling themselves “Oceans Eleven”), they have undermined their own cause. It’s like me punching you in the face just because you keep arguing; it’s never effective in “negotiating” anything.

So what is the rest of the world supposed to do? Stand by, ignore what is happening?

Here is what I would suggest: If you are a kind of person who is open-minded, understanding, respectful, and patient, then you would be a good candidate to address issues that involve other countries or cultures. If you are a kind of person who quickly and easily gives into anger, then you would do yourself and your own cause a big favor by redirecting the same angry energy to the problems that your own country or culture is causing. For instance, if you are an Australian, go after the people who slaughters kangaroos. If you are an American, fight the fast food industry that is causing the obesity epidemic, or fight for more public transportation and less dependency on cars. There are countless causes that you can pour your anger towards. You would be far more likely to succeed because it’s your own culture and country. Michael Moore has done a good job of that in many of his films, although I personally do not like his films (because he too sensationalizes and moralizes his issues).

Once again does that mean the Americans should be able to enslave negros because of tradition? Maybe it is OK in Sth Africa because of tradition, maybe feeding christians to the lions should be reinstated because that was a tradition?

Are you really interested in understanding anything I said? This is really disrespectful. You insist on misunderstanding the same thing I repeatedly explained. I will repeat it one more time: “I clearly and specifically said: ‘I agree that something being a ‘tradition’ cannot be used as a justification to do anything you want.’” Why do you insist on misunderstanding me? Again, I repeat:

As I explained, “the point of bringing up ‘tradition’ is to ask people to learn more about it, and not to rush to judgment based on the facade, because it has a long history and is not a simple matter to explain.” In other words, all that I’m asking is not to rush to judgment and learn more about it with an open mind.

That is, there might be a good reason or there might not be; we wouldn’t know until we try to understand each other better. That is all I’m saying. Is it any wonder that many Japanese people stopped listening to people like you? Who wants to keep repeating the same thing over and over, only to be accused of the same thing again and again?

Once again I produce the ‘Hump’ restraunt in America, serving Sei Whale, an endangered species, yet Japan is quite happy to not only slaughter it, but also export it despite worldwide trade bans?

I was not aware of this. So, thank you for bringing it up. It’s an interesting story. I looked further into this but I could not confirm that the meat was indeed imported from Japan. According to Wikipedia, Iceland does hunt for endangered whales, so it’s possible that it came from there too. But, I’m NOT saying that it wasn’t imported from Japan. I’m just saying that it’s not clear. I did not find any information about the source of the meat. Do you have any information on that?

Also, the company who owns this restaurant does not appear to be Japanese. Just because it’s a Japanese restaurant, it does not mean that Japan as a nation should take the blame. There are plenty of Americans operating Japanese restaurants in the US. Surely, you would not hold the government of Italy responsible for what goes on in Italian restaurants in the US. Unless you can provide the evidence that Japan as a nation was indeed involved in this, it is premature to blame the country.

But again, I’d like to remind you that my argument has nothing to do with whether Japan hunts for endangered whales or not. (If it does, I would be against it, and Japan should indeed take responsibility for that.) My criticism of the film is that their argument against whale hunting is also disingenuous and dishonest. Suppose Japan sincerely listened to the filmmakers and stopped whaling entirely but kept hunting for dolphins; would that satisfy O’Barry and the filmmakers? The answer is clearly no. O’Barry’s issue is dolphins, not whales. He is just throwing it in there disingenuously. If the filmmakers truly wanted Japan to listen to them, they should not be throwing everything and anything for the hell of it. This is a big reason why the film becomes an attack on Japan as a nation. Their arguments have no focus. If the filmmakers want this resolved, they can’t just throw everything they can find to attack Japan. They need to explain what their core issue is and how to resolve it.

Suppose I was on a beach and saw someone dump a plastic bag. Suppose I felt I should tell him to pick it up and put it in a trash can instead. But, suppose I wasn’t stopping there, and I started following him around and criticizing him for every little thing that I think he did wrong. I just would not leave him alone. What do you think that person would say? I think the most obvious response would be: “Hey, what is your issue?” That is, he would want to know why I need to pick on him for everything because it’s not clear what is motivating me to continue criticizing him. He has no choice but to assume that I must have something personal against him. This is the problem of throwing every argument but the kitchen sink. It’s insincere and dishonest, and it does not resolve anything.

Japan has listened to the anti-whaling countries about their concern over sustainability, yet they keep attacking Japan. So, the obvious question from the Japanese perspective is: “What is your issue?”

I would ask the same to you as well. You too seems to be throwing every possible argument that you can find, but my sense is that your core “issue” is really that you think killing any animals is morally wrong. It’s not about ecosystem or environment. For instance, if we had a rampant growth of the deer population, and if (hypothetically) all the ecologists in the world agreed that we need to kill some deers to protect the environment, would you kill deers? Or, do you think killing ANY animal for any reason is just wrong?

If your answer is, “Yes, I would kill deers in that case”, then I can see that ultimately your concern is our ecosystem. If your answer is, “No, I would not kill any animals for any reason”, then your concern is moral. If the latter is the case, you should not use ecology as part of your argument, because it’s just misleading and disingenuous. Your opponent would not know how to address your “issue”, because you are not being honest about your real “issue”.

No other country needs an “exorcism”, you are just trying to project Japans own faults on others, to relieve your own guilt, not others! GROW UP…

Are you saying that your own native country is free of any kind of guilt? I assume that’s impossible, because you would have to be truly immature and naive to believe such a thing. If your country is not free of guilt, then your people too would have a good reason to enjoy pointing fingers at others to relieve their pain of guilt. Japan certainly has it too. Again, I’m not saying Japan is any better.

You also keep accusing me of “inflaming”. If you feel that inflaming is wrong, then why are you defending “The Cove”? Surely, you are not so dishonest as to suggest that the film was not inflaming, are you? Also, if my comments are “inflaming”, what do you call yours? Have you asked that question to yourself?

I do not doubt that O’Barry and Psihoyos know more about marine ecology and dolphins than I do. But, despite their knowledge, their arguments presented within the film was poor, flawed, or disingenuous. I would have LOVED the film, if ALL it did was to share their knowledge of the marine ecology and left the judgment up to us. Instead, the film offered very little in terms of real objective knowledge, facts, and logic; all of which I have argued and explained why they are not valid or flawed in my posts here. And, I have given them the opportunity to respond, and their response was still flawed. So, I explained that too. Having authority does not make your argument any more correct. Logical arguments must stand on their own merits. If they are flawed, it doesn’t matter whether they came from Einstein. So, if they think my arguments are flawed, I’m more than happy to respond, and I’ve given them the opportunity to do so. So far, I haven’t heard anything back.

Instead of sharing their knowledge of ecology, they were busy making the film entertaining, sensational, moralizing, and inflaming. It shows no willingness to “negotiate”; they just want to force their way.

You have stated why did not Ric, & Loius do a film on American obessity, why would people with so much experience in one field do a documenty film on something totally unrelated?

In marketing the film in Japan, O’Barry and Psihoyos are disingenuously claiming that The Cove is about the health of the Japanese people, particularly about mercury. This is dishonest. As you are saying yourself above, their experience is in dolphins and marine ecology. The health effect of mercury is not where their expertise is. So, if what they are saying is true (that they care about the health of the Japanese people), 1. they are making a documentary film about “unrelated” field. 2. If the health is their primary interest, then they should make a film about American obesity. But you and I both know that they are being dishonest when they say that their film is about the health of the Japanese people, because that is not their area of expertise. So, they are being dishonest.

So, I’m not “grasping at straws” or “trying to make an emotional argument”; I’m just trying to be logically consistent, which seems to be your weakness. You are mangling my logic everywhere and accusing me of things I never said or claimed.

You keep emphasizing “FACTS”, but again, you cannot draw conclusions from “FACTS” if you don’t know how to think logically. You are drawing all sorts of conclusions and making judgments based on “FACTS” but they are all absurd because you don’t follow LOGIC.

no other species has made another species extinct, as humans have

The worst destroyer of the ecosystem is Nature itself. Through things like volcanic eruptions, asteroids, and earthquakes many species have been driven to extinction. In fact, extinction is part of the mechanism of evolution. Those who fail to adapt to new environments go extinct even without humans. We had nothing to do with the extinction of dinosaurs for instance.

You have to remember that WE too are part of the ecology, and WE are indeed the ultimate “apex predators”. And, if you were to think consistently and logically, your argument about apex predators being more important than the lower ranks is flawed, because you yourself is pointing out the fact that the ecosystem worked fine even without us. So, obviously the ecosystem can work without apex predators (at least without humans).

This is another fundamental difference between East and West. Your line of thinking that humans and nature are two separate entities is very Western. You take humans out of the ecosystem as if human beings are just an outside observer and a user (or abuser) of the ecosystem. In the East, humans are just part of nature, not above it or beyond it.

This is where O’Barry and Psihoyos’ research is severely lacking. Even though this type of issue should be “negotiated”, all they did was to research things that they are personally interested in (like dolphins and marine ecology), and their research on the Japanese culture and history are very poor. Yet, they feel entitled to attack them on a moral ground. Whatever little knowledge of the Japanese culture they show on the film are quite ridiculous, and proves their ignorance.
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
One more thing:

About the filmmakers trying to pay the fishermen to stay home. This does not show any kind of understanding or respect. As I said, the Japanese are now fighting ethnocentrism. You cannot pay people off to ignore their own principles.

In terms of the “right”; Do lions have the “right” to kill zebras? Do any species have the “right” to kill any other species? Did the earth have the “right” to wipe out dinosaurs? The concept of “right” is rather absurd when speaking about nature, because it’s a human construct. We become anthropocentric (self-centered) when we project our own values on nature.
Chisa says:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
@davidattokyo
That human destructiveness is greater than any other species is a given, hardly worthy of argument.
The important question is whether – with our great self awareness, compassion and technical abilities – humans are capable of having a potent impact on the environment that is positive and healthful for all species.
The challenge for us is to answer, ‘How can we do things that are good?’
It is not the same thing as stopping things that are bad.
Let’s stop pointing out what is wrong with each other – so we can move forward with finding the common ground to do right.
Tell us – what is your vision for the RIGHT and positive thing to do?
What kind of solution can you think of that will honor all parties – dolphins, dolphin lovers and fishermen?
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
@davidattokyo

I just thought of a good analogy for you.

Suppose you are a Christian and belong to a local church. One day, the head of your church retired and left the church. Afterwords, the whole organization of the church collapsed and everyone left and joined other churches. From this “fact”, you concluded that the head of a church is more important than the people below him, and that the loss at the top means the collapse of the whole organization.

There is nothing wrong with noticing the “fact” that it collapsed, but the problem here is the conclusion. To draw a conclusion from facts, you need to be logically consistent and rigorous. Just because this happened at one church, does not mean that it happens at every church. Some churches have no hierarchy and do fine. So, it’s clearly case-by-case. In other words, there is no causality that you can prove.

So, getting back to the “apex predator” theory; your facts are fine. Nothing wrong with them, and I did not refuse to accept them or deny them. I’m just objecting to your conclusion. Providing examples of cases where the loss of apex predators resulted in the ecological imbalance does not prove that they are more important to the ecosystem. Your conclusion is premature. It does not mean that your conclusion is wrong, but you cannot jump to that conclusion and state it as a “FACT”.

The same applies to Hump restaurant. You jumped to accuse Japan as a nation for it, even though you did not provide any evidence that Japan had anything to do with it. Again, I’m not saying they are innocent or guilty. We just don’t have enough “facts” to accuse the nation of Japan for that incident.

Many of your arguments are premature in this manner. So, I’m not “refusing” to accept them; you just rush prematurely and assume that they are “FACTS” even though you provide no evidence for them.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Dyske, I am soooo sorry, “The Hump” restaraunt MUST have recieved their endangered Sei Whale meat elsewhere, because there are sooooo many countries hunting whales, & selling it on the international market! Once again WAKE UP…
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Please try backing up your arguments with scientific facts, NOT emotional arguments, that are just based on your own thoughts/feelings. That is the problem with your article, YOU have NOT researched the facts, nor do you have any to back them, that is why you are relying on the emotional arguments, & your own personal thoughts rather than scientific facts…
Unlike Ric O’Barry who has spent over 40yrs in the field…
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
@davidattokyo

But follow your logic. Japan does not officially hunt endangered whales. So, if they are indeed hunting endangered whales, wouldn’t you think that they would consume it in Japan? Why would they risk getting caught in the international market by exporting it?

On the other hand, the fact that Iceland is hunting endangered whales is an open fact as you can see on Wikipedia. So, they must have some sort of exemption status or something, so they are able to export it to the international market.

Again, I’m not saying this is what happened, but to consider the possibility that it came from Iceland is not unreasonable at all. Why are you so convinced that it came from Japan? What is your argument for that?
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
By the way I am Hindu, not christian, so please stop making assumptions on my beliefs…
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
@davidattokyo

Give me an example of “emotional arguments”. I would be happy to discuss them. I don’t know what arguments you are referring to.
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
@davidattokyo

You are not being reasonable. I did not make any “assumptions”. I said “Suppose you are…”. It’s just a hypothetical example. I did not assume that you are one.
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
@davidattokyo

Also, it is you who lack the scientific rigor. What you state as a “fact” like the argument about “apex predators” is just a hypothesis. A hypothesis does not become a scientific theory or fact until it has been tested. But you somehow decided that it’s a fact.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Dyske, it is a Japanese restaraunt, employing Japanese staff, owned by Japanese. Yet you say they have no connection to Japan, once again do some research, not publish your own assumptions. Secondly Japan is the only country hunting in the Antarctic, in a designated whale sanctuary, also just happens to be where Sei whales are found, also coincidentily other groups using DNA testing have found this & other endangered species for sale in Japan! Coincidence? I think not, Japan does as it wants, ignoring all international treaties, & if you want more proof of that just simply look at the politicians comments regarding Blue Fin Tuna prior the latest CITIES vote;”even if these bans come into place we will ignore them…”
Dice says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
While it’s hard to accept sometimes, I think that it helps to just walk away sometimes when it’s obvious that a discussion is not taking place.

davidattokyo is either very angry and hateful so he needs to lash out or he’s a troll. While I truly would appreciate a dialogue about The Cove, I don’t think that one really exists with this gentleman.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Dyske once again I ask you what University degrees do you have? How many years have you spent studying animals/ecosystems to write such learned papers. Do you have more than 40yrs experience with cetaceans? Or once again are you just making sensational assumptions for the simple purpose of promoting your articles to secure yourself a job?
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
@davidattokyo

I have not denied or refused to accept the scientific facts that O’Barry and the film presented. I even accepted many of the political facts too. The issues that I’m arguing against are not those facts, but how they use them as their justification to attack Japan. Since I agree with the ecological issues, what is the point in proving my background?

My own background is in Fine Arts. I’m trained to criticize art. Again, I’m not debating the scientific facts that the film brings up. I’m questioning the justification for their moral attack. So, you are bringing up an irrelevant point here. Again, I repeat. Their scientific facts are fine. I’m not debating that. What I question is their use of scientific facts to attack Japan. They are disingenuous.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Dyske,”Also, it is you who lack the scientific rigor. What you state as a “fact” like the argument about “apex predators” is just a hypothesis. A hypothesis does not become a scientific theory or fact until it has been tested. But you somehow decided that it’s a fact.”
I have now provided you with 2 examples, one in USA, a university agreed fact, papers done on. & another from Japan that has surfaced within the last 12mths. Once again if you seek scientific proof, just look at some of the recently made extinct species. A scientific fact, once a species is extinct, that is it, no bringing them back, no matter what scientific research into the destruction of said species…
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Hi Dice,

Well, I do feel like walking away because “this gentleman” is nearly impossible to argue in any reasonable or logical manner. Everything he accuses me of, he himself is guilty of.

The reason why it’s hard to walk away is that this is exactly what the people of Taiji had to deal with, and if you do walk away, you will be accused of being unwilling to “negotiate”. These angry people do not care if they are making any sense or not. They are just angry and want to stop it at any cost. They’ll throw any arguments to do it. Walking away is exactly what most Japanese people did because there is no room to have any constructive discussion. It’s sad to think that we all have to resort to that.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Dyske,”I’m trained to criticize art”
So you have no scientific backing, you just make your life out of critising someone elses? Without scientific backing you use your fine arts degree to critisise people who have worked in a field for over 40 yrs on a subject you have no understanding of? Did you ever thin k it is a “documentary”, NOT “art”. So therefore has absolutely noting to do with your field? Your field is “art”, NOT facts bought up in a film! The only art going on here is your BS…
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Dyske,”The reason why it’s hard to walk away is that this is exactly what the people of Taiji had to deal with, and if you do walk away, you will be accused of being unwilling to “negotiate”.”
Is that how you describe the violent behavior or the Taiji fishermen to any journolist who has shown up in Taiji in the last 10yrs? Resort to violence when you cannot win?
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
@davidattokyo

My God… I have to give up with you. I can’t go on. All that explanation I provided completely went over your head. My point was that providing those examples do not constitute a “proof” for your hypothesis that “apex predators are more important than others for the ecosystem”. Those examples are just observations. They were not scientifically tested. Did you even understand what I was trying to explain to you with the church analogy? Or, you just wanted to attack me for making “assumption” that I did not even make?

In any case, I give up. You are impossible.
Chisa says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
why don’t we stop picking at each other’s faults and start proposing some positive solutions???
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Negotiate? Do you mean like offering the fishermen more money than would be earned from hunting dolphins to not hunt them? Is that not negotiation? Please start stating FACTS, not your emotional, artistic arguments…
Chisa says:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
@davidattokyo
so tell us, please! what is your great idea for solving this problem???
Dyske says:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Hi Chisa

Sadly, I think “positive” solutions would be hard to propose if we cannot understand the fundamental cultural differences. As I said above, the whaling nations did try to address the problem in a positive and reasonable manner by addressing the issue of sustainability because that was the main argument that anti-whaling nations brought up. But now that some species of whales are not in danger of extinction, what happened? The anti-whaling nations changed their tunes, because sustainability wasn’t really their “issue” in the first place. The deeper you dig, the more we realize that none of these reasons and justifications (scientific or otherwise) actually matter to the critics of Japan. Most of them are animal activists who entirely oppose killing of any animals for any reasons, but they disguise their true reason with science and other facts, which becomes really confusing. They are not going to be happy until we stop killing animals entirely. Even if they succeed in turning Japan a vegetarian nation, they will continue to other nations. They would not stop until the whole earth turns vegetarian. But there is no justification for that. And, they know it too. That’s why they need to resort to scientific and ecological reasons. If we don’t address this fundamental difference in value, what “positive” solutions can we come up with? Anything we propose will be rejected eventually.
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Once again, the fishermen of Taiji have already been offered more money to not hunt, so that offer stands. Secondly Taiji has hotels with swim with dolphins as their drawcard. Taiji now has international exposure so could quite easily utilise this as a global tourist campaign, with the previous hunters doing charters taking tourists on whale/dolphin tours, which is a big industry in Aus,(many Japanese tourist going there just to do so). By doing so it would also show Japan as a compassionate nation, willing to put mistakes behind it, & move into the future. NOT to ignore & antagonize the rest of the world, just for the sake of saying;”it is our tradition, so we will do whatever we wish despite your objections”. Ergo a chance for Japan to join the rest of the world in the 20th century, rather than living in the past.
Once again with all the media publicity around the world, tourists would pay to visit “the Cove”, to be able stand on the beach, pray, give offerings, & feel the energy of the spot, & also give respect to the locals for being able to turn around & make these changes in their own community. Taiji showing the world just how Japan is connected to, & respect the natural world around them…
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Dyske, did you not state your argument is based on the fact Westerners eat “cows & chickens”, as this has been your main argument, so what is so wrong with the world becoming vegetarian? We are supposed to be discussing solutions I thought. Even small amounts of meat being consumed, & not endangered species, eg whales, elephants, lions & other big cats, dolphins, etc, etc, would not this solve the problem? Meat being produced from non endangered species, eg under 1,000,000 worldwide? Or you just against all possible solutions that involve Japan making some sacrifices along with the rest of the world???
davidattokyo says:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
& Dyske you state japan does not hunt endangered species! PLEASE do some research, many DNA tests done of whale meat bought in Japanese supermarkets have been shown to be endangered species. Once again PLEASE do some research, NOT just believe what is said in Japanese media, & promote emotional, “they are just anti-Japanese arguments”, because these just inflame the situation…
davidattokyo says:
April 9th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Dyske, once again I ask you why you are promoting this right wing nationalistic response? Rather than being someone of journolistic integretiy, & report on facts, NOT emotion to create such defensive reactions???? For proof of follow the link…
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/wire/article.jsp?content=e084881329
davidattokyo says:
April 13th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Dyske, maybe you should do an article on this; “endangered whale meat found in Japanese restaurants in America, Korea…”
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/whale-meat-bust/
Seeing it is just the world vs an ‘innocent’ Japan, & we are all just anti-Japanese, tell some real reasons why the Japan is earning the ire of the rest of the world, not your sensationalistic, nationalistic diatribe…
davidattokyo says:
April 14th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
You previously asked how do they know the endangered whale meat found in a restaurant in California came from Japan? Here is how…
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/04/14/new-study-links-endangered-whale-meat-with-japan-possible-illegal-trading/
“Since the international moratorium on commercial [whale] hunting [in 1986], there has been no other known source of Sei Whales available commercially other than in Japan.”
& the DNA matches that also found in a restaurant in Sth Korea…
Brambles says:
April 23rd, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I just found this thread by accident and read the entire thing. Nice constructive conversation all around, with the exception of user ‘davidattokyo’ who appears to have failed to understand much of what was being said, or intentionally chosen to ignore that which doesn’t suit his chosen direction for the conversation.

Thanks for the enlightening read, Dyske et al.
Jolyon says:
April 26th, 2010 at 7:25 am
I was fortunate enough to watch the cove for the first time today. I have read some forums and there is a lot of people who seem to want to do nothing but fault the film.

I personally found it very informative (if a little disturbing) and as far as presentation of an ecological and animal rights issue it was well constructed and easy to understand.

Demonstrating the slaughter of wild, sentient beings transcends the influence of culture and beliefs.

I strongly support any literature or film that reminds people that meat comes not from the supermarket but from self-aware and emotionally capable beings.
Dyske says:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Hi Jolyon,

“there is a lot of people who seem to want to do nothing but fault the film.”

I am certainly not one of them. I have clearly stated all the points that I agree with the film, and the points that I do find Japan to be guilty of. You say “a lot”, but where do you see them? If you search on Google “The Cove documentary”, the vast majority of the opinions are in support of the film. Very few people are voicing disagreements. So, it strikes me as insulting to suggest that “a lot” of them “do nothing but fault the film.” I think what we see a lot of are closed-minded people who are set in their own opinions and have no interest in learning anything about the Japanese culture, so convinced that their views are right and universal.

“Demonstrating the slaughter of wild, sentient beings transcends the influence of culture and beliefs.”

Please explain to me why you feel you are in a position to declare that this issue “transcends the influence of culture and beliefs” How many cultures are you expert in? What credential do you have to be so convinced that there is no cultural bias here?

“I strongly support any literature or film that reminds people that meat comes not from the supermarket but from self-aware and emotionally capable beings.”

I agree. But I do not support any literature or film that exploits people’s ignorance to achieve this end. It’s fighting ignorance with ignorance. You become guilty of the very thing you criticize.
Jolyon says:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I agree most responses to the film were positive however I am making reference to the posts regarding the journalistic tactics used. eg. The omission of the Taiji peoples perspective, the failure of the doco to investigate the cultural reasoning for the slaughter, the false premise on which people were asked to do interviews etc.

To these people I say wake up… These are all irrelevent to the documentaries purpose. Do people really expect objectivity in such a film? Quite simply objectivity does not inspire people to act. The film makers would understand the local economic benefits and cultural reasonings as well as anybody but why would they put these things into the film?!

To respond to your cultural question Dyske; The biodiversity crisis we are currently in has been brought about by culture and tradition and the failure to recognise and eradicate harmful traditions.
The animal rights issue however transcends culture. Persecution of a person due to race, religion or sex is fundamentally wrong regardless of the cultural climate in which it took place. In my opinion the same principle applies to nonhuman animals. Culture may be the cause but this is no more forgivable than a nazi performing a mass execution of the innocent, or the KKK committing hate crimes, a terrorist killing civilians etc. etc.

These are not cultural wrongs they are fundamental wrongs. This is why i downplay the role of culture in an act that can only be described as fundamentally wrong.

Finally the ethnocentric debate. I have heard this term in a couple of forums now in regard to this issue.
It is not ethnocentric to demand change of these practices! It is not a western agenda being pushed It is the delphinidae agenda being pushed.Those who cant make that distinction are missing the point of the film. Applying anthropocentric evaluations of the cultural divide between east and west devalues the issue at hand.
Dyske says:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
@Jolyon

To these people I say wake up… These are all irrelevent to the documentaries purpose. Do people really expect objectivity in such a film? Quite simply objectivity does not inspire people to act. The film makers would understand the local economic benefits and cultural reasonings as well as anybody but why would they put these things into the film?!

Since you bring up Nazis, I think it would be appropriate for me to use the same for your argument above. Your logic would justify blaming of the Jews in Nazi propaganda for the economic struggles of the Germans people at the time. After all, you are right. The average Joes who respond only to sensational claims and sense of superiority wouldn’t be inspired to act if the Nazis had reported everything objectively.

I would argue that the main cause of the biodiversity crisis is the sheer size of human population. If our population was a tenth of what it is now, many of these problems would go away. Japan is doing a far better job in reducing its population now than most other countries. We cannot blame the whole problem on “traditions”.

As for animal rights:

Where do you draw the line in the value of life forms? I mean YOU personally. Do do think insects have no “rights”? Do you think trees have no “rights”? How about fish? Tell me what exactly are the criteria by which you draw the line and say these life forms have “rights” but others don’t.
Christopher Carr says:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
I think the problem is definitely not culture and tradition, but technology and modernity. Also, Jolyon, are you really comparing some fishermen to Nazis? Dolphins to Jews?
Dice says:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
@Jolyon

Culture is not an excuse for anything, but if you’re trying to convince the dolphin hunters to stop their trade it would help to understand why they’re engaging in the trade in the first place.

Also, there’s a difference between objectivity and outright falsehoods. The filmmakers could have still have made a compelling case against dolphin hunting without resorting to lies.
Dyske says:
April 26th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
@Jolyon

I might as well add more questions and arguments while I wait for your response.

The idea that our moral standards apply to non-humans is quite absurd. Our morality means nothing outside of our own species. You are using Nazism as something absolutely and universally wrong, but it wouldn’t be so if we were to go outside of own species. We humans are destroying this earth. So, from the point of view of other species, it could easily be argued that anyone who commits genocide of human beings is a hero. They would probably live quite happily if all humans died. What we believe as morally right and wrong are entirely self-serving for our own species. To project the same moral values onto other species is exactly what anthropocentrism is.

Although you argue that not respecting animal rights is like being a Nazi, it is in fact the other way around. Your position is actually closer to Nazism. It’s probably hard for you to comprehend this, but here is why:

Hypothetically speaking, if you could only save the lives of 100 people out of 1,000 people, what would you use as a criteria? You probably would have your own criteria. Perhaps you might save children first. Some people might save women first. Some might even choose elderly people first. Some might choose 100 most talented people. Whatever your criteria is, there is no definitive way to rationalize your choice. We don’t know what the meaning of life is, so any criteria we use would be purely personal and speculative.

By eating other forms of life we are in fact making this very decision. Life requires the sacrifice of other forms of life. The Shinto religion of Japan refuses to make any assumptions about the relative values of life. So, the life of a tree is no different from a life of a person. There is no hierarchy. From a Shinto perspective, we humans do not have any more “rights” than a tree. So, if a lion eats a human, it’s a fair game. There is no morality there. There is no justice to be pursued. We humans do not deserve to live any more than a tree.

From a Shinto perspective, to say that an animal has “rights” but a tree doesn’t, would be equivalent of playing God. It’s a form of prejudice. It’s like Hitler deciding that a life of an Aryan person is more valuable than a life of a Jewish person. We would ask, “Who does he think he is to decide that?” Well, that is what you are doing when you say animals have “rights” but other forms of life doesn’t. It’s an anthropocentric claim, which basically comes down to this: The more similar something is to us, the more valuable its life is. It’s a very self-serving way of looking at life. Such a view would indeed justify seeing people of other race to be less valuable than our own, because your criteria is based on similarity. Your mind favors things that are similar to you; it is a convenient prejudice. And, I don’t think you know how prejudiced you are. You are simply assuming that your view on animal rights is universally and absolutely correct, when in fact your view is deeply cultural and prejudiced. So, you conveniently dismiss the cultural difference simply because you are blind to it.

That’s how deep the problem of ethnocentrism goes. We are never aware that we are being ethnocentric.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 27th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Hi Dyske

Amazing that the debate is still raging on at your blog…and from what I hear through the grapevine controversy goes on in Japan as well…the movie is slated to open there in June, but I don’t think anyone is really sure people will go to see it.

I don’t think the critical question is so much about whether it’s OK to tell another country what to do. If someone is doing something you don’t think is right I think it’s OK to address that.

BUT…how you do it is important. IF you want that person to stop doing whatever you think is wrong.

IF you already HAVE some kind of moral authority over them…like the law is on your side…THEN, pointing our their wrong doing or exposing them might be enough to get that moral authority to intervene.

If you don’t – and it’s a question of different values – not something absolute like law – you might need to have a conversation that gets the “wrongdoer” to understand your point of view so that they will possibly want to cooperate with you. Otherwise, you just get into a fight….which is a lot of what I see happening with this movie.

I don’t think there is anything inherently WRONG with making the kind of movie that was made.

But I think it’s sad that the movie wasn’t made in a way that is effective in reaching out for cooperation from the people in Taiji. Condemnation is not a good way to get cooperation.
Tea says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:58 am
Regarding the apex predator argument:

So the logic flips to whichever way it works for them. 1) Don’t kill X because the population of Y would explode. 2) Don’t kill X because the population of Y would dwindle. Which is it?

The actual situation is killing X may cause Y to explode but causing Z to dwindle (logically, it’s not possible to have Y to explode and dwindle at the same time).

One example is the grey wolf in Yellowstone national park, the removal of grey wolf cause elk population to explode but moose population to dwindle (wolf prey on elk, elk compete pasture land with moose). It also have a chain effect on difference species of trees and habitats of small critters like beavers. Reintroduce of grey wolf reverse the unbalance.

Same as global warming will cause higher temperature in some area, but lower in other places. So global warming cause both higher and lower temperature (sometimes in same region over different seasons) and it’s not a contradiction. The rise of temperature is measured by the average temperature of Ocean over many years (thus the “warming”).

The apex predator is not more important than other members of the food chain. But it’s more vulnerable to human influence. For example, it’s much more easier for modern human to kill off all the Siberian tigers than to kill off all the mosquitoes. (Tigers are big and they don’t reproduce as fast as insects).

Sometimes these extinction are beneficial to us (e.g. the extinction of dinosaurs are definitely beneficial to our ancestors). Sometimes they are not (e.g. extinction of certain birds causes insect population to explode which destroy our crops).

Think of the ecosystem as an ancient computer. At the current stage, it’s working for our purpose. Hence the population of our species flourish. If we start to randomly unplug cables or delete files, sometimes it will have no effect, in rare cases the computer will work better, but if we do this too often, it will very likely not end up very pretty. So it’s generally not very advisable to randomly “delete” species from our ecosystem. Yes, we do “delete” some species of germs, and most of the time the result is favorable to us. But so far deleting “big” species generally didn’t produce positive results.

All that being said, dolphins are apex predators but I doubt that they are as important as “boring” apex predators like grey wolves (disclaimer: I’m not marine biologist). Dolphins eat fish and there are plenty of other species that eats fish and the population of dolphins are not great enough to be significant.

The dolphins are more of a “trophy species” like the giant panda. What will happen if the giant panda extincts? A lot of kids will cry, but the effect to ecosystem is probably not much (overgrown of some bamboos?).

Honestly the main reason we care so much of dolphins is because they are cute (and smart, but mainly cute), but since that sounds too childish so we have to complemented that with some scientific-sounding reasoning.

But I do frown appoint the action of killing dolphins. Mainly because I also agreed they are cute (but if someone ask me, I’ll invent more “mature” scientific sounding reason, well… it’s because of some practical reasons like…).

But killing cute animals are not really the same as Nazism (in human perspective anyway). If so, all nations are Nazis one way or the other (since we all harm our planets one way or the other).

I agreed with the director of the film that dolphins need to be protected (because we both think they are cute), but I disagreed on the condemnation tone of the movie. I think the movie will work better if it’s add more humor than accusation. (Here’s a youtube vidoe, just for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_yIEL2YCq8, it’s similar to the South Park Episode).

I also agreed on the Shinto perspective that all living things are same whether it’s animals or trees. But I also believe there needs to be a balance. With modern technology, we are kind of godly. So we do play the role of god. We can delete species as easy as we delete a file on a computer. So we have to be as responsible as gods. And that includes everyone, not just the Japanese.
Dyske says:
April 27th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Hi Tea,

Thank you for explaining all that. Especially about apex predator. That makes sense, and solves my puzzle.

I like the fact that you admit the “cuteness” criteria for saving dolphins.

And, it’s true: Most of the ecological arguments are in fact self-serving for us human species. The evolution and the ecology will continue no matter what we do, no matter how great a damage we cause. Ultimately we are arguing for our own species, not for the earth or for any other species. We humans are incredibly self-serving in that way.
Frank Luo says:
April 27th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
The apex predator argument still makes no sense to me.

First of all, who are humans to say what is the “correct” balance is? Why should there not be more elk than moose? Who decided that? Just because that is the way it was doesn’t necessarily mean that is the way it should be. In fact if the way it was before human intervention is what is desired, that is impossible to determine period. No one knows what the balance was like before the “native Americans” walked over the Bering Strait land bridge into the Americas.

Second of all, if elk population is the problem, there is the simplest of solutions — shoot and eat the elk. Human beings ARE apex predators, and a much more efficient one than any found in nature. If a reduction of the elk population is desired, just make it legal to shoot the elk and you”ll see people flock to where the elk population is from all over the country to kill them. Limit the number of elk killed by the number of licenses handed out, and the particular balance dsired can be achieved.

Killing dolphins will in no way shape or form create a lack of apex predators. Human beings have already displaced almost all other apex predators and are crowding the rest out, and if they have not done so in a particular system, can do so with the greatest of ease if it is decided that an additional apex predator is needed in that system. The “apex predator’s importance to an ecosystem” argument, assuming that it is even relevant (in the sense of a reason for killing dolphins being wrong), is completely without merit.
Dyske says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Hi Frank,

What makes sense to me about Tea’s explanation is that the effect of killing one species can cause both increase and decrease in the population of others. That makes sense to me. It’s just that it’s hard to predict what the exact outcome would be.

You are however right in pointing out that “correct balance” is obviously human centric. It’s not for the earth like many people claim. The earth has no ecological objective. We humans shape it however we want it. As I said before, the cause of the biggest ecological disasters has been nature itself, like volcanic eruptions and asteroids.

The problem of biodiversity is therefore a human-centric problem. For instance, the depletion of ocean is ultimately OUR problem because we want to continue eating fish.

So, it’s misleading to say “protect the earth”. We are not protecting the earth; we are just protecting ourselves. This is also why it makes no sense to project our moral values on other species.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
The apex predator issue is not an academic one. But its relevance isn’t about the morality of the issue. It’s much more practical than that.

The dolphin slaughter goes on, in part, because the Japanese Fishery Ministry supports the extermination of ‘vermin’ (ie dolphins) which are seen as competing for local fish. [Theoretical eradication of a competing apex predator]

One thing that could actually help the situation in Taiji is if there were a true SCIENTIFIC study testing the theory that killing dolphins preserves more fish for humans. If a true scientific study refuted that theory, things it might be persuasive. Likely there is data from other areas around Japan (eg Futo) where dolphin slaughter has been ended. If fishing has not been adversely affected by the end of the slaughter in those villages, it might be persuasive for Taiji.

Of course, the bigger problem is the live dolphin trade. The money comes from the live trade, not the dolphin meat. Although, it might be that if killing is proven to be useless (and meat selling is already not lucrative) the killing would stop, even if the dolphin drives and live captures did not.
Joann says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
This is an awesome, awesome debate and I have nothing substantial to add except that I’m completely in agreement with pretty much all your points. There is a problem and people should be working to stop it, but the film wasn’t going about it the right way. The film doesn’t provide any cultural context; it eschews journalistic practices of being fair and objective in favor of inciting anger towards an entire nation, most of whose citizens don’t even eat dolphin meat. I wouldn’t object to a documentary done with respect and sensitivity regarding the subject, but that’s not what happened.

That’s pretty bullshit to me, especially as someone in journalism. Omitting information is just as dishonest as providing outright falsehoods, and the Cove sounds like it’s been doing a hell of a lot of that. I saw the trailers, mostly of the film crew antagonizing fishermen, who were understandably pissed off, and couldn’t bring myself to check out the movie itself. Context is so important, and it’s so often passed over in favor of sensationalizing a topic that deserves more reasonable attention. It simplifies the topic and slants it a lot, in the same way the raging Tibet issue has been skewed by western influences.

And the official dolphin-killing policy of Japan is to drive a stake through their brain stem, killing them immediately. Obviously, that’s not what always happens, but the same can be said of any official policy.

Great site, by the way! I checked it out ages ago (in middle school– I’m a college sophomore now) when the CJK test first went up and all us asian-american kids were forwarding it to each other. I still check back, mostly for the blog posts, and it’s still awesome.
Dyske says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Hi Chisa,

I read a paper about the effect of whaling on the marine ecology, and the impression I got from it is that it’s not so easy to scientifically prove such ecological outcomes. It’s sort of like predicting the future of the economy. It’s hard to tell what the impact of, for instance, letting Lehman Brothers go bankrupt is. Economists are still arguing whether the financial crisis had much to do with it. There are too many variables and dependencies. As hunting of one species could increase AND decrease the population of others, it could also create both good and bad effects for us humans. So, I’m not sure how effective it would be as an argument to convince anyone.
Jolyon says:
April 27th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Just a quick (somewhat delayed) response to a few statements made earlier Dsyke.
“The idea that our moral standards apply to non-humans is quite absurd.”

To this I say by what other means can we act? Applying human morals to the animal rights debate is the only possible way of expressing concern. Without the human concepts of pain, stress and freedom there is no argument for animal rights at all! How else can we justify interspecific compassion if not by human morals? If true empathy is not aheivable as you elude to; “Our morality means nothing outside of our own species.”
What is the animal liberation movement based upon? Freedom from pain and suffering, Freedom to move and socialise at will. These freedoms are derived from “Our morality” but do they mean nothing to another organism?

“Although you argue that not respecting animal rights is like being a Nazi, it is in fact the other way around. Your position is actually closer to Nazism.”

Sorry Dyske but this statement and ensuing argument were too obscure to warrant a worthwhile response.

Finally this statement.

“Such a view would indeed justify seeing people of other race to be less valuable than our own, because your criteria is based on similarity.”
I never made reference to my opinions being based on similarity. My opinion is based on the assumpions that animals have the desire for the afore mentioned freedoms. Freedom from pain and suffering, Freedom to move and socialise at will. These are not based on animal complexity or similarity to our species they are merely an assumption that non-humans possess these same desires as humans do. An assumption I admit but without this assumption Cartesianism and Taylorism would still reign unchallenged!

I willI admit I am ignorant of culture because It does not factor into my opinions on Animal rights. A traditional practice, no matter what its heritage, that does not appreciate animals’ need for food/water and considers their behaviour, feedoms, habitat and basic right to exist, is wrong.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 27th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
@Dyske

Agreed that environmental science is extremely imprecise. But my argument is really that we need something objective – like science – to which to appeal…AND also that we must address the specific concerns of the Taiji fishermen.

Much of the debate here has gotten rather absurd. Interesting for the writers – no doubt. Amusing for me, at times.

But what about the actual important issue of addressing the problem?

I don’t see much conversation here about constructive ideas to address the issue. That is disappointing.
Dyske says:
April 27th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Jolyon,

Your ethnocentrism is out of control.

“Applying human morals to the animal rights debate is the only possible way of expressing concern.”

This is entirely bogus. As I explained above, if you were truly concerned about “animal rights”, you would kill yourself and everyone around you. So, for you to pretend like you really care about animal rights is hypocritical. All you are doing is projecting human moral standards on other species in order to make the earth a better place for us humans. It’s entirely self-serving. You are not really thinking from their point of view. You are just making them serve your own interest.

“To this I say by what other means can we act?”

Quite easy. Pick any animal and think from their point of view, and forget that you are a human. Just think from the point of view of their survival and dominance. If you were to pick a cow, kill all the butchers and everyone who eats meat. Shoot them all with machine guns. Bomb them. Whatever you have to do. Then free the cows. In short, wage a war against the humans. The cows will be quite happy.

Obviously you are not going to do that. Why? It’s because you are not really thinking from their point of view like you claim to. As I said before, if you did think from their point of view, you would be worshiping Hitler for reducing the human population by millions. You would see it as pest control to achieve a better balance in ecology.

This is why projecting our moral standards on them is absurd. You would just be furthering the cause for the humans, while discriminating other forms of life like trees and insects, just because they are so different from us.

“Sorry Dyske but this statement and ensuing argument were too obscure to warrant a worthwhile response.”

Too obscure? The philosophy that I explained happens to be the majority view in Japan. It’s only “obscure” in your ignorant mind. How convenient are you that you dismiss a logical argument based on it being “obscure”? An argument being popular does not make it right. Truth is not a popularity contest. This is just another manifestation of your ethnocentrism.

“I never made reference to my opinions being based on similarity.”

You are just not seeing the fact that similarity is indeed the basis of your argument. If you want to understand it, why don’t you answer my question about where you draw the line in terms of what forms of life have “rights” while others don’t? If you were to prioritize different species, you will immediately see that your priority list is composed of similarity, with life forms that are very dissimilar (like trees and roaches) being towards the bottom of the list, and life forms like monkeys and dolphins very close to you. You are just ranking them based on similarity.

You favor the Western way of looking at life, and label the Japanese way “obscure”. That’s also based on similarity to your own beliefs. Wars are easier to fight when the enemy doesn’t speak the same language and they look different. The same logic.
Dyske says:
April 28th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Hi Chisa,

I’m actually not interested in pragmatic solutions that address this specific problem of dolphins. To me, that is equivalent of putting a flower in a dirty bathroom, instead of actually cleaning it. Even if you come up with a solution to resolve this dolphin problem, if we do not address the fundamental problem of ethnocentrism, one problem will simply be replaced by another. There will be no end to it, and in fact, things might even get worse overall.

If black people and white people cannot get along, a pragmatic solution might be to build separate bathrooms, seating areas, schools, and stores for them, but this does not address the fundamental problem of prejudice. So my primary concern is ethnocentrism. You might feel it’s absurd but a few hundred years ago, most people thought it’s absurd to think that black people or even women deserved the same rights as white men. If nobody talked about these issues, it will never enter the minds of the mainstream. So, I’m in it for the long haul.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 28th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Hi Dyske

It will BE a long haul if the pragmatic solution is to separate the Black and White people rather than thinking of PRAGMATIC ways to help them work and live together.

We are obviously very different, philosophically.

The central problem of ethnocentrism will not go away from endless argument. Conversation is good. But so are practical solutions. In fact, I would argue that they must go hand in hand if the status quo is to change. The more people of different colors and creeds can actually work together – DO things together (besides arguing or having wars) – the more ethnocentrism will go away.
Jolyon says:
April 28th, 2010 at 1:30 am
Dyske
You’re logic is increasingly stretched and absurd. You raise the point of mass slaughter and suicide in the name of animal rights. The two statements below are not even close to the point of view I presented. I admire your word-twisting abilities but it does not make for a logical argument…Sorry

“Quite easy. Pick any animal and think from their point of view, and forget that you are a human. Just think from the point of view of their survival and dominance. If you were to pick a cow, kill all the butchers and everyone who eats meat. Shoot them all with machine guns. Bomb them. Whatever you have to do. Then free the cows. In short, wage a war against the humans. The cows will be quite happy.”

“if you were truly concerned about “animal rights”, you would kill yourself and everyone around you”

I don’t know where you have derived these ideas from but they are far from the pacifistic and logical ideaology I am proposing.

Thankyou for what was an interesting discussion but ridiculous statements like these are demonstrative of an inability to comprehend the thoughts I have presented.

FInally, here is your position on my nazism.

“Although you argue that not respecting animal rights is like being a Nazi, it is in fact the other way around. Your position is actually closer to Nazism. It’s probably hard for you to comprehend this, but here is why:

Hypothetically speaking, if you could only save the lives of 100 people out of 1,000 people, what would you use as a criteria? You probably would have your own criteria. Perhaps you might save children first. Some people might save women first. Some might even choose elderly people first. Some might choose 100 most talented people. Whatever your criteria is, there is no definitive way to rationalize your choice. We don’t know what the meaning of life is, so any criteria we use would be purely personal and speculative.”

I used “obscure” as a polite term for disjointed, illogical and irrelevent. While the philosophy in this paragraph is not uncommon nor is it profound, it’s applications are too general to be applied logically in regards to nazism or Animal rights.

I thank you once again for the discussion but to continue would only prove frustrating as my passion, Animal liberation, does not have it’s roots in pedantic intellectual discussion but in action.
Dice says:
April 28th, 2010 at 1:33 am
All this talk of Nazism towards any point of view.

I don’t think we need to recap any of the horrific things that were done under Nazi rule. Feelings for or against dolphin hunting aside this is quite different from the attempted genocide and other atrocities committed under the Nazi party.

The fishermen of Taiji might hunt dolphins, but I’m sure that they’d be amongst the first to state that the dolphins should not be hunted into extinction.
Christopher Carr says:
April 28th, 2010 at 1:46 am
Sorry for a shameless plug, but I got an article about comparing people to Hitler on my website if anyone cares to read it:

http://www.theinductive.com/blog/2010/4/1/and-you-sir-are-worse-than-hitler.html

I don’t think that there is any room in a debate about whether or not we should eat dolphins or allow the eating of dolphins for Hitler comparisons. Also, Dyske et al., I promise I have a good real response to all of this debate coming up in five or six hours (night Japan time) which will hopefully move the debate beyond this unfortunate malaise.
Dyske says:
April 28th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Hi Chisa,

I see your point. But I still have some reservations about that. If white people did not ideologically embrace equal rights, the pragmatic solution would indeed be something along the line of what I suggested (and in fact that is what happened). Your pragmatic solution would only come from people who believe that they should get along as equals. So, the motivation to come up with your type of pragmatic solution was lacking. And, if the motivation is misguided, then the solutions would be too. Before we can arrive at an appropriate solution, we need to understand our differences. The books like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had a profound effect towards that.

Another issue I personally have is that, to come up with pragmatic solutions, one needs to understand a lot more about the specifics. I can’t just come up with pragmatic solutions from my apartment in New York. So, the part that I can contribute is understanding of cultural differences.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 28th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Hi Dyske

Writing is definitely part of the solution…particularly if it is as powerful as ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’.

Even from your NYC apt, you’ve reached quite a few people through this blog…it’s worth thinking about making the scope even bigger.

And maybe a trip to Japan is required to get at the core of this? Not to flock over to Taiji with a bunch of demonstrators…but to go to find out what people there say…people in Tokyo and in Taiji (likely their opinions will be different)…so we can really start to talk across cultures about these issues.
Dyske says:
April 28th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Hi Christopher,

I have to concede that logical arguments like this have rather limited impact on others. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” It’s true. it is quite rare to come across people who are willing to set aside their beliefs and convictions and accept arguments that make logical sense. Most people have no allegiance to reason, their emotions are their final words. This naturally makes one wonder if there is any point in studying and pursuing philosophy (as you do on The Inductive and me on DYSKE.COM).

The problem with philosophy is that it becomes too abstract for most people to follow. They lose interest because they fail to see the relevance. Abstract thoughts rarely influence people directly. The vast majority of people know nothing about philosophers like Derrida, yet their influence on the Western culture has been immense. That is, most people are unaware of the fact that the way they see the world has been transformed by thinkers like Derrida. Yet many philosophers are accused of being “armchair philosophers” because people do not see their contributions.

When people fail to follow abstraction, they typically dismiss it as “twisted”, “stretched”, “irrelevant”, “too general”, etc., without explaining why and how they are twisted, stretched, irrelevant, or too general. The bottom line is that they can’t. They are pushed against the wall where they cannot logically maneuver, so their only recourse is to dismiss without explaining, or avoid answering questions altogether by labeling the question as ridiculous.

My argument with Jolyon is a typical case. He says: “I don’t know where you have derived these ideas from but they are far from the pacifistic and logical ideology I am proposing….ridiculous statements like these are demonstrative of an inability to comprehend the thoughts I have presented.”

What he fails too see is that my whole point was to show how ridiculous and absurd those arguments are. Yet, they make logical sense if we were to strictly follow the idea of projecting human moral standards on other species.

We humans routinely kill species like roaches, rats, and snakes, in order for us to create an environment that is comfortable for us. If the table were turned, where rats can actually fight against us, why would they choose to employ Jolyon’s “pacifistic ideology”? That would be way too convenient for us. We slaughter rats daily because WE don’t like them; not because rats are bad for the ecology or for the earth. Even if pacifists like Jolyon do not kill rats themselves, they are certainly benefiting from others doing so. If rats were to logically argue with him, he would have no real defense. Humans are committing genocide on rats; why should the rats be pacifists for us? They have the “rights” to kill humans for the purpose of pest control in order to create a comfortable environment for themselves. This is what it really means to advocate for the “rights” of other species. And, I have demonstrated (and proved to Jolyon) that the argument becomes absurd. The only reason why it’s not absurd for Jolyon is because he hasn’t questioned his “ideology” deeply and consistently enough.

What these animal activists cannot accept is that we are all by default guilty. There is no way around it. To live requires the sacrifices of other lives. To deny this by pointing fingers at others, as if they are not guilt of it, is the hypocrisy that I strongly object to. On this issue, there is no moral high ground to stand on.

“my passion, Animal liberation, does not have it’s roots in pedantic intellectual discussion but in action.”

What really bothers me is how people like Jolyon jump to “action” and think it’s noble. Despite the fact that he admits to cultural ignorance, it doesn’t bother him. There is no concept of due diligence, benefit of the doubt, or humility. They go at it like they know everything.

When logic fails to reach them, it’s no use using logic. It wouldn’t matter how well you argue; it would be a waste of time. They will simply dismiss it as “irrelevant”. Logic is useful only when people are open to being self-critical.

I’ll close this discussion soon. I think I said everything I had to say on the topic, and frankly, I’m getting tired of it too.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 28th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
a practical approach…

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15663372
Christopher Carr says:
April 28th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I’m going to attempt to organize everything that’s been said about this topic anywhere for a meta-analysis of the issue and see if any conclusions can be drawn.

For there to be a problem with the consumption of dolphins in Taiji, one of three necessary conditions must be true: (1) there is a problem with the way dolphins are slaughtered in Taiji; (2) there is a problem with the effect of slaughtering dolphins (in Taiji or elsewhere); or (3) there is a problem with the slaughter of dolphins anywhere.

For the first hypothetical, that there is a problem with the way dolphins are slaughtered in Taiji, this problem would necessarily have to do with minimizing pain and suffering of the creatures. Apparently, the Taiji fishermen drive a stake through the brain stem of the dolphins, killing them instantly, yet they also occasionally make mistakes, leading to slow, painful death. The Cove also seemed to expose evidence to the contrary, that the Taiji fishermen make no efforts to minimize pain and suffering in dolphins marked for consumption. The idea that the suffering of livestock must be reduced as much as possible is popular in America and elsewhere, particularly in places where food is processed and animals are marked for death from birth. Nevertheless, for food captured from the wild, there is generally no standard to ensure that animal’s suffering is minimized. Hunters are under no obligation to provide a quick, relatively painless death for their prey, and researchers who perform medical experiments on animals regularly perform gruesome procedures, such as the removal of an eye or infection with painful viruses, to study neuroanatomy or immunology. It would seem that minimizing the harm of animals to be consumed as food is perhaps morally praiseworthy, but not morally requisite.

For the second hypothetical, that there is a problem with the effect of slaughtering
dolphins (in Taiji or elsewhere), it seems like ecological studies are fairly inconclusive as to what effect eliminating a species will have on humanity. We seem to believe that eliminating rats, or roaches, or smallpox would be beneficial for us and proceed in their elimination with relative freedom. There are no protestors exposing the evil CDC workers’s genocide of H1N1 influenza, so I feel that Tea’s supercomputer metaphor was appropriate, but with two necessary qualifications: (1) we can be relatively certain that some species’s elimination will benefit us, i.e. polio, and that others’s elimination will harm us, i.e. tomatoes; and (2) that this supercomputer is organic, that is, it can regenerate and repair itself in times of great stress, and we as humans can fill gaps: if we remove or cause stress to the Siberian Tiger network, we can direct special attention towards rejuvenating it and/or take the place of it ourselves. All this is a roundabout way to say that there are many ways to mitigate the potential unknown unknowns of a mass dolphin extinction, but dolphins are not at all in danger of going extinct, so this isn’t even a topic worth mentioning.

For the third hypothetical, that there is a problem with the slaughter of dolphins anywhere, we must have good reasons to think dolphins are special. A commenter mentioned that he agrees that dolphins should be protected because dolphins are cute. I think that’s a fine reason to protect dolphins. We should trust our instincts and emotions, while not letting them control us. There is (probably) a scientific reason our emotions are so overwhelmingly powerful: throughout our evolutionary history, they (probably) caused us to make the decisions that ultimately ensured our survival. I say probably, because we can’t really know cause/effect relationships, but for something as complex as human emotions to develop by mere coincidence is fairly improbable, and so I think we can proceed under the assumption that emotions at one time ensured our survival. Anyways, the idea that we should not eat dolphins because dolphins are cute is tempered by the fact that we don’t need to eat dolphins. We can choose to eat something less cute, like asparagus, and feel better about ourselves. And so, we’re getting into the whole debate on vegetarianism. I know that all life forms kill and eat other life forms, and many animals kill and eat other animals, and killing and eating other animals doesn’t make some animals good and some animals bad. I think, therefore, that it is okay for me to eat animals, although I will admit that someone who chooses, because they can, to eat asparagus instead of dolphin is probably making an attempt at living a life morally superior to the average human being, I would not suggest that this person, who clearly has the time, money, and access to resources to make this an easy choice, is morally superior to an Eskimo who eats whale because it’s the only thing around.

And here is another deep problem I see with this film: for the filmmakers, Americans who live in Hollywood and get to film themselves scuba-diving for a living, making the choice to eat parsnips instead of whale is really, really easy! It’s not so easy for the 50-year old fishermen to give up their livelihoods, and so the disrespect that these entitled, spoiled filmmakers show for the traditional activities of another culture frankly sickens me considerably. Anyways, a digression for which I apologize. Back to the analysis:

From the perspective of human self-interest and preservation, it first makes sense to eat whatever we can, but sustainably. I don’t want to go into whales and tuna here, but am forced to digress briefly into analysis of the consumption of those species: whales and certain varieties of tuna are getting rarer and rarer worldwide. For our own self-interest, it makes sense to preserve them in healthy, sustainable numbers. This was the original justification for measures aimed at protecting endangered species, specifically the recommendations of the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Dolphins are not endangered species, and so the ecological argument disappears. Dolphins are not at all in danger of being hunted to extinction by a small group of fishermen in Taiji, and so any ecological arguments are immediately suspect. As descriptive and eloquent as Tea’s ecological supercomputer metaphor was, this cannot be applied to dolphins in Taiji (nevertheless, a mathematical corollary to the ecological argument may shed more light on this later.) Arguments out of self-interest and humanism disappear here, because the Taiji fishermen are not threatening any people, not even indirectly. However, the mercury issue does bare on this. For the purposes of the film, it was ignored and presented with misinformation. Commenter Jolyon seems to praise the fact that the film was unabashed propaganda. This is unfortunate. Providing people with false information and then giving them the rights to make decisions is an unfortunate consequence of human stupidity.

The idea that we cannot eat dolphins relies on according dolphins some special privilege at the top of a hierarchy of animals/food. On what this hierarchy is based is a question most people don’t consider, but traditional hierarchies of life have been based heavily on religion, and modern hierarchies, increasingly on neuroscience and parsimony.

Dyske continues to mention that Shinto, the animist religion/philosophy which forms the underpinnings of Japanese society, has no hierarchy of species, yet I would add that both Indic and Abrahamic religion have well-articulated hierarchies (The Japanese generally became vegetarians after Buddhism was introduced from India through China.): generally, species which we perceive as most similar to ourselves are considered more special than species which we consider less similar to ourselves. The historical process whereby these species were determined and arranged in this particular hierarchy is something which we will probably never understand, yet parsimony suggests this hierarchy was created by a combination of inductive health effects: i.e. bans on eating pork (because it often causes food poisoning and death and tends to carry a lot of diseases which also affect humans.) were both empirically observed and emulated and tended to select against societies which ate pork; the appearance of “suffering” in animals killed tended to be most pronounced in animals which moved the most and in complex fashion, i.e. mammals, which have developed motor cortices, allowing for the observation of planned, as opposed to simply reflex-based, effort to avoid hunters. Clams and wheat, on the other hand, don’t avoid us.

Essentially, this is what we call “anthropomorphism” which is the foisting of human values and characteristics onto other life forms. It is inescapable that we think of other life forms, especially those that seem to resemble us most, in anything but human terms, and so, we can try to devise our hierarchy with this in mind, but ultimately, we’re going to continue to identify the most “intelligent” animals as the ones most like us.

There is also the outlier effect, which is the primary basis for kosher: since most animals that live in the sea have fins, there must be something special about those animals that don’t have fins, such as octopi. We should therefore not eat those special animals, and since we don’t have to in order to survive, abiding by the rules of kosher was relatively easy. Whereas kosher appears to most modern humans to be an arbitrary collection of controlling mechanisms, it was not only that but also the most mature expression of all the aforementioned forces: disease-avoidance, anthropomorphism, empirical observation of nature, and respect for outliers. Given the fact that dolphins score high on all these categories, it is not surprising that the Greeks punished the consumption of dolphin by death, or that many of us sympathize with the premise of The Cove today, even though the film possesses not a shred of logic, and we cannot precisely articulate why we feel the way we do.

Modern science has given us some tools to help answer the question of whether or not we should eat dolphin. The first I am aware of and would like to mention is modern neuroscience. We are exceedingly confident that the brain is the center of all that any species experiences. As an artifact of evolution, the brain precedes humans: the human brain is extremely complex when compared to the brains of other species, and it is from this complexity that we generally draw our own concept of human superiority. In fact, the human brain is so complex that it is likely we will never fully understand it. Countless specialized nerves wire every part of our body, and chemical-electrical signals are constantly being relayed between every part of our bodies and our brains, interacting in aufhebung inside our skulls to produce reflex reactions that ensure continuing existence. This complexity is at least shared by all brained creatures, i.e. animals, and the taking of an animal’s life for food necessarily involves the destruction of such elegant complexity as the brain. For at least the human brain, we must add feelings, logic, music, language, etc. as further complexities, or at least elaborations of reflex reactions, and just as the entire nervous system consists of countless connections all leading to one central brain, so does each brain cell contain countless connections to each other brain cell all leading to the cell’s chemical-electrical core. The brain is an absolute wonder of evolution, so complex that we could never hope to really understand it, since we are automatically operating within its limits. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t answer the question of whether or not we should eat dolphins, or answer any other complex question.

There is a concept in mathematics called “fractal randomness” wherein the unlikelihood or specialness of a particular event can be evaluated based on the principle that the unknown has a general affinity to the known and that events within the same system generally follow mathematical patterns. For example, if I need to build a new elementary school, and must choose where to build it, I could choose a non-descript parcel of average flat land, or I could choose to build the school amidst the geysers and hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. It probably behooves me to choose the non-descript parcel of land for practical reasons, but even if it didn’t, the uniqueness or specialness of Yellowstone National Park compels respect: there is no place like it, and I can more easily clear a plot of common land for my school. We can use this same principle to cast light on this debate about whether or not we should eat dolphins in a non-ethnocentric, non-anthropomorphic way.

The brain is something that is common to many, many life-forms, and even more life-forms don’t have brains. So, if we examine a life form like yeast, which is a single-cell fungus, we can conclude that, relative to other species, there is not a striking level of unusualness, complexity, or unusual complexity to make efforts to prevent its consumption. Please go ahead and eat yeast guilt-free. We can compare the ordinariness of yeast against its relative abundance: yeast is versatile, easy to grow, and not in danger of extinction. Multi-cellular organisms take on a new level of complexity, wherein new dimensions for potential calculations are added by the interactions between cells. Therefore, a carrot can be considered as more complex than yeast; nevertheless, a carrot still is fairly ordinary in comparison with other species, as well as abundant, and so, we can also consume carrots guilt-free I think.

There is a famous hypothetical argument between computer programmers and geneticists about Madonna. A computer programmer would say that a Madonna concert DVD contains more information than Madonna the person, since her DNA can be encoded with fewer bits of information than her concert DVD can. Yet these computer programmers forget that DNA is only the starting point for the various life-forms, and that DNA does nothing but code for RNA, which does nothing but code for proteins. DNA, RNA, and proteins ultimately interact in ways sufficiently complex to produce schools of fish, beehives, cities, music, etc. countless iterations of environmental stimuli later. A new dimension must be added for each interaction that occurs.

And so, when we move on to creatures with significant environmental impacts on development, we’re dealing with a different order of magnitude entirely. The brain adds another order of magnitude, the motor cortex (where animals “plan” actions) another order of magnitude, and the neo-cortex another order of magnitude, social animals possess another order of magnitude. As we progress “up” this phylogenetic tree we must appreciate the increasing complexity that we destroy to simply satiate ourselves. And so, when we reach the level of dolphins, which are extremely complex animals, with extremely complex brains, complex social networks, and complex environmental reactions, we should at least recognize that dolphins are special animals, in the sense that their existence is rare (when compared to grasshoppers or wheat). Killing dolphins ultimately disturbs us because it is the destruction of great, uncommon beauty; it is like bulldozing Mt. Fuji to build a shopping center.
Chisa Hidaka says:
April 28th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
The self-righteous tone of many pro-dolphin activists is not helpful to anyone. I definitely agree with this part of the ongoing discussion on this site.

However, it is scientifically proven that Taiji dolphin meat is unsafe to eat based on high mercury levels. Levels are probably high in many other coastal areas as well. If nothing else, dolphin consumption should be stopped on that basis. It’s not about morality. It’s about human health.

As far as dolphin meat consumption, the moral issues are moot because they are simply unsafe to eat.

For whales, that is another matter. Not all whales are too toxic to eat…although some are, as well.

Taiji fishermen mainly kill dolphin for ‘pest control’…they feel the dolphins compete with them for fish. The live trade is also an economic incentive. These are more important issues to address than the consumption of dolphin meat.
Dyske says:
April 28th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Hi Christopher,

I’m not sure if I follow your argument.

You seem to be saying, the more complex the creature is, the more valuable its life is. Is that what you are saying?

You seem to be suggesting that the course of evolution has some sort of ultimate purpose, or an ultimate creature that it is trying to produce through the process of evolution. If I were to assume this to be true, I would agree with you that the higher the creature is on the tree of evolution, the more valuable its life is. That is, valuable in terms of what evolution is trying to create.

But I cannot buy this. Firstly, everything is a matter of degree. So, once we decide that there is indeed a hierarchy, we can always make finer distinctions. I’m not sure if this is possible now, but it would probably be possible in the future to determine whose genes are more evolved (more complex) within humans. This will lead to Social Darwinism where those who are determined to be more complex and evolved would be more valuable.

It is also wrong to assume that evolution’s goal is to create more complex creatures. Complexity does not actually guarantee survival. Evolution happens through random mutations and whoever possesses the quality that helps to survive better in the changing environments will be more likely to pass on the genes. It’s not about being smarter or stronger; it’s about the ability to adapt to new environments. And, our environment can change in the future. It is possible for us to see a new environment where physical strength is again better for survival than intelligence. Evolution does not favor any specific quality, nor does it have any ultimate agenda.

In the worst case scenario, we humans may get wiped out while roaches survive. If so, we could easily argue that roaches are a superior life form. Humans and dolphins could be seen as undesirable complexity that happens during a long period of a stable environment. It’s sort of like entropy; complexity is a natural progression that is not necessarily desirable.

“Killing dolphins ultimately disturbs us because it is the destruction of great, uncommon beauty; it is like bulldozing Mt. Fuji to build a shopping center.”

This too troubles me. You seem to be suggesting that beauty is a good criteria by which to determine something universal. I have no problem with Tea preferring a “cute” creature personally, but when you frame the argument in such a way to suggest universality, again, you are leaning towards Social Darwinism. Like beautiful people deserve to live more.

Elaborate your arguments for me. I’m not sure if I’m understanding you.
Christopher Carr says:
April 29th, 2010 at 1:22 am
I am saying that the more complex and rare a creature is, the more valuable its existence generally is. I think rarity provides a universal framework on which we can generally attach value in a non-ethnocentric, non-anthropocentric, universal way, which is really what I was trying to do with that post; for instance a diamond is a more rare event than sandstone, and so we can attach relative value to a diamond in a way that is non-ethnocentric, non-anthropocentric, and universal as far as we know.

I’m not suggesting that there is an evolutionary purpose to create rare creatures; on the contrary, it is precisely because evolution only necessitates survival and reproduction, that rare creatures and complex life-forms are so particularly special. I agree with your analyses of evolution and entropy as forces which may break down complex life forms in the long run, but this only makes those complex life forms even more special in the sense which I describe.

When I wrote that “Killing dolphins ultimately disturbs us because it is the destruction of great, uncommon beauty; it is like bulldozing Mt. Fuji to build a shopping center.” I was thinking of people who did respond emotionally to The Cove, and trying to extrapolate a forum where disagreement is rooted in an honest differences of values as opposed to a more common chauvinism and cultural ignorance.

But I think there is something universal about the complexity of dolphins, something which traditional morality, both Japanese and non-Japanese, as well as modern science, can comment on, that is independent of human existence as far as we can tell.

I think it’s easy to extrapolate Social Darwinism from my argument, although unnecessary, unfair, and incorrect. Differences between human beings will always be small differences in kind and not large differences of degree, and so our margin for error is likely high enough to make any fundamental, objective differences that may exist between us insignificant. In other words, I think some people are objectively “better” than others, but this is impossible to evaluate with enough certainty to justify taking any sort of action, i.e. Social Darwinism.

Please keep in mind that my framework is not any attempt at a universal field theory of life, but simply an attempt at a non-ethnocentric, non-anthrocentric, objective means whereby we can evaluate the morality of eating various kinds of food.
Jess says:
April 29th, 2010 at 2:43 am
This debate is not and should not be about ethnocentricm. O’Berry did not set out to expose Japanese fisheries as corrupt just because they are Japanese anymore than he and his Danish wife are investigating the slaughter of dolphins in Denmark.

Read: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2010/04/29/2003471752
Dyske says:
April 29th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Hi Christopher,

Rarity as a measure of “value” is misleading. The word “value” in this sense pertains to sellable or marketable value, such as utilitarian and symbolic values. When we are speaking of “value” of life, we are not talking about “value” as in something we can trade or price, nor something that the market force determines.

When the genetic mutation of blonde hair happened, it spread very fast among the humans because it was “rare” and most people found it “beautiful”. So, the marketable “value” of someone with blonde hair was significantly higher. This however does not mean that the life of someone with blonde hair is worth more. It’s a very different concept.

In fact, it is indeed ethnocentric and anthropocentric to use rarity as a measure of value. Firstly, not everything that is rare is more valuable. People with Down syndrome is relatively rare, but it is not desirable. So their marketable “value” is lower, yet we should not consider their lives to be worth any less. If you do, you would be forcing your own “value” on that person or the society.

Secondly, the value that comes from rarity is strictly a human construct. So, if we were to determine what species we can kill for our survival based on rarity, you would indeed be projecting human values on other species. That is anthropocentric.
Dyske says:
April 29th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Jess,

“O’Berry did not set out to expose Japanese fisheries as corrupt just because they are Japanese”. Accusing someone of something based on nationality is NOT ethnocentrism. You don’t seem to understand what ethnocentrism is.
DavidAtUSA says:
April 29th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I just stumbled onto this article and the other one on The Cove (which I thought was an interesting perspective), and I see the all crap posted by davidattokyo.

@davidattokyo

The more you write, the more YOU’RE PROVING his point on ethnocentrism. It’s painful to read…

You ignore and mislabel another person’s argument in the last article. Then tell people to “GROW UP”, “WAKE UP”, “LOSER”, get more education, and then step on somebody’s art degree based on things they never said?

What about stop being a Jack***?

Cut out the Ad Hominems and Strawman. It’s pathetic.

Also, get it through your head man. NOBODY’S saying that killing dolphins/whales is okay, nor are they hiding the act behind the race card, nor with tradition. You’re the only one ACCUSING people on this.
They are debating a separate issue on the movie’s depiction of the Japanese. One that seemingly scapegoats the Japanese alone over an international issue.

Activism and saving dolphins/whales is one thing. SCAPEGOATING another ethnicity to raise awareness on an international issue is something else (and seriously messed up if that’s the case).

Whether the film is intentionally targeting the Japanese to raise awareness (and whether people are really just ethnocentric) or not, IS the debate.

Even if the Japanese are mainly the people breaking rules, it’s not SOLELY the Japanese doing the whaling. As you already know even the Europeans do it (whether it’s against the rules or not). So why do a film exclusively on the Japanese and nobody else?

Let’s say that film isn’t intentionally using the Japanese, the racist backlashing that are happening is a HUGE ISSUE.

That’s my take on it.
DavidAtUSA says:
April 29th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
And just to bring this up.

I’m from the US east coast and I don’t condone the Iraq war, the use of torture,and Gitmo. There’s two sides to this, where some people here don’t even consider waterboarding as a form of torture. You may hold a right-wing view and not agree with my stance, but that’s not the point.

These incidents escalated a lot more hate towards the US, especially when the torture was kept as top secret.

Let’s say a foreign film (so no Michael Moore) about the “international atrocities of war” was successful. It targeted the torture and the deaths/tragedies caused by American soldiers and the ONLY the US alone. As a result, people worldwide started targeting White American individuals for denying the truth, and even started messing up grave sites like the Australia incident.

We could point fingers and say that other countries did much worse (like the Nazis in Germany), so why single us out? Just because Bush tried to hide the memos?

But then, the twist is when some people out there group all of us into, and accuse us of denying “the truth”, when that isn’t the case.

The situations are apples and oranges, but the feelings are the same. Especially, since you don’t even condone it in the first place.

You only feel this if it hits close to home.
Dyske says:
April 30th, 2010 at 6:48 am
Hi DavidAtUSA,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think your analogy of torture is a good one. If such a film were to use a sensational style designed to evoke anger at the US (as opposed to simply providing objective and comprehensive facts, and raising the question of torture, and leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions), the majority of people will react defensively, and even those who are against torture may criticize the method of the film. In other words, it would create a significant distraction away from the main issue.

An end does not justify every means. The motives and intentions matter greatly in the long run. As I wrote before, sometimes our objective might align with the objective of, for instance, KKK members (e.g. prosecuting a murderer who happens to be black). Accepting their help just to achieve our end, can have long-term consequences. Motives matter, if we are to truly resolve our conflicts.
Sue Caster says:
April 30th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
“It’s quite different from the typical Western, particularly Christian, view where guilt is not something you accept as a norm.” – That’s entirely the contrary to the Christian view; Christians do assume that we are all sinners or are guilty.

Also, in the slaughterhouses, at least at the pig farms in North Carolina, the workers do get covered in blood. It is an extremeley bloody ordeal, surprisingly, and very emotionally disturbing to the workers. So, I am totally on the same page with you, in that the the filmmakers did not need to go to Japan, and use the anti-foreign sentiment to their advantage, to make a disturbing film about slaughtering animals.
Dyske says:
April 30th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Hi Sue,

Thank you for pointing it out. I realized that I need to clarify that; it’s a misleading statement. What I meant to say is this:

Yes, “guilt” is a big deal in Christianity. The idea is to get rid of your guilt as much as possible because the less you have it, the more likely to go to heaven.

In Shintoism, you are guilty by default, and there is nothing you can do about it to eliminate all the guilt. Wikipedia does a good job of explaining it:

Shinto teaches that certain deeds create a kind of ritual impurity that one should want cleansed for one’s own peace of mind and good fortune, not because impurity is wrong in and of itself. Wrong deeds are called “impurity”, opposed to “purity”. Normal days are called “day”, and festive days are called “sunny” or simply “good”. Killing living beings should be done with reverence for taking a life to continue one’s own and should be kept to a minimum.

The important part is this: “not because impurity is wrong in and of itself”.

A Christian would try to eliminate guilt completely, and by doing so, you become a superior being. This leads to ranking, as observed in the Vatican. The more free of guilt you are, the better you are, which leads to self-righteousness and pointing finger at others. It’s like a fringe benefit of working hard to eliminate your sins.

This doesn’t happen with Shintoism because purifying is something you do for good luck, and is not required by anyone. In a funny way, purification is a self-serving ritual, so it does not make you a superior person. “Guilt” in this sense is a natural part of being a human, and it’s not deemed wrong in and of itself. This may sound self-contradictory, but to Shintoism, it’s not.
UG says:
May 4th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Dice & Dyske
Totally OT
I was so confused
1st came upon your article Dyske and I was 100% sure that it was my brother Dice
Then I saw Dice had a reply on this post so I realize that you are 2 different Daisuke’s
Both of you share an objective writing style and both of you have an understanding of cultures
I just wanted you guys both to know I enjoy reading what you guys write

I was hoping that our Hindu friend Davidintokyo could have used his own cultural examples
If I’m not mistaken Cows are holy and not eaten or killed in Hindu culture
It would have really been interesting to hear this perspective of his people watching the globe consume an animal he considers holy. Even if the sentiment may not be universal, it would have been a genuine argument if he had simply said,”I’m opposed to the killing of xxxx, because xxxx is holy to me.”, ” I wish you would stop killing xxxx because it is Holy to me.”

I may not agree the cow is holy, but I would understand that you feel it is
I may continue to eat cow but I would understand how you feel

After this connection, I may even be open to hear, “Dolphins are the Cows of the sea, and therefore just like it pains me to see the world consume the Holy Cow, it pains me to see people consume Dolphin”.

I’m clearly not the writer the Dyske and Dice are but this discussion is awesome, and I’ve really appreciate the time people took to examine THEMSELVES and present their views and arguments.

I do wish for Davidintokyo all the best, I think you have passion, energy and lots of feelings
Please hear me and understand, that everybody here is part of the solution and differing view are what make the world unique

I remember the stories of old whale hunting where every part of the whale had a purpose,
I distinctly remember that Whale whiskers were prized back in the day as being rigid and flexible, like a spring. Clock smiths prized these whiskers and used them as mechanical springs to run centuries old mechanics. Guitar players also understand what Cats guts were for “guitar strings”.
My point being, that food protein, is but one of many resources obtained form an Animal.

I also remember old stories of whale hunting where the buoyant blubber was cut out of a whale and the rest of the carcass was dumped overboard

Being a meat eater I can still imagine the world eventually transition to insect and plant protein.
MMMMMMMMMMMMM Grub cereal with soy milk
Brian M. says:
May 8th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
The argument from Japanese perspective seems reasonable. And I read some one said that Japan’s culture is life equality toward any specieses in the world. But to my knowledge, Japan’s army also slaughtered more than three hundred thousands of life in China during the second world war. Most of Japanese are amicable, however, the power is usually controlled by lunatic people!

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