Quote:Tennie wrote:A case could be made for it, I suppose, but I don't think the Germans were quite in the same cultural situation that the Japanese were. For example, Hitler was not seen as a semi-divine figure. He was a charismatic and influential leader, to be sure, and the leader of a fascist state, but Hirohito was supposed to be descended from the gods. The requirement that the Emperor publicly announce that he was not divine would be kin to someone conquering the Vatican and forcing the Pope to say that he was not the direct interpreter of God's will, and for the entire Catholic Church to change policy to go along with that statement. Or the Jewish people being forced to state that Israel is not their divinely granted homeland, and the government of the nation formerly known as Israel will be stepping down, to allow the Palestinians to take over. In addition, Germany had been defeated in war previously, and even invaded, specifically by Napoleon. Japan had never been successfully defeated in its own lands, which had also become part of their socio-religious culture, if I remember the concept of kamikaze correctly (i.e., that the gods protected Japan and would destroy invaders with the force of nature).Quote:Ebony wrote:
A friend is of the opinion that Japan is the first post-apocalyptic culture on Earth. I can see the evidence of that claim. Seventy years ago, the Empire of Japan, which had never experienced true defeat prior, was swatted aside in two definitive shows of force by the United States, that left two metropolitan areas destroyed and changed the paradigm of how war was waged. Shortly after that, core tenets of Japanese culture and religion were systematically dismantled, but they were not completely rewritten. As a result, the people of Japen have had to fill in the blank spots left, as well as figure out how to survive in the post-war world. They didn't have a slow decline, like the British Empire, but rather a short and fast removal. They've had to recover ever since, and I think they're still recovering.
Wouldn't post-WWII Germany count as well? It too was ravaged pretty badly, with the added "bonus" of spending much of the latter half of the 20th Century split into two countries (and East Germany apparently took a lot longer to recover than West Germany, due to a variety of factors).
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."