Metroethnicity, language, and the principle of Cool

Abstract

Cultural essentialism and ethnic orthodoxy are out. In Japan, Metroethnicity is in. Cool rules. Metroethnicity is a reconstruction of ethnicity: a hybridized ‘‘street’’ ethnicity deployed by a cross-section of people with ethnic or mainstream backgrounds who are oriented towards cultural hybridity, cultural / ethnic tolerance and a multicultural lifestyle in friendships, music, the arts, eating and dress. Both Japanese and persons with minority background ‘‘play’’ with ethnicity (not necessarily their own) for aesthetic effect. Metroethnicity is skeptical of heroic ethnicity and bored with sentimentalism about ethnic language. It views such narrative as inevitable but logocentric. Metroethnicity hears the cry of minority rights but positions itself in a more distant and cooler place. This place involves cultural crossings, self-definition made up of borrowing and do-it-yourself, a sfumato of blurred ethnic ‘‘identities’’. The operating system is Metroethnicity. Its desktop cultural expression is Cool. The cultural effect examined here involves (ethnic) language as an off-the-shelf, take-it-or-leave it lifestyle accessory that conforms to aesthetic demands rather than ethnolinguistic duty. The criterion for language maintenance and allegiance for the metroethnic then shifts from loyalty to ethnic heritage and political duty to questions of lifestyle emancipation. Is it worthwhile? Is it interesting? Is it funky? Is it a cool thing to do and to have? Cool is the capacity to ignore or minimize the claims of ethnicity. Ethnicity will be deployed — later — for lifestyle purposes when it is deemed cool. Cool is not the same as fashion or popularity. Cool includes a perceived ability to see the flipside or alternative side of things; an ability that multicultural-perspective people or ethnic minorities are uniquely believed to possess. Cool is quirky, innovative and tolerant. Cool is an attitude and a hope. The historic struggle of Japan’s language minorities (Korean, Ainu, new migrant) may be giving way to a new metroethnic generation. Cool has a brittle cultural logic. It is a residual code that has turned itself into an emergent code. Its performative style is based upon and derives simultaneously from the symbols of both disaffiliation and association. Gone are the immutable ciphers of ethnic identity. Here comes Cool.

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