*to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Κυνόσαργες

Saturday 29 January 2011

The Cult of the Kancho

I'd forgotten all about the vile cult of the kancho, but some vile Japanese child put their hands together in the gesture soon enough for me to back against a wall and let them know just what I thought of the cult.  I suppose that every culture has its weird childhood behaviour contagions, but 'playing doctor' or 'show me yours...' seems altogether more of innocent curiosity than shoving fingers at an inattentive person's rectum.  Wedgies and goosing are also not done in the presence of an adult, much less to an adult!  That Japanese adults think this is cute behaviour, and not cause for corporal punishment, is one more 'WTF?'

How do these awful things get spread?  I've thought that it must spread much in the way of Borges' "Sect of the Phoenix".  That Wikipedia link does not do justice to the mysteriousness of a viral spread of a ritual, the content of which is left undescribed.  I also find the story far more interesting as written, that the content itself is unknown, and without inherent meaning, than theorizing about how the story relates to Borges sexuality.  It is one of the stories in "Ficciones", which is one of the books I have read than make it daunting for me to write.  Here is the full text.

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