Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
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Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#2its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#3its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
You would be shocked to learn how much people willingly donate to churches, temples, cults, and other strictly irrational enterprises.
Kings and emperors are a very inexpensive symbolic flourish on top of that — and many of them do a reasonable job of unifying a nation.
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#4its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
I wonder, of civilizations that have lasted the longest, which ones had kings, queens, emperors and such versus the opposite?
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#5its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
I wonder, of civilizations that have lasted the longest, which ones had kings, queens, emperors and such versus the opposite?
I think you are confusing correlation with causation there
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#6its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
People see the royal family as both a living link to their past and a unifying force for the nation that is above mere politics.
Add to this the fact that the Japanese royal line is by far the oldest in the world and that the Emperor is also the head of the Shinto religion.
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#7its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
You would be shocked to learn how much people willingly donate to churches, temples, cults, and other strictly irrational enterprises. Kings and emperors are a very inexpensive symbolic flourish on top of that — and many of them do a reasonable job of unifying a nation.
I think you mean “partly” rather than “strictly.” Even if you remove the supernatural element (the part that calls for faith, which is not rational), you’re still left with a political, philosophical, and moral framework. Such frameworks aren’t irrational any more than say “social democracy” as a political framework is irrational. The you have the utilitarian social functions. Serving as places for members of the community to interact, a place for children to be socialized, a place to help elderly people stay connected, a vehicle for addressing local social issues.
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#8> There is, after all, ample precedent for this: women have succeeded to the throne on ten previous occasions
> [When this comes to pass,] the emperor system, which depends on an unbroken line of male heirs, will collapse.
These two statements seem to be in conflict.
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#9its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
It's 2019 and people still like to mock cultures and traditions blindly. The article does a pretty good job of explaining a lot of the situation in a grounded, rational way -- especially concerns over the uses and potential abuses of taxpayer money.
The US essentially deifies the Founding Fathers even though we're living in a world with influences and technologies they could never have anticipated. Why is it ok care so much about that history but not for other countries to care about their history?
The system of government also doesn't seem like a firm basis of argument to me. Yes, many governments have moved on from monarchies, but that doesn't mean that there may not be a monarchy in a country in the future, nor does it mean that a monarchy is an objectively terrible country to live in.
Re: Abdication, Succession and Japan’s Imperial Future: An Emperor’s Dilemma
#10its 2019 and people in developed countries still care about (and support with their taxes) kings, queens, emperors and such?!
In the UK I think about 70% of people support the Queen, our head of state. How many people in the US support their head of state? Less than 50%.
In practice, it seems to work well for us. We get a representative that most people support. The US republic fails to do that and their representative is always deeply divisive.