What Does It Mean to be a Citizen of the World?

I'm half Mexican, half Southern white guy.  I'm a historian of US and Latin American history.  I grew up listening to hip hop, a beautiful culture created by black Americans.  My favorite video game genre is Japanese role playing game.  My favorite author is a queer black man, James Baldwin; my favorite director is Japanese director and legend of world cinema, Akira Kurosawa.  Some of my other favorite movies come from outside the US, from countries like Mexico, Sweden, Ireland, Korea, and Thailand.  My political philosophy is shaped by thinkers from all over the world. So is my fighting style, as I've trained martial arts from around the world.

I say this not to sound all worldly and special.  In fact, what I think is kind of cool is that I'm not that unique at all here.  We're all connected to the rest of the world in tons of ways.  There's a good chance that you, the reader, probably have a bunch of different connections to the rest of the world, too.  Which brings to mind the phrase "a citizen of the world", an idea I've always liked, but never thought about in depth until recently.

So, what does it mea to be a citizen of the world?

Usually when I make a post about some sort of question about society I have a concrete answer.  That answer then functions as a sort of thesis for my post, almost as if I'm writing a paper.  But this'll be a bit different.  I'm just going to reflect without any set answer.  I guess, if I have any thesis, it's that being a citizen of the world shouldn't mean just consuming goods, customs, and ideas from other parts of the world, but involve some sort of reciprocity.  Being a citizen of the world implies being part of a global human community, after all.  But what that means and what that looks like will be different for each of us.

What is a "Citizen of the World"?

Speaking of my favorite director Akira Kurosawa, in his "Something Like an Autobiography" memoir of his, there is a quote I really like:

"No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it." 

Another quote I like is from Thomas Paine, one of the most fascinating founding fathers of the US (and, in my own personal view, perhaps the only one truly worth celebrating- but that is a different blog post).  It's short, sweet, and to the point:

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

What stands out to me about these quotes is that they both provoke a call to action.  They're not just about appreciating other cultures, as neat and important as that is.  It's not only about what movies you watch, or what food you eat, or what languages you speak.  It's about how you relate to people around the world, how you're willing to connect to them, and why that matters.  For Kurosawa it matters to create a sense of global connectedness so we don't view each other with suspicion and hatred, while for Paine it matters that we do good to others, even if they're continents away.

A True Global Community

Above is a picture of Genki Sudo, a popular Japanese MMA star from the late '90s to mid '00s known for his flashy ring entrances.   Arguably his most famous moment, however, came neither during a walkout nor a fight.  It came right after.  After one of his victories in the early '00s, he help up a banner with all the world's flags saying "we are all one" in front of a cheering crowd with complete sincerity.  It's a sweet moment that is remembered fondly by many across the sport, even those whose entire worldview goes against what Sudo was saying.

MMA is a perfect microcosm of how much being a "global citizen" can matter, but often doesn't.  What I mean is: MMA is a sport that displays amazing martial art techniques from all over the world and celebrates "we are all one" signs.  Yet it also has a huge problem with racists and other far right hate figures, dating back to a forefather with ties to the Brazilian fascists in the 1930s.  So, what's the point of a "global" culture of it can create such close-minded, xenophobic views?  Is patting yourself on the back for being worldly worth anything if it can be twisted into something so rotten?  Is "global citizen" something even worth aspiring toward if you might end up with something that goes directly against those values?

I think it is worth it.  But we must approach it the right way.  Calling yourself a global citizen and creating a list of ways you're inspired by other cultures isn't enough.  What I said about myself at the beginning of this post isn't enough, because it's just me defining myself by how much I benefit from the rest of the world.  It's all about what I want, what I like.  By watching foreign films you like or training martial arts you find effective or befriending people from places you find interesting, you're only thinking of the world in terms of what it can offer you.  Which, to an extent, isn't bad!  There are many beautiful things, ideas, and people around the world.  Why not watch some Kurosawa films and read some James Baldwin books and strike up a conversation with someone from a different homeland than you?

But what about what we give back?  Genki Sudo is now a politician in Japan, a member of their House of Councillors (roughly the equivalent of our Senate).  His three main policy concerns are food safety, global environmental protection, and a foreign policy involved in peace.  Another self proclaimed citizen of the world, socialist politician and labor leader Eugene Debs, said "I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world."  Aside from fighting for all the things you'd expect a socialist to fight for, like worker rights and economic democracy, he was also arrested for speaking out against World War 1 (the one where there were no clear bad guys, unlike World War 2).  He did so because he was willing to risk his freedom to oppose sending young men to die in vast numbers in a brutal, senseless war against the young men of Germany, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Closing Thoughts

So what does it mean to be a citizen of the world?  I don't know.  I'll probably never have an exact definition in my head.

What I do know, though, is that it can't just be a matter of what we like about other cultures.  It can't just be about us picking and choosing what we like, as if the world owes us everything while we owe it and the people in it nothing.  If it's to mean anything worthwhile at all, it should mean taking part in a way where there is both give and take.  I can watch Kurosawa movies and train Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but I also have to care about people from these places too.

Thanks for reading!

Fiction and Originality

Hey there everyone, sorry for not posting these last couple of weeks.  I recently got a new job, and have also been focusing on getting my collection of short stories published through Amazon's CreateSpace.  Right now I'm editing my manuscript and collaborating with a friend on a cover, so everything is coming along nicely.  Expect that bad boy to drop in a few weeks!

Anywho, one of the most talked about topics in fiction is originality.  You see it not only in conversations about books, but conversations about movies, television, and every other story telling medium, as well.  Many people lament the loss of "originality" in film in particular.  One of the most common criticisms of James Cameron's Avatar, for instance, is that it was just like Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves, but with blue-skinned aliens instead of Native Americans.

 

All the metaphors for Native Americans, without the need to hire any Native American actors!

On the other hand, one of the most popular quotes about creativity is "good artists copy; great artists steal", a line that is made even better by the fact that no one is sure who to attribute it to (most people say either Pablo Picasso or TS Elliot, but no one is sure).  In fact, many people say originality doesn't exist.  So what's the deal?  How can we mourn the loss of originality, but also embrace this loss and make clever little witticisms about it?  What is "originality" in creative works, and fiction in particular, anyway?

Before we tackle the tricky subject of borrowing from other works, let's talk about the base concept of originality first.  There is a lot to unpack here.

It's important to realize that even if you aren't drawing explicitly from fiction or any other type of creative work in your writing, there are certain tropes- that is, story telling devices- that show up in stories you create, and these tropes have all shown up before.  It's not a bad thing, as there are only so many different types of characters, stories, and themes you can create.  I've seen so many starting writers try too hard to be innovative and in the process they either (1)never end up writing anything because that perfect, mind-blowing, game-changing story never comes or (2)create a jumbled mess that is so focused on being different it forgets to add quality story telling.

Humans have been telling stories for a long, long time.  Stories about love, hatred, war, peace, oppression, liberation, courage, cowardice, acceptance- every theme you could ever want.  Stoic characters, loud characters, funny characters, sad characters, brave characters, honest characters, deceitful characters, optimistic characters, cynical characters and more, as well as every permutation of these traits you can think of.  There are too many situations to even name that can happen in these stories- that's why there is an entire online encyclopedia dedicated to these tropes.

Don't click that link if you were hoping to be productive any time in the next couple hours.

This is what people mean when they say you can't be completely original.  Even if everything you write is drawn from a combination of your noggin, your life experiences, and the life experiences of other people in your life, there is almost certainly a number of tropes that fit us and our experiences.  Not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to.

Speaking of "not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to", let's move on to the topic of drawing inspiration from other creative works.  Because there are a lot of examples of great works that are influenced by other works, and those influential works themselves having been influenced by other works.

Let's start with my favorite filmmaker, whom I've written about before: Akira Kurosawa.  Aside from being one of the best filmmakers of all time, he is also one of the most influential.  The Hidden Fortress inspired the original Star Wars trilogy; Yojimbo inspired A Fistful of Dollars; Seven Samurai has influenced so many films, from The Maginificent Seven to A Bug's Life, that it's hard to keep track.

 

Just some little movie trilogy, you may have heard of it.

And yet, even being one of the most talented, innovative, and influential directors ever, Kurosawa had his own influences as well.  The linked article talks about the influences on his work as a filmmaker; in addition to his own life experiences, one of the biggest influences on Kurosawa was Russian literature, especially Dostoyevsky and [Maxim] Gorky.  My favorite movie of all time, Kurosawa's Red Beard, is based on a short story collection by Shūgorō Yamamoto, and also draws from a Dostoyevsky novel for one of the movie's subplots.  So to say he came up with the ideas for his brilliant films by himself would be, at best, disingenuous.

Think of stories as a chain reaction of different influences coming together.  Every story is a mixture of the author's life experiences, the life experiences of people they know or know of, ideas they've studied, fictional works they've seen and enjoyed, other creative works they've experienced and enjoyed (I once wrote a short story inspired by a painting I saw), and other such sources that come together  into whatever work that person creates.  Originality, if such a thing exists, comes in the way you synthesize those pieces together, not in pretending that whatever you make has never been influenced by anything else and is completely unlike everything before it.

And that's where the "not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to" idea comes back into play.  Every story, boiled down to its bare elements, is very basic.  Fight Club, a book and movie I was just talking about with my good friend Morgan, is one of my favorite stories out there.  Many people, myself included, find it very creative and original.  Yet, at it's very core, Fight Club is about a person overcoming a certain part of himself.  In that sense, Fight Club isn't much different than most other fiction.

Can Tyler Durden overcome himself... by working up the courage to ask Marla to the prom?!

Defining what is or isn't plagiarism is a little bit tricky, particularly because the line can be ambiguous.  But this is where the "minute details" come in.  Two stories might share similar characters, themes, and overall stories, but how similar are their character's arcs, the way they explore their themes, and the specific plot points they go through?  Earlier I mentioned Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars.  Well, I have have been a bit nice in saying A Fistful of Dollars was "influenced" by Yojimbo, because the movie actually seems to be plagiarized from Kurosawa's film.  Scene by scene, the movies are incredibly similar.  So similar, in fact, that Kurosawa brought a lawsuit against Director Sergio Leone and won.

Interestingly, Leone's defense was that Yojimbo wasn't a completely original work, either.  And he certainly had a point.  Kurosawa himself stated that the 1942 movie The Glass Key was a major influence for the film.  The difference here is that Kurosawa took a lot of tropes/story elements from The Glass Key and made them his own, while Leone took entire scenes from Yojimbo without giving proper credit.

Originality in fiction, to me, comes from the ability to synthesize an original story from existing parts.  Creating fiction is sorta like the act of creating life: you're not doing anything new, but you're creating something unique (also, you're naked, sweaty, and possibly drunk... that's how most other authors also write, right?).  So if you're a writer of any sort, don't feel the need to focus on creating fiction that is unlike any other.  Focus, instead, on creating something worth reading or watching.

Akira Kurosawa: Humanist Film Maker

 

 “There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.”

- Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998)

We all have our own criteria for what we want in the art we consume (as well as make, for the creative types among us).  My personal favorite outlook is best summed up in a quote from the 2011 movie Midnight in Paris, a movie which partially takes place amongst American ex-patriot writers in Paris during the 1920s.  In it, Gertrude Stein's character says the following: "we all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence."  To make us question things, but also attempt to give us answers, whether it moves or angers or inspires us- this is my favorite type of art*.

Akira Kurosawa is, to me, one of the best film makers that fit that criteria.  Kurosawa started film making during World War 2.  His earlier films were movies he created reluctantly, not because he wasn't sure about his passion for cinema, but because he was coerced  into putting nationalistic propaganda into his films (which, it is important to note, happens in almost every country during war). His film The Most Beautiful was a straight Japanese propaganda film, while films like Sanshiro Sugata and its sequel had elements of it.  After the war ended, he began to make movies with much more artistic freedom, and after continuing to refine his craft gave us some of the best films that the world has ever seen.

Rather than go through every movie of his I have seen, I will go through my five favorites and talk about them briefly.  Oddly enough, the order I saw them in happens to coincide with the the order they were chronologically released, so going in order will be easy.

Ikiru (1952)

The first movie of his I saw was Ikiru.  It actually happened to be airing on the UC San Diego channel when I was bored one day in my apartment.  I remember reading the description and seeing Kurosawa's name.  I thought to myself "hey, I've heard of this Kurosawa fella.  His movies are supposed to be pretty good.  I'll give this a try, I guess."  I watched the movie, going from mildly interested to engaged to moved to the verge of tears.

The movie follows an old man who finds out he has cancer (not too different a concept from Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, another great film, though the execution is quite different).  Knowing he will die soon, the main character tries to talk to his family about it, only to find himself unable to because of how little they seem to care.  He then tries escape in the nightlife of bars and clubs, before realizing that won't work for him.  Eventually, thanks to inspiration from a young woman he befriends, he decides he will dedicate the rest of his life to one final good deed: using his position as a bureaucrat to convert an unused plot of land into a public park that children can play in.

The film's title means "to live" in Japanese, and that's what this film is all about: how short life can be, and how crucial it is to find a purpose we find meaningful while we are here.  Ikiru gives us a protagonist who struggles with these same issues, but on a much more limited timeline, and therefore with a greater sense of urgency, which leads to some extraordinarily  poignant moments.  Whats great about the goal is how grounded it is- this isn't about saving the world from a plague or an alien invasion or new M Night Shyamalan movie.  This is about a realistic, seemingly small way of doing some genuine good in the world before leaving it.  Not only are the issues he struggles with real, but the way he deals with them provide us a realistic idea on how to face them ourselves.

Seven Samurai (1954)

The next movie I saw was his most famous work, especially in the international film community: Seven Samurai.  The film is about a peasant village that gathers up seven samurai to help stop a group of bandits from raiding their town.  I have already written a review for it here, on my friend David Zafra's blog, so check that out if you want an in depth review.

While Ikiru is about how to live life amidst all its struggles and complexities, Seven Samurai critiques close adherence to social roles as a way of life.  It doesn't do it in a way that condemns the people involved, however, but the roles themselves.  Peasants are desperate and tricky, but as Toshiro Mifune's character reminds us, it's because the poverty and violence they face (from both bandits and the feudal system itself) force them to be.  Samurai, meanwhile, might be sword wielding badasses, but they also know only violence and loss, and are usually left out of the celebration when those they fight for are victorious.  Everyone here is just playing their societal role, and the toll it takes is evident.

Yojimbo (1961)/Sanjuro (1962)

The next two films of his I saw were actually related- Yojimbo and its semi-sequel, Sanjuro.  The two are connected only by their protagonist, a nameless wandering samurai played by Toshiro Mifune.  In both, this wandering samurai sees problems going on and decides to try to help to fix them.  He does this because he wants to help, and being a badass is the only way he knows how.

An interesting aspect of these films is how they thematically tie together.  Yojimbo critiques the tradition idea of a samurai, or really any feudal warrior who enforces the status quo, by featuring an impolite but caring protagonist who eschews tradition and does things in his own unorthodox yet strategic way.  Sanjuro takes it a step further, in the direction of self-awareness.  It recognizes that, while Yojimbo is a badass in more way than one, violence is still his primary means of action.  Throughout Sanjuro, that reality begins to sink in more and more for the protagonist, and he tries to move away from it.  He doesn't want to only be a killer, even if he is doing it for a just cause.

Ultimately, the two movies feature a protagonist who wants to do good, but through methods that might not be ideal.  Who can't relate to that?

Red Beard (1965)

The final favorite of mine also happens to be my absolute favorite film of his, as well as my favorite movie of all time.  Hows that for a conveniently lined up list?

Red Beard tells the story of a young doctor, Noboru Yasumoto, who wants to a bigshot doctor for the Shogun himself in early 19th century Japan.  He is, against his wishes, transferred to a clinic in a poor rural town.  The clinic is run by Kyojo Niide, known affectionately to the people there as Red Beard.  Niide cares about his patients, and believes that emotional and mental healing is a crucial part of one's overall health.  He also sees the link between poverty and poor health, both in the lack of resources impoverished communities are given and what is expected of them, and isn't afraid to be vocal about it.

 

Also, fuck tha police! 

Throughout the film, Yasumoto begins to change as he sees a lot of the suffering going on and how Niide (as well as other medical staff and patients) deals with it.  We explore the backstories of a few patients along the way, which examines how metaphorical ailments affect one's physical health as much as pathogenic ones do.  Eventually, Yasumoto comes around and begins to care about how much good he is capable of as a well trained doctor.  Vital to his journey is a young girl whom they rescue from a brothel and take back to help heal from a sickness she developed- yet she helps him heal when he becomes sick, as well.

In his Great Movies series, Roger Ebert said "I believe this film should be seen by every medical student."  I agree, but would also take it a step further and say it should be seen by everyone.  Like Ikiru, this film is about trying to find a meaningful existence that makes the world a slightly better place.  An attempt to quell our own existential angst.  It also, however, isn't afraid to take a stand about the oppression of poor people.  This movie has so many layers to it, and it all plays out in such a beautiful, humanistic way.



When I think of Kurosawa's movies, I think of movies that both challenge societal conventions and challenge us to be the most compassionate people we can be.  Not only for others, but for ourselves.  They give us examples of what to strive for.  While the characters encounter and deal with these challenges in their own specific contexts- most of us aren't samurai or 19th century feudal doctors (as far as I know)- the guiding ideas behind them are universal and what we ought to pay attention to.  We might not be a samurai, for instance, but when watching Seven Samurai we can still think about how much society shapes who we are, and the effect that has on us.  We might not be 19th century feudal doctors, but we can think about how what we do affects other people.  That's what matters.

We all have to struggle with death and our place in the universe, but we don't have to do it alone.  I have found two avenues that work best for me: the people around me and art.  When it comes to the art of cinema, no one did it like Kurosawa.  He remains an inspiration for me on both a personal and creative level, and I am certainly not alone in that sentiment.  Naming a "greatest film director of all time" is a pointless concept to me, but he is without a doubt my favorite.


*when I say art, I mean it in the most general sense, including not only visual arts but other types of creative expression as well