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Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

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Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#111

Post by [deleted] »

rpenm wrote: post #105
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #101

I haven't read the book referred to in the article but I've for example read Mishima's Runway Horses - which also draws on historical circumstance from the Shinpūren Rebellion (1876). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinp%C5%ABren_Rebellion Does that not exemplify similar values as us (Westerners) expect from the term 'Bushido'? Was the former a very rare isolated incident and not actually representative of samurai e…

Mishima was as influenced by ultranationalism and the bushido mythos as anyone - to the point that he committed suicide during an attempt to restore the emperor. I don't think his writing counts as counterexample.

[deleted]

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#112

Post by Ygg2 »

peteretep wrote: post #109
Ygg2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same can be said of any decision.

ELI5 how the decision making behind letting the Rape of Nanking happen relates to the decision to drop the bomb.

It doesn't need to relate. It just needs to rationalize any action taken by some group.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#113

Post by pmoriarty »

jbooth wrote: post #28
iwontreddit wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how much of Japan's conduct in WW2 (notably, the fighting until death) can be attributed/blamed to this misinterpretation of samurai history? Japanese soldiers' "fighting to the death" nonsense was myth invented many years after WW2 by allied "historians" to justify the mass murder of japanese soldiers by the allies. It's not that the japanese weren't willing to surrender. It was that the allies ( unfortunately out…

Respectfully, that's a bullshit point of view. For the japanese military in WWII, rape was normal. Butchering civilian populations wholesale was normal. The Americans and British did not play by those rules, even though we did a lot of killing. This was not two equivalent evils. http://foxtalk.tistory.com/98

"Butchering civilian populations wholesale was normal. The Americans and British did not play by those rules"

Perhaps you are not aware of the firebombing of German and Japanese cities, where as many or more civilians died as in the nuclear bomb detonations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which perhaps you also forget.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#114

Post by ralfd »

barry-cotter wrote: post #89
bbotond wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone knowledgeable about Japanese culture explain why those war crimes were so common?

Sure! Japanese people are human and the base morality that evolution has endowed us with. This divides humanity into two groups, in group and out group. Morality only applies to the in group. It takes a lot of acculturation and education to expand an individual's conception of the in group is, from family/tribe to nation/culture to humanity. As such, any sub-culture that can take over the public sphere of a culture w…

Thats a very simplistic and in the end not really satisfactory explanation. After all not every conflict ends in genocide and Ausschwitz. And as evil as it is when women are raped by soldiers in war, normally they are not tortured to death and their genitals mutilated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#115

Post by pmoriarty »

cyberferret wrote: post #46
jbooth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, that's a bullshit point of view. For the japanese military in WWII, rape was normal. Butchering civilian populations wholesale was normal. The Americans and British did not play by those rules, even though we did a lot of killing. This was not two equivalent evils. http://foxtalk.tistory.com/98

Perhaps not complete bullsh!t. Both my parents were in their early teens in Malaysia during the Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation. The both lived near (different) POW camps, and yes, they both agreed that the treatment of the British & Aussie POWs in those camps by the Japanese guards was brutal. But they both say that when the roles were reversed and the Allies took back Malaysia, the treatment by Allied s…

Anyone interested in an unconventional account of WW2 from the Japanese side might appreciate a film called "Under the Flag of the Rising Sun".

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#116

Post by acqq »

cyberferret wrote: post #46
jbooth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, that's a bullshit point of view. For the japanese military in WWII, rape was normal. Butchering civilian populations wholesale was normal. The Americans and British did not play by those rules, even though we did a lot of killing. This was not two equivalent evils. http://foxtalk.tistory.com/98

Perhaps not complete bullsh!t. Both my parents were in their early teens in Malaysia during the Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation. The both lived near (different) POW camps, and yes, they both agreed that the treatment of the British & Aussie POWs in those camps by the Japanese guards was brutal. But they both say that when the roles were reversed and the Allies took back Malaysia, the treatment by Allied s…

I can confirm something similar from some other wars, including the huge distortions presented to the public at home. Every side presents themselves as fighting "honorably" and "justly." But you see how much remains intentionally distorted, where even stealing student's work and showing it to the world as the "report of our security services" is symptomatic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier

"The media seems to be right" until the war comes to you.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#117

Post by cjslep »

bbotond wrote: post #107
barry-cotter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Japanese people are human and the base morality that evolution has endowed us with. This divides humanity into two groups, in group and out group. Morality only applies to the in group. It takes a lot of acculturation and education to expand an individual's conception of the in group is, from family/tribe to nation/culture to humanity. As such, any sub-culture that can take over the public sphere of a culture w…

Thanks for the explanation. The book looks quite interesting. But that still doesn't explain why the armies of Western nations seemingly committed less and less serious atrocities. Or is that just an illusion because "history is written by the victors"?

Ugly points in the USA's history: Trail of Tears. Slavery. Battle of Blair Mountain. Japanese Internment. Kent State. Jim Crowe. Abu Gahrib. Guantanamo. Drone Strikes. Global Surveillance.

History is written, there's just more eye-catchy things to get distracted over.

Game of Thrones. Brexit. Reality TV. Concerts. Drugs. Sex. Food. Cars. Video Games.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#118

Post by ivanhoe »

This is not such a unique story, same is for instance with yoga, no one in India really did yoga as we think of it today until the end of 19th century. Same story with the free masons, they were re-invented in 17th century with no evidence whatsoever of having any resemblance to the original order. One could also argue that pretty much all religions in the world also fall into this category.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#119

Post by coldtea »

cheriot wrote: post #102
coldtea wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was Japanese war crimes really worse than the European standards in pre modern times? Or the bombing of 250.000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagashaki to make a point for the post-war era?

> to make a point for the post-war era? AFAIK, American WW2 leaders saw it as a choice between invading and dropping nukes. Is there evidence to suggest otherwise?

Yes, though it's not the kind of thing one will find on sugar coated high school history or books from patriotic academics.

It's common historical knowledge that the Japanese were pretty much defeated and desperate (out of oil and resources, with the Russians circling them, and they had already examined the possibility and terms of surrender, using USSR as a mediator). Of course to make it less easy, the US insisted on surrender under very humiliating terms to not let them save face, even though the US knew they were on their last legs.

Besides that, there's nothing about "invading" that's worse than dropping nukes on civilians (not to mention the same "choice" can be said for any war).

Except if the idea is "Better a war crime to evaporate 250.000 men, women, children, dogs and kittens, especially civilians" than to risk the lives of my men on an invasion according to standard war practice and law. Even though I know that the enemy is on its last legs anyway".

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#120

Post by coldtea »

peteretep wrote: post #109
Ygg2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same can be said of any decision.

ELI5 how the decision making behind letting the Rape of Nanking happen relates to the decision to drop the bomb.

The US could not care less about the Rape of Nanking.
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