The Hiroshima Question
This is an old philosophy problem. The question is about whether the American attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was moral. I'm guessing this will quickly evolve into a bash-America thread, but I'm just using this thread to talk to @RogueAI and anyone else who cares about the topic. I'll ignore the anti-American stuff because it has nothing to do with me.
My own answer is the result of a night I spent pacing the floor trying to figure it out. This was a long time ago. Anyway, it goes like this: The will to live is amoral. What you do on behalf of your own survival can't be judged as long as you thought you had no alternative.
Before the Hiroshima bombing, the US was exhausted from fighting two wars simultaneously: one in the Pacific and one in Europe and Africa. The bombing of Hiroshima was intended to save American lives that would be lost in a piecemeal Pacific strategy. So according to this assessment, the Hiroshima bombing was neither moral nor immoral.
What's left is to explain why the will to live can't be judged. @RogueAI if you want me to explain why I think that, I will. Let me know.
My own answer is the result of a night I spent pacing the floor trying to figure it out. This was a long time ago. Anyway, it goes like this: The will to live is amoral. What you do on behalf of your own survival can't be judged as long as you thought you had no alternative.
Before the Hiroshima bombing, the US was exhausted from fighting two wars simultaneously: one in the Pacific and one in Europe and Africa. The bombing of Hiroshima was intended to save American lives that would be lost in a piecemeal Pacific strategy. So according to this assessment, the Hiroshima bombing was neither moral nor immoral.
What's left is to explain why the will to live can't be judged. @RogueAI if you want me to explain why I think that, I will. Let me know.
Comments (74)
An article that might give this thread some moral guidance.
As long as we are all opposed to death and suffering, advocates of a course of action that causes it have to provide justification.
Is there justification for nuking? If so, is there justification for nuking twice? (Many say no to the second question) The answer would depend on whether the war would have ended without it or them, and if so how costly ending the war would be without using it or them.
The idea of bombing civilians with any kind of bomb would strike most sensitive people as immoral. We could stop to consider what we mean by that (or how we use that kind of statement.)
I think the will to destroy other human beings was paramount, not only because they knew such a thing would happen (they ran the tests), but because they knew it would give them an edge in their campaign. They knew it would destroy innocent people, most of whom I assume had never killed any American soldiers. The choice to drop the bomb was no doubt an immoral one.
Italian general Giulio Douhet was one of the most famous air power theorists of the time and he fervently believed in the effect that aerial bombing would have on an enemy population. Hence the war wouldn't drag on like WW1 and actually the death toll would be smaller. People would demand an end to the war when they would be bombed.
The American dilemma and thinking goes quite on the same lines, especially when they already had ample evidence just how stubborn the Japanese would be in defense. The estimates for casualties in Operation Downfall and it's smalle operations, Olympic and Coronet, was to be close to one million. Hence the estimation was about a quarter million US soldiers killed and the war go on perhaps until 1947. With those kinds of estimates, it's not hard to choose an other option like "on the other hand, we have this extremely powerful bomb". If the other choice is quarter of a million dead American soldiers.
Yet Douhet's argument doesn't seem so good when compared to reality in WW2. Usually bombings of civilians didn't brake the will of the people as aerial bombings weren't so effective. The "Blitz" on England made British more willing to see the war to the end and not negotiate a peace (like in 1918). Yet the total war aspect of Douhet's ideas were correct. Bombing is important.
(One famous slogan in Germany during WW2: Our walls will break, but not our hearts.)
For Japan the new bomb simply made it obvious there wouldn't be any way out. The Americans had already killed a lot more with the fire bombing campaign than with the nuclear bombs, yet assuming they could mass produce these weapons, the USAAF could with basically impunity bomb everything in Japan.
Philosophically nuclear weapons are problematic, because what they have been is extremely good at deterrence. And they haven't been used again. There simply hasn't been WW3. But as WW3 hasn't happened, it's impossible say if this has been a product of the "Mutual Assured Destruction" of nuclear weapons or not. If it has been so and if we would have had devastating wars without people being afraid of nuclear weapons, would they have been good?
It's similar with the question of Japan's surrender. Would the war have dragged to 1947 and would have quarter of a million US servicemen died? Who knows.
Quoting frank
Well, just imagine yourself in the shoes of President Truman, when he is told about this new bomb alternative.
I can definitely respect your viewpoint. Do you think those who made the choice:
a) believed it was wrong
b) believed it was right
c) believed it was amoral
d) rationalized that it was right even though their instincts were that it was wrong
Interesting read as always, thanks!
@Banno
:up:
I didn't know about that essay. Cool stuff. Yes, I agree, mass murderer.
Quoting frank
If what you mean is that you want to live, that's fine. "I want to live" says nothing about how you should deal with others, so it says nothing about morality.
Quoting frank
This does not follow from your premise. It doesn't follow because it is about how you treat others, and so has moral content.
Whence that moral content? There's a missing premise, something along the lines of "I may do whatever I want to other people in order to preserve my life". And that is not so.
___________________
But further, it is clear that there were alternatives, that the Allies were winning and that neither Truman nor the allies were in imminent danger of extinction.
So I don't see how what you have said works.
Quoting frank
What if bombing runs where civilians were going to be killed as a by-product, were necessary to win WW2? I don't see evidence that they were, but I think most people would still say they were justified.
I'm guessing the situation in Israel/Gaza is what you and @RogueAI were discussing, or the situation spurred you to this question? Another tough one. For me, I think you have to look at the consequences.
If you become really hungry, you're likely to go kill a chicken and eat it. Was that moral? If so, what's the logic that dictates that it is? I don't think there is any. By and large morality is something we observe in ourselves and in the world. It's not knowledge we obtain by logical means, although a dose a logic is usually not a bad thing.
What came to me while pondering how morality dances around in my psyche was about how the struggle to survive is raw and blind. We can try to channel it toward the best and most moral paths, but ultimately, it has us. We'll minister to that force with whatever cards we're dealt.
Quoting Banno
Sure. So I'll ask you the same question I put to Nos:
Did Truman
a) believe it was wrong
b) believe it was right
c) believe it was amoral
d) rationalize that it was right even though he knew it was wrong
If you don't feel like following me on that, that's fine. I totally understand. I'm bedbound anyway. :grin:
A related question with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict is whether it is illicit to indirectly kill those whom the enemy has taken hostage as human shields; along with the secondary question of whether it makes a difference if the human shield is the enemy's compatriot.
I'm not sure how to understand this. Morality is about what we do. That's why it's something we observe in the world. It can be discussed, and so subjected to logic. Even if " the struggle to survive is raw and blind", ought it be so?
Quoting frank
I won't pretend to have special access to Truman's beliefs.
Yes, that's generally the justification. Also the fact that it might deter a war with the Soviet Union, which seemed quite possible at the time.
But people also question if it was moral for the US to abandon half of Europe to the Soviets with their mass rape, mass brutalization of subject peoples. Particularly the abandonment of Poland, the Baltics, etc., so it goes both ways, "the wars you don't fight," become an issue as well.
Obviously, if a nuclear war had broken out with the Soviets in the 60s-80s, we would look back and say "it would have been the right thing to do to get rid of the USSR when they refused to leave Eastern Europe in the 40s," so it's something that's impossible to know for sure.
I think he knew it was wrong, morally speaking. But I think he believed it was right on utilitarian grounds. Only a utilitarian could eradicate lives in order to save lives. The sense of self-preservation when allied to the promise of a greater good outweighed any moral sense and conscience that may have arisen.
Banno, allow me to ask a question out of curiosity.
In Anscombe's early work, such as "Modern Moral Philosophy," she more or less claimed that absolute moral prohibitions are unavailable to those who do not believe in divine law. Now I disagree with her and I would not be surprised to find that she changed her view at a later date, but what is your opinion on this matter? Given what I know about you, you presumably disagree with the claim.
I don't mean to derail. Just a quick question. :grin:
---
- That seems right to me as well.
Quoting Leontiskos
The second question is an interesting one - think the difference between it being a Palestinian hostage or an Israeli hostage. Would and should both hostages be treated equal?
Anyway, I'll try and stay on topic as there's another thread on Israel/Gaza.
I think it could make a difference. We distinguish combatants from civilians, but then there are murky areas such as civilians who are proximate to the war, producing arms or some such. Thus insofar as someone is associated with the war, they are not a mere civilian. So if a compatriot hostage is more closely associated with the war/fighting than a neutral or opposed hostage, then a relevant difference could arise. What is at stake is probably a form of collectivism, and it may be contingent on whether the compatriot hostage is in general agreement with their possessor's tactics (i.e. if they think to themselves, "I am not opposed to using compatriots as human shields, but don't use me!").
Actually I didn't want to raise a tricky ethical question in that thread, because it is in the Politics and Current Affairs section.
Ah, okay. So could I say that you would follow Kant insofar as he favored self-legislation?
Yes. Playing with statements is the shallow end of the pool. Trying to understand your fellow humans is the deep end. I already knew your preference. I respect that. It's just not where my interests lie.
Yep. One can keep one's footing. I surmise Truman realised it was immoral, but did it anyway. Would I have done differently? Such contemplations are fraught with equivocation. The morality of the act was probably not high on the agenda at those meetings.
Kant had many odd habits. Perhaps it would be best not to follow him too blindly. I've a liking for Nussbaum, if you need names. Beyond that, Philippa Foot, perhaps.
It is obvious that Japan would have won against the US if Truman hadn't dropped the atomic bombs. To be honest, I think it was a filthy movement from the government of the United States because they were aware that the honourable soul of the Japanese is unbreakable. The kamikaze ('kami' God/ 'kaze' air) were considered martyrs of the glorious Japanese Empire. Yukio Mishima and Shintaro Ishihara wrote a lot of this. Rather than a big destruction, it was a KO in their integrity and self-esteem. They understood that after a nuclear bomb, they would not be able to face the USA again militarily. Fortunately, the Japanese soul of working hard and improving continuously didn't change.
The beautiful Hiroshima nowadays:
Quoting ssu
Now, imagine ourselves in Hirohito's shoes afterwards. Japanese folks have always believed that the royal family were holy, and they were treated like deities. After losing WWII, there were a lot of changes to the Japanese constitution: the Emperor no longer had the treatment of holy; Japan lost their army, and Japanese foreign principle is resolve conflicts using peace. Conclusion: the USA erased the Samurai soul of Japan... this is what bothers me the most. Well, the ministers of defence and military authorities committed seppuku after losing the war because of the shame they felt about themselves. Amazing. This kind of honour is impossible to see in the Western world. For example: when the Republicans lost the Civil War here, they fled to France or Argentina. :roll:
Ah yes, the Samurai soul of beheading prisoners, and having thousands of civilians committ suicide for no reason.
So sad that it's gone.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It would be an interesting question whether one could justify dropping the bombs on Japan in order to avoid a Soviet occupation, but that requires hindsight that the people making the decision did not have.
Uh...how on Earth???
Besides, the atomic bombs weren't that different to the fire bombings: it doesn't matter actually for you on the ground if it's one bomber or three hundred of bombers. The 9th-10th of March 1945 bombing of Tokyo killed 100 000 people and left one million homeless. When you have those hundreds of Superfortresses, what's the difficulty even without an atomic bomb?
(remains of people in Tokyo after the fire bombing)
Quoting javi2541997
Yukio Mishima is the perfect example here. He made his "coup" and tried to get Japanese soldiers of the Self Defence Forces to stage a revolution. They mocked him. Mishima stopped after few minutes and then took his own life.
Both Japan and Germany are example just how thin in the end the layer of fanaticism is. Total defeat makes it impossible to live in denial. Some in an society can be ardent believers, but the majority simply adapts to the prevailing situation. And the majority will also adapt when the situation changes.
The Germans didn't commit mass suicide after their Third Reich lost. And the "Werwolf" units designated to continue an insurgency simply didn't come to be. Yet even to this day the whole chapter has had a profound effect of the German psyche and you have the occasional "Hitler-Welle" in Germany asking how it all was possible. Japan changed dramatically it's policies too. Perhaps it has now Hiroshima to reflect the worst guilt of WW2 and can picture itself as a victim too.
Well, Mishima committed seppuku after losing the last hope he had in Japanese society. He knew that after the nuclear attacks, Japan would be a different country and even the Japanese citizens felt ashamed of themselves. There is a good quote by him: 'If Japan had won the war, Japanese youngsters would go to Kabuki theatre. But the Americans are the ones who won, so they go to dance at Jazz clubs instead' This quote perfectly represents the impact of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Furthermore, being an immoral murder, it has nearly vanished a millennial culture.
Mishima even stated in some essays that 'corruption' and 'representatives' in a Parliament are just a Western thing and Japan was poisoned with these elements. He had nostalgia about living in a Samurai era where honour and loyalty were the pillars of Japan: 'Bushid?' He was right in terms that, after Japan becoming a 'modern' nation, they had to face big social problems: the middle-class way of life - capitalism - and, yes, corruption. Nonetheless, the roots of Japanese honorary culture remain, because when a case of corruption arises, the average politician resigns. An example: Japan's Olympic minister resigns over Fukushima gaffe
Do you know what is the worst? That a great part of modern Japanese society feel ashamed of their past and values for not letting them win the war, and post-changes were necessary to become a 'Western' alike modern nation...
Nostalgia,
Muslim extremists have that nostalgia too: everything bad that is happening in their society is the product of the West and people mimicking the West. Everything good and pure was then when you had the actual Caliphate, or when Muhammad himself was ruling the Ummah. How could it have been anything than paradise then? Hence to show their devotion an piety, some extremists use only small pieces of wood toothpicks to brush their teeth because at the time of the Prophet, they used them.
Not only are these kinds of nostalgia silly, but as in the muslim example simply ruinous and deadly for many countries. I would consider it populist nostalgia. Not only were things better in the past, but thanks to the evil leaders and their diabolical agenda against us (the people), we are forced to give away that better past.
Yet I guess many in the West are excited about critique of the West given by non-western people like Mishima. Yet the majority of Japanese, just like the soldiers that mocked Mishima, understand how this kind of nostalgia paints a fantasy picture. And the idea that Mishima and other nostalgic conservative paint of the "true" culture of a nation or it's people dismisses just how creative culture is. Cultures have always taken influences from other cultures.
I have a daughter that has put all over her room pictures of Japanese cartoons, Manga, of cute puppies and always wants to go to the store with Japanese merchandise. So don't say to me that Japanese culture is somehow dead. It's very alive and influential. And if Samurai warriors don't walk around armed to the teeth in Japanese cities anymore, it hardly isn't an example of cultural decadence.
Quoting javi2541997
And some Germans think highly of mr Hitler too. But I wouldn't say that there's really many of them.
I think many Japanese are proud of what they have made of their Island nation compared to other Asian nations. As usually, many of us have that nostalgia for a time when everything was more simple, yet our rosy ideas usually forget the negative aspects of life which were present.
All we can do is speculate about consequences. We have to act with the information we have. We don't act from a transcendent position with omniscience. On the other hand, we can know precisely what has taken place in the past. This is why morality is mostly backward looking, assessing the value of actions that have already taken place.
I like my quip: "Morality 101: bombing civilians is bad."
I have sure footing there, but notice how that statement is like something God might have zapped into a stone tablet on Mt Sinai. That's the problem with the shallow end. It sounds nice, but it ends up being irrelevant to real people in real circumstances.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes. It's complicated as you have to measure not only the likely consequence of each course of action (or lack thereof), but how certain you are of those consequences. Makes questions like the one posed in the OP and the Israel/Gaza question extremely difficult, if not impossible, to answer.
I agree on this point. Of course, Japanese culture is still influential, but the main debate that conservatives - or populists - have in Japan is if it was that worthy the influence of Western culture in Japan. Most of the Japanese citizens who I talked with agreed with this, and they love Europe and the USA in general. They are not nationalist because they learnt the lesson after WWII. I am not going to lie to you: I wish I see some Samurai if I go to Japan one day, as well as I watched them in Kurosawa's films. :wink:
But I am aware that this is just my taste, and most of the Japanese don't feel represented by their Samurai past any more.
The aspect that surprised me the most, is that they consider 'cultural decadence' the way they wear clothes. Suits are Western, and some of them miss wearing a yukata or kimono, because these are only used at important festivals. Yet, they are aware that if they wear a yukata the foreigners would not take them seriously...
Quoting ssu
Absolutely. They truly believe this.
I think you could make that pretty absolute. Terror bombing and area bombing as a means to reduce economic efficiency has not proven very effective.
The larger question is about the use of air power, or artillery, to attack an enemy who entrenches themselves in populated urban areas. There you have the trade off of doing nothing due to the risk to hitting civilians, which only encourages the use of "human shields," and the risks of various forms of attack.
In general, the risk ratio to civilians favors air power. Special forces raids can be less damaging, but they have the potential to blow up. What happens if your forces get pinned down? Now you have to let them be overwhelmed or start using way more, less discriminate power to support them. Actual occupations don't tend to result in fewer losses unless the occupying power can flood the area with manpower and effectively police it. This is hard to do. The US and allied forces to hold half of Vietnam peaked over one million men and wasn't enough.
Then, you can consider strategic bombing designed to cripple your enemies' ability to wage war. This moves to bombing civilian infrastructure, factories, etc., but not civilians as an end.
There aren't many ways in which bombing civilians can be justified because it isn't effective. But it's also wrong to conflate "any attack once an enemy has entrenched themselves in a populated area and not evacuated it," with "bombing civilians intentionally."
This is definitely a real strategy. In the one election Hamas allowed to occur they campaigned precisely on curbing their use of "human shields," a stratagem the shields were not particularly fond of. But if insurgencies can be justified then some degree of "hiding behind the population," must also be justified, since they are pretty impossible otherwise, particularly in urbanized areas.
So, with insurgents, their justification needs to be based in their goals and how well their techniques actually can be expected to achieve those goals. In many insurgencies, control over their own populace, infighting, and attacking just for the sake of attacking become goals in themselves. I'm thinking in particular of the Lebanese civil war with its endless landscape of groups. And these groups had justifiable causes, but lost justification for their muddled "attack to attack," doctrine.
Much like people lamenting the death of the "Crusader spirit," of the Middle Ages and the European Wars of Religion lol.
I think it's absolute in the sense that there's never a time when bombing civilians is the righteous thing to do. Even if it's part of an ethical dilemma, it doesn't represent the ideal. But sometimes people act in a way that manifests ideals. Sometimes they don't. What's happening when they don't?
An easy answer would just be that sometimes humans are vile. That strikes me as a useless condemnation, though. I don't think they're actually any more vile than a flock of birds or a school of fish. The only way to begin understanding human behavior is to start by looking at it through an amoral lens.
So looking at Hamas in mechanistic terms, how do they end up using their own relatives as human shields? What psychological factors lead to that kind of behavior? What do you think?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not sure how to separate the two.
It sounds like you want to call good acts moral and bad acts amoral, such that immoral acts do not exist. You've defined immoral acts out of existence.
Relevant here is Elizabeth Anscombe's point:
Possibly the way a chess player is willing to sacrifice all pieces but the king.
Further, religion/ideology plays an important part here as far as civilians are concerned. If the civilians believe they are going to be killed in "friendly fire" but for the greater purpose of a holy war, then they themselves and their soldiers won't see themselves as victims.
Quoting frank
These options couldn't be possible, because the US was the one who declared war on Japan. They knew what they were getting themselves into, and they chose to do it.
It depends on what others, and what those others are doing or are willing to do.
One cannot be a gentleman among savages.
And you think *that* is "Japanese culture"??
Exactly. But what does it help if the body lives, if the soul, the spirit is crushed?
Why is it immoral to bomb workers in armaments factories?
Because they're just trying to make a living?
A) people in the military are trying to make a living too
B) people working in armaments factories aren't JUST trying to make a living. They're helping the war effort as well.
They have done nothing to deserve it. Since they have done nothing to deserve it, any conscience or sense of justice disappears and is superseded by motives of self-concern, which is the sine qua non of consequentialism. What I mean is, any reasoning involved in deciding whether to incinerate workers in fire and shrapnel is invariably premised on ones own thoughts and emotions and imaginings. We can see this in post hoc justifications, for example, wherever a counterfactual is offered as proof that bombing was the right thing to do. Or that they are helping the war effort.
They're building weapons to fund the war effort. I'm not asking whether they "deserve it", but rather "is it immoral to bomb munition factory workers?" If you are fighting a war, and you can end the war by destroying the enemy's war-making industries, don't you have a moral obligation to your own people to do so?
What famous American author was a POW held in Dresden when it was bombed?
You don't know?
Quoting Leontiskos
Fair enough.
Quoting Leontiskos
From a utilitarian point of view, you could say the sympathiser is worth less on the basis that they hold more negative utility, and from a deontological point of view, you could say that the sympathiser is less deserving. There will be a minority of people that hold the belief that everyone is equal no matter what.
Should we therefore not at least attempt to be rational? To be consistent and coherent? There's a new discussion for you.
Im not answering whether they deserve it or not. Im saying they do not deserve it, therefor it is immoral to bomb them. It is not moral to bomb people just in case it ends the war because such a decision is based on prophecy. Youre referring to your own predictions, your own assumptions, without once considering actual people involved.
Check out what Anscombe says about innocence, and the sleeping soldiers example, in Mr Truman's Degree.
Destroying a city involves the murder of innocents.
Are you conflating irrational with inscrutable? It's fairly easy to understand people once you know what they fear and desire, for me, anyway.
Quoting Banno
Well you've claimed morality can be "subject" to logic. So why is it moral to kill chickens? Why should we attempt to be rational? Consistent? Coherent?
Well, no, I'm saying even if your goal is to be rational, there are situations that do not have a rational response. Even if, or perhaps because, you understand the motivation of the folk involved, there need be no reasonable choice. But nevertheless, one can be obligated to do something (When you are in the Chaotic quarter of the Cynefin Framework).
Sometimes there is not only no best choice, but no reason for preferring one option over another.
But that's a different issue to whether we should be rational. Perhaps we should pick one issue here. I suggest the former is closer to the issue of the OP?
I see what you're saying.
This article says:
Japan was considering surrendering prior to Nagasaki, the conventional bombs killed more than the nuclear ones, and Japan never could have fended off the US and the Soviet Union successfully.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/#:~:text=But%2C%20in%201965%2C%20historian%20Gar,use%20was%2C%20therefore%2C%20unnecessary.
But that's not what the treaties say.
Yes. Another route is to say that the strong sympathizer is a quasi-combatant, and thus presents at least less collateral damage than a non-sympathizer would. Hamas has been known to boast about their "desire for death" (in relation to their cause), and a sympathizer of that caliber would rather alter the landscape.
I do not consider the Western press and media as reliable.
Frank, I'm just not sure how much can be accomplished by a discussion of the morality of war in general, particular battles, specific weapons, and various policies. You've heard of "the fog of war" -- how facts and rumors mingle, how chaos prevents a clear view of what is happening, how propaganda becomes indistinguishable from reliable reports, and so on.
"The Japanese half of the Axis was better than the German half" someone may have said earlier. Well, maybe or maybe not, Japan's army still occupied vast stretches of territory at the end of the war. We were on their doorstep, but It wasn't as if they had been driven back to the home islands. Truman was a murderer, banno says. Atrocious things were done to innocent people on all sides under the leadership of all sorts of ranking politicians and generals.
No doubt it is an easier task to decide who and what were moral almost 80 years ago. I don't believe 'moral' and 'immoral' were so clear in the middle of the war.
Christ, we have barely begun a new war and there is already a wide divergence about the morality of Hamas's and Israel's actions. The fog of war is gathering amidst a great deal of pontificating and Monday morning quarterbacking. Hiram Johnson, a Republican Senator from California, said that truth is the first casualty of war; he was talking about WWI. Truth is still shot down as soon as it enters the crosshairs.
Do I know what the truth is here, what is moral and what is not? No more than anyone else, which is why I am doubtful about what we can accomplish here. That doesn't mean I don't have preferences; I'd rather live in Israel than in Iran or Saudi Arabia. I prefer that people not commit murder, wholesale slaughter, wanton destruction, and bring about general ruination. But... sooner or later, people do those things and think themselves quite moral.
It's the part of Japanese my daughter likes. Just to make the case that Japanese culture, as any culture, isn't just the old, the conservative part of culture. That cultures do evolve and do take influences from other cultures too.
The idea of "national" culture, which depicts something else as "unamerican", "ungerman" or "unjapanese" is typical for people holding very distinct and narrow views on culture in general.
Oh there's a natural cure for that.
If people would live to be on average 200 years, I am totally sure that "we" would be far more conservative, far more religious with a far lot memories of the past. Perhaps just now the last soldiers that fought the Napoleonic Wars would have died, and people who fought the WW1 and WW2 likely would be the politicians ruling over us.
Hence renewal happens when generations die and new ones replace them. You certainly remember what happened to you and you remember what your parents and grandparents have told you. But few have much interaction with their great grandparents, hence their time is really just in the history books. Assuming that history isn't kept up as part of your identity.
Ask yourself, what is so precious, so valuable in your culture for you from the 19th Century and earlier, that without it you will feel your spirit is crushed? Is it unbearable for you when things have changed from that time?
The nostalgia that writers like Mishima crave for are viewed with rose tainted glasses: It's one thing to preserve good values and customs from the past and another thing to attempt a revolution to go back to the good old days.
I agree. I think this question is more about the journey to your answer than the answer itself.
Quoting BC
That's exactly what I concluded. Judgment works better when it's backward facing. Kierkegaard pointed out that what we know comes from looking backward, but we have to live facing forward. Basically, you do your best with what you've got and make assessments after the fact.
Quoting BC
Again, that was my conclusion. People always think what they're doing is right. I may know everyone condemns x, but if I'm doing it, it's because I've worked out somehow that it's right this time.
I imagine the aim of such discussions is to get peace of mind through understanding.
All the more reason to contemplate issues of morality.
Every philosopher worth his salt has to develop a system of morality that makes sense of life as it is actually lived (including the wars) and that gives him peace of mind. The aim of philosophy is wisdom, not confusion.
The distinction between the high and the low.
The distinction between the classy and the plebeian.
The distinction between art proper and kitch.
The distinction between the honorable and the dishonorable.
Traditional cultures typical have this kind of distinction, whereas modern consumerist culture doesn't.
Unbearable ... I feel like a dinosaur.
(Not from a Kurosawa film)
[i]Katsumoto : The way of the Samurai is not necessary anymore.
Algren : Necessary? What could be more necessary?[/i]
Excellent! What film does this quote come from?
Lol. You aren't alone with that feeling.
Or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Samurai