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Last update: 6 August 1997.
(1)
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995
From: Pete Barnett
(pete@seq.oit.osshe.edu)
I have carefully refrained from comment on this theme. However, as a veteran of combat in Viet Nam, I think that I have a different perspective to offer. When the name of the game is 'survival' most people do things that they would not consider under normal circumstances. One way to minimize your actions is to view the enemy as not necessarily human (pardon the cliche-like psychology, it is still true). My understanding of WWII yields this parallel. The Japanese were considered treacherous, cruel barbarians in need of being destroyed.
The emotion of the time is not only a valid consideration, it is necessary to understanding. Unfortunately, historians will never be able to walk that mile in another's shoes necessary to share those feelings.
(2)
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995
From: WALTER KENDALL
(7KENDALL@jmls.edu)
My comments were premised on the assumption that the acts in question had to be evaluated/studied in the setting in which they occured. I was suggesting that the values/ideas I set out existed at the time as important factors. Seligmann's kind and challenging comments raise the ultimate value question-even assuming all he says is correct and reflects the views of the persons making the decisions-does the nation-state identity of a person, in and of itself(remember we're talking of "innocent" people here), change their moral worth?
To me this is the question that is raised by much of the new western history, and the arguements of such scholars as Edward Said, in the broarder context of the OTHER. Specifically in the context of this list, what were the moral/political/policy values that were applied/reflected in the events involving prior/then current possessors/users of the land and subsequently/contemporaneously immigrants such as the Chinese?
Gustavo Gutierrez' most recent book explores this question as does the work, again in a broader context, of Emmanuel Levinas.
7KENDALL@jmls.edu
Walter J. Kendall III
The John Marshall Law
School
315 S. Plymouth Ct.
Chicago, Illinois
60604
312-987-2377
(3)
Date: Mon Feb 27 1995
From: Nathan Landau
(ci.tcpbridge.center2.center1.nal1%smtpgate@ci.berkeley.ca.us)
I'm not a professional historian, I'm under 40, and I'm not a veteran, so no doubt some people will rule me unqualified to write about this subject. OK. (Maybe I'll get to rule them unqualified to write about something someday!)
I don't actually want to write about the substance of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki controversy. I do not feel qualified in any sense to write about this historiographic tangle. Rather I want to write about a couple of issues of "principle" that have come up during the discussion that seem important to me.
1. Viewing the past through the lens of the past--Some writers have suggested that the only relevant issue is what American (and Japanese) decisionmakers thought in 1945. Obviously, if one wants to understand the decision-making mindset of 1945 (or 1245) one has to try to understand both the rational and the non-rational elements of that decisionmaking in its time. But historians do more than that.
To use an example which I DO NOT VIEW AS THE SAME THING, but merely am using to look at this dictum--Slavery. Historians do try to understand the world the slaveholders (and slaves) made, but they do more than that. They assess the impact and meaning of slavery (and if you want to get nitpicky, look for closer analogs, of particular political decisions to sustain, modify or attack slavery).
Therefore to say that the only question about Hiroshima/Nagasaki is what people thought in 1945 is extremely incomplete and indeed professionally derelict for a historian. A good historian should be telling us both what they thought then, and what the best evidence and understanding is now. That should be true even if there are still living survivors, though that makes it harder.
2. International conscience--For lack of a better term. Japan has been repeatedly attacked by Westerners for failing to accept "responsibility," "guilt," whatever in its textbooks about World War II. Now here we are, refusing to even consider in our public forum that maybe, possibly the decision to bomb 2 huge cities wasn't pure as the driven snow. Yes, it's our national museum, and maybe, as one correspondent suggested, we can expect propaganda more than investigation from our national museum. But if that's the case, and propaganda (as in propagation of the official line) is the best we can do, let's lay off attacking Japanese textbooks and other nations' self-glorifying representations.
Return to resources for BANG! and Nuclear Fictions.
Last update: 6 August 1997.