6 ms·

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

by bbotond 10y ago

berntb 10y ago
Was Japanese war crimes really worse than the European standards in pre modern times? From my Swedish history, see the 30 year war (for a viewpoint not covered well in Swedish schools, google Polish deluge). To me it seems the main difference is that Sweden didn't have the same technological resources a few centuries earlier... Edit: The obvious point is -- does present Swedish culture explain why historical atrocities were so common...?
- coldtea 10y ago
  >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?
  - cheriot 10y ago
    > 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?
    - Ygg2 10y ago
      Same can be said of any decision.
      - peteretep 10y ago
        ELI5 how the decision making behind letting the Rape of Nanking happen relates to the decision to drop the bomb.
        Ygg2 10y ago
        It doesn't need to relate. It just needs to rationalize any action taken by some group.
        coldtea 10y ago
        The US could not care less about the Rape of Nanking.
      - berntb 10y ago
        Then please explain the rational calculations for e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre (This atrocity was part of an invasion, not a total war with an enemy that didn't follow the laws of war.) Edit: The brother comment referenced the same example while I was off for a coffee and to find a wikipedia link. :-)
    - coldtea 10y ago
      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".
      - cheriot 10y ago
        > 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 leave out details that make the US look bad. However your comments read like you've adopted the opposite bias rather than less bias.
        reitanqild 10y ago
        > However your comments read like you've adopted the opposite bias rather than less bias. I'm adding this to my selection for future usage.
        jessaustin 10y ago
        Tojo let his people die to avoid loosing [sic] face. According to TFA we should probably blame Nitobe for that as well. Frankly this seems as ridiculous to me as blaming Nietzsche for the Nazis.
        coldtea 10y ago
    - jbmorgado 10y ago
      > Is there evidence to suggest otherwise? Totally. Although that's the indoctrination that the USA wants to spread, unbiased authors always point that the war was about to finish for the Japanese and if the USA didn't want to invade them China would take care of it soon anyway. Therefore, it's generally accepted outside the USA that the bombs were just a warning to a rising URSS that the USA now had the upper hand.
    - pipio21 10y ago
      Japan is an island and needs external resources in order to survive. When the nuclear bomb was ready Japan was already under siege and nothing could get inside or outside by air or sea. Japan was already defeated consuming resources like food or oil and not replenishing them, it was only a matter of time for unconditional surrender(Japanese had already proposed "honorable surrender"). The US documents are already declassified. Nukes were launched because: 1-They were ready, and the military wanted to test it on a real target. The war was going to end before they could test it. 2-To give a clear message to URSS, specially over Europe occupation. For the military there was not a real difference between bombing a city and killing women and children, like was routine by the time, and doing it much faster and effective. Over 50 million people died at WWII. Nukes only killed a small fraction of it.
  - HemanHeartYou 10y ago
    Oh boy, here we go...
- Symmetry 10y ago
  No, the Japanese in China acted pretty much the same way as the various armies marauding through Germany in the 30 years war or the various armies in the Congolese Civil War, come to that. And part of the reason the Japanese fought so hard against the Americans in the final days of WWII was that they assumed that they'd be getting the same treatment they'd be dishing out if they let America occupy their cities.
awesomepantsm 10y ago
I'd guess it has more to do with fascism than the Japanese in particular. See: Nazis.
barry-cotter 10y ago
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 will have little difficulty getting people to dehumanise the other, and once they're dehumanised people have little more difficulty committing atrocities than they do slaughtering animals. As you may have noted none of this is specific to Japanese culture. That's because in this respect we're a lot weirder than they are in historical perspective. If you want a good overview of man's violence towards man and it's decline I recommend Better Angels of Our Nature, Stephen Pinker.
- bbotond 10y ago
  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"?
  - cjslep 10y ago
    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.
    - daemoncoder 10y ago
      Beginning to sound like Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire
    - lgieron 10y ago
      Add colonialism (The Phillipines, Central/South America) and assasinations of a bunch of inconvenient leaders of sovereign states.

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

by bbotond 10y ago

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

Was Japanese war crimes really worse than the European standards in pre modern times? From my Swedish history, see the 30 year war (for a viewpoint not covered well in Swedish schools, google Polish deluge). To me it seems the main difference is that Sweden didn't have the same technological resources a few centuries earlier... Edit: The obvious point is -- does present Swedish culture explain why historical atrocities were so common...?

coldtea 10y ago
>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?
- cheriot 10y ago
  > 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?
  - Ygg2 10y ago
    Same can be said of any decision.
    - peteretep 10y ago
      ELI5 how the decision making behind letting the Rape of Nanking happen relates to the decision to drop the bomb.
      - Ygg2 10y ago
        It doesn't need to relate. It just needs to rationalize any action taken by some group.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        The US could not care less about the Rape of Nanking.
    - berntb 10y ago
      Then please explain the rational calculations for e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre (This atrocity was part of an invasion, not a total war with an enemy that didn't follow the laws of war.) Edit: The brother comment referenced the same example while I was off for a coffee and to find a wikipedia link. :-)
  - coldtea 10y ago
    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".
    - cheriot 10y ago
      > 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 leave out details that make the US look bad. However your comments read like you've adopted the opposite bias rather than less bias.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        > However your comments read like you've adopted the opposite bias rather than less bias. I'm adding this to my selection for future usage.
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Tojo let his people die to avoid loosing [sic] face. According to TFA we should probably blame Nitobe for that as well. Frankly this seems as ridiculous to me as blaming Nietzsche for the Nazis.
      - coldtea 10y ago
  - jbmorgado 10y ago
    > Is there evidence to suggest otherwise? Totally. Although that's the indoctrination that the USA wants to spread, unbiased authors always point that the war was about to finish for the Japanese and if the USA didn't want to invade them China would take care of it soon anyway. Therefore, it's generally accepted outside the USA that the bombs were just a warning to a rising URSS that the USA now had the upper hand.
  - pipio21 10y ago
    Japan is an island and needs external resources in order to survive. When the nuclear bomb was ready Japan was already under siege and nothing could get inside or outside by air or sea. Japan was already defeated consuming resources like food or oil and not replenishing them, it was only a matter of time for unconditional surrender(Japanese had already proposed "honorable surrender"). The US documents are already declassified. Nukes were launched because: 1-They were ready, and the military wanted to test it on a real target. The war was going to end before they could test it. 2-To give a clear message to URSS, specially over Europe occupation. For the military there was not a real difference between bombing a city and killing women and children, like was routine by the time, and doing it much faster and effective. Over 50 million people died at WWII. Nukes only killed a small fraction of it.
- HemanHeartYou 10y ago
  Oh boy, here we go...
Symmetry 10y ago
No, the Japanese in China acted pretty much the same way as the various armies marauding through Germany in the 30 years war or the various armies in the Congolese Civil War, come to that. And part of the reason the Japanese fought so hard against the Americans in the final days of WWII was that they assumed that they'd be getting the same treatment they'd be dishing out if they let America occupy their cities.

awesomepantsm 10y ago

I'd guess it has more to do with fascism than the Japanese in particular. See: Nazis.

barry-cotter 10y ago

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 will have little difficulty getting people to dehumanise the other, and once they're dehumanised people have little more difficulty committing atrocities than they do slaughtering animals. As you may have noted none of this is specific to Japanese culture. That's because in this respect we're a lot weirder than they are in historical perspective. If you want a good overview of man's violence towards man and it's decline I recommend Better Angels of Our Nature, Stephen Pinker.

bbotond 10y ago
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"?
- cjslep 10y ago
  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.
  - daemoncoder 10y ago
    Beginning to sound like Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire
  - lgieron 10y ago
    Add colonialism (The Phillipines, Central/South America) and assasinations of a bunch of inconvenient leaders of sovereign states.