Hatrack River Forum: To OSC: Understanding of Japanese culture in Afterword of CotM

This is topic To OSC: Understanding of Japanese culture in Afterword of CotM in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Twk128 (Member # 7820) on :

Mr. Card,
Only recently discovered the Enderverse after long hearing of the relevance of the original novel. Could not be more pleased and have just read through Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets in all of five days. I can not praise your novels enough, and look to recommend them to all that I can.

And here comes that "but" that you can sense coming: In the afterword of Children of the Mind, I felt that in praising certain noble aspects of Japanese culture, there may have been a glossing over of Japanese actions in lands they conquered.

Immediately this elicited an angry response from my sleep-deprived, and pervasively biased mind. But my questions are, basically: To what do you credit the brutality of the Japanese occupation of lands conquered prior to WWII? And to what extent do you believe that whatever it was in the culture that brought about such brutality is still present in Japanese culture today?

A newly devoted fan, far from home.

Yrs.,
TWK

Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :

From what I recall, OSC didn't begin with discussing Japan soley in the WWII context. His thesis was that Japan had grown up an 'edge' nation to the 'centrist' China for centuries. Always perpetually viewed the barbarian and outsider. And like many 'edge' nations (Vikings, Assyria, Rome [which I dispute] and Medo-Persia, if I remember right), once they came to power over previous center nations, their cultural insecurity caused them to always overextend themselves- and to go to far. Both in the essay and in Wang Mu's discussion with Amaina Hikari, he mentioned repeatedly the center nation's arrogance and complancency- they passified only enough for what they needed and they presumed that everyone simply wanted to be just like them, so their will-to-empire was sporadic at best and more about national security. Edge nations, however, retained that cultural insecurity (or, if you'd like, a desire to show themselves every bit as powerful and legitamate as the center nation) and so their conquests were always larger than they could eventually hold and were sometime marked with more barbarism than normal (as the Japanese actions in WWII and before).

In the end, I believe the point was now (in the Enderverse chronology) that Japanese culture was dominant in congress- in other words, now that edge Japanese culture had control over a center nation- would they continue that same pattern with their treatment of Lusitania- the pattern that, to Amaina Hikari, required the gods to step in and chastise their people with the two atomic bombs- or would they counteract that tendency.

FWIW

Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :

I'm against conquering other countries. As a general rule, it doesn't work; and when it DOES work, it does so by destroying another culture entirely, which I regard as a Bad Thing.

I'm especially against things like the Rape of Nanking.

But that has nothing to do with the point I was making in my Edge-nation Center-nation essay. There is no "moral value" in being Edge or Center - nations in both positions have been generally benign or savagely evil in their treatment of their own citizens and other nations. My point was simply about what signs nations/peoples give when they are "on the make" and when they have decided to ossify and/or die.

I think America has, by and large, had a positive influence on the world; it has also caused harm; but in THIS context, the interesting question is: Good or evil, is America in decline or on the make? Edge or Center? This should be answerable, or at least discussable, without necessarily agreeing on whether America's survival or national death would be a Good or Bad thing.

Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :

America is easily a center nation but its in decline. All of the economic/social signs are there that existed in the decline of every other large centrist Empire.

Now is Russia a center nation? They definatly posses s the many attributes of one but also they seemed intent on dominating every single one of their neabhors (I can't ever seem to be able to spell this word) at one time or another.

So now, as in every other time who will become the next super power? China? or a restored Russia? I have no doubt that the EU could become a super power in its own right, Japan is very strong but whether or not it can become strongER or weakER is beyond my abilities to predict without hard data of their economy and economic trends.

Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :

Rome worked moderately well as an empire, without destroying other cultures. So did the Habsburg empire, at least for three hundred years or so, though admittedly it wasn't as tolerant as Rome. Ottoman Turkey was also rather tolerant, and lasted for quite some time.

Posted by 1135813 (Member # 7816) on :

Hmm. Is Russia really all that expansionist? The Soviet Union certainly was, but couldn't that be explained by their desire to spread communism?

Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :

quote:
Is Russia really all that expansionist?

You don't get to be the largest country in the world by sitting at home and respecting your neighbors. . . .

Posted by BryanP (Member # 7772) on :

What does it mean to be "on the make" or "declining" exactly? I mean, I don't think this country is going anywhere. Our institutions are so firmly installed, at this point, it's hard to imagine a total collapse.

Posted by Onyx Ricsina (Member # 7835) on :

Somehow, and I'm by no means an expert, I see Russia as not being expansionist at all currently. Much the way that China is described in comparison to Japan in CotM. At one time, they were "on the make" and they butted heads with the other "on the make" civilization, America. When communism fell without a shot being fired, it seemed to make America stuble, in regards to being "on the make" and expansionist (kindof like when two people are pushing against each other and one steps out of the way). Since then, it seems to me, that America has been floundering to find another to put up a resistance in order to rally public support behind continued expansionism. It is the assimilation and veiled acceptance of other cultures that makes America a center civilization.

Posted by 1135813 (Member # 7816) on :

Russia was definitely expansionist at one point, but at the moment Putin seems to have more than enough on his hands just trying to keep his country in one piece-- do you disagree?

Incidentally, can anyone tell me how the quote function on this forum works? My BBCode isn't so great.

[ April 18, 2005, 12:37 AM: Message edited by: 1135813 ]

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Click on "quote". Copy/paste your quotation in the middle. [Smile]

Alternately,

code:

 [QUOTE] type these brackets and "QUOTE" and "/QUOTE" out by hand with the quotation here [/QUOTE]

Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :

USA wold not be what it is if it werent conquering. Though It's true that Americans bought pretty much of their territories (Florida, Alaska). Unless I'm much mistaken oregon was obtained quite peacfully too.
Civilisation has to grow up from qonquering, and when it does, the greatest qonquerers are the greatest peace-makers., arent they?

Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :

China actually did rather little in the way of conquering way back when, I heard off of my dad that China simply saved up money and bought the territories around them.

Now Rome's institutions were also firmly established and they fell as well, though for far differend reasons then America. I will agree it won't be an "Earth shaking" collapse, most likely sickened by their mounting debts, annoyed at the hostillity of the world and desparate to cling to their economic share of the world (which I think is around 25% in 1980 and is steadily declining) America will most likely moth ball a good portion of its weapons (the older ones at least) aand retreat to isolentionism.

Posted by BryanP (Member # 7772) on :

I agree, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. America has been isolationist on and off since it's inception. We seem to come out and play a larger role only when we have to for our own protection (i.e. WWI and II and the War on Terror). Since WWII, we've been more involved with the world than we were prior to it, but I think that we'll probably go back into a sort of isolation after this terrorism stuff has been handled more thoroughly.

Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :

though how terrorism will be handled is up to debate. America might very well give up on trying to meddle in Middle Eastern affaires and leave it to the wolves. Though I hope that money will still go to Israel until the Palistinians and the Israeli's can come to terms.