SPITE

Osutein-sensei on How to Motivate Your American

We Americans often regard ourselves as being without a culture, despite the intense nationalistic self-love in which we so often indulge. Part of this is castle-envy¬– the realization that Europe has, and will always have, more castles than we do, no matter how many Disneylands or Medieval Times we build. And of course, that is the main criticism we level against ourselves: our culture is fake, derivative, the cultural equivalent of a "Cucci" bag bought for $3.76 on the streets of Beijing.

Living in Japan has taught me many lessons, like that there are myriad ways to cook sea urchin, but it will always taste the same (horrible), how to use the bathroom while squatting, and how to say "your mother is doing perverted things to sheep" in Japanese. But most importantly, it has shown me what American culture is, something I couldn't recognize when I was surrounded by and living fully in it. (If you'd like, you may now allude yourself to The Matrix).

America does have a culture. It’s just hard to see until you’re out of it, because true culture is more than just stops on the sightseeing bus. When I was in Himeji, site of Japan's grandest castle, the Japanese were just as enthralled with the soaring fortress and the elaborately dressed geisha in the train station as I was. Those are cultural artifacts, little niches that insiders and outsiders can both marvel at. One doesn't need to be Irish to enjoy Joyce, though being drunk certainly helps. I think culture as we experience and live in it on a daily level is something informed by those niches, but not composed of them. It’s the world before our eyes.

In Japan there is nothing rude about asking someone's age or how much money he makes. When I explained to my adult English class that these things were rude questions in the West, they were shocked and kept asking why. And I started to wonder why myself, especially about the age question. It does seem rather silly to be offended by someone asking you a basic question about yourself. But then, we've decided that our Culture decided that old age is bad, a viewpoint primarily reinforced by people being offended when asked their age as a reaction against the Culture deciding old age is bad.

This kind of weird inverse logic is abundant in American culture and gets me to my main point. In looking at American culture in contrast to Japan’s, I now see what lies at the center of our culture. Indeed, the very pillars of our civilization are constructed from one simple, immutable, omnipresent quality... spite.

When my Japanese co-workers want me to do something unpleasant, like sing a stupid song when I'm sober, or run in a marathon, or teach English, they will usually say, “It's expected of you.” This reasoning works on my co-workers and students, since they generally want to fit into their assigned social roles and avoid being ostracized. It does nothing for me, however.

In fact, when people tell me they "expect me" to do something, I generally refuse to do it, even if I want to. (Though I might change my mind if for some reason a co-worker suddenly decided it’d be very important for me to eat cheesecake or sleep with his hot, nympho-inclined cousin.)

I realized, however, that if my co-worker put the suggestion another way, I'd absolutely do it. For instance, if they told me I couldn't run the marathon, I'd make a concentrated effort not only to run the marathon, but also to beat them all so badly they'd cry. And I hate running. I make it a rule that I only run from things: the police, tigers, my past. But yes, I'd run just to spite them.

I'm not the only one. Watch any American movie that makes grown men cry (it will be about someone overcoming adversity to achieve something or other) and there will always be a scene where someone tells the protagonist that he can't do whatever it is he set out to do. And this is the great motivator for the protagonist. So much so that the following line will always, ALWAYS be, “All my life, people told me I couldn't (whatever). I wanna prove 'em wrong.” Indeed, the single greatest motivational word in the English-speaking world, the word that above all others can make men move mountains or soar to the heavens, is... "wussy" (or it's more vulgar, genitalia-derived cousin)

Unfortunately for my co-workers, they haven't figured out this little secret yet. They continue to ask me to do things because they expect them of me, little knowing that the true way to get me to do anything is to tell me I can't do it. It's strange and doesn't really make a lot of sense when you think about it, but it's true: Americans are motivated primarily by spite, by the desire to do something simply because we've been told we can't. It's certainly led to many great achievements, like landing on the moon, but then it’s also led to quite a few Darwin Awards as well.

Also, there’s no way you could have possibly read this entire post. Wussy.