What is Japan's attitude to World War 2 nowadays?

[Flavius Belisarius]

Hmmm that's very true. I've seen things in the news saying that they don't teach kids about what Japan did during ww2.

But they don't in western countries either. It wasn't until I was in my final school year that the war between Japan and China was even mentioned in a history class.

And anyway in the UK most people wouldn't even be able to name 5 axis powers so I think most countries don't put enough time into history.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

What I'm saying is that history isn't a moral lesson involving the pupil's emotions. The Japanese probably instruct their kids that their great grandparent's struggled to bring east Asia into a common community that could force out the European and American imperalists. Why would any generation in a sane state of mind teach their children that the ancestors were evil vermin who slaughtered hundreds of thousands for world conquest? That could only happen in an Abrahamic influenced society where in order to instill obedience children are taught there are heroes and monsters so they had better obey the authority which is instructing them about ridiculous stories of the evil monsters. Children know when they're being lied too so, they avoid those subjects. I learned what I know about the war on my own despite class after class about glorious USA saving the world and the evil Germans and Japanese trying to destroy humanity.

 

[LizarDAMN]

What I'm saying is that history isn't a moral lesson involving the pupil's emotions. The Japanese probably instruct their kids that their great grandparent's struggled to bring east Asia into a common community that could force out the European and American imperalists. Why would any generation in a sane state of mind teach their children that the ancestors were evil vermin who slaughtered hundreds of thousands for world conquest? That could only happen in an Abrahamic influenced society where in order to instill obedience children are taught there are heroes and monsters so they had better obey the authority which is instructing them about ridiculous stories of the evil monsters. Children know when they're being lied too so, they avoid those subjects. I learned what I know about the war on my own despite class after class about glorious USA saving the world and the evil Germans and Japanese trying to destroy humanity.

And here is a prime example of history revisionism.

I know that one side of the war had hard-on regarding human experiments, destroying "sub-humans" and repressing individual rights, guess which one?

 

[mccarty.geoff]

That is what you believe is the summation of the history of Japan during the war because that is what you have been so taught. You can't halt the rumor mill of atrocity hoaxes or suppress open acceptance of capatalist liberty when you're a slave to it. Maybe the next generation of Iraqi students will be taught about how their fathers and grandfathers threw babies out of their incubators in Kuwait or were building massive Tsar bombs. I don't think the east Asians are that foolish though.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

We all know that atrocities were commited on the side of the axis but the actions of the German government and the Nanking massacre but that doesnt characterise the whole of the axis. The same way that the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't characterise every member of the allies.

 

[DarthJF]

One of my school teachers was from Japan and she said part of the issue is their history education. It is often avoided in classes but a bigger problem is that they often learn a start to finish history of Japan.

They start at some very early point in Japan's history and by the time they reach the 20th century they are leaving school.

This is broadly true. They get taught a bare bones version of "Japan annexed Korea, attacked China and did nasty things, then went to war with America and lost".

It's all factually true, but doesn't get very deeply into the realities of life under Japanese colonial and military rule. Which of course isn't anything uniquely Japanese. School history lessons tend to be crap in most countries.

Here's one Japanese person telling what she was taught about WW2.

When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book's 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.

There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.

There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.

There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army of Japan.

There was also just one sentence on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

Not so much geared to morality as it is honor I guess. Dishonorable defeat isn't worth reviewing. It's been a long time but, in American schools there wasn't much mention of Vietnam either. It is still so stigmatic that in our computer war games on the topic real names are never used.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

At least what they get taught is sort of true. Unlike some certain states in that region. Cough** north Korea

 

[mccarty.geoff]

There's another side to that coin too. From the North Korean perspective they wake up, goto work, live a basically average modern Mongoloid lifestyle (sans Korean pop music) and hear about how our government's are repressive liars that threaten them with nuclear destruction daily.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Not so much geared to morality as it is honor I guess. Dishonorable defeat isn't worth reviewing. It's been a long time but, in American schools there wasn't much mention of Vietnam either. It is still so stigmatic that in our computer war games on the topic real names are never used.

Wat we had 2 weeks dedicated to Vietnam.

 

[MarcoRossolini]

From a popular culture perspective, Japanese popular culture (notably military themed anime) has a disturbing tendency to obsess over German military hardware. I worked at a military museum at one time and this perception was reflected in the interests of Japanese visitors.

 

[Health]

From a popular culture perspective, Japanese popular culture (notably military themed anime) has a disturbing tendency to obsess over German military hardware. I worked at a military museum at one time and this perception was reflected in the interests of Japanese visitors.

It's not only German military hardware tbh.

 

[thedarkendstar]

It's not only German military hardware tbh.

Im not sure abut Japn as a whole but watching anime they do seem to have an obsession with the Germans.

 

[Health]

Im not sure abut Japn as a whole but watching anime they do seem to have an obsession with the Germans.

Again this is a trend. Whilst there is a huge Germanophile crowd in the current wave of anime Japan has had and still maintains a very strong Anglo obsession and an unwavering tie to their own military hardware. See Space battleship Yamato as an example for the latter and nearly any anime that happens to have a "English/British" character.

 

[Pyoro]

It's really not anything super-surprising. Western countries are just interestingly exotic to them. Like Far Eastern countries are the same in the West to a lot of people.
And some latent patriotism towards one's own military(-history) is basically a global thing, too.

 

[Health]

It's really not anything super-surprising. Western countries are just interestingly exotic to them. Like Far Eastern countries are the same in the West to a lot of people.
And some latent patriotism towards one's own military(-history) is basically a global thing, too.

Agreed, it's weird to say that the Japanese are "suspicious" of fetishising the Germans whilst most do the same damn thing to them, if not some other Asian nation. Accepting it and moving on would be best.

 

[DarthJF]

Agreed, it's weird to say that the Japanese are "suspicious" of fetishising the Germans whilst most do the same damn thing to them, if not some other Asian nation. Accepting it and moving on would be best.

Besides, lot of Westerners fetishize German military equipment as well. Just look at all the Tiger fanboys on HOI forums.

 

[Health]

Besides, lot of Westerners fetishize German military equipment as well. Just look at all the Tiger fanboys on HOI forums.

Hush now. Don't mock the disabled.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Besides, lot of Westerners fetishize German military equipment as well. Just look at all the Tiger fanboys on HOI forums.

I mean I like the look of the tank but yeah the fantasies about it are endless.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

I mean I like the look of the tank but yeah the fantasies about it are endless.

What ? I thought you are a Type-95 Ha-Go fanboy.

Seriously I cant stand this obsession about Japanese tanks anymore. Not to mention all those Arisaka fanboys.