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Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

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Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#171

Post by iwontreddit »

nickik wrote: post #131
pmoriarty wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Ah, those famous Rape bombs.

I guess you haven't heard of the mass rape of german and japanese women by the victorious allies. The allies raped far more women than the axis.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#172

Post by eric_h »

e12e wrote: post #90
germinalphrase wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you would recommend as a more practical form of self defense training for those not working in a high-risk environment?

If you want self-defence, my impression is that world-wide Krav Maga is generally a form that manages to hold a high standard across different locations and instructors. But as always, practice will never be any better than the instructor and the students he or she accepts. In general, any martial school that focuses not on competition, can be good (the set of techniques are not really that different, they're all way…

My understanding of Krav Maga is that it's more or less formalized mixed martial arts.

I studied Tang Soo Do for many years, and the really useful self defense techniques were not taught until I got my black belt, and we started learning techniques from different martial arts.

This teaching was deferred primarily because the useful techniques can be extremely dangerous to practice (strikes to the throat being a good example, and grappling techniques where you maximize leverage with the intention of breaking bones).

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#173

Post by the_af »

amazing_jose wrote: post #61
abalone wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't refute the claim that the allies had a "take no prisoners" policy, killing wounded or surrendering enemy. It's plausible that that got reworked into the more palatable "they all died by choice" meme. Does anyone have sources, either way? Also, regarding "butchering civilian populations wholesale" see [1], [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a... [2] https://en.wikipedia.or…

I think you will find a few comments in this Quora thread can explain the "take no prisoners" policy. Basically the Japanese were using perfidy as a normal war tactic (perfidy is a war crime, surrender and then, when your enemy's guard is lower, attack). To me there's not greatest lack of honour than committing perfidy in war. [1] https://www.quora.com/Is-false-surrendering-a-war-crime

> To me there's not greatest lack of honour than committing perfidy in war.

Well, I can think of a few things that are way worse. Like torture and mutilation.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#174

Post by coldtea »

cheriot wrote: post #128
coldtea wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I know that the enemy is on its last legs So they're still fighting and the war is not over yet? > there's nothing about "invading" that's worse than dropping nukes on civilians A country's leadership is responsible to its own people first. Truman dropped bombs to avoid sacrificing his people. Tojo let his people die to avoid loosing face. WW2 ended in a horrific way and the stories popular in the US definitely lea…

>A country's leadership is responsible to its own people first.

That's the kind of thinking that leads to genocide and war crimes.

>However your comments read like you've adopted the opposite bias rather than less bias.

Well, not much bias. This is pretty much how big powers always operated. Read a few now US historians on WWII -- or somebody closer to Howard Zinn than some "celebrated establishment academic".

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#175

Post by michaelbuddy »

As in any time period, people are nostalgic for the past, especially when Japan's borders were opened (against their will) you're going to have that kind of reaching towards better days of 'ole. Sakura-colored glasses. There's also the art of Japan (and everywhere else). Art idealizing the "history" depicted, curators of that art (many of those part of religious institutes) and history communicating the history narrative, furthering the legend. It's a group effort this ruse of history. When the narrative sounds good and doesn't really contradict any other popular opinion, who is going to argue against it? 160 years later, here we are.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#176

Post by mcguire »

iwontreddit wrote: post #168
mcguire wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, you get more intelligence from prisoners than from bodies.

Sure, but you are talking about racist hatred trumping rationality and civility. There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific. Hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers were tortured, mutilated/decapitated and turned into war trophies. It's a good thing we won ww2, otherwise, so many people would have been executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific."

Not even the German government, engaged in attempting to exterminate the undesirable population of Europe? Or the German treatment of Soviet prisoners? Or Soviets of German prisoners?

Certainly, there was a lot of hatred and racism on the Allied side. (And then there the allegation of Patton's famous disinclination to accept the surrender of German soldiers who had just fired single-use anti-tank weapons at American forces.) But I think you're getting hyperbolic there.

Do you have a source for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers being tortured, mutilated, decapitated, and turned into war trophies?

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#177

Post by fefifofu »

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"?

Is Bosnia considered Western? Genocide there in 1992-1995.

On a road trip, a Serbian in-law had us stop by this beautiful bridge in Bosnia. Built in the 1500s with Ottoman architecture, which is odd for that area. I took photos there, smiling and having fun like an idiot. Only after leaving and checking wikipedia on my phone did I see that the relative failed to tell me about the massacres that happened there by the Serbs. Women, children, rape, etc.

Wikipedia article: Visegrad Massacres

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#178

Post by RockyMcNuts »

iwontreddit wrote: post #167
RockyMcNuts wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful, and had been taught to expect mistreatment from Americans similar to what Japan dished out on e.g. the Bataan Death March. Now it's quite possible that some of that was exaggerated…

> My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful That is the propaganda/"history" that I am talking about. If you look at previous battles/wars, the japanese soldiers did surrender. The japanese soldiers did surrender in the begi…

What's your source for the 'myth' of the Bataan Death March? Even the Japanese have apologized for it....and for other extreme militarist stuff. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39145098/ns/world_news-asiapacific...

There are people who say the German concentration camps were 'myths' too. There are memes that propagate because they serve someone's agenda... maybe the same applies to the narrative that the "allied soldiers [i.e. Americans] in the pacific were from some of the most savage and racist societies on earth."

Fortunately, there are professional historians that try to sort through this stuff.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#179

Post by robaato »

qrendel wrote: post #143
martin_a wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always think aikidô is fake, until they try it. I couldn´t believe it for myself until a girl, two heads smaller than me and probably a third of my weight, brought me to the floor. There´s nothing fake in it. There is just pain if you resist, so you don´t. And besides that, the goal of aikidô is to prove the enemy that attacking you will not help him with anything. It´s not meant to overcome him with force, by…

The techniques aren't fake, they're just unreliable outside of training. It's one thing to pull it off against a training partner who is using a known subset of attacks and when you know they're coming. Different when you're in a chaotic self-defense situation and facing a fully-resisting opponent who will try anything to win. You need a much higher level of skill to deal with the latter than the former. It's the sam…

Aikido is a very "broad church" - ranging from fluffy bunny to pretty hard styles - and the effectiveness can vary significantly.

The principles and techniques can be very effective, but it depends on what/how you train (or who you train with).

There are many reasons to train, and based on your reasons, you should choose the martial art you wish to study, and also the teacher/school where to study. That said, it can be a great idea to study with a good teacher (but of an art you are less keen on) who is close by, than the perfect martial art which you can only get to infrequently.

Aikido isn't the best art to quickly learn how to defend yourself if that's all you want to do. But it has many pluses - "old man's judo" as a friend of mine said - you can keep going and keep getting better (if you practice) inspite of age...

I can recommend: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Mar... for some thought provoking reading and study.

Re: Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit

#180

Post by Inconel »

iwontreddit wrote: post #167
RockyMcNuts wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful, and had been taught to expect mistreatment from Americans similar to what Japan dished out on e.g. the Bataan Death March. Now it's quite possible that some of that was exaggerated…

> My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful That is the propaganda/"history" that I am talking about. If you look at previous battles/wars, the japanese soldiers did surrender. The japanese soldiers did surrender in the begi…

In ww2, you can objectively say that pure evil won and that pure evil lost.

If both sides are equally evil in your view, would you say you are indifferent to which side ended up winning WWII? Is it a mistake on my part to assume you would be indifferent had the Axis powers achieved complete and utter victory over the Allies? After all, they are both equally evil.

Seeing as you seem to be claiming that both sides were equally evil, I'm very interested in your views on how you think the victorious Axis powers would have treated those they defeated.

Whatever may be said of the crimes committed by both sides during the war, it seems to me that both Japan and Germany fared rather well after surrender considering they were both completely defeated. We are not all that far removed from WWII and yet today Japan and Germany are both overwhelmingly populated by the descendants of Germans and Japanese, not the descendants of foreign conquerors, and enjoy some of the highest qualities of life in the industrialized world.

I'm curious how you think Jews in Germany, or Europe, or indeed the rest of the world would have fared under an Axis victory. Do you think there would be any meaningful Jewish community left in Germany or Europe? How do you feel the Roma, or Slavs or homosexuals would have fared? How would the populations of the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, China, the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia have fared in the subsequent decades of a Japanese victory in the Pacific? Would these communities have fared as well in defeat as the Germans and Japanese have?

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