Someone pls explain why

[Something Else]

Is that a Yes.

[Snee]

FFS, this muppetry is still going

This is a whole lot like the arguing with billy back in the old days. Even with the ""s.

First of all, a feudal society implies a certain structure, not a level of knowledge "poor ill educated and informed" has exactly fuckall to do with societal structure, literacy and so forth.

Second of all, knowledge in medicine, architecture indoor-plumbing, basic science, microscopes and so forth does not equal bluprints for instruments of war. It can be argued that rangaku helped build a foundation for the rampant modernization after 1854 (1853 really, bakamatsu as that article calls it started then, after Perry's first visit), this is true, but the first actual steamship Japan had, for instance, was given to them in 1855 by the dutch, other ships were built for them by the british, and at the same time they'd started sending people off to check out the rest of the world.

Try as you might, there's no disputing that they did turn from insular to expansionist after 1854, having had a fleet of modern warships paraded in front of them, and that that's when they started building a modern army.

No you portrayed them as having been backwards and ill informed, unable to cope with the technology and the knowledge, and that was wrong because they weren't. Their expansionist dreams and acts where theirs and theirs alone.

Not really. I said it's fucking stupid to arm up a feudal society (you know, one of them societies with one bloke in charge, a bloke with not much accountability, if any) with modern weaponry. This particular society had even chosen to walk away from arming themselves up with such weaponry, large-scale.

Backwards and ill-informed was all in your head, tbh

Whether they did have any expansionist dreams or not, and whether they eventually would have gone expansionist is sort of pointless with regards to what actually happened (not to mention that they'd stayed stable, on pretty much the same track for two centuries at that point, it's not really a stretch to assume that they'd gone on the same way, possibly with another family in charge, even if the shogunate as it was collapsed), much like them trading with the chinese, or what they taught in their schools.

Seeing as they didn't have the technology before 1854, despite them having some of the best metal smiths in the world, and having had gunpowder for centuries, and even the theoretical knowledge to build larger ships for decades, if not more, it's not really a stretch to assume that the reason they did chose to arm up when they did, with what they did, was because they'd just had the same stuff paraded in front of them.

I do like your alternative take on time, though. If I read you right, you started off on a hostile note because of something I said in a post later on.

I think what Snee was saying was that the Japanese have every right to have a complex against the West since the West apparently dragged them kicking and screaming into the 20th century and bombed the fuck out of them in WW2.

Not really though, but why break the trend of putting words in my mouth and that.

What I was on about was that Japan's actual change came from external pressure, and that the lesson history seemed to have taught them was that they had to stay aggressive, lest they be taken off guard by the west. I should note that, just as I started off saying, there were probably a whole lot of people in japan at the time who felt they had had quite enough of western influences as well, and the right to push back, which has nothing to do with whether they actually did have the right.

I think that's probably just as you say, the result of having a Western guilt complex. As I've said a few pages back, the Japanese are doing exceptionally well out of being a world power and I've never got the impression there's any bitterness towards the West in that regard. They will keep bleating on about the atom bombs but if they weren't such a proud people only one of those bombs need have gone off, and it was their choice to enter WW2 anyway.

Seeing as how my nation never had anything to do with Japan, stayed neutral in both world wars and generally didn't give much of a fuck about trading with Japan during their isolation I'm not really feeling the weight of your western guilt.

Throughout history nations and empires have been exposed to external influence. It's how the world moves on. To suggest that anyone has a right to be upset about that is a nonsense

I'm sure the south american indians wiped out by the spanish/portugese/whatever, the african nations that changed for the worse thanks to colonialism, and every other people or nation that got fucked over thanks to colonialism/imperialism, western or otherwise would be well happy to agree with you on that one.

That's probably my western guilt talking though. I suppose one mustn't sympathize with anyone who gets a raw deal, that's just silly.

=-=-

At this point, I'm having a hard time figuring out whose predjudices and assumptions are sillier in this thread, though.

Manicgeek is the thicker one, I reckon, but you (Squeamous) going off about western guilt without even knowing where I'm from (I'm assuming)is a humdinger. I dunno who of you read the most weirdness into what I've been saying, though.


EDit: Oh, and I would maintain that seen from that perspective (Perry's involvement and so forth), their expansionism, and eventually their involvement in world war II wasn't entirely of Japan's own doing.

EDit: And thus, as I started off saying, they could, from a historical perspective, point to that and say that that's what changed them and in extension eventually got them nuked. Causality being what it is, and all of that.

EDit yet again: :sigh: It should also be noted that what I outlined was one possible way to look at it, "It could be argued", "after a fashion" and all of that. I don't really feel that strongly about it one way or another, the only reason I responded to manicgeek at all was 'cos he/she/it would have it that what I was saying was impossible. So do feel free to stuff your western guilt somewhere where the sun doesn't shine, kthnx.

I wasn't gonna say that last, but then I realised that being diplomatic is sort of pointless when I don't really respect you

[Snee]

PS wasn't aware the Swedes had that much to be guilty about in respect of Empire.

Apart from some light, brief slave trading, which wasn't really a matter of state, and steamrolling the indigenous population in the north (neither is remarkable or comes close to atrocities commited elsewhere), it was pretty righteous, and Sweden had bits of both Norway, Denmark, baltic states and all of Finland, too.

And they pwned the Russians at war

As an empire, it was pretty fucking win to the orsum max

I sort of wish we'd kept Norway, the oil had come in handy
We should have traded it for the south, like, 'cept where BOT lives.

[Squeamous]

FFS, this muppetry is still going

Yes it is, and it'll probably keep on going whether you contribute to it or not.

Can't be arsed to read the rest of your diatribe. Bored now.

[Snee]

Yeah, it's not as if you really bothered reading any of the rest, so why break the pattern

Just keep guessing what I'm really saying, it seems to be your thing anyways.

[Something Else]

blahblahblah

Please answer my question, I have asked nicely.
May I or may I not photoshop your head on to an octopus.

[chalice]

FFS, this muppetry is still going

Yes it is, and it'll probably keep on going whether you contribute to it or not.

Can't be arsed to read the rest of your diatribe. Bored now.

Wow, there was me thinking you were a decent spud.

It now transpires that you are a cunt.

Ho hum.

[Squeamous]

Sorry I missed the request. Yes, of course feel free. Make sure it's a girl octopus though or I'll hunt you down like a dog.

(to Benchez, not cuntybollocks above)

[Something Else]

You hunt dogs.

[Squeamous]

Yeah, I dress up as a fox just to confuse them