Photographs of 19th Century Japan

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> This reminds me that we are all losing our unique and diverse cultures and humanity through the incessant drive of globalist world domination to force everyone to do and be the same

We're actually creating new unique and diverse cultures by adopting and remixing parts of the various cultures we encounter. Just looking at photos from other cultures (as you have done today) is a part of that process. This is a good thing. Some of my favorite things are different takes on a thing that came from another culture. Diversity really does make us stronger and it makes our lives richer. While it might be neat to see what results from cultures being totally isolated, I think it'd be much more interesting to see what results from bringing those cultures together.

The truth is that none of those "unique and diverse cultures" you're mourning the loss of came from anything different. Even japan's culture, although it was one of the more isolationist nations, was still massively influenced by other people/places. Technology accelerates the process, but the process itself is unchanged. It made 19th century japan what it was then, just like it made japan what it is now. It's just what humans do and always have done. There's no reason to feel sad about it.

Corporations are probably low down the list of drivers of cultural homogenization. Merely exporting (via social media, entertainment, cosmopolitan norms, etc) the Western conception of diversity as virtue, as well as the particular definition(s) du jour of diversity, is no less a form of cultural homogenization (or "colonization" using the parlance of some circles).

You’re really underplaying how awful the life was for an average person in before-times. Sure, pretty buildings, different cultures, and etc. were more prominent. But also an average person would never be able to enjoy those in their lifetimes.

I just don't think that's true. This seems like a really pessimistic take. Is it truly "globalist world domination" — implying that our corporate overlords want us to live like this? Or is it purely function and aesthetic? Capitalism puts power in the hands of consumers—sure, marketing has an influence—but also, we as consumers are the ultimate deciders. Cost, labor, and wealth. All are influences in the deciding of what we choose to buy. If what we have today is lifeless, I think it's of our own collective choosing.

To be fair though, these photos are breathtaking. Pre-industrial era Japan is a place I'd love to visit and the history of this transformation is steeped in fear, modernizing in response to Western powers (look up Matthew Perry—naval officer, not the actor lol).

Your comments reminds me one time I discussed with a university professor about how evil the eradication of the biosphere diversity was (wildlife but also unique breeds with century-long histories), and he replied that we'd have a "less bloated, more efficient biosphere".

This is kind of an ironic comment as Japan was very isolationist - that is, resisting foreign influence, sticking to their own culture / traditions / etc - at least up until the time period of this photo, which is when the Meiji Restoration started and they opened up more to foreigners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration

Not unlike how it went in a lot of places at the time; the problem with history is that they mainly focus on and make records of the upper echelons, the pretty parts. Few historians / writers / etc make notes of the common people. Some exceptions, of course, but you'd be forgiven for thinking Europe was mainly castles, knights and political intrigue back in the middle ages.

It hasn't changed much; in theory everyone has a camera in their pocket now to record the mundane, but in practice a lot of it is "content", where people put on a show for the camera.

My grandpa was an amateur photographer, he'd go out and make photos of local events, scenes, people, etc. His work has been donated to a regional museum and digitized, because there was little other visual records of these old (well, 50's) traditions.

I can't find them though. Some were uploaded to a Facebook page but that's a really poor platform for archiving / displaying works. I should reach out to my dad and start a project to build a website for this collection or something like that.

Cultures evolve, borrow, remix - that's always been true, even long before globalization. People still find ways to hold onto local traditions, stories, food, language - sometimes because the outside world feels so loud.

Whether it's good or bad I feel like what you mention is partially besides the point no? As in prosperity might look different without the things influencing this cultural mixture but surely the argument would not be that we'd be living in the 1800's

It happened at a tiny fraction of the speed it happens at now tbh. I'd say now it far surpasses the rate at which they differentiate to varying extent.

You can't be serious, right? As a consumer, where can I choose to buy a printer with no planned obsolescence? Or a food item with no plastic packaging? In capitalism we do not, in fact, have the power you describe, because only the most profitable products are sold at scale, not the most desirable.

The thing is, Sakoku passim, you can't really prevent homogenization without entirely abandoning the 20th century (heck, 19th century!) travel revolution. You'd need a global ban on air travel, TV, and Internet.

The alternative is a sort of re-enactment/cosplay approach where people consciously try to keep local traditions and minority languages (e.g. Gaelic, Sami) alive.

Hmm. If we want to preserve our diverse cultures, then we have to do more to defend our own cultures against immigrants imposing their cultures over them.

How you do that without being outright racist is the tough part.

And I say this as a migrated child of migrants.

Don't see much imposition in Japan and this year will mark ten years living here. People who can't or won't assimilate quickly find themselves living on another plane of existence and eventually leave. Language plays a big part with that too. If you can't speak Japanese or have someone with you who can there are countless everyday situations where you're SOL.

Long distance traveling was invented much earlier than 20th and even 19th century.

Yes.

But is that a good thing?

And if it is, should we be trying to promote it elsewhere where immigrant imposition does occur? And how?!

I agree diversity makes us richer, and historically there was always cultural diffusion, what I lament though is that this is now partially done by multinational corporations, wiping out local traditions.

How do immigrants impose their cultures on a host country? Can you give some examples? Historically populations mix by migration, wars, slavery, and trading networks. It is a process that cannot be stopped, maybe slowed down or accelerated. The disappointing aspect of it, is now this process has been hijacked by corporations. How did the West acquire a culture of coffee or coffee-shops? Now is McDonalds and Costa Cafes.

Speed and scale of long-distance travel are obviously the relevant factors, not just "is it possible to go far".

Air travel is faster than horse, and carries more people.

Along a similar tangent - we are losing a lot of authenticity with the loss of culture. When the younger ones complain that 'nothing is real', this is a portion of what they mean.

A big aspect of authenticity is uniqueness and modern culture and political thought are absolutely counter-aligned to this idea.

I'm not buying this. All these claims rely on some nebulous "poor people" who were kept hidden away somewhere. There is no good reason to doubt that these photos show regular people, and the buildings they lived in.

Here's an isochrone — travel time — map from 1881, centred on London. Note the legend uses tens of days to measure time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isochronic_Passage_Chart_...

Both of my grandpas (who have passed away long ago), would beg to differ. People, especially when taking photos wasn't basically free, don't take photos of ordinary things. If you see 1 rose among 500 tulips, that will catch your eye. And vice versa.

Poor people were not hidden away, it's just their lives weren't that beautiful to be shown and paraded around.

Mm. When I go on holiday, I take notice of mundane things in the new place that are different to mundane things in my normal life. Street furniture, pylons, graffiti, the contents of supermarket shelves, dusty unpaved roads[0].

But over the years I have come to realise that I'm very odd.

When you go on holiday, how many photos do you take of regular people, vs. tourist attractions? Or, in reverse, do you know regular people[1] who often find tourists visiting their area like to take photos of their homes?

[0] When I visited Nairobi a decade back, one of my photos was along the lines of this Google Street View image: https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.2811367,36.9148575,3a,75y,17...

[1] This site being what it is, there's a decent chance you know someone world-famous and people do actually want photos of their home. They're not "regular people".

> we have to do more to defend our own cultures

What does "defend" mean?

> against immigrants imposing their cultures

How can a minority "impose" its culture?

> How you do that without being outright racist

You can start by not saying "defending" and "imposing". There's no attack. "Defending" only means enjoying and promoting all the elements of your existing culture - language, music, entertainment, food, dress, architecture, religious and other traditional celebrations.

Immigrants like to be part of the mainstream so most of them will participate, unless made to feel unwelcome, usually bringing some of their own food to the party (always a plus).

> this is now partially done by multinational corporations, wiping out local traditions.

And it used to be partially done by empires, wiping out local traditions. And powerful warlords would do it, too. Monarchs, etc. Hard to say Western Europe doesn't look the way it does in large part because of this multicontinental, millennia-old institution called the Catholic Church!

Maybe, these being taken in the 19th century when photography was expensive, they were well off enough to afford paying for it?

My dad was stationed in Japan after the war, and he enjoyed the Japanese culture. He brought home bits of it. I thought "zori" was an English word for many years. I still prefer it over flip-flops.

He'd import culture from other places he was stationed. He adopted the German custom of an after-lunch nap, which I still do.

My dad took quite a few pictures of everyday life in Japan after WW2, including everyday life on the military bases.

The same during the Korean War he was a pilot in.

I have a couple books full of photos of the Civil War. There are a lot of ordinary soldier and camp life pictures in it.

Agreed and besides Europe the Catholic Church destroyed much of the history of Mesoamerica. But, part of "culture" is our history as well, it just saddens me though thinking what we are going to leave behind for future generations.

And even language itself changes how we think. We can blame the romans for making english the lingua franca.

Most of the people in the photos seem be ordinary, working class people. Even buddhist monks, who swore to live in poverty, celibacy and to avoid food that was too flavorful.

It isn't like we don't have records of ordinary people, even the homeless, or criminals. It's more like people like you claim the existence of a whole another kind of "poor people", who were supposedly the absolute majority, who suffered somewhere, completely ignored by everybody, and worked long hours every day on... being poor? It just doesn't seem to add up.

You can start by discussing things and not quibbling over terms.

> What does "defend" mean?

Keep it from being replaced by another culture. I think we all understand that.

> How can a minority "impose" its culture?

By being locally dominant. By catering to people from their own community who prefer not to join the local culture. By providing cheaper/better/more profitable things to the locals than the local culture does.

> How did the West acquire a culture of coffee or coffee-shops?

For that matter, how did those coffee shops displace tea rooms?

You're going to have to be more specific and maybe give some examples. I don't see a path from cheaper produce at some ethnic stores (the only part of your comment connected to reality) to total cultural replacement.