h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...did my son decide to do General Tojo for his school 'War Leaders' project?

Oh, wait. I remember. Some smartarse eejit suggested it would be more interesting to pick someone other than Hitler or Churchill, like everyone else.

Trouble is...Tojo seems to have been a particularly dull man who was only prime minister, more or less by happenstance, from 1941-44. So I've suggested that he widens it out a little to cover 'His Life and Times', and hence the origins of Japan's involvement in WWII.

And here's where it gets interesting. We're all taught about the rise Nazism, but on the Japanese side it's traditionally left as 'and then they unexpectedly attacked Pearl Harbor'. Of course...wars don't come out of nowhere. I was pretty much aware of Japan's inter-war expansionism in China and its militarism, and that following WWI when it was on the Allied side it started to come into competion with the US and Britain in the Far East...but what I didn't know about was the British/Dutch/US embargo on oil, coal and steel imports, intended to persuade them out of China, which crippled their economy. Tojo was still in negotiations with the US over this when the fleet saved...but was unable to persuade the military (and Emperor!) against the Pearl Harbor plan.

Another thing to cover will be Japanese war crimes - for which Tojo bore responsibility was executed. Of course, was no angel...but the received wisdom of the Emperor as an aloof, uninvolved figurehead is *far* from the truth.

Hmm...I think I feel a Guide Entry coming on. I've not written one for a while.

Maybe a topic would be The Greater East Asia War - which is what the Japanese called a combination of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War and (what we call) WWII.

I think that would make a terrific entry. I've often puzzled over the huge size and mobility of the military from such a small country. Where did they get all that steel and munitions when they were being embargoed?

I look forward to it (but I will do a google now and see what I can see).

Well, Japan isn't a small country. It's more populous than any European country bar Russia.

Plus it had control of Korea, Taiwan, Sakhalin and Manchuria from the start of the 20th century. These are all areas with rich natural resources. The only thing they were missing was oil.

The rise of Japan as a Great Power is very interesting and that old polemicist Hitchens has some interesting insights on the development of Buddhism (if you count kamikaze pilots as suicide bombers then Buddhism is responsible for more of these abominations than Islam) to a very militaristic creed.

Western diplomacy with Japan during WW1 is fascinating as well. Just as the Treaties of Versailles and Sevres led to later conflicts, the way the West treated Japan led to a intensification of its war with China in the 20s and 30s.

I thought the kamikaze pilots were Shinto? Or is that just an offshoot of Buddhism?

I found a reference to Japan trying to establish a statement of racial equality in the covenant of the League of Nations which was shot down (if you'll excuse the bad pun) by England and the US.

Hi Ed,

Rent the film 'Tojo' if you have not already seen it. It is a Japanese production filmed in English for 'foreign' consumption.

They present him as a hero who was trying to liberate Asia from the European colonialists. The Americans had a stranglehold on Japanese energy sources so they were forced to attack Pearl Harbour.

In the end, Tojo accepts the responsibility in order to spare the Emperor the disgrace. He does this even though by doing so he condemns his own soul.

All very sad; I don't know how truthful but it certainly is an antidote for all the John Wayne shite.

kamikaze, and indeed much of Japan's aggressive nationalism, was heavily influenced by the indigenous state religion of Japan, Shinto

Shinto is not an offshoot of any form of Buddhism. It is a much older, tribal type spirit-worship kind of thing.

(A polytheistic, animistic religion, Shinto's belief in spirits *was* inevitably incorporated into some Buddhist cults, in much the same way that the philosophy of Buddhism in Tibet adopted the supernaturalism of the indigenous tribal religions upon it's arrival, and became the strange, wishy-washy religion it is today.)

Bring to the mix the samurai's Bushido code of honor above all else, and the testosterone of youth, and it's easy to understand the overwhelming success of the kamikaze recruiting efforts

This does not, of course, excuse Buddhist suicide attacks, but to say the kamikaze derived from Buddhist beliefs is incorrect.

Good suggestions.

>>Shinto is not an offshoot of any form of Buddhism. It is a much older, tribal type spirit-worship kind of thing.


nnnn...yes and no. Shinto took in Buddhist elements (and vice versa) in much the same way that Christianity took in Mithrain/Manichean/Celtic/Whatever elements.

(HI...see comment re Zoroastrianism. )

Arguably, Shinto is Japanised State Buddhism crossed with Paganism.

>>but to say the kamikaze derived from Buddhist beliefs is incorrect.


Hmmm. As incorrect as saying that suicide attacks are derived from Islam?

Right, time to make a few things clear.

As one who has spent a lot of time with Shinto Priests at the Heian Shrine and other locations across southern Japan perhaps I can help to clarify matters.

Modern Shinto, i.e. that of the 19th century onwards, is an animistic, land-based belief system, intrinsically linked to the divine line of emperors. The similarities with Japanese, or Zen, Buddhism comes from sharing the same population base for hundreds of years and the societal customs that grew during Japan's self-imposed isolation.

Those who take Shinto as their primary belief found the twisting of the spiritual meaning and history of the divine wind (kamikaze) profoundly disturbing. Shinto reveres life and many of its followers are principled pacifists.

The Samurai of the Tokugawa Shogunate turned away from Shinto when they found that they could not militarize its beliefs. So to link these two aspects of Japanese society is a mistake. Instead they militarized Buddhism, ignoring the words and actions of its founder.

There is also a profound difference between the suicide bombers of the modern islamist movements and the kamikaze. The kamikaze were defending their land against a possible full-on invasion - total war with all its horrors. They were attacking only the military ships of their enemies. Inadvertently they sowed the wind, convincing allied commanders that invasion would be too costly, and reaped the whirlwind in the form of two atomic attacks.

Islamist suicide bombers are trying to destabilize near and middle eastern states by dividing its people along political and religious lines through acts of extreme violence, mostly against innocent civilians. As we become hardened to the constant bad news from that region we can easily forget that for every soldier who dies, a hundred civilians do.

Matholwch .

Ooh! A rare sighting.

A wider pont, though, is that there's nothing inherent in Shinto or Buddhism (or Christianity or Islam...or Druidism) that would stop them being perverted. Religions are - at best - morally neutral. They can all be used to encourage evil.

I blame the whole perversion of Druidism thing on Queen Boddicea.

>>>>Shinto is not an offshoot of any form of Buddhism. It is a much older, tribal type spirit-worship kind of thing.


nnnn...yes and no. Shinto took in Buddhist elements (and vice versa) in much the same way that Christianity took in Mithrain/Manichean/Celtic/Whatever elements.

[...]

Arguably, Shinto is Japanised State Buddhism crossed with Paganism.<<

Well, yes and no

I understand that a primitive form of Shinto existed in Japan prior to the arrival of Buddhism, which first came to Japan via Korea, and which galvanized the rather laissez-faire Shinto to become more formalized and organized. In turn the Japanified Buddhism incorporated much of the Shinto spirit worship, (as it did in Tibet), but despite this syncreticistic process, Shinto is no more an offshoot of Buddhism than Buddhism is of Shinto.

Modern Shinto inarguably owes much of its structure and popularity to Buddhism, and vice-versa. Cross-fertilization, yes, but to claim either as an offshoot, or derivative, of the other is not wholly accurate.

Much to the dismay of, I'm sure, the peaceful Shintoists and Buddhists of the time, Shinto was in fact the official state religion of Japan during WW2, and, like Buddhist teaching, was perverted to serve nationalistic ends. Religion is convenient, that way

The young suicide pilots were encouraged to believe they were following the will of the gods. As you probably know, the very word, 'kami-kaze' literally means, 'spirit wind', which hearkened back to the 'divine' typhoons believed to have destroyed the invading Mongol fleet of Kublai Khan

Oh such barbs, zoomer, in one so young

As for Boudicca there is no eveidence she had anything to do with druids of any persuasion. At least for Vercingetorix there is mention of him knowing druids, but not our favourite warrior Queen.

I wonder when Mel Gibson's 'Boudicca, Warrior Princess' is due out? (no I am not joking... unfortunately).

Matholwch .

Hi Eddie,

I've been over on the BBC Religion threads christian-bating. They are so easy compared to you lot .

Onto your 'wider pont' (sic)... you do realise that there's nothing inherent in nationalism, sport, rational philosophy or politics that would stop them being perverted. They are - at best - morally neutral. They can all be used to encourage evil.

And you using the term 'evil', really, standards have slipped here Eddie m'boy.

Power and to a minor extent money, can be traced to be at the source of every war since the dawn of man. Religion etc. are merely the casus belli.

Matholwch .

Tal:

I wasn't meaning to claim that Shinto is an offshoot of Buddhism...or vice versa. Rather, as you hint, the two have become somewhat intertwined - and were even more so when they were jointly suborned by militarists.

Math:

>>Onto your 'wider pont' (sic)... you do realise that there's nothing inherent in nationalism, sport, rational philosophy or politics that would stop them being perverted. They are - at best - morally neutral. They can all be used to encourage evil.

Uh huh. So when someone says to me 'As a Spurs fan, I have a special, spiritual insight', I'm entitled to sneer in much the same way as I do at Druidism. *Of course* rational philosophy and politics per se are morally neutral. Things are not automatically good because they are rational. To take one example...I would give no quarter to the morally objectionable psuedo-philosophy of Ayn Rand. Her ideas are rational but wrong. And I'd present rational arguments against.

'Atheism is a necessary-but-not-sufficient precondition for a moral philososphy.'

Sneering doesn't become the wise man. Things have slipped around here...

>I wonder when Mel Gibson's 'Boudicca, Warrior Princess' is due out?<

Mel sugar Gibson? Arch Catholic Mel? A film about a strong woman?

*Anne Ross and Don Robins in their book The Life and Death of a Druid Prince link the death of Lindow Man in part to the fall of Boudicca.....They also note the mutilation of the dead, indicating that many were not just killed but sacrificed to the Celtic Goddess Andrasta, they maintain that Boudicca was her priestess.*

http://cillpiorra.homestead.com/Boudicca.html

One theory any way.


It gives me hope for the future that *one so young* is 57.

Unfortunately Zoomer Ms.Ross fails to point out that there is no physical evidence that druids existed in Britain at all.

The few classical authors (note that I do not say 'historians') that mention them in a British context had no direct or contemporary knowledge of the early Roman occupation of Britain nor the Iceni Revolt. They also had every reason to paint the British as barbaric.

Also any 'sacrifices' are merely conjecture. They could equally be judicial executions. After all we used to have a Christian Priest or Minister accompany every man to the gallows, does that make them religious sacrifices?

And finally the conflation of British and Irish deities is almost laughable, especially the use of The Morrigan (which do not even appear in Irish literature until after the Christian conversion of Ireland).

When a professional academic like Ms.Ross chooses to publish a glossy book instead of a set of peer-reviewed papers the main reasons are vanity, profit and the knowledge that the general public are not as critical as her peers might be, and almost certainly will not check the references they list in the addenda.

You just wait until my future blockbuster "Druid Secrets of the Templars - the search for the Grail at Stonehenge" comes out...

Matholwch .

PS: The latest carbon dating put Lindow Man as from 300-250 BCE. A bit before Boudicca's time.

>>Unfortunately Zoomer Ms.Ross fails to point out that there is no physical evidence that druids existed in Britain at all.

Strange, then, that you've always maintained publically that you follow An Ancient Tradition.

But the projects not even about Druids. Any thoughts about Japan's build-up to WWII?