The more I learn about the Japanese government during World War II, it is clear that Hirohito did not unilaterally control Japan, nor its military or political strategy. While he is clearly on the Privy Council, he is not a voting member. I am not defending him or his rhetoric, merely saying that is not in the same position as a Hitler or Stalin at the time. I doubt he presided over much.
It was a bizarre "system" of government -- unique as far as I know. The buck didn't stop with anybody and nobody had ultimate authority. Not Hirohito, not Tojo. Most of the real power was with the ultranationalist junior officer class who would assassinate any leader who adopted policies they didn't like, and so kept the country on the path of expansionist warfare. As a result they were continually hamstrung by coordination problems, with the Army and Navy trying to accomplish completely different objectives in completely separate theaters of war, and competing with each other for resources to achieve them, with nobody at the top who had the power to sort things out. Sort of a microcosm of the Axis in general, who never managed to coordinate any kind of strategy with each other.
People were comfortable blaming the Kaiser for WWI and he probably had a level of power similar to Hirohito. Like Hirohito he was partially pardoned (allowed to live in isolated comfortable disgrace) because it saved lives.
I'll admit I don't know everything about this topic, but this doesn't sound right to me.
Wilhelm II clearly had a lot of power, at least until the last few years of his reign. He dismissed Bismarck, for example, and his foreign policy differences with Bismarck are generally thought to have had a lot to do with why WW1 happened. I'm not aware of any action on the part of a Japanese emperor in modern times even approaching this exercise of power. As I understand it, the Bismarcks were always the ones running the show there.
A Japanese Emperor could have tried to defy those who ruled in his name, but this would amount to a coup d'etat, akin to Victor Emmanuel helping launch a coup against Mussolini who, de jure, served at his pleasure. Possible, perhaps, but risky and not nearly the same thing as dismissing a minister who is broadly understood to *de facto* serve at the monarch's pleasure.
Though it's true that the Kaiser gave up most of his power in the last few years of his reign, at which point perhaps his power was more comparable to Hirohito's, but this was after he had already helped start the war. I'll admit I've never read a good account of the machinations that led to Germany's de facto military dictatorship towards the end of WW1. It's often portrayed as mere complacence on Wilhelm's part, but how accurate is that?
What power he Kaiser "had" is complicated, but I think the legality is secondary.
The Kaiser had what power he was willing and capable of seizing. This amounted to "not much". He was very similar to Hirohito in this way. A medicore man only in a position of nominal authority by birth and willing (if reluctantly) to be tossed around this way and that by emotions and flatterers.
---
As Der Tag neared, the Kaiser was having serious second thoughts, concerned about the consequences of Britain entering the war. On August 1, 1914, the German ambassador to London wired that British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey had stated that Britain would guarantee France’s neutrality. Grey had said no such thing, but his vague words had been misinterpreted.
The Kaiser, however, relieved at the thought of only a one-front war, recalled Moltke, who was carrying the signed mobilization order. Overjoyed, he exclaimed to Moltke: “Now we can go to war against Russia only. We simply march the whole of our army to the east!” Although presented in his typically bombastic, overbearing manner, Wilhelm was essentially asking Moltke one of history’s most fateful questions: Was it possible to confine the fighting to a one-front war against Russia?
Moltke was shaken to the core. Everything he had devoted his life to for years would be erased. Instead of opportunity, he saw only chaos, replying: “Your Majesty, it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised. If Your Majesty insists on leading the whole army to the east it will not be an army ready for battle but a disorganized mob of armed men with no arrangements for supply. Those arrangements took a whole year of intricate labor to complete and once settled, it cannot be altered.”
(EMPHASIS ADDED BY COMMENTER)
Stunned, Kaiser Wilhelm could only say after a strained silence, “Your uncle would have given me a different answer.”
(EMPHASIS ADDED BY COMMENTER)
Yet what Moltke did not tell the Kaiser was that a plan for an attack to the east had also been drawn up with all the care lavished on the Schlieffen Plan. Nor did he explain that the German mobilization railroad plans contained yearly exercises that “included rerouting and rescheduling trains to accommodate interruptions in the rail network as well as changing strategic situations.” Moltke did not ask Staab if it were even possible to change the mobilization plans, so sure was he in his rigid and unimaginative mind that it could not be done. Thus the fleeting, unforgiving moment in which “a different answer” to the Kaiser’s question might have confined the war to only Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia had passed.
---
Wilhelm spent most of the July Crisis on vacation. I guess its hard to answer the question "who rules" when the person who has theoretical power is totally unable and/or unwilling to exercise it consistently.
It seems Wilhelm appointed Moltke the Younger. So again, hoisted by his own petard.
The argument was about moral culpability. The fact that he didn't exercise power that he could easily have exercised -- and in fact, had exercised before -- is a point against him there. In the end, Wilhelm could certainly not only have done a lot more to prevent the war without really endangering his position, but the war would have been less likely to happen if he had done nothing for his entire reign, just acted as a figurehead and gone around with his sash and his mustache shaking hands and attending ceremonies while Bismarck picks his own successor. Or perhaps Britain at least could have been kept out of it.
It really is a curious thing though, to be involved in the central events of history and decide to take a vacation. There have been signs that Putin is apparently uninterested and uninvolved in the details of his war. It's a difficult mentality to understand. Perhaps it's a stress response.
Power resides where men decide it resides. The Tsar had the exact same amount of (legal) power the day he resigned as any other day, but nobody would listen to him anymore.
Moltke didn't like what the Kaiser wanted him to do, so he told him to buzz off. Legally the Kaiser could have dismissed him, but he wasn't the kind of man that exercised that kind of authority. When Guderian questioned Hitler's decision making authority, he dismissed Guderian and Guderian complied.
It would be more accurate to say that an aging Bismarck (he was 71 when dismissed) a generation removed from his great successes lost the confidence of the legislator and in the end the army. Wilhelm sacked him after he had already been sacked by public opinion. In other words, he didn't really do much or stick his neck out. Firing his top general on the eve of world war in order to radically alter his war plans is not the sort of thing non-entities like the Kaiser do, and who's to say people would listen. Power resides were people think it resides.
*At heart the question comes down to whether one thinks Britain would remain neutral without Belgium, which wasn't a slam dunk. If the Kaiser made the call and Britain entered anyway, he would lose his crown. The Kaiser preferred to let others take that risk. When the plan failed it was Molke, not the Kaiser, that had to go.
Anyway, I agree that these men share responsibility for their crimes. I just think that there is a mixture of "would anyone listen to me if I buck the trend" and "not having the confidence to be a leader so I'll go with the flow" going on here.
By contrast, personalities like Hitler really did drive events where they wanted them to go by sheer individual willpower.
One point you didn't mention, and a key reason for assigning war blame to Wilhelm -- or at the very least, to the breakdown of relations with Britain -- has to do with his very personal and very pointless obsession with the navy.
Though what's really being criticized in that comment is his poor leadership of Germany, not his culpability for war per se, even if a war without Britain would have been over much more quickly and therefore less bloody. Also might have averted a lot of death and chaos for Russia. I guess you could say that if you're going to start a great power war, at least have the decency to make sure it's a war you can finish quickly instead of drawing the entire world into a bloody stalemate. We don't get too upset at Bismarck over his wars, because they were swift and victorious.
What Hirohito said or didn't say was rendered irrelevant by the photograph that MacArthur insisted be taken with him standing next to Hirohito. Released to the public, it shattered the belief that Hirohito was a living god. Hirohito's appearance and his position to MacArthur's left made clear that he was subservient to MacArthur, who was taller and clearly in command. Ironically this dissipated much of the Emperor's remaining political influence, which had been crucial to the decision to surrender and thereby avoid further loss of life.
Be curious your take on John Meirsheimer's work on this. While politicians lie to their people all the time, they almost never lie to other countries leaders.
What are some examples of non-hierarchical Libertarian-ordered societies that are contemporaneous with medieval Japan?
You really get worked up over "They ruled in luxury over an impoverished population for millennia" which is, of course true, but . . . as opposed to what?
Would be great if we had at least one counterexample: a state with a comparable level of technology, population and resources that ways run in some other fashion than way all human societies had been run since the dawn of agriculture. This would be helpful -- it would provide a baseline to which we could compare and evaluate other historical entities and rate them on how well they "got it right."
Can't really condemn the Hirohito lie while in the same breath condoning the atomic lie. Japan surrendered over the Soviet's entering the Pacific front, this has been well documented and confirmed once the all the relevant players WW2 archives were finally declassified.
That said he was spot on on the sovereignty / self determination front. You forget how the West robbed Japan of it's legitimate spoils between 1890 and 1920 and then the crippling sanctions after that.
That said, odd speech to get all worked up on, curious the driver. I mean the Emancipation Proclamation was full of more lies and offenses that this speech; likewise nearly every State of the Union address in my living memory. Likewise nearly every White House, Congress, State, or Municipal press release. Hirohito's pretty low on the offense scale in 2024.
There is an interesting podcast of a conversation between Dwarkesh and Sarah Paine that suggests that indeed, had Hirohito taken a firmer stance against the war earlier, he would have been either murdered or declared “deranged” by the generals and replaced with a more pliable figurehead.
He *might* have been, but that's what decisions are. They have risks and drawbacks and no guarantees. A better person would have taken a shot at stopping the war, especially in 1941.
The fundamental issue was simply that large enough swaths of the Japanese people and elites believed war was the right move. When that stopped being the case surrender was possible. It's probably true that the emperor couldn't stand in the way of overwhelming opinion, but he had influence and he choose not to use it. It's not as if there weren't a lot of people that opposed Dec 7th 1941.
P.S. Apparently his father was severely mentally ill and it had become common practice to ignore the emperor for a generation before Hirohito came to power.
I had no idea about his father. I will need to look at it.
And you’re right. We can speculate, but we can never know what he could or could not have accomplished. He ought to have tried, in 1941, and that is the truth.
There are a lot of horrific things about imperial Japan that deserve condemnation but the focus on this speech is bizarre. Your complaint is basically that Hirohito in his broadcast failed to sound like Bryan Caplan in a blog post. Speech, especially formal public speech, serves ritual functions which require obvious lies that everyone recognizes and accepts. If you speak at a wedding, you are going to thank and praise people more than you would if you were only concerned with stating facts and opinions truthfully.
I just finished the Aidoble version of our man in Tokyo. It paints a somewhat different picture of Hirohito. A man
Trapped in a maze. A powerful
man, but a man trapped regardless of how power. Japanese state or the era was very dysfunctional. Assassinaton was the military’s favorite hobby. Cold Hirohito have stopped
There seems to be elementary mistakes around Japanese history. The emperor seized power for the first time in centuries in 1868 and between 1890 and 1937 Japan was a liberal democracy with universal male sufferage (unlike America) admittedly with weak civilian control of the army and navy.
betonit.ai is no longer a functional domain. "networks solutions" lists it as under construction. Thus, all your links to pages with that domain are broken.
I find it a bit odd that you previously said the Japanese occupation in China was superior to both the Nationalists & Communists there.
I think Hirohito's speech was excellent. Perfectly appropriate. Bryan seems to have a religious attachment to truth. This surprises me, since he's no fan of altruism or traditional religion. Truth when it comes to the subject of motivation and opinion is bullshit. All that counts here is what the Japanese people think. Thought.
The language spoken by the denizens of regimes disconnected from their host populations reliably and inevitably diverges from the language spoken and understood by the members of said populations. And I mean the LANGUAGE - vocabulary, grammar, intonation - EVERY attribute of language.
Watch for it - it's common - and an unmistakable indicator of the pernicious disconnect. Hear it from any despot near you - or far.
1. Hirohito should have hung from a noose. I get McArthur's pragmatism in rebuilding the country quickly and creating a bulwark against Communism, but I feel the trade-off leaned too much on one side (also for horrendous war crimes and criminals that got scot-free, like unit 731).
2. Blatant lying gets too little social censure. If I got my way, everybody who lies would get a fine, and we should create powerful and beneficent social incentives for people who agree to never lie (with some provisos excusing them from having to answer questions most of the time). At the very least, it should be possible to fine politicians who have been shown to willfully distort truths they could not have unknown.
I am too skeptical to think something like this would work at the state level, but I think it could within a voluntary community where status and recognition depended on truthiness.
I'm curious to know why you think revenge on Hirohito is appropriate. Would it teach a lesson to the next ruler of Japan, or is there a cosmic command, something that the universe commands of even God, that there has to be suffering imposed on those that cause suffering. A sort of human powered conservation of energy.
I wouldn't call it 'revenge', but rather, justice. If we're talking ethics, I lean a bit more towards deontological and contractual considerations, meaning that yes, I feel those who have caused unfair suffering need to suffer, and those who have egregiously abused the social contract with mass genocide and murder have placed themselves beyond the pale of the human community. But I think you could make a consequentialist argument here too - a tyrant getting away scot-free is an invitation to tyranny and to historical revisionism.
The more I learn about the Japanese government during World War II, it is clear that Hirohito did not unilaterally control Japan, nor its military or political strategy. While he is clearly on the Privy Council, he is not a voting member. I am not defending him or his rhetoric, merely saying that is not in the same position as a Hitler or Stalin at the time. I doubt he presided over much.
It was a bizarre "system" of government -- unique as far as I know. The buck didn't stop with anybody and nobody had ultimate authority. Not Hirohito, not Tojo. Most of the real power was with the ultranationalist junior officer class who would assassinate any leader who adopted policies they didn't like, and so kept the country on the path of expansionist warfare. As a result they were continually hamstrung by coordination problems, with the Army and Navy trying to accomplish completely different objectives in completely separate theaters of war, and competing with each other for resources to achieve them, with nobody at the top who had the power to sort things out. Sort of a microcosm of the Axis in general, who never managed to coordinate any kind of strategy with each other.
People were comfortable blaming the Kaiser for WWI and he probably had a level of power similar to Hirohito. Like Hirohito he was partially pardoned (allowed to live in isolated comfortable disgrace) because it saved lives.
I'll admit I don't know everything about this topic, but this doesn't sound right to me.
Wilhelm II clearly had a lot of power, at least until the last few years of his reign. He dismissed Bismarck, for example, and his foreign policy differences with Bismarck are generally thought to have had a lot to do with why WW1 happened. I'm not aware of any action on the part of a Japanese emperor in modern times even approaching this exercise of power. As I understand it, the Bismarcks were always the ones running the show there.
A Japanese Emperor could have tried to defy those who ruled in his name, but this would amount to a coup d'etat, akin to Victor Emmanuel helping launch a coup against Mussolini who, de jure, served at his pleasure. Possible, perhaps, but risky and not nearly the same thing as dismissing a minister who is broadly understood to *de facto* serve at the monarch's pleasure.
Though it's true that the Kaiser gave up most of his power in the last few years of his reign, at which point perhaps his power was more comparable to Hirohito's, but this was after he had already helped start the war. I'll admit I've never read a good account of the machinations that led to Germany's de facto military dictatorship towards the end of WW1. It's often portrayed as mere complacence on Wilhelm's part, but how accurate is that?
What power he Kaiser "had" is complicated, but I think the legality is secondary.
The Kaiser had what power he was willing and capable of seizing. This amounted to "not much". He was very similar to Hirohito in this way. A medicore man only in a position of nominal authority by birth and willing (if reluctantly) to be tossed around this way and that by emotions and flatterers.
---
As Der Tag neared, the Kaiser was having serious second thoughts, concerned about the consequences of Britain entering the war. On August 1, 1914, the German ambassador to London wired that British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey had stated that Britain would guarantee France’s neutrality. Grey had said no such thing, but his vague words had been misinterpreted.
The Kaiser, however, relieved at the thought of only a one-front war, recalled Moltke, who was carrying the signed mobilization order. Overjoyed, he exclaimed to Moltke: “Now we can go to war against Russia only. We simply march the whole of our army to the east!” Although presented in his typically bombastic, overbearing manner, Wilhelm was essentially asking Moltke one of history’s most fateful questions: Was it possible to confine the fighting to a one-front war against Russia?
Moltke was shaken to the core. Everything he had devoted his life to for years would be erased. Instead of opportunity, he saw only chaos, replying: “Your Majesty, it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised. If Your Majesty insists on leading the whole army to the east it will not be an army ready for battle but a disorganized mob of armed men with no arrangements for supply. Those arrangements took a whole year of intricate labor to complete and once settled, it cannot be altered.”
(EMPHASIS ADDED BY COMMENTER)
Stunned, Kaiser Wilhelm could only say after a strained silence, “Your uncle would have given me a different answer.”
(EMPHASIS ADDED BY COMMENTER)
Yet what Moltke did not tell the Kaiser was that a plan for an attack to the east had also been drawn up with all the care lavished on the Schlieffen Plan. Nor did he explain that the German mobilization railroad plans contained yearly exercises that “included rerouting and rescheduling trains to accommodate interruptions in the rail network as well as changing strategic situations.” Moltke did not ask Staab if it were even possible to change the mobilization plans, so sure was he in his rigid and unimaginative mind that it could not be done. Thus the fleeting, unforgiving moment in which “a different answer” to the Kaiser’s question might have confined the war to only Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia had passed.
---
Wilhelm spent most of the July Crisis on vacation. I guess its hard to answer the question "who rules" when the person who has theoretical power is totally unable and/or unwilling to exercise it consistently.
It seems Wilhelm appointed Moltke the Younger. So again, hoisted by his own petard.
The argument was about moral culpability. The fact that he didn't exercise power that he could easily have exercised -- and in fact, had exercised before -- is a point against him there. In the end, Wilhelm could certainly not only have done a lot more to prevent the war without really endangering his position, but the war would have been less likely to happen if he had done nothing for his entire reign, just acted as a figurehead and gone around with his sash and his mustache shaking hands and attending ceremonies while Bismarck picks his own successor. Or perhaps Britain at least could have been kept out of it.
It really is a curious thing though, to be involved in the central events of history and decide to take a vacation. There have been signs that Putin is apparently uninterested and uninvolved in the details of his war. It's a difficult mentality to understand. Perhaps it's a stress response.
Power resides where men decide it resides. The Tsar had the exact same amount of (legal) power the day he resigned as any other day, but nobody would listen to him anymore.
Moltke didn't like what the Kaiser wanted him to do, so he told him to buzz off. Legally the Kaiser could have dismissed him, but he wasn't the kind of man that exercised that kind of authority. When Guderian questioned Hitler's decision making authority, he dismissed Guderian and Guderian complied.
https://www.britannica.com/place/German-Empire/The-fall-of-Bismarck
It would be more accurate to say that an aging Bismarck (he was 71 when dismissed) a generation removed from his great successes lost the confidence of the legislator and in the end the army. Wilhelm sacked him after he had already been sacked by public opinion. In other words, he didn't really do much or stick his neck out. Firing his top general on the eve of world war in order to radically alter his war plans is not the sort of thing non-entities like the Kaiser do, and who's to say people would listen. Power resides were people think it resides.
*At heart the question comes down to whether one thinks Britain would remain neutral without Belgium, which wasn't a slam dunk. If the Kaiser made the call and Britain entered anyway, he would lose his crown. The Kaiser preferred to let others take that risk. When the plan failed it was Molke, not the Kaiser, that had to go.
Anyway, I agree that these men share responsibility for their crimes. I just think that there is a mixture of "would anyone listen to me if I buck the trend" and "not having the confidence to be a leader so I'll go with the flow" going on here.
By contrast, personalities like Hitler really did drive events where they wanted them to go by sheer individual willpower.
That's largely fair.
One point you didn't mention, and a key reason for assigning war blame to Wilhelm -- or at the very least, to the breakdown of relations with Britain -- has to do with his very personal and very pointless obsession with the navy.
Though what's really being criticized in that comment is his poor leadership of Germany, not his culpability for war per se, even if a war without Britain would have been over much more quickly and therefore less bloody. Also might have averted a lot of death and chaos for Russia. I guess you could say that if you're going to start a great power war, at least have the decency to make sure it's a war you can finish quickly instead of drawing the entire world into a bloody stalemate. We don't get too upset at Bismarck over his wars, because they were swift and victorious.
Great point, I did not even think of WWI Germany. Thanks.
The Japanese Prime Minister said basically the same thing, and now you can watch it in perfect English cadence, thanks to AI: https://youtu.be/VknyDke6Byw?si=h1nJv_gWVof1rzOM
Makes a huge difference in how relatable it is.
What Hirohito said or didn't say was rendered irrelevant by the photograph that MacArthur insisted be taken with him standing next to Hirohito. Released to the public, it shattered the belief that Hirohito was a living god. Hirohito's appearance and his position to MacArthur's left made clear that he was subservient to MacArthur, who was taller and clearly in command. Ironically this dissipated much of the Emperor's remaining political influence, which had been crucial to the decision to surrender and thereby avoid further loss of life.
Be curious your take on John Meirsheimer's work on this. While politicians lie to their people all the time, they almost never lie to other countries leaders.
What are some examples of non-hierarchical Libertarian-ordered societies that are contemporaneous with medieval Japan?
You really get worked up over "They ruled in luxury over an impoverished population for millennia" which is, of course true, but . . . as opposed to what?
Would be great if we had at least one counterexample: a state with a comparable level of technology, population and resources that ways run in some other fashion than way all human societies had been run since the dawn of agriculture. This would be helpful -- it would provide a baseline to which we could compare and evaluate other historical entities and rate them on how well they "got it right."
Can't really condemn the Hirohito lie while in the same breath condoning the atomic lie. Japan surrendered over the Soviet's entering the Pacific front, this has been well documented and confirmed once the all the relevant players WW2 archives were finally declassified.
That said he was spot on on the sovereignty / self determination front. You forget how the West robbed Japan of it's legitimate spoils between 1890 and 1920 and then the crippling sanctions after that.
That said, odd speech to get all worked up on, curious the driver. I mean the Emancipation Proclamation was full of more lies and offenses that this speech; likewise nearly every State of the Union address in my living memory. Likewise nearly every White House, Congress, State, or Municipal press release. Hirohito's pretty low on the offense scale in 2024.
There is an interesting podcast of a conversation between Dwarkesh and Sarah Paine that suggests that indeed, had Hirohito taken a firmer stance against the war earlier, he would have been either murdered or declared “deranged” by the generals and replaced with a more pliable figurehead.
https://youtu.be/YcVSgYz5SJ8?si=oNYry5uXy57oXZnX
"he would have been"
He *might* have been, but that's what decisions are. They have risks and drawbacks and no guarantees. A better person would have taken a shot at stopping the war, especially in 1941.
The fundamental issue was simply that large enough swaths of the Japanese people and elites believed war was the right move. When that stopped being the case surrender was possible. It's probably true that the emperor couldn't stand in the way of overwhelming opinion, but he had influence and he choose not to use it. It's not as if there weren't a lot of people that opposed Dec 7th 1941.
P.S. Apparently his father was severely mentally ill and it had become common practice to ignore the emperor for a generation before Hirohito came to power.
I had no idea about his father. I will need to look at it.
And you’re right. We can speculate, but we can never know what he could or could not have accomplished. He ought to have tried, in 1941, and that is the truth.
Here's my very different take: the Emperor's speech was a brilliant way to cool the mark.
https://davidrhenderson.substack.com/p/was-hirohitos-surrender-speech-egregious?
There are a lot of horrific things about imperial Japan that deserve condemnation but the focus on this speech is bizarre. Your complaint is basically that Hirohito in his broadcast failed to sound like Bryan Caplan in a blog post. Speech, especially formal public speech, serves ritual functions which require obvious lies that everyone recognizes and accepts. If you speak at a wedding, you are going to thank and praise people more than you would if you were only concerned with stating facts and opinions truthfully.
I just finished the Aidoble version of our man in Tokyo. It paints a somewhat different picture of Hirohito. A man
Trapped in a maze. A powerful
man, but a man trapped regardless of how power. Japanese state or the era was very dysfunctional. Assassinaton was the military’s favorite hobby. Cold Hirohito have stopped
WW2? Perhaps.
In many ways the circumstances remind me of
Today via a vos China.
There seems to be elementary mistakes around Japanese history. The emperor seized power for the first time in centuries in 1868 and between 1890 and 1937 Japan was a liberal democracy with universal male sufferage (unlike America) admittedly with weak civilian control of the army and navy.
betonit.ai is no longer a functional domain. "networks solutions" lists it as under construction. Thus, all your links to pages with that domain are broken.
I find it a bit odd that you previously said the Japanese occupation in China was superior to both the Nationalists & Communists there.
I think Hirohito's speech was excellent. Perfectly appropriate. Bryan seems to have a religious attachment to truth. This surprises me, since he's no fan of altruism or traditional religion. Truth when it comes to the subject of motivation and opinion is bullshit. All that counts here is what the Japanese people think. Thought.
Links appear to be broken in this particular article.
The language spoken by the denizens of regimes disconnected from their host populations reliably and inevitably diverges from the language spoken and understood by the members of said populations. And I mean the LANGUAGE - vocabulary, grammar, intonation - EVERY attribute of language.
Watch for it - it's common - and an unmistakable indicator of the pernicious disconnect. Hear it from any despot near you - or far.
Two things:
1. Hirohito should have hung from a noose. I get McArthur's pragmatism in rebuilding the country quickly and creating a bulwark against Communism, but I feel the trade-off leaned too much on one side (also for horrendous war crimes and criminals that got scot-free, like unit 731).
2. Blatant lying gets too little social censure. If I got my way, everybody who lies would get a fine, and we should create powerful and beneficent social incentives for people who agree to never lie (with some provisos excusing them from having to answer questions most of the time). At the very least, it should be possible to fine politicians who have been shown to willfully distort truths they could not have unknown.
I can't think a dystopia worse then letting "fact checkers" fine people.
I am too skeptical to think something like this would work at the state level, but I think it could within a voluntary community where status and recognition depended on truthiness.
I'm curious to know why you think revenge on Hirohito is appropriate. Would it teach a lesson to the next ruler of Japan, or is there a cosmic command, something that the universe commands of even God, that there has to be suffering imposed on those that cause suffering. A sort of human powered conservation of energy.
I wouldn't call it 'revenge', but rather, justice. If we're talking ethics, I lean a bit more towards deontological and contractual considerations, meaning that yes, I feel those who have caused unfair suffering need to suffer, and those who have egregiously abused the social contract with mass genocide and murder have placed themselves beyond the pale of the human community. But I think you could make a consequentialist argument here too - a tyrant getting away scot-free is an invitation to tyranny and to historical revisionism.
Hirohito got pardoned and Japan became a model country.
We deposed Saddam and it was a disaster.
It's all context.