What are Japanese children taught about WW2?

[Speaker_for_the_Dead]

@Roches

In the mandatory Canadian history course I took, about two or three weeks were devoted to both world wars. The causes of both wars were discussed, along with a few of the battles in WW1 where Canadian involvement was significant, such as Vimy Ridge. The WW1 section was largely about a domestic event, the Conscription Crisis (where French Canadians strongly opposed a draft). The WW2 section, was mostly about the causes of the war, the internment of people of Japanese origin, and the Holocaust. For both wars, there’s a lengthy discussion of bad things that Canada did, which is interesting if some people claim that Japanese students don’t learn much about the bad things that Japan did. (This fits in with the general theme of Canadian history as I learned it in school: English people did bad things to French people, aboriginals and other minorities.)

Wow. Your experience with publicly-taught history was nearly identical to mine. You don’t happen to be from the prairies, do you?

[pessimisticgrace]

Just want to jump in here… You may consider the Japanese wrong in not fully disclosing their actions (and as others have said, it really does depend on the textbook), but there are a couple things to consider.

1. The Japanese are very gracious about the entire thing. By that I mean that, whatever the reasons for the bombing, it is not unreasonable for a country to be very resentful and angry about a large number of deaths. Yet look at the Japanese/US relations. We are on extremely good terms with them and they are NOT waving a “how could you” flag at us. Our influence on one another’s culture is profound and there are many Japanese-American penpals and exchanges. I’d (debatably) even say that we’re on better terms with Japan than we are with some European countries. Much of the same is true with Vietnam… There really isn’t as large an anti-American sentiment as you would expect in a country who, less than a century ago, fought us to the death. Sociologists find this particularly fascinating, that we’re such good friends with countries that vehemently opposed not too long ago.

2. Others are guilty too, including us. There are atrocities that have been committed over the centuries that have been omitted from textbooks of the countries who were responsible for them. In America, they’ve been getting a little better about it. For a long time, we did NOT recognize the mass sterilization of Native American women. In the current era, some history textbooks do address it. But I don’t think Japan is any worse about it than anyone else: They do recognize that it happened, but I think there is a tendency for any country who is guilty of causing another harm to be less blatant about the history of that event than the one who received it.

And I will say that the argument of “hundreds of thousands of Americans would have died if we didn’t bomb them” is flawed for two reasons. One, most obviously, very few people agree on how many people really would have died if a) no bombs had been dropped or b) only one bomb had been dropped. It’s debate and speculation at best. Secondly, and this is where people will glare at me… That entire argument hinges on an American life being more valuable than a Japanese life. I don’t believe that the loss of another country’s civilian lives is okay if it saves some of ours, because I believe ALL innocent life is precious. I think if we’re going to run the numbers on it, we shouldn’t penalize a population for their military’s actions.

I’m not saying it was the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to do, just that I believe that specific argument to be flawed, because the actual numbers are debatable and it’s a fairly nationalistic view in the first place.

[DrDeth]

@pessimisticgrace

And I will say that the argument of “hundreds of thousands of Americans would have died if we didn’t bomb them” is flawed for two reasons Secondly, and this is where people will glare at me… That entire argument hinges on an American life being more valuable than a Japanese life. I don’t believe that the loss of another country’s civilian lives is okay if it saves some of ours, because I believe ALL innocent life is precious. I think if we’re going to run the numbers on it, we shouldn’t penalize a population for their military’s actions.
.

The bombings likely saved millions of Japanese lives, a point already made in this thread.

But please- that whole thing is GD terrotory, so if we’re going to 'go there", let’s go there.

[pessimisticgrace]

I disagree on the numbers, but I’m going to drop it because this is a GQ thread.

[Sage_Rat]

From going to college in Japan (and again living here), it would appear to me that most Japanese in their young 20s are mostly oblivious to history period. Personally my guess would be that schools teach in the format of “lecture once, test tomorrow, never see that info again” so the students get into the habit of one day retention.
So if you talk to a young-un like myself, the general reaction to Japan having done bad things in WWII is something along the lines of “Really? Wierd.” then they blank it out and go back to non-caring. Generally one gets the idea that history and politics are viewed as something else that other people worry about, over there–“I’m just an employee for Matsushita.”

But watching the media and what politicians do, it is imediately obvious that the government (and by extension the media) are quite unwilling to admit any wrongdoing.
They do have the following semi-valid arguments:

1. Colonialism was quite popular for a few hundred years up until Japan started doing it–when suddenly everyone else did a sudden 180 and picked on them.
2. Bad stuff (i.e. communism) was happening in China, and conquering it would have been better for the Chinese people and made Japan safer.

But admitting bad and allowing the Monbusho to stick in “forced prostitution” into the text books would be, I imagine, quite a ways off.

-Chris