The History Thread!

In Japan or elsewhere?

Both

Probably has something to do with Conservation of Ninjutsu, and Highly-Visible Ninja. Basically, ninja are overused, overexposed, and overrated.

Personally, I gave up when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out...

Pretty much the same thing with zombies nowadays, too.

The fondness for Ninja doesn't quite translate into fondness for their modern descendants. Historically the Ninja were from Japan's lower-castes, the burakamin whose modern descendants became Yakuza.

I mean that's true even of the Triads, who are descendants of China's lower-castes.

That's part of the whole theme park history, what Thom Andersen said, "History is Written by the Winners and sometimes with crocodile tears". So you have a Martin Luther King Day signed by St. Ronnie Reagan (with considerable reluctance on his part, let the record state) while his administration mounted a major backlash against civil rights that has not ebbed for more than three decades.

In the case of Japan, you have the fact that the country modernized without the lower-classes ever really coming to power or advancing in a major way. The Meiji Restoration being a Bismarckian Revolution-From-Above. The fact that after World War II, Imperial Japan became a loyal American vassal in exchange for the Americans sparing and absolving most of the war criminals and that lack of resolution to historical memory has become even worse under Shinzo Abe's administration which has lied about "comfort women" and is more or less antagonizing China by denying its war crimes, and so on.

Oh come on it isn't like Japan's working class haven't benefited extraordinarily from industrialization and the economic booms. Many of the problems are cultural rather than economic, and the economic ones are do to the fact that they relied to much on loose money, rather than austerity penny pinching.

And since when are soldiers considered cool anymore? I thought most of military Sci Fi died out long ago, and the whole Military Shooter genre was so last console. Plus I thought thinking that sort of thing was cool was only for "right wing man babies/ over grown small boys who like explosions"

Jack: I don't think you have been watching media lately. Soldiers in fiction and games alike are still quite popular as is military sci-fi. The success of Titan Fall is a good example. Halo is still alive and kicking as well. Soldier games like Sniper Elite have been doing fairly well to date. The latest iteration of the Doom Franchise did pretty well. Home Front Revolution was a bit lack luster but still made it. Battlefield 1 where you are a WWI soldier is doing well. There was Rainbow Six Siege and The Division fairly recently and this year we are getting Ghost Recon Wildlands.

In general Sci-fi shooters including military sci-fi themes, and games where you play as a soldier are all still popular and doing well.

Julian: Interestingly playing as Yakuza or Yakuza Themed characters has been getting a bit more popular with US audiences. Not hugely but enough that they are more common. They apparently have Italian Mafia kind of appeal.

A 12th Dead Sea Scroll Cave was found but was looted. The pick axe remains found in the cave were modern. There has been an increasing focus on trying to find more caves before antiquities thieves steal and sell on black markets more of the artifacts.

edited 22nd Feb '17 5:53:33 PM by TuefelHundenIV

So what was so bad about Jimmy Carter?

I don't know enough about the guy but I want to know more.

Did he help end social democracy? Was he the start of neoliberalism?

In a democratic society the gangster is a Tragic Hero as Robert Warshow noted so I guess people are always drawn to some kind of mafia or the other.

The Yakuza like the Triads are complex because they are in some ways a medieval guild surviving and resisting modernity, and somehow they combine aspects of guild, secret society, organized crime and so on. Something like that is also going on with The Mafiya, who date back to the Tsarist days and were also victims of the The Gulag and now they are paradoxically on the fringes and center of Russian politics. And a subset of the Russian mafia are Jewish gangsters who set up shop in Brighton Beach, New York City and are also involved in Israel. Hong Kong movies about the Triads, like Johnnie To's Election 2 deals with the fact that the Triads were more or less resisting the English Occupation and now they are dealing with the second occupation by the CCP/Mainland China and they tend to be older and more tied to the institutions.

Soldiers as a class and heroic ideal never quite go out of style. At least a certain class of soldiers. The American GI, Marine, and so on, remains heroic and brave. You can make fun of generals, commanders and Presidents but not the soldiers. Now of course you can't portray Russian soldiers or Iraqi soldiers or partisans in the same light. Anglo-American Media cannot portray say, Russian soldiers in World War II heroically unless he's a Token Heroic Orc (i.e. he's a private dissenter, former or future inmate of The Gulag). Someone like Garth Ennis is guilty of this in his War Stories where he pays lip service to Russia's experience of World War II but somehow still untermenschen compared to America or England but ubermenschen over Nazi Germany, albeit very reluctantly with spittle just barely controlled. You see this in Company of Heroes as well. The idea that the average USSR soldier, loyal to Stalin and Communist ideals is somehow not a hero doesn't filter into their understanding at all, when that's what the vast majority of them were actually like.

Jimmy Carter is responsible for Franchise Original Sin. Issues which were initially unproblematic but gradually ballooned out of control:

As Noam Chomsky said: Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

Then his administration were not quite pro-labour:

Carter drove the White-Working Class into Reagan's arms and in this case it was his own damn fault. Reagan screwed the White Working Class too...in a Woodrow Wilson way, "If you were dumb enough to vote for me, you deserve to get raped by me".

Now Carter did have virtues...but he is still the worst Democrat President since Woodrow Wilson. That still puts him above Reagan, Both Bushes, Gerald Ford, Trump but that's Damned by Faint Praise.

Their somewhat popular, but cooler than Ninja's? Especially in a pacifist country like Japan.

Jimmy Carter is hated because of the inflation that took place under his watch, the recession, because of the Iran hostage crisis, and his failure to rescue the hostages, and more importantly restore the nation's honor (I suspect to many people the hostages lives were a secondary concern to this, though they did not admit it even to themselves.) The 1970's are, in terms of national "honor" and prestige if not economics, the US closest the US has gotten to the Russian 90's. Carter was viewed as representing the state of the country, week, meek, and people hated him for it. He became the living embodiment of our national failure not only during his Presidency, but arguably the entire era leading up to it.

I think Reznov, or whatever his name is, in the original Call of Duty is loyal during the war, and only turns do to the fact that he is personally betrayed. Ironically the best comparison to the USSR's war against the Nazi's is probably Halo. The UNSC is an oppressive, institution, and ONI often acts like the NKVD. But they have some morals, and their enemy is literally bent on Genocide.

edited 22nd Feb '17 7:38:47 PM by JackOLantern1337

Jack: Japan isn't pacifist. Where on earth you came up with that is beyond me. They are still popular in Japan and works like GATE are quite very popular despite being overt nationalist cheer leading for Japan.

Julian:Somewhat related to your second bit.

I am going to hell and you are all coming with me. Get on the bus. :P

edited 22nd Feb '17 7:25:50 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah, the JSDF is pretty much a military in all but name, and they have been more active in 3rd World countries in the rest of Asia and Africa in recent years.

You can only be pacifist if you own up and accept your legacy of violence. Like modern Germany can be considered "pacifist". The kind of denialism about Japan's war crimes and poor relations with China and Korea are evidence that they haven't quite owned up to it.

It's a big loaded word to call a country "pacifist". India for instance doesn't have a record for external aggression but internally, vow, check out the Police State in Kashmir and their battle against Maoist insurgents in Chattisgarh. Wow.

Well it usually creates a loop. You start out wanting to protect yourself. To protect yourself you need money. Once you get money well...the loop works again. A lot of organized crime and ghetto violence does come from persecution of minorities and groups and that creates a vicious circle.

I meant more the culture of the country was pacifist.

Edit: I didn't say they weren't persecuted or bad off, I said they weren't heroes.

edited 22nd Feb '17 7:45:45 PM by JackOLantern1337

So I just finished watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I really feel that knowing all the history of the Qing Dynasty and the historical context of the era this movie took place in made it enjoying for me than it would have been otherwise (ignoring all the zany wuxia elements like the people flying about having sword fights on treetops, of course ).

edited 22nd Feb '17 8:39:30 PM by SantosLHalper

I haven't seen that film, but I would caution against seeing it as straightforward Historical Fiction, which okay the kung fu and wuxia should dissuade you from doing. Most of such films are more or less propaganda for the present day Chinese government.

Hero was especially blatantly obvious in how it's about how dissidents and naysayers will achieve their goals more by appealing to the authority and accepting that Resistance Is Futile than if they come to power. It's Machiavellian in the many birds it hits with one stone. It can't be too royalist so the protagonist is an assassin and dissident, but it can't be too pro-dissident either, because...well reasons, it has to emphasize change, but it also has to insist on continuity. So it works in that way.

There are exceptions, films by Jia Zhangke and Wang Bing's documentaries. But none of them make period films.

It is best to just view them as entertaining historical fiction. Emphasis on the fiction part.

edited 22nd Feb '17 10:17:26 PM by TuefelHundenIV

But of course. What I meant to say was it was a reasonably entertaining historical fantasy (and yes, emphasis on the latter) of swashbuckling action and drama, not necessarily accurate, but as someone who recently studied the time period it takes place it added an extra layer of enjoyment to this fictional work.

Speaking about propaganda, however, I did note that the Uyghurs (who are currently rebelling against the Chinese government) seemed to be depicted as primitive bandits, rather than, you know, an actual society, which I explicitly commented as being propagandistic in nature when I was watching. Even the hero from there calls his people a "gang".

EDIT: Given the fact that the raiders seemed to look East Asian rather than ethnic Uyghurs, and that Lo explicitly states he's from Xinjiang, it could be that they're Dzungars or some other Mongolic peoples in the region. This makes it even worse.

edited 22nd Feb '17 10:43:04 PM by SantosLHalper

I'd absolutely recommend Jiang Wen's Devils At The Doorstep though. The whole film is meant to be a deconstruction of the traditional cliched and troperrific Chinese Second Sino Japanese War film.

Anyone seen Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States?

I've just started watching it and it seems pretty good.

And does anyone know any good period films or good history documentaries about the US after 1929?

@Ninja:

The idea that ninjas (or shinobi as was the original term) come from lower castes is something of a pseudo-myth, although lower caste spies and infiltrators did exist (and were hired). It's evident from a few samurai texts however, that a burakumin would almost certainly never be hired, as they were considered inherently loathsome (even on the metaphysical level!) and untrustworthy.

There seems to be this strange idea that the samurai and ninja are different, despite being the exactly same people. Ninjutsu was a curriculum of unconventional warfare, espionage etc. which was taught in some samurai schools, with a few samurai families becoming famous for their skills (Hattori of course being the go to example). Remember, ninja were a regular part of the military, samurai with a special skill set. We have primary sources from people who actually taught it, so I'm not entirely sure why these myths keep on persisting.

The idea that samurai would never do this, is also a myth. Everything is permitted if it's in the service of your lord, which differentiates you from the regular thief or spy (who had a similar skill set).

edited 22nd Feb '17 11:13:52 PM by TerminusEst

Oliver Stone is a talented film-maker and he has made some excellent films and Nixon is a genuine masterpiece. But his general view on American politics is compromised by his uncritical acceptance of the JFK conspiracy. I have not seen Untold History but I hear the same problem persists there.

But it will be worth watching for sure.

As for documentary recommendations. Errol Morris's Fog of War is necessary. I also recommend the great Frederick Wiseman: Welfare, Basic Training in particular. At least in terms of history. Harlan County U Sa and American Dream by Barbara kopple is also recommended. And of course the two key documentaries of the last year. The one on OK Simpson and James Baldwin.

edited 22nd Feb '17 11:44:15 PM by JulianLapostat

Terminus; The romantic myth. Like knights in shining armor and how all "true knights" followed the chivalric code without a fault.

As someone with a soft spot for Macchiavelli (and don't worry, I'm reading Discourses on Livy, which contains far more of what his political thought was really about rather than The Prince), that doesn't sound like it's a bad thing in and of itself.

However, I haven't seen the movie, so, maybe they have the subtlety of an elephant in a china shop. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if some Chinese premiers have read The Prince and compared it with some of the traditional Chinese political books and teachings that have survived to this day.

edited 23rd Feb '17 8:21:21 AM by Quag15