# Japanese lack of contrition **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213 "2006-09-18T19:17:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/61 "2006-09-20T17:13:24Z")
[QUOTE=Roderick Femm] There is a potentially racist reason why Japanese atrocities against Chinese and other Asians would not rise to the level of outrage accorded Nazi crimes - because the victims weren’t white. [/QUOTE] One could also point the possible anti-white racism of liberals and radicals who bemoan Hiroshima quite loudly and even hold memorial services on the anniversary of the bombing, while tiptoeing quietly around Dresden. When yellows are the victims, it is a horrible racist atrocity. When whites are the victims–silence. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/62 "2006-09-20T17:18:09Z")
[QUOTE=Grossbottom] Because if the 20th Century proves anything, it’s that demanding unreasonable contrition will prevent future excesses on the part of the losing aggressor. [/QUOTE] What part of asking for an apolgy for kidnapping and serially raping young girls to the point where their uteruses fall out do you think is unreasonable? I think right now I think the comfort women are just looking for acknowledgement that most comfort women after the first few years of the war were forced into prostitution by the Japanese. These are 80 year old women who want the Japanese to admit that they were the victims of rape not willing prostitutes. These women are already precluded (by treaty) from demanding compensation from Japan, they want acknowledgement and hopefully apology. Personally I can’t understand why they have given up on apology and are willing to just settle for acknowledgement. ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@Sweet\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/63 "2006-09-20T17:47:57Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] I don’t think there were a bunch of Japanese war criminals that fled to Brazil if that’s what you mean (emperor Hirohito and other members of the royal family were not tried). I am not sure how that absolves them of apologizing for some of that stuff. [/QUOTE] My point is that, who are you going to demand these apologies from? You going to go to the graves of war criminals and demand that the current Japanese government take a leak on them? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/64 "2006-09-20T18:00:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sweet Mercury] My point is that, who are you going to demand these apologies from? You going to go to the graves of war criminals and demand that the current Japanese government take a leak on them? [/QUOTE] A government/country can apologize for its past behavior even if none of its citizens are left alive that perpetrated the crime(s). The United States apologized for slavery long after anyone who was a part of it was gone. ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@Sweet\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/65 "2006-09-20T18:33:45Z")
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole] A government/country can apologize for its past behavior even if none of its citizens are left alive that perpetrated the crime(s). The United States apologized for slavery long after anyone who was a part of it was gone. [/QUOTE] I am aware that it can and that such an event has happened. It still begs the questions: who is doing the apologizing, and to whom are they apologizing? If everyone involved is dead, then we are basically talking about a polittically correct PR stunt. It’s stupid and somewhat insulting. ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@Sweet\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/66 "2006-09-20T18:36:04Z")
[QUOTE=Sweet Mercury] I am aware that it can and that such an event has happened. It still begs the questions: who is doing the apologizing, and to whom are they apologizing? If everyone involved is dead, then we are basically talking about a **politically** correct PR stunt. It’s stupid and somewhat insulting. [/QUOTE] Yeah. I love not being able to edit. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/67 "2006-09-20T18:37:01Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] One thing I’ve read is that military atrocities were not universal throughout the Japanese army. While many officers (perhaps even a majority) condoned and encouraged their troops to terrorize people in occupied territories, other officers expected their troops to act like civilized professionals and they did so. Assuming this is accurate, it would indicate that the decisions about whether or not to commit war crimes were disorganized and being made at a low level. [/QUOTE] I don’t know whther or not there were standards of behaviour that allowed for the sort of discretion that would allow Bataan death marches and Rape of Nankings but it seems to me that the comfort woman issue was not the result of a few abherrant soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/68 "2006-09-20T19:54:20Z")
I do have to wonder about what the attitudes are in Japan on rape are like today. All I really know that skeeve me out are that the very popular hentai and “dating” simulations all feature rape as a matter of course to a degree that just doesn’t seem to be as much the case in Western pron. Is there really some sort of particularly egregious cultural tolerance of rape, or am I judging the culture too much by something that is actually just a fringe thing? I honestly don’t know enough about Japanese culture to make an informed judgement here. Also, of course, less seriously, there is Kancho, which as a Puritan American, seems totally outrageously bizarre (to those who don’t know what it is, kancho is sort of the japanese version of the childhood wet willy prank, only it involves jamming your fingers into someone elses’ ASSHOLE. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/69 "2006-09-20T20:09:46Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] the japanese (until recently) had simply NOTHING in their hsitory textbooks about WWII-nothing about the rape of Nanking, slavery in Korea, wholesale murder in China. [/QUOTE] Hmmm, not necessarily true. The Japanese history book I used while attending high school in Japan back in 1986 definitely discussed the Rape of Nanking - it was, in fact the first I had heard of it (we learned almost nothing of what happened in Asia during WWII, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the midwestern high school I attended). The class also learned about Japan’s invasion of Manchuria as the starting point of WWII (for Japan). The teacher noted that Japan was basically following the West’s lead in Asia: Russia, France, England, and (to a lesser extent) the US had been carving out parts of Asia for itself for many years; Japan’s mistake was being last to the table. The teacher talked for an entire class about parts of WWII that didn’t make it into Japan’s text books. Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve met a not insignificant number of people whose teachers did the same. [rant]There’s a whole lot of things that I’ve come to really dislike about Japan: its massive victim complex when it comes to WWII. Japan fought three wars in less than two generations (vs China, Russia, and of course WWII) - yet Japanese still believe they are a ‘peaceful nation’. They have a massive superiority complex (Japanese are unique, their intestines are special so they can only eat Japanese rice, etc.). They also have an equally massive inferiority complex that lets them flaunt international standards and expectations (‘we’re smaller and not as powerful, so we should be able to get away with more’). Japanese companies are unbelievably inefficient, bribery/extortion is rampant, people mill around work until late doing nothing but killing time - and they still believe they are ‘hard working’. And, the killer for me, the majority of Japanese men are over-sexed, alcoholic, immature pedophiles - and no, I’m not exaggerating. [/rant] But in this specific case, when it comes to China/Korea etc. and WWII, Japan really will never have done enough. The PM could issue daily, weepy apologies, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Politicians in other Asian countries shovel out this ‘Japan never apologized! stuff purely for domestic consumption; it’s a convenient way to get their citizens’ minds off the fact that their own countries are generally dirt-poor and horribly run. The only way the rest of Asia will get over the issue is if their economies grow enough to wipe out the significant wealth gap with Japan. On preview: **Apos** , I would say that date rape is so common in Japan it’s scary - so much so, that I’m positive most women don’t even realize it’s rape. Japanese men actually get turned on by a woman saying ‘no, no, we can’t do this’; it sort of heightens the ‘thrill’. (I guess the Western equivalent would be having sex outside or something, the thrill of ‘getting caught’?) Ultimately, you’re talking about a culture where the vast majority of women simply will not speak up if they’re molested on a train; they’re simply not culturally programmed to say no. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/70 "2006-09-20T20:15:32Z")
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole] Well…I think one can argue that official sanctions to punish Germany after WWI were a direct cause of allowing Hitler to gain power and thus start WWII. The allies knew better the second time around and did not beat up Germany post war but helped rebuild them. German contrition over it all was largely of their own doing. I would think that even today Germans would be hard pressed into military adventurism. I doubt the populace would be easily sold on such a course due to that contrition they still hold from WWII. [/QUOTE] Of course, although “Germany” apologized, how many of Germany’s friends have apologized? “Hitler made me do it” don’t just cut it! ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/71 "2006-09-20T20:16:57Z")
> [@](#): > > On preview: Apos, I would say that date rape is so common in Japan it’s scary - so much so, that I’m positive most women don’t even realize it’s rape. Japanese men actually get turned on by a woman saying ‘no, no, we can’t do this’; it sort of heightens the ‘thrill’. (I guess the Western equivalent would be having sex outside or something, the thrill of ‘getting caught’?) Ultimately, you’re talking about a culture where the vast majority of women simply will not speak up if they’re molested on a train; they’re simply not culturally programmed to say no. As a non-Japanese, I’m wary myself of making these criticisms with my current lack of good information. Do you have some reference to statistics on this? Are there Japanese feminists organizations working to combat this? Certainly it seems like Japanese women have more power in their society than ever before (indeed, the number of single women and so-called “parasite singles” is skyrocketing) so I’m really interested about what the culture itself has to say about claims like this. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/72 "2006-09-20T20:26:54Z")
[QUOTE=Sweet Mercury] I am aware that it can and that such an event has happened. It still begs the questions: who is doing the apologizing, and to whom are they apologizing? If everyone involved is dead, then we are basically talking about a polittically correct PR stunt. It’s stupid and somewhat insulting. [/QUOTE] I think it is a formal admission of the country to not stick its head in the sand and deny something awful it once did. The apology is more to the world even if directed at a specific population. Sort of a, “We were real asshats and resolve to never let such a thing happen again.” Seems better than a, “Who? Us? What?” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/73 "2006-09-20T20:32:30Z")
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole] I think it is a formal admission of the country to not stick its head in the sand and deny something awful it once did. The apology is more to the world even if directed at a specific population. Sort of a, “We were real asshats and resolve to never let such a thing happen again.” Seems better than a, “Who? Us? What?” [/QUOTE] I would point out that the Japanese Constitution formally renounces war as an instrument of policy. If you want a country to say “we resolve to never let such a thing happen again,” having them put right into the Constitution that they revoke their own right as a sovereign state to engage in belligerency is a pretty good record of it. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/74 "2006-09-20T20:42:29Z")
Apos, I doubt any such data really exists - ‘date rape’ as a term is still relatively new in Japan. As far as I can tell, it’s only been in the last five years or so that the concept of ‘date rape’ has made it into Japan’s mainstream thought. Most women would be shocked to find out that it would be considered rape in the US (they consider rape to be ‘some strange guy you don’t know jumping out at you from behind the bushes’). But I can tell you after living in Japan on and off for 20 years - it is very, very common. Some feminists organizations are starting to combat it. They have a long way to go, however - some train companies figured that the only way to solve the ‘molestation’ problem on trains… was to have men and women ride in different train cars. During rush hour, they now have ‘women only’ cars. :rolleyes: Women having power in society is true, to an extent: but it’s not the ‘power’ we think of in the US. In Japan, women control the household. In the vast majority of households, women control the money (some popular TV shows regularly have corners where guys write in asking the program to come help them negotiate higher ‘allowances’ from their wives). Ask most Japanese women, and they will say they don’t want more responsibility at work - they would, in fact, rather stay at home, where they can enjoy more free time with their other housewife friends. Many women, I suspect, would say, if pushed, that letting their boyfriends/husbands tom-cat around at night in return for being able to spend his money during the day with their own friends is a reasonable trade. **RickJay** , it’s not like Japan can say that Article 9 (the ‘no war’ clause) was their idea: the entire constitution was drawn up mostly by the US during the Allies occupation of the country after WWII. Article 9 itself is generally said to be the brainchild of one of General MacArthur’s advisors. Still, most Japanese are proud of Article 9, and honestly believe that Japan as a country ‘loves peace’. (Japanese do nothing better than believe their own press clippings). And, as has been noted already, Japan has already apologized numerous, numerous times. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/75 "2006-09-20T21:12:12Z")
I definately need more data though. If rape isn’t taken seriously, for instance, why was the rape of a girl in Okinowa considered so offensive and scandalous? Likewise, many comparative rape statistics in the US contrast the US to Japan by saying that rape is _20_ times more common here than there, and many articles in wikipedia say that japan has one of the lowest rape rates in the world. Porn advocates often claim that this validates their theory that more available pornography does not lead to more abuse, but less. And while, as you say, some of that difference may well be to do with the lack of reporting, I find it hard to believe that a serious researcher couldn’t get around that issue by taking anonymous statements from women in both countries and then assigning the designation of rape to acts of sex without consent regardless of whether the victims called it a rape. So, I get lots of conflicting stories on this. Again, my knowledge is basically limited to what I know of hentai and manga/anime. It’s simply surprising, for a Westerner, to find that admitted sex perverts are common characters and sometimes even heroes in popular and even pretty youth oriented entertainment (for instance, Jiraiya on Naruto, who is the “Number One Super-Pervert”). But what does it mean? Taking it back to the topic though, let’s say that Japanese culture really does “look the other way” in regards to rapes, or at least did and doesn’t much want to talk about it now. Does that cultural bias explain their unwillingness to talk about the comfort women, or is it something else? ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/76 "2006-09-20T21:28:50Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] What part of asking for an apolgy for kidnapping and serially raping young girls to the point where their uteruses fall out do you think is unreasonable? [/QUOTE] Main Entry: un·rea·son·able Pronunciation: -'rEz-n&-b&l, -'rE-z&n-&-b&l Function: adjective 1 a : not governed by or acting according to reason You haven’t given a reason, you just keep trying to shock people like with that uterus thing right there. So, what’s your **reason** for trying to make millions of people feel sorry for stuff they didn’t do? ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/77 "2006-09-20T21:54:23Z")
**Apos** , the Okinawa rape is completely different - it was commited by a US service man! Gasp shock horror. Most Japanese (men and women) would be shocked if they were told that rape was 20 times more common in Japan than the US (I don’t know about putting a specific number to it, but I definitely believe rape is way more common in Japan than the US). Remember, it’s not just women who wouldn’t define date rape as ‘rape’ - most guys wouldn’t either. My knowledge is based on slightly more than hentai p0rn (which, btw, is probably not a cause, but a result of, Japanese men being immature pedophiles). I’ve lived in Japan on and off for 20 years - half my life - spent five years at a public high school and national university, spent 15 years in corporate Japan, had a Japanese wife for 7 years, of course have many, many Japanese friends, and I read and write Japanese about as well as I do English. The basic thing you hear is ‘well, I didn’t really feel like having sex, but he kept insisting, and he had paid for dinner, so…’. Interesting point, of course - if the girl doesn’t think it was rape, is it rape? Another issue - sex in Japan almost never comes with the ‘dirty/wrong/religiously bad’ baggage it comes with in the West. Since many Japanese women see nothing wrong in casual sex with their boyfriends and/or dates, and see no reason why they should feel ‘bad’ about it, part of me can see, to an extent, how the line could get blurred a bit. Anyway, I personally don’t believe that this view of date rape has anything to do with a cultural bias towards not wanting to talk about the comfort women, or war-time atrocities, etc. When it comes to a process of apology, Japan has its cookie cutters prepared: let’s suppose a company is found to have engaged in some accounting irregularities. I can tell you - probably within the day - exactly what will happen. Management will spend days one and two saying they did nothing wrong. On day three, they will launch an ‘extensive internal investigation to discover the full truth’. On days five or so they will ‘regrettably find some irregularities by some rouge employees’; the head of the department/company will insist that he’s staying on to ‘help rebuild consumer confidence in the company’. On day seven (usually about the time that it’s discovered that the incident was, in fact, part of a massive company-wide coverup) the company will announce various penalties - pay cuts, some managers demoted, etc - while the company issues a ‘sincere apology’ while ‘vowing to take steps to ensure that such acts never happen again’. The newspapers will howl that these amount to slaps on the wrist. A couple days later the company will announce even stricter penalties. Finally, the head of the company will be ‘demoted’ from President/CEO to ‘senior advisor’. And, for all intents and purposes, will end the scandal. Once the head has been replaced _even though he remains in a position of power_ the company’s deemed to have ‘done enough’. The problem with the comfort issue etc. is that Japan has no means for going through the above charade in full: it started out ok; denying everything, having their ‘internal investigations’, etc. But it’s not like they could convince some PM to ‘step aside’. So, from the government’s (and most citizens’) point of view, they’ve done everything they could. There isn’t anything more that should be expected of them. Now, understand that I’m writing this (mostly) tongue-in-cheek: but I do believe that Japan can’t figure out what more they’re supposed to do. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/78 "2006-09-20T22:02:07Z")
Dragon, I think you got it backwards. What I said was that rape is reportedly 20 times more common per capita in the US, not in Japan. And again, while reporting and definition may be issues, I don’t see why a good researcher couldn’t easily get around that problem of bias. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/79 "2006-09-21T01:19:33Z")
[QUOTE=astro] Personally contrite? It was a national shame to be sure, but it’s enough generations back that beyond the sincere statement that “slavery was a very bad thing” I feel no personal responsibility for it at this point. I do believe some of the problems seen in in black family structures can be traced back to the institutions of slavery, and the cascade of social dysfunction it caused that ripple through black families to this day, but do I feel _personally \* contrite? No. [/QUOTE] The OP, as I understand it, is wondering why the Japanese people_ as a group \* do not feel contrition for their national sins. In both cases, individual persons’ feelings are beside the point. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213/80 "2006-09-21T01:37:49Z")
[QUOTE=Grossbottom] Because if the 20th Century proves anything, it’s that demanding unreasonable contrition will prevent future excesses on the part of the losing aggressor. [/QUOTE] contrition != punitive sanctions In point of fact, part of what enabled the rise of Nazism was the _lack_ of German contrition for WWI. The Nazi’s narrative depicted WWI as a completely justifiable and praiseworthy effort, but one in which the heroic Geman military was let down by the weak and decadant civilian governament. To the extent one can root WWII in Versailles, the problem was precisely that the focus was not on contrition, but on punishment. And as any warden can tell you, the latter does not necessarily lead to the former. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-lack-of-contrition/373213.md?page=5)