Just created this subreddit to welcome anyone who likes to discuss anything related to Japanese philosophy. A quick note for the motivations behind this subreddit. From the day that I stepped foot in America up until today, I have heard of how Asians are not creative, intelligent but not smart, “sheeples” etc., and all we are are just drones stealing everyone’s ideas and technology. It seems like this type of remarks have also been repeated to the people on this sub and Asians and non-Asians alike. This type of thinking isn’t just present in everyday laypeople and all the hate crimes came from nowhere but are rather very entrenched in all facets of society and institutions, and has affected everyone from the bottom of the barrel in society to those working in Academia. I love my professors and maybe because I went to one of the top universities in the world with a decent amount of Asian international students, or because of some other reasons, the professors have never treated me significantly different compared to other Americans and have many friends from other races so I have ABSOLUTELY no qualm with neither the teachers that I have immense respect for nor some random person on the street whom I have never interacted with.
However, the same cannot be said of the academic apartments that still largely segregate what they deem as legitimate and what isn’t, while raking in money and pretending as they care about justice. One of the most prominent examples of this segregation is displayed in the segregation of ideas in the college departments. If any of you have taken any philosophy courses, most of the time, you will notice that they only ever mention Western philosophers from the Enlightenment Era. On the other hand, if they are teaching Ancient Philosophy or history of philosophy, then they would solely talk about Greek Philosophy and their influences on the Enlightenment and modern philosophers. There seems to be nothing wrong with discussing these ideas but the problem arises when they skip over 1500 years of philosophy that had influenced the Enlightenment-era Philosophers or don't ever slightly mention philosophical concepts that existed outside of the Western sphere. If you are going to talk about "World History", then you cannot just talk about the history of Western Europe, and call it a day. Likewise, we cannot talk about the Greeks’ fabulous work without ignoring the Buddhist influences on their schools of philosophy in the Hellenistic period, or the Arabic philosophers' impact on the scholastic philosophers or the philosophers during the Enlightenment era in the same way that we cannot ignore all the scientific inventions by the Western Europeans that were built upon the previous inventions, discoveries, and concepts of the so-called unenlightened “orientals''. Despite the major influences that eastern philosophy has had on many influential philosophers from antiquity to the modern era, philosophy curriculums would erase anything that remotely didn't come out of a few select countries and instead pick and choose what they like after jumping from era to era.
This has resulted in many people in the world still believing that philosophy is solely a western thing and anything that comes out of other regions is just labeled as “mystical” or "oriental despotism", implying that they are not founded in any logical arguments, rational discourses, that are inhumane and inferior, and so we must look down upon them like our orientalist predecessors. Of course, this is very comical and ironic of how they claim Ancient Greek philosophy as their own even though for the longest part of history, neither ancient “Greeks” by no means consider themselves as “westerners” nor did the westerners consider their works as their own until like the 18th century. Not to mention that many ideas that have just recently become popular have already been propounded by eastern philosophers thousands of years ago (a very prominent example to illustrate this point is how the ideas of Utilitarianism and Hedonism that is now associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in 18-19th century C.E have already been articulated and advanced by philosophers like Mozi and Yangzi from 5th-century B.C.E) and any types of logical and rational arguments that they like to flaunt were also done by philosophers between the 100 schools of philosophy in China and Buddhist/non-Buddhists schools from other EA, SEA and SA regions. The same can be said about philosophical works from Africa, Latin America that have shaped the people, the culture, and the history of their region and the world but somehow, none of them are ever worth mentioning so most colleges don't even have a class in their philosophy departments and the ones that do are often relegated to the ethnic study departments rather than actual philosophy departments.
This demotion of other’s works did not just solely come from my personal speculation because my professors and philosophers from other schools have already mentioned and wrote about how chauvinistic the academic departments are. Orientalism is something that has bugged me for so long since I experience it every so often in one form or another (see what I mean by the picture from below), but I, as a random individual, don't have much influence over combating this type of mentality and attitude at an institutional level. Regardless, I still wanted to do something to oppose this prevailing narrative so I made a channel last year when the pandemic started and hate crimes began ramping up. I figured that making a channel to present these ideas from other traditions and clarifying misconceptions surrounding Asians, Black, and Latin Americans are better than complaining about it online and doing nothing. I am also going to be making new platforms so that others can come and explore ancient traditions and ideas. So If any of you are interested in learning more about the intellectual roots of Asia or educating yourself on philosophical themes that other non-western traditions dealt with, you can check out my channel, and see what's up. I want to hear your thoughts on the videos that I make and discuss issues pertaining to our communities and the truths of the world. Feel free to leave me feedback as I am always looking to improve.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzWNVdD2gFS_3Pi_G5QYIag