Re: [HIST??] Culture shock

On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:06:11 -0700 (PDT), John Atkinson
<johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Sure.	If you wish to create a permenantly stratified
>static society with no ability to defend itself from
>outside influences, then having a religious hangup on
>bladed weapons is a good idea.  

As mentioned, the "religious hangup" was a way of controlling other
political
forces within the country, in order to maintain control of an island
nation
that was almost constantly in civil war.

>However, this leads to a permenant warrior aristocracy
>holding all the political power, which leads to a
>mystical reverence for their way of life, no matter
>how warped, and a devaluing of all other ways of life
>and those who lead them.

You've got the cause and effect backwards. The Japanese permanent
warrior
aristocracy and mystical reverence for their way of life predates the
introduction, and later abolition, of guns by several centuries. It was
well
entrenched by the end of the Hiean period.

Their "mystical reverence for their way of life" is no more warped or
devaluing than any other "mystical reverences for a way of life"
throughout
history that have led to slavery, holocausts, and inquisitions. No
culture or
nation is immune from a past period where religious belief allowed a
portion
of a population to enslave or horribly abuse another portion of the
population.

>This leads to the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death
>March, and Hiroshima.

Oversimplification, as Japanese society was swinging away from its
intense
militaristic society during the Meji Restoration, but returned to it in
the
years after the Russo-Japanese War. There was a point where Japan could
have
pulled away from that direction, but fell back into it. It wasn't
guaranteed
thing. Japan fell into its own version of the same horrible fervor that
gripped Germany, Italy, and Russia in the same period.

>On the whole, I prefer being a gun-crazy cowboy.

As I pointed out, the whole "mystical reverence of the blade" predates
gunpowder weapons in Japan by several centuries. The gun came, was used
effectively, then left Japanese society. Its abolition introduced a
period of
political stability unknown in the island's history. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

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