In 2015, I went to the International Union for Quaternary Research conference in Nagoya. The Emperor and Empress of Japan attended the opening ceremony. There was security screening, armed guards in suits sat throughout the audience and we were told we couldn't take photos during the ceremony.
This wasn't a large conference and the delegates were either the cargo pants wearing sort of scientists or students. Definitely not the sort of conference you'd expect elderly royalty to take part in. Most of us thought either the emperor or the empress must have had a personal interest in the topic area, but no one I talked to really knew why they were there. This article solves that little mystery for me!
what really bothers me about it is that they hide behind it. they continually claim they are performing "research", yet it is completely obvious they are doing it for commercial reasons. they kill calves and pregnant whales. in fact, one of the recent years showed a staggering percentage were pregnant whales.
they also have left a dolphin and penguins just withering away alone in a small pool in an abandoned sea park. it is really deplorable behavior. there is no telling what else they do with regards to the treatment of animals.
additionally, many asian countries, this includes russia, are still capturing orcas for entertainment purposes. i actually don't know if japan does. but i am just mentioning it because it is just part of a large train of human fuckups with regards to humane treatment of animals. of course, i deplore the u.s.' history of orca capture, the orcas still in captivity, and the breeding programs.
In fact, his knowledge of biology and radiation was why he immediately grasped the futility of fighting an adversary with atomic bombs, and recorded his surrender broadcast.
His father, Emperor Hirohito was also a marine biologist. How much better would the 21st century have been if he indulged that career rather then emperor of Japan during Japan's actions in China and world war 2...
At best, he failed to reign in the military, at worst, he was the warlord of the worst butchers of the modern era. Members who served him talked about how Biology was his real passion.
Read "Japan's Longest Day" (the book, not the movie) [1] which is a serious attempt to reconstruct in detail the events leading up to the decision to surrender. Nobody was really in charge. The civilian government didn't control the military. (See "May 15 Incident" for why.) The army and navy didn't get along and had no unified command. The Emperor was respected but mostly an isolated figurehead. The decision making process, which the book describes in detail, makes the current US administration look well-organized.
Don't know that book but will read it. "The Fall of Japan" by William Craig is also excellent, and it confirms everything you wrote above.
One of the strangest episodes was that the generals didn't want to surrender even after the atomic bombs fell. Only the Emperor's personal intervention caused the surrender to happen.
If it’s anything like the culture here now, once the Emperor made his proclamation everyone else breathed a collective sign of relief that it wasn’t on them anymore.
But they were the action of his government that supposedly valued fidelity to the emperor above all. He also choose Tojo for his prime minister. The post war story that this was to keep him in check, by making him in charge of everything seems... convenient.
There is no doubt that the military is out of control, but he was the one individual that could have , but did not, bring them back under control.
I think Japan's emperor is a lot different than an emperor in traditional usage. I think they are descendants of the Sun God and they are not involved in day to day affairs of men.
> As mentioned before, the king was widely regarded as a link between the divine and the human worlds. He might be a god himself, or descended from one, or simply appointed by the deity, but at all events he was expected to use his 'divine effulgence' (as the Persians called it) or his Heil (as the Germanic barbarians called it) for the benefit of the community: this was the crucial manner in which he promoted welfare. He was expected to maintain and embody the law in the sense of cosmic, natural and human order, partly by acting as the symbolic head of the community and partly by observing the right ways and setting a good example. If he did so, happiness and prosperity would ensue.
> Such ideas are widely attested for primitive societies, but they displayed an amazing tenacity under civilized conditions, being attested for ancient Egypt, China, Japan, South-East Asia (where some kings had no other functions), India, Iran, the Islamic world (in both the concept of the caliphate and that of kingship), as well as the Hellenistic world and Europe. If the king was just, rain would fall; if he was not, famine, flood and other natural disasters would ensue. Natural disasters were thus blamed on the king: they proved that he had misbehaved. Under a good king, 'vices decrease and virtues increase... the world becomes prosperous and joyous', as the Zoroastrians explained; but 'when kings are unjust, even sugar and salt lose their flavour', as the Indians put it. If no king existed, both the natural and the human order would dissolve and chaos would prevail: a country without a king enjoyed 'neither rain nor seed, neither wealth nor wife, neither sacrifices nor festivals', according to the Ramayana; people suffered illness, customs ceased to exist and all was nothingness according to Malay literature. It is for this reason that the sixteenth-century Burmese king laughed at the idea of a kingless Venice; and it is for the same reason that the British abolition of the Burmese monarchy in 1886 was a catastrophic shock to the Burmese which the British had not anticipated.
> Ritual kingship (as this role is commonly called) might require no action at all: the Japanese emperors performed it for over a thousand years by simply existing, being kept in such ceremonious inactivity that when one of them made a bid for real power he could scarcely even walk. Most rulers, however, combined their ritual role with co-ordinating and warlike functions which tended to transform or eclipse it, while at the same time the development of specialized religious institutions changed their standing vis-à-vis the divine.
(Posted as three quotes to mirror the two paragraph breaks within the section I wanted to quote. I have not omitted or altered any text within the quoted section.)
Note also that this is the current function of the Queen of England.
He could have tried harder. It's less clear that he could have succeeded. Remember that there was a coup attempt after he ordered the surrender when the war was completely lost.
The pre-WW2 world was firmly colonial, and Japan's imperialistic ambitions in the first half of the 20th century were not particularly out of place, or unusual.
Why was he expected to 'reign in the military', while other colonial nations got a free pass on this account? Was it because his country came out on the losing side in the conflict?
> Was it because his country came out on the losing side in the conflict?
Essentially, yes.
Once it became clear that Japan was a strong regional power the UK and (especially) US began treating it poorly, which was a major cause of the civilian government losing prestige and power to the military.
Well, even if we assume you're right, the Japanese certainly don't have a monopoly on ethically questionable relationships with animals (i.e., which they ought to recognize as such, given what they know scientifically).
Consider how in America people have very different ideas of how pigs and dogs ought to be treated, despite how pigs have been shown to be at least as intelligent and sentient as dogs.
I don't think the widespread ban on whaling is concerned with the intelligence of whales or the inhumanity of killing them; rather, it's concerned with the potential extinction of a species, which is absolutely not a concern with lifestock animals.
They largely hunt minke whales, which are not threatened. The entire industry is basically a boondoggle too; there's no massive demand. I'd be more worried about tuna fishing.
>> the Japanese certainly don't have a monopoly on questionably consistent relationships with animals.
There are some unique aspects to Japanese whaling. It isn't just about eating whales, nor is is about culture. The scant studies that have come from their "research" whaling operation suggests they see whales as a competitor species for fish (focus on stomach contents etc). The dark interpretation of this is that they don't want whale populations to increase, that they are killing whales for no other reason than to make them dead. That would be a very unique human-animal relationship imho. I cannot think of any other species with which we compete for sustenance.
For perspective, the world sperm whale population probably consumes as much fish as the entire human population harvests from the ocean.
Stealing livestock. An artificial situation of our own construction. Not us both out in the woods chasing the same rabbit. Fox is a pest. We do not compete.
We've banned this account for posting too many unsubstantive and/or uncivil comments. Would you please not create accounts to break the site rules with?
