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> "Constantly exhorted ... that they were superior to all other Asians" is almost certainly pure fiction. It's not. The Japanese race is a unique isolate, h

> "Constantly exhorted ... that they were superior to all other Asians" is almost certainly pure fiction. It's not. The Japanese race is a unique isolate, having no known affinities with any other race. In some extreme versions, the race is claimed to be directly descended from a distinct branch of primates. "First, they implicitly assume that the Japanese constitute a culturally and socially homogeneous racial entity, whose essence is virtually unchanged from prehistoric times down to the present day. Secondly, they presuppose that the Japanese differ radically from all other known peoples. Thirdly, they are conspicuously nationalistic, displaying a conceptual and procedural hostility to any mode of analysis which might be seen to derive from external, non-Japanese sources."[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron

Safety1stClyde 9y ago
Saying the words "It's not" then quoting an almost entirely irrelevant Wikipedia article is not an effective way to convince me that I'm incorrect.
- hackits 9y ago
  Hes not saying your incorrect hes just pushing his own agenda.
- user982 9y ago
  You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction. I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and examined the effects of, that exact narrative. Given that you consider that "irrelevant," I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness, since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you.
  - Safety1stClyde 9y ago
    > You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction. I did not. > I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and examined the effects of, that exact narrative. You may have linked to an article that directly demonstrated that, but since I did not state that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction, whether or not your article demonstrates that is irrelevant. > Given that you consider that "irrelevant," It is irrelevant since I did not say that "the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction". I did not even say anything remotely similar to that. > I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness You will not be able to convince me of my incorrectness in saying something which I did not say. Since I did not even say the thing that you claimed me to have done, it is very hard for me to become convinced that I was or am incorrect about what you claim I said. The only logical way out of this conundrum is for you to go back to what I wrote, and notice that I didn't say what you seem to think I did. > since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you. Now, if you have a new-found desire for an intelligent discussion, the jumping off point for you, to try to make your future discussions more intelligent, is to actually read the words the other person has written, then respond to them. If you respond to something the other person has not written, that will not result in an intelligent discussion. The failure of intelligence here is not the failure of the other person to say something intelligent, but a failure of yours to read the other person's words.
kalleboo 9y ago
Actually your link seems to support the post you're replying to. The frequency of these chronic transitional upheavals engendered a remarkable intensity of debate about national directions and identity, whose complexity over time renders a synthetic judgment or bird's-eye view of the literature in question rather difficult During the early post-war period, most of nihonjinron discourses discussed the uniqueness of the Japanese in a rather negative, critical light
- user982 9y ago
  The same section you quoted from discusses the cyclical nature of popular acceptance of continual claims of Japanese superiority, ebbing with the immediate post-war hardship and flowing with the actual economic takeoff of the following decades. The sentence immediately following your first quote is: "A major controversy surrounds the question regarding the affiliation of the post-war nihonjinron theories with the prewar conceptualization of Japanese cultural uniqueness," which speaks to the ongoing and historical nature of these "exhortations" and supports my rebuttal.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    I guess it depends on your definition of "constantly". To me, if it's cyclical and followed by a national debate, it's different. I'm certainly not debating that nationalism didn't (or doesn't) exist in Japan. I just wonder to what level it was "indoctrinated". I would have expected there to be far broader and stronger nationalism left today if it was that bad post-war. I'm trying to compare to stuff like how the effects of the Red Scare in the US are still very strong

Safety1stClyde 9y ago

Saying the words "It's not" then quoting an almost entirely irrelevant Wikipedia article is not an effective way to convince me that I'm incorrect.

hackits 9y ago
Hes not saying your incorrect hes just pushing his own agenda.
user982 9y ago
You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction. I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and examined the effects of, that exact narrative. Given that you consider that "irrelevant," I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness, since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you.
- Safety1stClyde 9y ago
  > You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction. I did not. > I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and examined the effects of, that exact narrative. You may have linked to an article that directly demonstrated that, but since I did not state that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction, whether or not your article demonstrates that is irrelevant. > Given that you consider that "irrelevant," It is irrelevant since I did not say that "the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction". I did not even say anything remotely similar to that. > I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness You will not be able to convince me of my incorrectness in saying something which I did not say. Since I did not even say the thing that you claimed me to have done, it is very hard for me to become convinced that I was or am incorrect about what you claim I said. The only logical way out of this conundrum is for you to go back to what I wrote, and notice that I didn't say what you seem to think I did. > since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you. Now, if you have a new-found desire for an intelligent discussion, the jumping off point for you, to try to make your future discussions more intelligent, is to actually read the words the other person has written, then respond to them. If you respond to something the other person has not written, that will not result in an intelligent discussion. The failure of intelligence here is not the failure of the other person to say something intelligent, but a failure of yours to read the other person's words.

kalleboo 9y ago

Actually your link seems to support the post you're replying to. The frequency of these chronic transitional upheavals engendered a remarkable intensity of debate about national directions and identity, whose complexity over time renders a synthetic judgment or bird's-eye view of the literature in question rather difficult During the early post-war period, most of nihonjinron discourses discussed the uniqueness of the Japanese in a rather negative, critical light

user982 9y ago
The same section you quoted from discusses the cyclical nature of popular acceptance of continual claims of Japanese superiority, ebbing with the immediate post-war hardship and flowing with the actual economic takeoff of the following decades. The sentence immediately following your first quote is: "A major controversy surrounds the question regarding the affiliation of the post-war nihonjinron theories with the prewar conceptualization of Japanese cultural uniqueness," which speaks to the ongoing and historical nature of these "exhortations" and supports my rebuttal.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  I guess it depends on your definition of "constantly". To me, if it's cyclical and followed by a national debate, it's different. I'm certainly not debating that nationalism didn't (or doesn't) exist in Japan. I just wonder to what level it was "indoctrinated". I would have expected there to be far broader and stronger nationalism left today if it was that bad post-war. I'm trying to compare to stuff like how the effects of the Red Scare in the US are still very strong