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War and Peace, A Japanese perspective

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1butterfly

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I am Australian. Everytime I turn on my TV, radio, internet or read a newspaper or even see a movie I am force fed western views of war and peace. I am reading a fair bit of literature on non western ideas but they are mostly from moldy scholars and historians. I want the opinion of ordinary people. Pop culture like manga, anime, posters, Japanese movies, paintings, sculptures, songs and stories are the way real people voice their opinions. I want to explore the particularly Japanese ideas about war and peace. And I would like to do this through the medium of pop culture. I want to see an Asian perspective and Japan seems to have a lot of exciting pop culture.
could anyone point me in the right direction.
thank you.
 
Looking to pop culture for any sort of serious view on issues like that isn't the best way to go about it. Modern pop culture is glossy and commercialized and a poor way to learn about anything.

I'd say either do some serious research or actually talk to someone from Japan if you're truly interested in their point of view on important issues, otherwise you'll just be filling your head with all the useless fluff that goes hand in hand with modern pop culture.
 
War and peace

antonym of War is not peace.

Peace is very ambiguous

as for peace, I think it is a condition that social orderd is well kept

who is keeping its order ?

I think it is military , police .......and A-bomd..
 
"They create a desolation and call it 'peace'." --Tacitus, Agricola

It is the King of the Catuvellauni (a Briton tribe) speaking of the Romans.

War is easy. Peace is ambiguous.

"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master." --Demosthenes, Athenian orator.

If you want exposure to eastern ideas, read Sun Tzu's Art of War.

And believe me, don't for a second think that this is some serious Zen insights. Sun Tzu basically breaks war down to simple axioms and general rules of common sense. He divorces what it means to be a commander from the morality that dominated the battlefields of the Springs & Autumns Annals and other works. You can consider it "Western" or "Eastern" if you want. I consider it simple military know-how.

It isn't so much a question of East vs. West. ... Well, it is, sometimes. But that is because the West is more heavily influenced by the concept of citizen-soldier. You want contrast? Read Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture.
 
i belive that the japanese people are the most forgiving people...i wouldnt think that i will be ready to forgive a country that droped nukes at my country..
but the japanese people did.....
so that is war to the japanese...an event that passes by causes pain, then just move on
while peace is trying to get along with the one who massacared japs before

i think the world can learn from the japanese people how to forgive and seek peace
 
scorpion da black said:
i think the world can learn from the japanese people how to forgive and seek peace
Click to expand...
It is one thing to forgive others, but something totally different when you are the reason that caused the problems in the first place.

Japan is not a martyr nor a country without blame either. To truly forgive others one must seek forgiveness for one's own misdeeds as well.

Otherwise, to me at least, the forgiveness that you think Japan has given to others comes across as just being hollow and without any sincererity at all.

How can you expect the world to learn from Japan's example when they haven't sought true peace with it's neighbors?
 
To forgive your enemy when he (country) has destroyed your life? It is an illusion.

In my eyes it is much better to fix one's eye upon the future, towards the next generations.
What I do reproach the Japanese governments is that they haven't learned anything at all from their experience during WWII.
Teach the children what happened during WWII, show them that this should never ever happen again.
Teach the children that our beautiful Earth (not only Japan) is a miracle. Probably the only planet where there is life, a possibility to live. I believe in Love, it is much stronger than hate.
 
I have a very loose grasp on Japanese pop culture. The only thing I can possibly suggest is to investigate the names and works of popular Japanese independent artists and journalists and find out where they're doing their work. Japan, being a wealthy nation of fairly diverse and individual interests, has many videographers, journalists and other thinkers around the world, much like any industrialized nation. As for specific names, I'm sorry I can't offer you any, but I would definitely start my search with those kinds of individuals vs. pop culture as a whole for my medium. I found this link, apparently the latest in Japanese film makers, they might be worth some investigation:Midnight Eye: Interviews - Visions of Japanese cinema
 
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One thing you can learn from the post-war period may be the strict arms export control and gun control here.
It is true that EU nations have more transparent arms export control policies, but they are big exporters after all. World's largest arms Exporters

No anime about the arms control, but Detective Conan is in the website of the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs. And it tells a little about the international cooperation.
 

brother...........japanese only attacked military bases like pearl harbor back in war, and only faught armed people........they didnt bomb cities with thousands of civilians........while the U.S did........and the U.K did against berlin
and the germans did in london

so in my view japan was the the most fair country in the war
 
Pretty laughable, and the civilians who were killed in the Japanese camps, they were on vacation?
 
gaijinalways said:
Pretty laughable, and the civilians who were killed in the Japanese camps, they were on vacation?
Click to expand...

still the verosity of killing was more grusem in the western side......
so you blame japan for having plans of invasion through asia at a moment of their history.......which is bad.....while i dont see any one mad at the U.S for having plans of invasion all over the earth for example.........they killed 850000 irakis for oil...........couple of thousand in veitname against comunism, couple of thousand more in kuria, etc............

japan is one of the few countries that had the least blood shed in their modern history........i am not talking about the shogun era or any thing.....
japan is
like switzerland or some other skandinavian country ( dont mind the spelling )
 
No, tthe death rates in the Japanese camps were higher. I have seen this same arguement from another Japanese doctor, seems your government doesn't want you to know the whole story. Adopting a victim mentality doesn't absolve Japan of their well deserved war guilt.

You're kidding about the no one is angry part, right? I think someone has missed some of the protests on TV in the US and elsewhere.

I admit, in my opinion, that the invasion of Iraq was a waste. And not because Saddam was a nice guy.

Comparing Japan to Switzerland is an insult to the Swiss, who have been neutral in recent modern history. Bombing Pearl harbor and overrunning most of Asia wasn't very neutral.
 
Scorpion> Strait from Wikipedia... allied civilian dead 36,000,000...
Axis civilian dead 4,000,000. So it seems to me that the Japanese and Germans inflicted about 9 times the civilian casualties... So I really don't know what you are talking about (and I have a feeling you don't either) with the Japanese only bombing military bases and only killing armed personell.

World War II - Wikipedia (look down just a little to the chart on the right hand side).

Oh here is the stuff on the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945)... hmm looks like there were only 17,530,000 Chinese civilian causalities... and its even more if you start counting from 1931 I believe..

Second Sino-Japanese War - Wikipedia (same area)
 
I suppose what Scorpion said was about the post-war Japanese history.
After the war, many liberal heads in Japan claimed Japan should be the counry like Switzerland. But after they came to know that maintaining the great permanent neutrality requires the armed partiatism, the voice turned to be weaker.
Now they are claiming that Japan should be like Costa Rica who abolished their military force, but as far as I know, they do not abolish the right to protect their country at all.
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:0.4% (2006) Costa Rica (CIA, the world factbook)
0.80% Japan
Click to expand...
There are so many countries around Japan claiming Japan is an ultra-militaristic country, even though they spend more money for the military spending and are willing to export their great arms to other countries.

Just take it into account that Japan has kept her stricter arm export policy and fewer gun crimes than the neutral country.
Or some may say the ruling LDP is an ultra-far right political partry, but the LDP must be a joke when you compare it with the real far-right parties in Europe.
 
pipokun,

I believe that the Japanese people of today are not militaristic.
And I think that even during WWII the Japanese people as a nation were not really happy about the war they were in. There was a lot of propaganda in those days, there was the need for oil, and many other reasons I don't know or understand.
Many Europeans living in the Far East before WWII were very interested in Japan, in a nice way that is. I learnt many positive things about Japan at school before the Japanese army occupied Indonesia.
But right from the beginning after the war, I realized that there were Japanese people and Japanese war criminals. There were Japanese families that suffered also during that war. Children and old Japanese also died from starvation.

I do see the Japanese people of today as a good nation, I guess that is what you always were. I most certainly don't see Japan as militaristic nation.
So if I don't agree about certain Japanese politics, that doesn't mean that I have bad feelings against the Japanese people in general.

There is no peaceful country in this world, there are only millions and millions of peaceful people all over the world, in every country.
 

hello.... which part of modern japan didnt you understand??
at least japan adobted a more humane understanding with the world, while what was once allied are still murdering civilians daily...if you want counts....then maybe the U.S wars alone can cover for all the deaths made by the axis
 
Scorpion> right about the part you started saying things like this. ..... "brother...... the Japanese only attacted military bases like pearl harbor back in war... and only fought armed people.."

Its clear you just want to b#tch about the United States so why dont you just start a new topic about that.. and keep this topic about Japan.
 
Pipokun> Yeah, I totally agree that post WW2 Japan has renounced war and is commited to peace. The Japanese were able to rebuild and the make the great nation I like so much today.
 
Scorpion> I just noticed your post where you mentioned modern Japan, and you quote "are not talking about the shogun era or anything". Ok so you are saying modern Japan is Japan after the Meiji Restoration?....


Well I dont know when you think WW2 happened (1939-1945, in case you dont know) but it was way after the Shogun era... So if you meant post WW2 Japan.. you should not have talked about Japan during WW2.
 
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Some countries dont need to forgive to Japan at all.
and it is not necessary for Japan to demand to forgive.
because it is their political strategies for stupid citizen

for example, after Tiananmen Square Massacre.
they changed anti-Japan policy because they want ppls to look outside.

anyway,we should doubt mass media first.
mass media always tends to one way traffic.


commies and some media say"The constitutional revision will send your child to the battlefield " I think "to revise article9 has noting to do with drafting.."
The other party is always needed for the war. sometime it is involved in the war without desire.
Japan should prepare the "if".

i think China will invade Taiwan when China have a domestic trouble.
 
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