Good examples. Can they be considered as a form of proof for what happens when xenophobia and isolationism take root and control the structure of society? I’m seeing a lot of detachment and the cruelty of racism in full display.
Kinda. Japan did have some long standing bad blood with Korea and China before that - but we’re talking a thousand years before. Centuries during which Japan pushed on its own internal war culture. Isolation did help a lot with that attitude, but here we’re talking about the period immediately after Europe shattered Japan’s glass bottle, so this particular forced opening was actually really really bad. Then they modernized and went on a rampage.
They started with some mild xenophobia because of chaotic immigration a thousand and a half years ago, fought off an invasion that pushed them further in, then Buddhism broke its way in, then Japan went full isolationism for 250 years, then the outside world broke that and caused further xenophobia, and that’s how this ended. So it’s more like they tried to quell one down with the other, and when the outside forced its way in with humiliation, they lashed out.
That sounds to me like a cycle of abuse. An oversimplification would be someone who feels bullied eventually retaliating with something much worse against the world itself.
They went that hard also specifically because of the culture they had been boiling themselves into for a thousand years - life and death, hierarchy, the complete lack of value for an individual life, especially if they’re not nobility. They were doing that to themselves first with spears and swords and bows, and then when the outside world forced them to modernize, they took the guns and the chemical crap and did that to everyone around them. And they were good at disregarding all human life. At the very beginning, it’s the result of this culture they locked themselves in, where death and life lost value (thanks Buddhism, also a way to cope with what the powerful were doing to the poor); their history with Korea and China a thousand years ago then with Europe and the US is just a thing that happened to them on top of that.
The isolationism part, both 1300 years ago and 400 years ago, was adopted because lots of war was happening on the mainland that caused a lot of people to flee to Japan, and then because Europe was pushing religion. Isolation was not an unfair conclusion, if heavy-handed. Xenophobia is bad, isolationism is bad, being victimized and invaded is bad, militaristic culture is bad, religious extremism is bad, but I don’t know if you can pinpoint it on one thing. It all just came down to a really bad mix.
Good examples. Can they be considered as a form of proof for what happens when xenophobia and isolationism take root and control the structure of society? I’m seeing a lot of detachment and the cruelty of racism in full display.
Kinda. Japan did have some long standing bad blood with Korea and China before that - but we’re talking a thousand years before. Centuries during which Japan pushed on its own internal war culture. Isolation did help a lot with that attitude, but here we’re talking about the period immediately after Europe shattered Japan’s glass bottle, so this particular forced opening was actually really really bad. Then they modernized and went on a rampage.
They started with some mild xenophobia because of chaotic immigration a thousand and a half years ago, fought off an invasion that pushed them further in, then Buddhism broke its way in, then Japan went full isolationism for 250 years, then the outside world broke that and caused further xenophobia, and that’s how this ended. So it’s more like they tried to quell one down with the other, and when the outside forced its way in with humiliation, they lashed out.
That sounds to me like a cycle of abuse. An oversimplification would be someone who feels bullied eventually retaliating with something much worse against the world itself.
They went that hard also specifically because of the culture they had been boiling themselves into for a thousand years - life and death, hierarchy, the complete lack of value for an individual life, especially if they’re not nobility. They were doing that to themselves first with spears and swords and bows, and then when the outside world forced them to modernize, they took the guns and the chemical crap and did that to everyone around them. And they were good at disregarding all human life. At the very beginning, it’s the result of this culture they locked themselves in, where death and life lost value (thanks Buddhism, also a way to cope with what the powerful were doing to the poor); their history with Korea and China a thousand years ago then with Europe and the US is just a thing that happened to them on top of that.
The isolationism part, both 1300 years ago and 400 years ago, was adopted because lots of war was happening on the mainland that caused a lot of people to flee to Japan, and then because Europe was pushing religion. Isolation was not an unfair conclusion, if heavy-handed. Xenophobia is bad, isolationism is bad, being victimized and invaded is bad, militaristic culture is bad, religious extremism is bad, but I don’t know if you can pinpoint it on one thing. It all just came down to a really bad mix.