Japanese Economic Takeoff After 1945 (2002)
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That country's recovery from being the only nation ever to be nuclear-bombed, to becoming the world's second best economy, while peacefully maintaining some of the world's safest, cleanest and most orderly cities, is one of mankind's most admirable success stories.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/japanpics/comments/59l1am/historica...
One interesting and counter-intuitive fact I learned is that both countries came out of the war with a significantly greater industrial capacity than they had beforehand. Despite the enormous devastation, the wartime build-up was even more immense, and left both countries poised for recovery.
...yes?
America's success relied, absolutely, on African slavery and on the removing the indigenous populations that were in its way. There are many other countries that engaged in slavery and population removal that didn't succeed to the extent America did, yes; you are correct. But there are also many other countries that simply had Enlightenment ideals and a democracy and didn't succeed to the extent America did, and many more that simply had thoughtful, hard work and didn't succeed at all.
It would be nice to have a shred of evidence for claims like this. "Constantly exhorted ... that they were superior to all other Asians" is almost certainly pure fiction.
I'm not an expert, but it is consistent with cultural and historical details I've heard.
It's ironic that you say "It would be nice to have a shred of evidence for claims like this" yet don't attempt to provide any evidence for your claim that it "is almost certainly pure fiction".
I've heard several times that people born under the astrological sign Pisces tend to be confused because their symbol is two fishes going in opposite directions.
> It's ironic that you say "It would be nice to have a shred of evidence for claims like this" yet don't attempt to provide any evidence for your claim that it "is almost certainly pure fiction".
Even Alanis Morissette could not claim that it is in the slightest bit ironic. The person making the claim is the person required to come up with evidence for it, not the person disputing the claim. What evidence do you have that Pisces people are NOT confused and lacking direction?
Regarding your second point, you made the positive claim that it's "almost certainly pure fiction". If you're going to make a positive claim and not provide any evidence, while criticising other people for doing the same thing, then that's ironic.
Then perhaps you can provide a shred of evidence that the Japanese people in postwar Japan were "constantly exhorted" that they were superior to other asians.
> Regarding your second point, you made the positive claim that it's "almost certainly pure fiction". If you're going to make a positive claim and not provide any evidence, while criticising other people for doing the same thing, then that's ironic.
The claim that people born under the star sign Pisces are easily confused is almost certainly pure fiction. Confabulating the words "almost certainly pure fiction" into a positive claim on my part is pointless semantic game-playing.
I'm not here to go dig up details for you.
This all started with you saying that it was "almost certainly pure fiction" without providing any evidence for that claim, while at the same time criticising someone for providing no evidence for the opposite view. You still haven't given your evidence for saying it's almost certainly pure fiction.
If someone said that the idea that people have walked on the moon was "almost certainly pure fiction", and that person also complained that people saying that people have walked on the moon haven't given a shred of evidence, then it'd be reasonable to ask them what their evidence was for it being almost certainly pure fiction.
Why is it almost certainly pure fiction?
For the last time: saying that a claim is pure fiction is not a claim, it is a dispute of a claim.
But you said it was almost certainly pure fiction, which is a statement that requires evidence.
So that applies to you and your view too, right? Or is it only other people's views?
> and when applied to another culture, finds ways to on the one hand exoticize it, on the other to denigrate it and it's people.
That's an extremely presumptuous and arrogant statement to make.
As if that was the only possible kind of response.
And speaking of my case, I have known many Japanese people and have like them a lot, and I like a lot about Japanese culture. I am half Asian and hardly exoticize the place or culture
It applies to both you and me.
It's not.
The Japanese race is a unique isolate, having no known affinities with any
other race. In some extreme versions, the race is claimed to be directly
descended from a distinct branch of primates.
"First, they implicitly assume that the Japanese constitute a culturally and
socially homogeneous racial entity, whose essence is virtually unchanged from
prehistoric times down to the present day. Secondly, they presuppose that the
Japanese differ radically from all other known peoples. Thirdly, they are
conspicuously nationalistic, displaying a conceptual and procedural hostility
to any mode of analysis which might be seen to derive from external,
non-Japanese sources."[1]
Given that you consider that "irrelevant," I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness, since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you.
I did not.
> I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and examined the effects of, that exact narrative.
You may have linked to an article that directly demonstrated that, but since I did not state that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction, whether or not your article demonstrates that is irrelevant.
> Given that you consider that "irrelevant,"
It is irrelevant since I did not say that "the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was fiction". I did not even say anything remotely similar to that.
> I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness
You will not be able to convince me of my incorrectness in saying something which I did not say. Since I did not even say the thing that you claimed me to have done, it is very hard for me to become convinced that I was or am incorrect about what you claim I said. The only logical way out of this conundrum is for you to go back to what I wrote, and notice that I didn't say what you seem to think I did.
> since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had with you.
Now, if you have a new-found desire for an intelligent discussion, the jumping off point for you, to try to make your future discussions more intelligent, is to actually read the words the other person has written, then respond to them. If you respond to something the other person has not written, that will not result in an intelligent discussion. The failure of intelligence here is not the failure of the other person to say something intelligent, but a failure of yours to read the other person's words.
The frequency of these chronic transitional upheavals engendered a remarkable intensity of debate about national directions and identity, whose complexity over time renders a synthetic judgment or bird's-eye view of the literature in question rather difficult
During the early post-war period, most of nihonjinron discourses discussed the uniqueness of the Japanese in a rather negative, critical light
I'm certainly not debating that nationalism didn't (or doesn't) exist in Japan. I just wonder to what level it was "indoctrinated". I would have expected there to be far broader and stronger nationalism left today if it was that bad post-war. I'm trying to compare to stuff like how the effects of the Red Scare in the US are still very strong
"If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG_Pmt_Ny4
The opportunity still exists to make a sea change in industry through the widespread improvement of the management of people.
Rise then neoliberal fall.
They took their existing mindset/hard work, stopped spending it on military (in part due to a paradigm shift and also restrictions imposed by foreign powers) and started spending it purely on industrialization, technology, infrastructure, trade, education, science... a self-reinforcing effect that made them incrementally more productive.
I remmain to be convinced that Japanese demography will prove of any negative consequence whatsoever in the long run. globally, population neds to shrink. The Japanese are showing us how to. The West how to not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY
Some of Richard Werner's and Karel van Wolferen's lectures might be interesting too.
Our society is inclined to attribute success to some intrinsic nature (race, culture, language..). Japan's successful ? It must be Zen. China not ? Must be Confucianism, shame-based culture. Now China is ? Ah it must be Confucianism, collectivism. India is not successful ? It must be Hindooism. They have Sanskrit ? Ah it must be the Aryans. The Native Americans died out ? Ah it must be their immune system. The play is clear.
Japan's success is likely due to the way MacArthur normalized its war-economy, and because of how it was guided in the post-war years. Ditto with Korea/China/Thailand/ and now Vietnam/India (and other SE countries). I haven't seen a tick of anything "native" at the heart of it, even though nationalism dictates that the citizens be deluded into believing these things.