Yeah, God forbid that kids develop a sense of cross-cultural empathy from literature, or the notion that our country’s historical actions may be inflected with moral ambiguity. I can see the relevance of the WWII context, but given the ongoing controversy over Hiroshima/Nagasaki, it’s hard to see your complaint about “the pussification of our society” as anything but amoral and inane.
Cross-cultural empathy is a false good, moral ambiguity a real evil. Especially when applied to actions in war, when our leaders must be not merely trusted, but obeyed without question. If that means forcing useful lies down the throats of the people, that is a small price to pay.
Pussification is a much-made-fun-of concept, but it too is a real evil. There is a reason that for centuries compassion was women’s work and the readiness to exercise force was men’s. We ignore that heritage not just at the peril of the existing political order, but of society itself. A civilization that becomes too civilized to practice and cultivate brutality is doomed.
So…what, fuck the Japs?
“We were wrong to drop the bomb” is a poor lesson to teach, but “it was a necessary evil” is not. Understanding that other cultures are human too and not simply Them is hardly a bad thing. It helps ensure that force is only used when necessary and avoids the temptation to wage war because we can and after all, it’s not like killing one of Them matters any.
If force is not necessary whenever the leaders say it is, then we lack the…I mean there…character…national…shit, I can’t answer your relativism. You’re destroying a nation, a society, and the meaning of being a man or a woman, that’s all.
You just keep human nature in mind. Humans are basically garbage, and they are that way because God made them garbage. All the love in the world can never redeem humanity; the best we can hope for is that with enough will to force, some of it may survive. I’d strangle puppy dogs in the schools if I thought it’d help teach that lesson. There is an Us and a Them, or there is nobody.
That’s typically what the leaders say before sending people off to die on some stupid or self-enriching end. But this is more of a philosophical argument than an artistic one, so it should probably be argued in Great Debates, not a thread about literature for children.
I’m sorry. I’m very angry and bitter tonight, and it compels me to say all kinds of hurtful and destructive things I don’t believe. It just feels like the only thing one can do sometimes, to be as hateful as one can in a hateful world.
I’ll retract all my comments in the thread and stop now.
Maybe in the Korean edition 
Hmm. After reading many threads about this, I wonder if people understand what “traumatized” means. If you watch a sad movie or read a sad story and it makes you cry, that is not trauma. If it makes you feel intense, strong feelings that you never felt before and want to talk about, that’s not trauma.
Trauma is the war vet that comes home and drops to his belly when we hears fireworks, or starts shaking uncontrollably for no reason at all.
Trauma is the rape victim who eventually commits suicide.
Trauma is abused children who are unable to trust anyone and/or end up marrying people just like their abuser and/or become abusers themselves.
Feeling bad about Old Yeller is not trauma, seriously.