History The Responsibility of Emperor Hirohito and Japanese Apologies/Reparations for Crimes Against Humanity

[Lord Sovereign]

Their warrior culture was the problem. Basically, because Bushido viewed suicide as preferable to surrender, any who surrendered were considered completely honorless, so they deserved any treatment they got.

I suppose the words "live to fight another day" didn't mean too much to this lot? Even the Spartans, as big on a "beautiful death" as they were, knew there was a time and a place for it. Ultimately, didn't that doctrine really screw the Japanese over in modern warfare and lead to far higher casualties than needed?

 

[UltimatePaladin]

I suppose the words "live to fight another day" didn't mean too much to this lot? Even the Spartans, as big on a "beautiful death" as they were, knew there was a time and a place for it. Ultimately, didn't that doctrine really screw the Japanese over in modern warfare and lead to far higher casualties than needed?

Nope to the first part, yes to the second. Funnily enough, what IJA/IJN prisoners the Allied powers did take basically broke down completely and told them everything. They were convinced that they couldn't return home under any circumstances and felt that they had nothing to lose.

Though, the role that Bushido had to play in the Japanese mentality is overstated, in some regards. In addition to that, the Japanese were indoctrinated to believe that if they were to surrender they would be killed afterward. Same reason why in Okinawa, some of the civilian populace ended up committing suicide on the belief that the invading Americans would kill, torture, and/or rape them.

 

[Bacle]

With the IJN, it all came down to the officers involved, how much (if any) respect they had for their opponents, and how doggedly their opponents fought or how they were picked up (pilots/air crew).

I get the feeling the ones who had actually spent any time in the US, or West in general, were more likely to be merciful.

 

[gral]

Ah, alright. The Japanese military were just vicious bastards in general then. Apologies for the ignorance, my knowledge is a bit foggy on what the Japanese Navy got up to. Was there any part of the Japanese war machine that weren't a gaggle of butchering thugs?

Japanese society accepted(still does, in some ways) a level of brutality towards each other that is shocking to most people nowadays, and that is a big part of what made them, well, them. What they did to others, they were fully capable of doing to themselves - and in some cases had done it to themselves. I recall reading that the death rate of the guards of the Bataan Death March was similar to the prisoners' one, which means the conditions faced by the prisoners, rightfully classified as inhumane, were similar to the ones the guards faced. There's also the fact the Japanese recruited "comfort women" for the US Occupation troops from their own population, using the same methods they used to recruit women in the occupied territories.

One of the reasons the Japanese changed from what they were wasn't just that they failed so hard, it was they expected - couldn't conceive anything other than - being treated the same way they had treated others, and they kind of bluescreened when they weren't.

 

[Doomsought]

Japanese society accepted(still does, in some ways) a level of brutality towards each other that is shocking to most people nowadays, and that is a big part of what made them, well, them.

The Japanese at that point were one or two generations out of feudalism. Prior to the Meiji restoration Japan was a late feudal society with age of sail technology. They were at exactly the same level of social and technological development as Columbus in the indies.
In order to modernize, the Japanese leadership deliberately provoked the Samurai class into rebelling so that they could perform a class genocide in order to ease modernization by just killing off their most conservative elements.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

The weird thing is that the Japanese treated their POWs during WWI and the Russo-Japanese war rather well by all accounts. How that changed I have no idea

 

[Doomsought]

The weird thing is that the Japanese treated their POWs during WWI and the Russo-Japanese war rather well by all accounts. How that changed I have no idea

Basically a generational change in leadership. The people who remembered why the "Good old days" of feudalism were bad aged out of command, and people brought up on propaganda romanticizing feudal japan took over. The Bushido of WWII was not the Bushido of feudal japan, but the Bushido of interwar propaganda.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

One of the reasons the Japanese changed from what they were wasn't just that they failed so hard, it was they expected - couldn't conceive anything other than - being treated the same way they had treated others, and they kind of bluescreened when they weren't.

So...Japan was redeemed by the power of friendship/kindness? Jesus Christ, real life really is an anime.

 

[gral]

So...Japan was redeemed by the power of friendship/kindness? Jesus Christ, real life really is an anime.

Not just by it(around 2.5 million dead and the deliberate social re-engineering of Japanese society also played large roles), but yes, in part.

 

[Cherico]

Not just by it(around 2.5 million dead and the deliberate social re-engineering of Japanese society also played large roles), but yes, in part.

Japans basically the edgy rival to Americas idiot hero at times.

 

[Bacle]

So...Japan was redeemed by the power of friendship/kindness? Jesus Christ, real life really is an anime.

There is a term for 'beating the shit out of someone to get the crazy out of them, then helping them get back on their feet': 'Befriending'

 

[Navarro]

I suppose the words "live to fight another day" didn't mean too much to this lot? Even the Spartans, as big on a "beautiful death" as they were, knew there was a time and a place for it. Ultimately, didn't that doctrine really screw the Japanese over in modern warfare and lead to far higher casualties than needed?

Judging from their military songs immediately before/during WW2, it seems they viewed dying gloriously AS THE POINT of going to war.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Judging from their military songs immediately before/during WW2, it seems they viewed dying gloriously AS THE POINT of going to war.

Which is a rather strange ideal to have. War is usually about making the other guy die gloriously for their country before taking their land, stuff, and women.

 

[Bacle]

Which is a rather strange ideal to have. War is usually about making the other guy die gloriously for their country before taking their land, stuff, and women.

Bushido got twisted when it met US supplied Gatling guns at Shiroyama and became more about a glorious death than a victorious life in the aftermath.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

What on earth made them that way though? I mean it wasn't like the Japs were caught up in a perpetual hysteria about Jews like Germany was (and as Covid-19 has proven, hysteria can make reasonable people do very regrettable things).

The incredibly broad and widespread Japanese military performance of atrocities and civilian celebrating of those same atrocities both stem from intentional, large-scale brainwashing of their entire society for decades on end. The Japanese educational system became more and more centralized throughout the 1912-1937 era, and that consolidation was built around doubling down on the heavy nationalism of the 1890s era "reforms" with hyper-aggressive cultural militarization, which was even further redoubled in the 1937-1945 era when General Sadao Araki, the former Minister of War, was appointed as Minister of Education.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Japans basically the edgy rival to Americas idiot hero at times.

There is a term for 'beating the shit out of someone to get the crazy out of them, then helping them get back on their feet': 'Befriending'

The Japanese Empire was literally Vegeta.

 

[Sailor.X]

Bushido got twisted when it met US supplied Gatling guns at Shiroyama and became more about a glorious death than a victorious life in the aftermath.

And the Santee, Edisto, Catawba, Seminole and other tribes gave the Japanese soldiers just that. Only via a Tomahawk chop to the skull.

 

[Scottty]

Judging from their military songs immediately before/during WW2, it seems they viewed dying gloriously AS THE POINT of going to war.

Sounds like they'd be fighting to lose.

But to quote CS Lewis, men who are fighting to die rather than to live are the most dangerous sort of men while they last.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Quite the topical upload. Condenses everything into a nice three minute video.

 

[FriedCFour]

Imagine if the Allies had captured Hitler and he was not made to stand trial. Do you not think Poland and Isreal would not have legitimate beef.

Hitler =/= Hirohito. The level of power Hirohito had in his government was not remotely comparable to Hitler. He was barely more than a figurehead.