Conflict is the norm; justification is the art

I know that the Times Select thing will render this link useless within a couple days, but the article, about the upswing in anti-rest-of-Asia sentiment in Japan (manifest in comic books), is good, and it features this wonderful bit of context:

The reality that South Korea had emerged as a rival hit many Japanese with full force in 2002, when the countries were co-hosts of soccer's World Cup and South Korea advanced further than Japan. At the same time, the so-called Korean Wave - television dramas, movies and music from South Korea - swept Japan and the rest of Asia, often displacing Japanese pop cultural exports.

Soccer. Pop culture. Jesus Godfuck. We are a species of slovenly, depressing, feeble-minded assholes. The human experiment has failed. It's time to yank funding. (The vanguard has been working on Venusian nanobots for ages, anyway.)