So if someone was writing a similar article about Germany (instead of Japan) and wrote "I recited the Pledge of Allegiance alongside the other students every day. But there’s no pledge of allegiance in German schools. The German flag wasn’t even displayed in any of my classrooms."...
...we would expect to see a sentence about how excessive flag waving patriotism in Germany is seen as reminiscent of the Nazis and the education system inculcates a culture of guilt and responsibility.
I don't expect to see a deep exploration of Japan's war guilt or lack thereof in this piece, but I do think the contrast with religiosity in Indiana leaves the mistaken impression that Japan never had a problem with monomaniacal devotion to something. It's like reading an article by a former heroin addict (who has been clean for decades) tut tutting someone about smoking marijuana. If they don't mention their own drug history, the article would come off as a little hypocritical.
I'm not sure monomaniacal devotion was actually widespread in Japan even during wartime. The imperial government forced a rather rigid religious structure, separating State Shintoism from Buddhism by fiat, in the late 19th century. It was not some organic evolution. For much of Japanese history, religion was a blended affair. Only when the state intervened did it become more rigid and bifurcated so that the state could co-opt religion for political ends (not just State Shinto post-Restoration but also the anti-Christian persecutions under Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes).
There wasn’t much monomaniacal devotion in Japan, it just so happens that their troops were more bugnuts insane than the Nazis, guess just one of those weird coincidences.
Japanese soldiers would surrender at drastically reduced rates compared to others, and they had suicidal attacks as a matter of doctrine, and they fought a war that led to the deaths of over 3 million Japanese people and 25 -30 million other Asians... This is still within living memory. But thats not monomaniacal devotion because it wasn't literally everyone in the country"
My position was that it was not monomaniacal faith and religious piety that drove them. It was the longstanding fear of standing apart from the community, a sense that is still with Japanese people today. Sometimes that results in benefits such as the orderliness in the aftermath of a great disaster like Fukushima. Other times it’s conformity to the will of a genocidal government. It’s not because of religion. It’s the fear of being caught out of the community, a very real thing when you look at the history of Japan and its many famines and disasters. You clung to the community because it was necessary for survival. It was not some faith in the Emperor as god per se.
Maybe next time you stop trying to put words in people’s mouths with a “is that your position” after coming up with a very simplistic take and actually try to listen to people.
Perhaps it is overly simplistic of me, but to me to be japanese or American or whatever is simply to be considered Japanese or American by law.
Certainly there is a shared culture on average, but at least in the usa, one can be deported despite growing up here and knowing all the cultural quirks and, similerly, one can violate all the cultural norms, remember nothing of the culture and be a citizen.
Though, when it comes to modern nation states I can't help but think back to whenever they were first created, and how shaky the moral logic (if there even was any) was that created them.
It's strange to think of someone feeling pride for a country that their ancestors might have fought tooth and nail against! When I see native americans in the usa serving in the military at the highest rate of any ethnic group for example, I generally find one part sad one part comical.
To put it bluntly, give me a monopoly of the education system for a generation and I will give you a nation or at least a people who want one.
I think Benedict Anderson put it best when he said communities were imagined.
I think the big debate, though, is surrounding citizenship vs. national identity. The law dictates the former, while people's "gut feelings" seem to prevail more with the latter. The latter can then influence the former and result in the person who was raised their entire lifetime in America, doing all the American things, to be deported because of their ancestry. I don't think the education system itself is sufficient. After all, I grew up with education talking about America as a melting pot or salad bowl or whatever, and that has gone on for several generations. And yet we still see ethnonationalists running about America today, including in Gen Z.
This comment is about America and how immigration affects us. The pursuit of wealth and opportunity, as well as freedom from oppression, have been significant drivers of the creation of American society…at least as much as, if not more, than freedom of religion. We are such a hodgepodge of different ethnicities that it’s difficult to imagine one common religion creating the sense of shared values that Douthat seems to yearns for. Now that resources are more costly and the standard of living is dropping for many native born Americans, religion and ancestry are increasingly being used as a litmus test for being American. Our identity crisis is exacerbated by the fact that we embrace a form of capitalism that requires a constant stream of hard work, risk taking, and creative thinking…the kind of thing immigrants have brought to us in abundance. This is the rub.
"True Japanese person" eh? What does that even mean? Can you trace your ancestry to the 縄文 people? I sense that Yoda-san has a far greater understanding of what Japanese culture than your simple mind can encompass in a lifetime. How is accepting immigrants to "worship" them? We don't despise the people who cannot easily accept them. We despise the ignorance and thoughtless hatred that some of them spew out, just as you do here. Your arbitrarily binary view of the world into "us" vs "them" where the line is wherever some rando in an orange sash says it is. That's what is despised.
This seems to have a gap in there.
So if someone was writing a similar article about Germany (instead of Japan) and wrote "I recited the Pledge of Allegiance alongside the other students every day. But there’s no pledge of allegiance in German schools. The German flag wasn’t even displayed in any of my classrooms."...
...we would expect to see a sentence about how excessive flag waving patriotism in Germany is seen as reminiscent of the Nazis and the education system inculcates a culture of guilt and responsibility.
I don't expect to see a deep exploration of Japan's war guilt or lack thereof in this piece, but I do think the contrast with religiosity in Indiana leaves the mistaken impression that Japan never had a problem with monomaniacal devotion to something. It's like reading an article by a former heroin addict (who has been clean for decades) tut tutting someone about smoking marijuana. If they don't mention their own drug history, the article would come off as a little hypocritical.
I'm not sure monomaniacal devotion was actually widespread in Japan even during wartime. The imperial government forced a rather rigid religious structure, separating State Shintoism from Buddhism by fiat, in the late 19th century. It was not some organic evolution. For much of Japanese history, religion was a blended affair. Only when the state intervened did it become more rigid and bifurcated so that the state could co-opt religion for political ends (not just State Shinto post-Restoration but also the anti-Christian persecutions under Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes).
What a weirdly simplistic take.
There wasn’t much monomaniacal devotion in Japan, it just so happens that their troops were more bugnuts insane than the Nazis, guess just one of those weird coincidences.
Japanese soldiers would surrender at drastically reduced rates compared to others, and they had suicidal attacks as a matter of doctrine, and they fought a war that led to the deaths of over 3 million Japanese people and 25 -30 million other Asians... This is still within living memory. But thats not monomaniacal devotion because it wasn't literally everyone in the country"
Is that your position?
My position was that it was not monomaniacal faith and religious piety that drove them. It was the longstanding fear of standing apart from the community, a sense that is still with Japanese people today. Sometimes that results in benefits such as the orderliness in the aftermath of a great disaster like Fukushima. Other times it’s conformity to the will of a genocidal government. It’s not because of religion. It’s the fear of being caught out of the community, a very real thing when you look at the history of Japan and its many famines and disasters. You clung to the community because it was necessary for survival. It was not some faith in the Emperor as god per se.
Maybe next time you stop trying to put words in people’s mouths with a “is that your position” after coming up with a very simplistic take and actually try to listen to people.
Perhaps it is overly simplistic of me, but to me to be japanese or American or whatever is simply to be considered Japanese or American by law.
Certainly there is a shared culture on average, but at least in the usa, one can be deported despite growing up here and knowing all the cultural quirks and, similerly, one can violate all the cultural norms, remember nothing of the culture and be a citizen.
Though, when it comes to modern nation states I can't help but think back to whenever they were first created, and how shaky the moral logic (if there even was any) was that created them.
It's strange to think of someone feeling pride for a country that their ancestors might have fought tooth and nail against! When I see native americans in the usa serving in the military at the highest rate of any ethnic group for example, I generally find one part sad one part comical.
To put it bluntly, give me a monopoly of the education system for a generation and I will give you a nation or at least a people who want one.
I think Benedict Anderson put it best when he said communities were imagined.
They are what we say they are.
I think the big debate, though, is surrounding citizenship vs. national identity. The law dictates the former, while people's "gut feelings" seem to prevail more with the latter. The latter can then influence the former and result in the person who was raised their entire lifetime in America, doing all the American things, to be deported because of their ancestry. I don't think the education system itself is sufficient. After all, I grew up with education talking about America as a melting pot or salad bowl or whatever, and that has gone on for several generations. And yet we still see ethnonationalists running about America today, including in Gen Z.
This comment is about America and how immigration affects us. The pursuit of wealth and opportunity, as well as freedom from oppression, have been significant drivers of the creation of American society…at least as much as, if not more, than freedom of religion. We are such a hodgepodge of different ethnicities that it’s difficult to imagine one common religion creating the sense of shared values that Douthat seems to yearns for. Now that resources are more costly and the standard of living is dropping for many native born Americans, religion and ancestry are increasingly being used as a litmus test for being American. Our identity crisis is exacerbated by the fact that we embrace a form of capitalism that requires a constant stream of hard work, risk taking, and creative thinking…the kind of thing immigrants have brought to us in abundance. This is the rub.
Only the last two paragraphs say anything substantial.
However, this text offers a good insight into the commonalities of liberalism across borders.
They worship immigrants and despise people in communities that cannot easily accept them,
but they themselves don't live in those communities...
These kinds of people always say the same thing:
"What is a 'Japanese'? Define it!"
In their minds, if you can't define it, then accept immigrants.
As a true Japanese person, I can only say one thing:
Shut up, Japanese people are at least a type of East Asian.
Black and white people are not Japanese.
"True Japanese person" eh? What does that even mean? Can you trace your ancestry to the 縄文 people? I sense that Yoda-san has a far greater understanding of what Japanese culture than your simple mind can encompass in a lifetime. How is accepting immigrants to "worship" them? We don't despise the people who cannot easily accept them. We despise the ignorance and thoughtless hatred that some of them spew out, just as you do here. Your arbitrarily binary view of the world into "us" vs "them" where the line is wherever some rando in an orange sash says it is. That's what is despised.
To quote the 3 character classic: 人之初，性本善。性相近，習相遠 or “no matter where people are born, their nature is the same but their habits differ”