9 ms·

According to a 2015 survey[1], 56% of US Americans say the bombings were justified, while 34% say they were not. This relatively positive (or non-negative) ass

According to a 2015 survey[1], 56% of US Americans say the bombings were justified, while 34% say they were not. This relatively positive (or non-negative) assessment of the A-bombs might have influenced their portrayal in "Oppenheimer", an American production. The Japanese re-screening of "Hiroshima" might be aimed at countering their depiction in "Oppenheimer". [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/08/04/70-years-after-hiroshima-opinions-have-shifted-on-use-of-atomic-bomb/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/08/04/70-years-...

nerdponx 3y ago
Americans are often taught that the bombings resulted in less loss of life than a conventional land invasion of the home islands. So it's not quite a matter of "A-bomb good". Plenty of Americans alive today lived through the Cold War too, and spent years or decades in low-level fear of nuclear war. It's not quite as simple as "nukes good therefore no criticism of nukes in movie". Part of the interest in things like the Manhattan Project is the grim context of what happened next, and of the alluring eeriness of radiation and nuclear weapons in general.
- judge2020 3y ago
  > Americans are often taught that the bombings resulted in less loss of life than a conventional land invasion of the home islands. Or, at least, less loss of American life. If The United Kingdom had not consented to the bombs and they were shelved, what are the chances the U.S. would've lost e.g. 50,000 and Japan 150,000 before surrender?
  - networkchad 3y ago
    Do you really believe the consent of UK was a real gating decision? Lol. I chalk that one up purely to diplomatic nice-ness.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - adastra22 3y ago
    The war department was planning for 500,000 American deaths and millions of Japanese. The Purple Hearts ordered for the invasion of Japan are still being given out today.
  - Shawnj2 3y ago
    Imperial Japan was pretty much fanatically supportive of war. I’m not saying the bombings were justified but the war would have been a lot longer without it and would have almost certainly been a lot deadlier on both sides.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Yes, but the American views about specifically Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem different from most other countries, or at least from Japan. Outside the US it is quite common to view the bombings as war crimes, while this is uncommon in the US. This probably influenced how "Oppenheimer" handled the matter. (A comparison would perhaps be the difference between a Russian and a Polish film about the Sowjet invasion of Poland. The history here is viewed very differently in the Russian/Polish public.)
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Maybe because a lot of our grandfathers lived through the war because they didn’t have to invade the home islands of Japan. So the “lives saved” argument is a little more visceral when I wouldn’t even exist today if it weren’t for the atom bomb.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      I detest how the event is always portrayed as "either nuke two cities, or launch a complete invasion of Japan." At no point are other options considers, such as nuking another target or a start of peace talks rather than only an acceptance of a vague "unconditional surrender."
      - Spooky23 3y ago
        It’s a complex event. Those were the high level options, which remove the political factors. In the context of being in the middle of bombing campaigns of cities, the moral turpitude of mass killing of people was long pushed aside. Total war meant everyone was part of the war effort. So you’re left with a couple of factors. The prospect of invasion, the likelihood of getting a peaceful settlement, and the prospect of Soviet involvement. Bombing and starvation wasn’t working fast enough to cause the intransigent military junta to bend. I think the idea was that the shock of atomic bombing would empower the collapse of the government, and cow the Soviets. At the end, they came to the table, and the US accepted a conditional surrender. Personally, I think if folks are going to be intellectually honest about the atomic bombings, you have to have the same position and advocacy for scaled destruction of cities in general. The firestorms, created by napalm and phosphorus and inflicted on Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg among others were no less a horror. Decrying the tool allows people to explain away from the context. A more efficient killing machine doesn’t make the killing any more or less righteous. I think the Japanese perspective of this has been around embracing the pursuit of peace. A worthy goal that we’ve abandoned.
darkclouds 3y ago
This is why history is selectively taught at schools. Here in the UK we werent taught anything about Hiroshima but whilst its portrayed as shortening the war, thats using an argument which is hard to prove. It also means that once that step is taken, ie dropping the bomb, there is no going back, the US will have to remain the dominant power for the foreseeable future in order to prevent retaliation. This then underminds the US rhetoric and western/nato rhetoric when looking at developing countries and countries improving like we see with Russia and China and Chinese desires to bring Taiwan under their fold. Last century, mid 80's I remember a conversation on what subjects to study for UK GCSE's. If we had to take a language, most could only study French, those in the top also studied German and could take that as an language exam subject. This person same age, ie teenage said they were going to study Mandarin, and I asked why. Well his father worked in the City of London and they could see back in the mid 80's China was going to over take everything economically in the next few decades. Fast forward to now and thats what you are seeing along with the European bloc aka the EU being formed. So it looks like economics is being used to drive the creation of trading blocks and these economic blocs appear to drive political blocs, but the local media spin things to divert peoples attention away from whats really going on. Anyway this Hiroshima film is likely to placate the Japanese elders and remind them they are not forgotten as are the events that took place. Me personally I detest violence, and I couldnt think of a worse job than being told to go kill someone based on someone elses orders, no matter how it is spun. I've heard about some of the things that went on in Japan, I dont know how true they are, like all of history I take it with a pinch of salt because of the saying, the victor writes the history books, but even now I cant believe so many people were willing to go fight for a side, its just an out and out bad situation whatever side you are on.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >because of the saying, the victor writes the history books, Yeah, in all my history books, the bad guys always lost and the good guys always won 100% of the time. What are the odds of that? /s
  - darkclouds 3y ago
    I know, but its never really taught how much more complicated the situation is that leads to the start of a war. At best it documents events, but history at least in my case never went into the politics. History was more a case of just remembering facts, but teaching might have changed a bit since my time. One example of some of the stuff I heard the imperialist forces were up to in Japan, again I dont know how much is true or not, I wasnt there, but I do also read conspiracy theories to broaden my horizons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamashita%27s_gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamashita%27s_gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_during_the_Pacific_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_during_...
thoi2u4pl4k234 3y ago
... and the British (and everyone in the 'enlightened West') are taught that savage destruction of Asia (incl. India/China) by European powers was for their own benefit and that they ought to be grateful for having had their ancestors murdered, subject to famine, and sometimes outright genocide (not to mention having their cultures completely destroyed to the point of total alienation). They even do this with the so-called 'enlightened Islamic invaders' in India. The West has pathological hatred for the 'inferior pagans' and it shows very clearly; and indeed there's very clear evidence for this in white-supremacist fields like Indology[1], where half their time is spent bad-mouthing India, and the other half appropriating her. [1]. The Nay Science - A history of German Indology (OUP).
- Steve44 3y ago
  I'm British and don't recognise most of your points.
localplume 3y ago
[dead]

nerdponx 3y ago

Americans are often taught that the bombings resulted in less loss of life than a conventional land invasion of the home islands. So it's not quite a matter of "A-bomb good". Plenty of Americans alive today lived through the Cold War too, and spent years or decades in low-level fear of nuclear war. It's not quite as simple as "nukes good therefore no criticism of nukes in movie". Part of the interest in things like the Manhattan Project is the grim context of what happened next, and of the alluring eeriness of radiation and nuclear weapons in general.

judge2020 3y ago
> Americans are often taught that the bombings resulted in less loss of life than a conventional land invasion of the home islands. Or, at least, less loss of American life. If The United Kingdom had not consented to the bombs and they were shelved, what are the chances the U.S. would've lost e.g. 50,000 and Japan 150,000 before surrender?
- networkchad 3y ago
  Do you really believe the consent of UK was a real gating decision? Lol. I chalk that one up purely to diplomatic nice-ness.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- adastra22 3y ago
  The war department was planning for 500,000 American deaths and millions of Japanese. The Purple Hearts ordered for the invasion of Japan are still being given out today.
- Shawnj2 3y ago
  Imperial Japan was pretty much fanatically supportive of war. I’m not saying the bombings were justified but the war would have been a lot longer without it and would have almost certainly been a lot deadlier on both sides.
cubefox 3y ago
Yes, but the American views about specifically Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem different from most other countries, or at least from Japan. Outside the US it is quite common to view the bombings as war crimes, while this is uncommon in the US. This probably influenced how "Oppenheimer" handled the matter. (A comparison would perhaps be the difference between a Russian and a Polish film about the Sowjet invasion of Poland. The history here is viewed very differently in the Russian/Polish public.)
- adastra22 3y ago
  Maybe because a lot of our grandfathers lived through the war because they didn’t have to invade the home islands of Japan. So the “lives saved” argument is a little more visceral when I wouldn’t even exist today if it weren’t for the atom bomb.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    I detest how the event is always portrayed as "either nuke two cities, or launch a complete invasion of Japan." At no point are other options considers, such as nuking another target or a start of peace talks rather than only an acceptance of a vague "unconditional surrender."
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      It’s a complex event. Those were the high level options, which remove the political factors. In the context of being in the middle of bombing campaigns of cities, the moral turpitude of mass killing of people was long pushed aside. Total war meant everyone was part of the war effort. So you’re left with a couple of factors. The prospect of invasion, the likelihood of getting a peaceful settlement, and the prospect of Soviet involvement. Bombing and starvation wasn’t working fast enough to cause the intransigent military junta to bend. I think the idea was that the shock of atomic bombing would empower the collapse of the government, and cow the Soviets. At the end, they came to the table, and the US accepted a conditional surrender. Personally, I think if folks are going to be intellectually honest about the atomic bombings, you have to have the same position and advocacy for scaled destruction of cities in general. The firestorms, created by napalm and phosphorus and inflicted on Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg among others were no less a horror. Decrying the tool allows people to explain away from the context. A more efficient killing machine doesn’t make the killing any more or less righteous. I think the Japanese perspective of this has been around embracing the pursuit of peace. A worthy goal that we’ve abandoned.

darkclouds 3y ago

This is why history is selectively taught at schools. Here in the UK we werent taught anything about Hiroshima but whilst its portrayed as shortening the war, thats using an argument which is hard to prove. It also means that once that step is taken, ie dropping the bomb, there is no going back, the US will have to remain the dominant power for the foreseeable future in order to prevent retaliation. This then underminds the US rhetoric and western/nato rhetoric when looking at developing countries and countries improving like we see with Russia and China and Chinese desires to bring Taiwan under their fold. Last century, mid 80's I remember a conversation on what subjects to study for UK GCSE's. If we had to take a language, most could only study French, those in the top also studied German and could take that as an language exam subject. This person same age, ie teenage said they were going to study Mandarin, and I asked why. Well his father worked in the City of London and they could see back in the mid 80's China was going to over take everything economically in the next few decades. Fast forward to now and thats what you are seeing along with the European bloc aka the EU being formed. So it looks like economics is being used to drive the creation of trading blocks and these economic blocs appear to drive political blocs, but the local media spin things to divert peoples attention away from whats really going on. Anyway this Hiroshima film is likely to placate the Japanese elders and remind them they are not forgotten as are the events that took place. Me personally I detest violence, and I couldnt think of a worse job than being told to go kill someone based on someone elses orders, no matter how it is spun. I've heard about some of the things that went on in Japan, I dont know how true they are, like all of history I take it with a pinch of salt because of the saying, the victor writes the history books, but even now I cant believe so many people were willing to go fight for a side, its just an out and out bad situation whatever side you are on.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>because of the saying, the victor writes the history books, Yeah, in all my history books, the bad guys always lost and the good guys always won 100% of the time. What are the odds of that? /s
- darkclouds 3y ago
  I know, but its never really taught how much more complicated the situation is that leads to the start of a war. At best it documents events, but history at least in my case never went into the politics. History was more a case of just remembering facts, but teaching might have changed a bit since my time. One example of some of the stuff I heard the imperialist forces were up to in Japan, again I dont know how much is true or not, I wasnt there, but I do also read conspiracy theories to broaden my horizons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamashita%27s_gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamashita%27s_gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_during_the_Pacific_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_during_...

thoi2u4pl4k234 3y ago

... and the British (and everyone in the 'enlightened West') are taught that savage destruction of Asia (incl. India/China) by European powers was for their own benefit and that they ought to be grateful for having had their ancestors murdered, subject to famine, and sometimes outright genocide (not to mention having their cultures completely destroyed to the point of total alienation). They even do this with the so-called 'enlightened Islamic invaders' in India. The West has pathological hatred for the 'inferior pagans' and it shows very clearly; and indeed there's very clear evidence for this in white-supremacist fields like Indology[1], where half their time is spent bad-mouthing India, and the other half appropriating her. [1]. The Nay Science - A history of German Indology (OUP).

Steve44 3y ago
I'm British and don't recognise most of your points.

localplume 3y ago

[dead]