tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post6817586855242295894..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Richard Overy, "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945"Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-65984621800893625952022-09-26T19:58:04.919-04:002022-09-26T19:58:04.919-04:00@David- Overy has many pages on Japanese administr...@David- Overy has many pages on Japanese administration that fit pretty well with what you just wrote. Everything had a pleasant name, like "peace committee" or "program for Asian independence", and many young, idealistic Japanese officials actually tried to make the programs work for everyone, but when push came to shove Japanese needs came first, especially military needs, and locals who objected were beated or killed. Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-29693653909710555512022-09-25T21:37:03.415-04:002022-09-25T21:37:03.415-04:00By the way, I am NOT saying that the Japanese were...By the way, I am NOT saying that the Japanese were somehow innocent or merely stumbling. Ultimately the Japanese leadership had committed to making Japan great, in some form, by military means. Once they committed to that, everything else followed after. It followed after with a lot of confusion and muddle and foolishness, sheer opportunism and recklessness, but they never questioned the basic idea (which I would say was also quite foolish).Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-58484764757676262852022-09-25T21:18:28.171-04:002022-09-25T21:18:28.171-04:00@John
I guess what I'm trying to say is that,...@John<br /><br />I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in many historical cases and particularly these, it probably won't work to try to reason backward from means used to some sort of sensible ends sought. The means used may simply be ill-chosen, and multiple means working against each other probably reflect, as much as anything, the competition and poor communication among different branches of the government. And the ends may not be especially sensible.<br /><br />I once listened to Eri Hotta's 1941, which is largely about the Japanese leadership's way to war with the US. I was struck by how directionless and meandering Japanese policy was. Even someone like Tojo could voice virtual defeatism in private and then appear in full belligerent mode in a full cabinet meeting a few days later. Some of the motives were really petty, such as the army fearing war with the US because it would increase the navy's budget; but at the same time, if the navy voiced caution, the army couldn't resist pouncing on them for weakness. Meetings were often very long and contentious, and often major decisions, such as "let's vote on a date by which time there must be progress in the negotiations, or it's war," were taken because that was the only thing they could think of to do that seemed even a little productive; in the book, it appears as a sort of non-decision decision. Talk about various goals, like liberating Asia from white imperialism, appears in a way that seems oddly both not deeply committed and not insincere (at one point, some Japanese leaders rejoice when it seems the Americans are pushing them around, because that means they really are fighting imperialism; they seem to me to be reassuring themselves). And everyone's top priority seems to be to reject anything on which they feel they haven't been properly consulted.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-56633494579317412482022-09-25T17:44:51.201-04:002022-09-25T17:44:51.201-04:00@John
Perhaps the problem is the rhetoric of &quo...@John<br /><br />Perhaps the problem is the rhetoric of "just another"? Is that really Overy's argument? If so, I wonder if this may represent just another instance of that British academic tendency we've observed before, to create a ready-to-print thesis by arguing that an event that we had all thought was interesting and important really wasn't, but was really just another whatever-it-was. Ho-hum, what's for dinner.<br /><br />It seems clear to me that, for both Germany and Japan, there were multiple motives and fantasies involved all at once, many of them fairly unhinged, many of them barely thought through, and many of them internally self-contradictory. And anyone who wants to emphasize one theme has decades of rhetoric from some very verbose people to pick over and find the juicy bits. Of course for both there was an element of imitating British and French imperialism, just as, with the some Japanese, a sincere if rather mixed-up idea among some that somehow what they were doing was going to liberate the Asians *at the same time*. The fact that these are two contradictory ideas does not mean they weren't both there and playing a role.<br /><br />On Barbarossa, there was clearly an abiding, or at least recurrent, fantasy of Hitler's of turning Russia into Germany's American West, and making Germany a continental superstate well unified under a single master race by that means, so that Germany would be both like the US and able to challenge it ("The Volga must be our Mississippi!" and all that). And, along with that, fantasies about Jews, and Communists, and bringing Germans back to the land, and Ukrainian wheat fields and how they would break the blockade that had helped defeat Germany in 1918. Not to mention creating the heroic New Man, as Verloren writes, and living out a life in which he was the hero-martyr of his very own opera (speaking of a Cult of Death; Cola di Rienzo seems to have been his model of choice). We are also told--although I'm not sure there's primary source evidence to this effect--that Hitler had some idea that defeating Russia, an almost impossible task, was worth trying because if it worked, Churchill might give in. None of this was thought through.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-89469312201950563272022-09-25T14:45:31.436-04:002022-09-25T14:45:31.436-04:00And while it is true that many empires have enacte...<i>And while it is true that many empires have enacted genocidal wars against enemy peoples, the bureaucratic and technological mass murder of the Nazis seems to me like something rather different. <br /><br />But I still have trouble seeing the Nazi push to the east as just another colonial conquest like thousands of others in history. Come to think of it, the case of Japan also raises problems. In 1890 to 1920 they behaved much like a European colonial power, but then they somehow went crazy. The mass suicide of the civilian population of Guam as the Americans closed in symbolizes for me something very much awry in Japanese culture, a turn toward death for its own sake that is, again, hard to explain through a desire for empire and economic security.</i><br /><br />Empire was an element of Nazism, but absolutely there were other components.<br /><br />Central to Fascist thought is the concept of the archetypal "New Man", an embodiment of what would in the modern day be called "toxic masculinity" - a John Galt type figure, who is seen as a superior being rising above the masses; who exemplifies power, authority, and the absolute freedom to exercise one's will toward any whim whatsoever; one who takes direct action in all things, with an overwhelming emphasis on violence; one who eschews "soft" things like family, romance, compassion, etc; one who rejects self-doubt and is eternally confident in everything they do, even when they ought not be; one who is obsessed with glory, particularly that of "The Nation", usually achieved through either killing or dying; and so on.<br /><br />In Fascist thought, everyone is taught to aspire to be a mythic hero, simultaneously an exceptional individual whose own supposed superiority justifies all their actions, and also merely one member of a mass collective ("The Nation") made up entirely of such exceptional individuals. It's a bizarre and contradictory blend of extreme Individualism and extreme Collectivism, wherein the individual is encouraged to empower themselves at every turn, but only so far as in doing so they empower the collective. This is aided by largely replacing the identity of the individual with that of the collective - the individual IS the nation (so long as their desires and actions are in line with that of the whole).<br /><br />This allows Fascism to leverage the motivational power of the ego and of selfishness to drive people to act in the interests of the state. It also allows for an immediate reversal of this, wherein anyone acting out of ego and selfishness that ultimately does NOT align with state interests can be branded a traitor to the collective. They get to claim all the benefits of egomania when it suits them, and reject all the detriments of that same egomania when it doesn't.<br /><br />This ultimately leads, as you mention, to a turn toward death for it's own sake. Umberto Eco refers to the Fascist "Cult of Death" that arises from their obsession with making a society comprised entirely of "New Men" all striving to be mythic heroes. In a power obsessed culture where everyone is supposed to be exceptional and strive to achieve their own desires, and yet where the identity of the individual is supplanted by that of the state, the inevitable outcome is the pursuit death - often that of those outside the nation first, but ultimately of anyone and everyone within it as well, as that is the fate of all "mythic heroes". To bring glory to "The Nation", the individual is encouraged to exert their own will and realize their own power and superiority over others - in short, to become thugs and employ force to enrich themselves (and by extension, the state).G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com