Sometimes when I read my student's essay responses to the exam, I wonder what they are thinking. Or worse, what they are being taught outside of my classroom.
One frequently essay question which appears in my American History 121 classes is the issue of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. It is one of the most controversial issues in American History today and is often grist for the revisionist's mill in politics, history and even science fiction.
I give a pretty extensive lecture on the Rise of Japan stemming back to the 1840s and 1850s with the efforts of Commodore Biddle and later Commodore Perry to open Japan to trade with the United States. The lecture is perhaps more broad and than deep but in my defense, it is a survey course and I feel that it does provide some aspect of multiculturalism for the students. It is also a classic clash of two different cultures. I also give an extensive lecture on the causes of the war between the Empire of Japan and the United States, the nature of that war and the views of the Japanese Government up to the use of the atomic bomb.
Students are asked to analyze the options facing US leaders in 1945, consider the alternatives and then provide an opinion. In order to get most of their essay points, the student must demonstrate that they have a grasp of the events, particularly the causes, motivations and perceptions on both sides of the fence.
As a rule, when I give this lecture, I do not give my personal opinion on the matter. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I do not want my students regurgitating my own words back to me. Second, I am not trying to create intellectual clones/drones, I want them to learn to think for themselves. Third, I do want them to struggle with the material and give a solid, well argued opinion.
On the better essays, I get the usual arguments pro and con which have been exhaustively debated elsewhere. The pro-bombing argument is that it shortened the war, saved lives and was the only thing that would break the Japanese. The anti-bombing argument is that it was immoral, a war crime, and used primarily to dissuade the Soviets from invading the Japanese mainland as well as to show them who is boss in the post War world.
Sometimes I see arguments which make me wonder what is going on in their heads. For instance, one option was to continue General Curtis LeMay's firebombing campaign. I take great pains to point out, for a lot of reasons, that the firebombing killed far more Japanese civilians than both nuclear weapons combined.
To my horror, I have seen students argue that firebombing is better than the atomic bomb. Which leads me to wonder about their thinking. It is okay to firebomb but not okay to nuke? How is one any better than the other? They will argue that using the atomic bomb is unethical under any circumstances. Once they've made the statement, they do not elaborate on why the atomic bomb is unethical and how that compares to firebombing.
I will say that the anti-bombing side has never argued for a ground invasion, nor have they argued for a naval blockade to starve the Japanese into submission. No, what I have seen, on very rare instances, is something that bothers me.
Students on the anti-bombing side will argue that the cause of the problem stems back to Biddle and Perry's efforts to open Japan. That, on the face, is a pretty sophisticated argument and one worth conceding. It does ignore the reality that a European power was likely going to open Japan up to trade anyway but since I do not lecture on that and the textbook doesn't even cover that topic I give them a pass on that score.
What follows is what troubles me. Basically it can be summed up as follows.
If only Perry and Biddle, as well as the United States, had been respectful of the culture of Japan, perhaps the hundred years of diplomatic strife which lead to World War II could have been avoided.
Read that line for a minute and tell me if something bothers you about it. It seems pretty solid, doesn't it? It shows that the student in question (multiple students have used this argument, I might add so I am not singling any one particular student out). Even with my qualification, I have to admit that I've been reluctant to blog about this. My concern is that students will troll the internet looking for material to use in their essays or papers at other campuses. I have additional concerns but I will keep those to myself as they do not quite pertain to the matter at hand.
The problem with the statement in italics is that it is a fallacy. It makes the assumption, a false one, that Perry, or any other American dealing with Japan up to 1856, didn't respect Japanese culture. In fact I'd argue that Perry had a great deal of respect for it in that he studied what he could of their culture in order to figure out how to accomplish his mission, which was to open Japan up to US Trade.
What he learned, from Biddle's failure and his studies, is that the Japanese respected belligerency and strength.
Perhaps what the student meant by respect is that the United States respect Japan's desire for isolation and not resort to belligerency in order to open the Empire up. Thing is that Commodore Biddle tried the diplomatic, tactful approach during his mission in the 1840s and was pretty much blown off. Worse, he left the Japanese with the impression that America was incredibly weak and not deserving of respect.
The problem I'm describing, and I relate this in lecture, is a clash of differing cultural values on what constitutes respect between the Japanese and the Americans of the time.
What is probably most likely is that the students in question feel that if Perry and Biddle had a respect for Japanese culture in a 21st Century American sense, then perhaps the war could have been avoided.
And herein lies the core problem, the fallacy of presentism. Presentism is when a student of history takes their present day values system and makes a historical interpretation through that filter or bias.
If only Commodore Perry had been through a sensitivity session. If only he had our 21st Century values.
Well, you can and probably should make a moral judgement on those grounds, but does it get at the historical truth of the matter? Do we gain a clear perspective of what Perry was thinking in the 1850s?
Or perhaps I should put it this way.
To expect Commodore Perry to behave as a 21st Century US Naval Officer would is no different than expecting Socrates to hold forth on the Petrine Theory of Papal Supremacy. It'd be pretty difficult for Socrates, Plato or Aristotle to do any such thing as the Catholic Church didn't exist yet. Or perhaps just as unlikely would be to expect Marcus Tullius Cicero to write extensive essays on the Enlightenment or Marxism.
Out of what time warp is Perry supposed to get these values? He isn't a product of 21st Century America, he is a product of early 19th Century America. He simply wouldn't see the problem of contact with Japan in the same manner as we do.
He wouldn't have foresight of coming historical events either. I suspect if the Americans did have a crystal ball showing them what was down the pike that they probably would have behaved far more aggressively than they did.
How does this apply to American Science Fiction?
Well, a classic example is The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson. Ostensibly an alternate history concerning the use of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, Robinson uses a protagonist who is somehow inculcated in the values of late 20th Century Liberal America. The protag, Captain January, is disgusted by the bomb and believes that he best alternative is to drop the bomb into the ocean near the coastline. When he does so, the Japanese see the effect of the bomb and surrender.
The moral of the story? If only we had tried something else then things could have ended better than they did.
Aside from presentism, the story is also flawed due to a poor understanding of what was going on in the halls of Japan's government in 1945. Their reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima was simply to state, and I paraphrase, "We lose more in firebombings than we did with this one atomic bomb. We may as well continue to fight."
Dropping the bomb into Tokyo Bay would not have impressed them anymore than the actual bombing of Hiroshima did.
I have also seen this in the Fantasy and Steampunk movements. There has been an effort over the last few years to modify the traditional medieval style Fantasy away from the original European roots into something that is more reflective of our 21st Century progressive values. The same can be said for the Steampunk movement with calls issued to move away from depictions of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and sexism.
As a fiction writer, I'm supportive of the idea that you ought to be able to write whatever it is you want to write. As a reader and a historian however, I have to admit that I find these politically correct fictionalizations of the past to be something of a disservice. Part of why the Fantasy genre doesn't interest me in the first place is that it seems to focus to the exclusion of all else on the nobility. Everything is too clean, too neat, with most problems whisked away with a sword or magic. I suspect before long it will be this way with Steampunk as well, a distorted, sanitized view of what Victorian culture was like.
The past as it should be, not how it was.
Such things I am pondering today.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
17 hours ago