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icantfindaname posted:I'm guessing it's largely unchanged since the 1930s, and nobody's bothered to change it because they don't care about the plight of Hirohito's kids and the Japanese monarchy doesn't have a super big public profile to begin with I don't know anything about the development of the modern imperial household agency, but based on my understanding of Japanese history, Japanese emperor and his caste of nobles have been reduced to powerless figureheads since the 10th century, their power dispersed first to the high ranking ministers, later to the shoguns and daimyos. A bureaucracy was established to manage and schedule the emperor's life, and to make sure the imperial caste is isolated from the governing of the country. The bureaucracy had different names in the past, but the imperial household agency follows the same tradition : keep governing power out of the imperial family's hands.
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Jun 13, 2017 06:47
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The current Imperial Household Agency answers to the Prime Minister so I imagine they realized no prime minister gave a gently caress after the LDP was firmly in control and communism was no longer seen as a threat.
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Jun 13, 2017 14:49
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symphoniccacophony posted:I don't know anything about the development of the modern imperial household agency, but based on my understanding of Japanese history, Japanese emperor and his caste of nobles have been reduced to powerless figureheads since the 10th century, their power dispersed first to the high ranking ministers, later to the shoguns and daimyos. A bureaucracy was established to manage and schedule the emperor's life, and to make sure the imperial caste is isolated from the governing of the country. Well, isn't it written into the law that the Emperor has no "real" or "legal" power at all now? He's just a symbolic figurehead. Of course I hear he's still quite beloved, just like England's Queen.But apart from launching an illegal act and trying to capitalize on that, he can't really do much. Tangential but I just learned Tokugawa Clan is still around. I wonder if there are people in Japan who want him to be in control. Not in any real numbers of course, I just remember learning about the current "monarchist movement" in France and it made me curious if other countries have similar.
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Jun 13, 2017 15:20
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NikkolasKing posted:Of course I hear he's still quite beloved, just like England's Queen.But apart from launching an illegal act and trying to capitalize on that, he can't really do much. Beloved maybe a stretch, but what he does have are people that drive around in black speaker vans extoiling the deification of the emperor and that everyone should worship him. Queen E maybe beloved, but no one is championing her divine right to rule.
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Jun 13, 2017 15:49
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NikkolasKing posted:Well, isn't it written into the law that the Emperor has no "real" or "legal" power at all now? He's just a symbolic figurehead. I believe so, but only because MacArthur insisted this be written into the Japanese constitution after 1945, at least this was what my professor said in class many many years ago, because no sane human should have to read through the Japanese constitution. Being a powerless and exploitable figurehead isn't a recent event, it is his default mode for most of Japan's history. The emperor has no power, but his patronage legitimizes the real power holder. A few years ago I read a book about princess Masako's situation. The author mentioned about how the Emperor has many many ceremonial functions everyday, and is encouraged to take up an inoffensive hobby in his spare time. The emperor is important because of who he is, but he needs to be controlled and cannot be allowed to challenge the current government. That I believe is the purpose of the imperial household agency, it has other names in the past, but they all have the same purpose.
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Jun 13, 2017 17:05
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NikkolasKing posted:Tangential but I just learned Tokugawa Clan is still around. I wonder if there are people in Japan who want him to be in control. Not in any real numbers of course, I just remember learning about the current "monarchist movement" in France and it made me curious if other countries have similar. Wikipedia posted:In 2007, Tsunenari published a book entitled Edo no idenshi (江戸の遺伝子), released in English in 2009 as The Edo Inheritance, which seeks to counter the common belief among Japanese that the Edo period (throughout which members of his Tokugawa clan ruled Japan as shoguns) was like a dark age, when Japan, cut off from the world, fell behind. On the contrary, he argues, the roughly 250 years of peace and relative prosperity saw great economic reforms, the growth of a sophisticated urban culture, and the development of the most urbanized society on the planet. So basically he wrote a book defending his ancestors legacy?
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Jun 13, 2017 18:55
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I like how both of those can be true at the same time.
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Jun 14, 2017 00:34
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symphoniccacophony posted:I believe so, but only because MacArthur insisted this be written into the Japanese constitution after 1945, at least this was what my professor said in class many many years ago, because no sane human should have to read through the Japanese constitution. Even before the Shoguns appeared, there were the retired emperors. The actual imperial position had lost so much power that in 1086 Emperor Shirakawa decided that it was better to abdicate and use his own 4-year-old son as a puppet than to fight his rivals as an actual emperor. He would eventually end up using his grandson as a puppet emperor as well. So even abdicated emperors are stronger that actual emperors in Japan.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:38
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symphoniccacophony posted:I believe so, but only because MacArthur insisted this be written into the Japanese constitution after 1945, at least this was what my professor said in class many many years ago, because no sane human should have to read through the Japanese constitution. I was under the impression that MacArthur fought to save the position of Emperor (as opposed to turning Japan into a republic) because the Japanese people wouldn't be able to handle not having an emperor for probably very racist reasons. That's part of why he kept Hirohito from being tried for war crimes.
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Jun 14, 2017 05:13
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captkirk posted:So basically he wrote a book defending his ancestors legacy? Well I didn't mean he was the one going around saying "put me in charge." Just wondered if there were random crazies in Japan saying that. I'd like to read his book, though. The Edo period is fascinating and not nearly as "stagnant and backward" as popular perception seems to make it out to be. Turns out when you usher in over two centuries of peace (discounting the odd peasant revolt) you can accomplish a lot. Far from the Meiji just magically making everything better, I've read a few things that say modern Japan owes a lot to the Tokugawa in terms of everything from education to environmentalism. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jun 14, 2017 |
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Jun 14, 2017 05:39
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Mr. Fix It posted:I was under the impression that MacArthur fought to save the position of Emperor (as opposed to turning Japan into a republic) because the Japanese people wouldn't be able to handle not having an emperor for probably very racist reasons. That's part of why he kept Hirohito from being tried for war crimes. MacArthur did a lot of things: the position of the Emperor is preserved and made immune to war crimes to keep people happy and avoid potential uprising, but he also wanted it clearly written into the constitution that the emperor is a man and not god. Prior to the American drafted post-war Japanese constitution, people are highly encouraged to believe that their emperor is the direct descendant of the sun goddess. MacArthur also barred most remote families from imperial succession. This is how they ended in the current succession crisis, with Hirohito's children producing more girls than boys. I don't think the successor has to be the eldest child, yet it's generally advantageous to have someone that is popular with the people be made emperor. But the traditionalists preferring to keep the imperial line male drastically cuts down on available candidates. Just looked it up on the wiki, they tried to have a boy adopted into the imperial family to appease everyone, except the constitution already says that adopted children are not eligible to be emperor...
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Jun 14, 2017 07:28
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That's pretty clever. Pretty much ensures that the imperial family will either die out or at least never have the resources to revive their former position.
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Jun 14, 2017 07:46
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Stringent posted:That's pretty clever. Pretty much ensures that the imperial family will either die out or at least never have the resources to revive their former position. Probably unintentional. Japan was bankrupt after the war, not having to support hundreds of nobles that contributes little to society is one less hurdle towards recovery
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Jun 14, 2017 08:39
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MacArthur almost 100% kept the emperor because he wanted a monarch in his pocket.
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Jun 14, 2017 09:09
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NikkolasKing posted:I'd like to read his book, though. The Edo period is fascinating and not nearly as "stagnant and backward" as popular perception seems to make it out to be. Turns out when you usher in over two centuries of peace (discounting the odd peasant revolt) you can accomplish a lot. Far from the Meiji just magically making everything better, I've read a few things that say modern Japan owes a lot to the Tokugawa in terms of everything from education to environmentalism. Definitely, the premise sounds interesting. There is similar discussions about the European Dark Ages being less awful than commonly believed. I just think it's a little suspicious when it's the descendant of the Tokugawas saying "Ieyasu did nothing wrong"
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Jun 14, 2017 14:33
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Mr. Fix It posted:I was under the impression that MacArthur fought to save the position of Emperor (as opposed to turning Japan into a republic) because the Japanese people wouldn't be able to handle not having an emperor for probably very racist reasons. That's part of why he kept Hirohito from being tried for war crimes. It was explained to MacArthur by Japanese politicians that if the position of Emperor was abolished, he would be fighting an insurgency led by elements of the Imperial Japanese military and far right. It was later found out through polling that the average Japanese person didn't care but the Emperor would be a hurdle for any communists. Hirohito also got out there and started acting like a European monarch, learned to speak modern Japanese, and essentially helped save his position.
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Jun 14, 2017 14:43
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I don't remember if I actually got it from this thread or whatever, but a quote I find highly amusing vis-à-vis Japan and immigration:quote:Japan carefully weighed the pros and cons of letting in a bunch of SE Asian immigrants to do factory, healthcare and agricultural work and decided that their entire culture going extinct was the better option.
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Jun 15, 2017 18:10
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I think it was this thread or the japan.jpg one, but yeah, same.
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Jun 15, 2017 18:13
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NikkolasKing posted:I'd like to read his book, though. The Edo period is fascinating and not nearly as "stagnant and backward" as popular perception seems to make it out to be. Turns out when you usher in over two centuries of peace (discounting the odd peasant revolt) you can accomplish a lot. Far from the Meiji just magically making everything better, I've read a few things that say modern Japan owes a lot to the Tokugawa in terms of everything from education to environmentalism. I dunno. Whenever I learned about the Edo period, it was never really made out to be stagnant or backwards. Like it was always presented as one of the most urbanized cities on the planet at the time and had some stuff way before other civilizations, one example being that the department store was more or less invented in Edo Japan.
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Jun 26, 2017 05:25
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Edo as stagnant, backwards feudal polity is the Marxist/left-wing critical historiography of modern Japan, Edo as a modern, dynamic, capitalist polity is the Reischauer/Cold War liberal positive historiography
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Jun 26, 2017 06:10
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Sorry I guess I was referring to the city of Edo, not all of Japan. I kind of assume that being a merchant in Edo was probably alright but being a daimyo's peasant in the countryside probably sucked a fat one.
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Jun 26, 2017 07:41
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Much Edo About Nothing
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Jun 26, 2017 07:45
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Dr.Radical posted:Sorry I guess I was referring to the city of Edo, not all of Japan. I kind of assume that being a merchant in Edo was probably alright but being a daimyo's peasant in the countryside probably sucked a fat one. You probably lived comfortably, but remember that merchants were the absolute bottom of the social order. I'm not sure if eta were considered lower or not, I think they were just outside the entire structure of society. A peasant would've been considered more valuable. Some peasants were pretty rich. From what I've read I don't think it was significantly different than anywhere else. Being a peasant kinda sucks anywhere, any time.
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Jun 26, 2017 07:56
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Iirc yeah merchants were lower than peasants (not lower than eta, though) technically but as usual poo poo don't matter if you got that ryo. Like some lower ranking samurai who had money troubles could be owned (figuratively) by merchants due to debt.
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Jun 26, 2017 08:04
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Grand Fromage posted:You probably lived comfortably, but remember that merchants were the absolute bottom of the social order. I'm not sure if eta were considered lower or not, I think they were just outside the entire structure of society. A peasant would've been considered more valuable. Some peasants were pretty rich. The Confucian social hierarchy (soldier, peasant, craftsman, merchant), was ranked based on their perceived contribution to the nation. It's more for academic discussion and not a stratified caste. In reality, people with money or influence are generally leaders of their respective communities, irregardless of which social class they came from. For example, peasants were frequently exploited by their feudal lords or robbed by wandering bandits, see Kurosawa's period pieces like the 7 samurais and rashouman and you get the impression how wretched and miserable they generally are, inspite of their perceived high social order. Edo period had hundreds of peasant uprising against their lord, many were crashed by force. On the other end, Edo era brought 300 years of peace and trade flourished with the rise of merchant and middle class. A lot of armies were disbanded for economic reasons. Many low ranking samurai basically were told to leave the castle and fend for themselves. Supposedly resulted in the opening of hundreds of dojo in Edo, where samurais now teaching rich merchant's children how to fight. Eta (burakumin to be more PC) and kuge (nobles) I think are the only true stratified castes in Japan. You have to be born or marry into one. I asked a Japanese friend if the modern Japanese still check family history for burakumin background, and he said yes ; his wife's family did it to him as he got married. I should ask him if you got a job as a garbage man now, would you be considered a burakumin then?
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Jun 27, 2017 08:44
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The stigma of burakumin is still lying around is just loving crazy
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Jun 27, 2017 09:00
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Yeah I know a guy who is Burakumin and he says it's basically impossible for him to get a decent job at a company despite anti-discrimination laws. I guess his dad was a burakumin rights activist which made poo poo even harder because the cops were on his poo poo and still are.
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Jun 27, 2017 09:41
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Dr.Radical posted:Yeah I know a guy who is Burakumin and he says it's basically impossible for him to get a decent job at a company despite anti-discrimination laws. I guess his dad was a burakumin rights activist which made poo poo even harder because the cops were on his poo poo and still are. I've heard that very large swathes of the Yakuza are Burakumin. Assuming that's true, I suppose that situation probably explains why. I mean, if you don't have any legitimate opportunities in life, getting involved in organized crime probably seems a lot more attractive.
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Jun 28, 2017 21:16
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My company used to buy leather from Japan many many years ago. I was told that leather tanning is one of the traditional trades associated with burakumin.
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Jun 29, 2017 03:35
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Man how much longer can Shinzo Abe keep being PM for?
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Jun 29, 2017 23:18
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Grouchio posted:Man how much longer can Shinzo Abe keep being PM for? 3 years or so, I think
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Jun 29, 2017 23:40
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Grouchio posted:Man how much longer can Shinzo Abe keep being PM for? In the last few weeks Abe has ramped up the push for constitutional revision, he wants the Diet legislation passed and a referendum held by the end of 2018. This seems to be out of desperation, as he's also dropped a lot of the most radical demands for changes to the constitution itself. The constitutional draft he produced in 2012, which was a horrifying fascist document, seems to be totally abandoned, and he claims now he doesn't even want to get rid of Article 9, just add a clause explicitly legalizing the SDF. Also his popularity ratings are finally starting to slowly slip downwards. Whether he makes it past 2018 is probably 50/50 I would say. If he puts forward an actual document and loses the vote on it within his own party he's pretty much guaranteed to be gone. The real quesiton is who replaces him, the most likely candidate seems to be the current foreign minister, who is also at least nominally part of the more liberal wing of the LDP. But that wing's influence has pretty much collapsed over the last 30 years so I'm not sure he would be any better https://twitter.com/observingjapan/status/879752499216994304 Click the tweet for his replies to it https://spfusa.org/japan-political-pulse/meaning-abes-polling-slump/
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Jun 30, 2017 00:21
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Taro Aso as PM redux 
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Jun 30, 2017 00:57
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If it triggers the DPJ coming back to power, heck yeah
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Jun 30, 2017 01:15
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Gonna be Kishida while LDP is the top party. Figuring that Koike's new regional party does clean up in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, I have to imagine they springboard to some sort of national scale thing. 国民ファースト党? I think Koike's got an axe to grind with the LDP and for mainline LDPers the feeling is mutual, so I think reconciliation and merger is a long ways off at best. I think we could be seeing the beginning of a wave that wipes out the LDP. Though the thought of political parties getting replaced and destroyed makes me giddy so I'm probably wrong.
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Jun 30, 2017 03:57
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Mr. Fix It posted:Gonna be Kishida while LDP is the top party. Figuring that Koike's new regional party does clean up in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, I have to imagine they springboard to some sort of national scale thing. 国民ファースト党? I think Koike's got an axe to grind with the LDP and for mainline LDPers the feeling is mutual, so I think reconciliation and merger is a long ways off at best. I think we could be seeing the beginning of a wave that wipes out the LDP. Though the thought of political parties getting replaced and destroyed makes me giddy so I'm probably wrong. geez. careful that optimism doesn't blind you. what the hell would japanese politics without the LDP even look like?    ?
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Jun 30, 2017 04:14
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Well, to be fair, in the last 30 years the CDU has been in power in Germany for 23 of them, compared to 24 for the LDP in Japan Conservative parties were dominant in postwar Western Europe, and still are today. Scandinavia and Canada are pretty much the only places where left parties have been in power more than right parties over the last 70 years A big flaming stink posted:what the hell would japanese politics without the LDP even look like? A few weeks ago I was reading a hilarious Martin Fackler piece in the NYT from about 2010 worrying that Japan would become a single-party DPJ run state icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 30, 2017 |
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Jun 30, 2017 04:20
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So is anyone who can possibly form a government in Japan in favor of immigration reform?icantfindaname posted:Scandinavia and Canada are pretty much the only places where left parties have been in power more than right parties over the last 70 years The Liberals are fully centrist, center-left at best. The NDP, the left party, have never formed national government. Like there's a good argument that CDU and the Liberals are pretty close.
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Jun 30, 2017 04:48
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Lightning Lord posted:So is anyone who can possibly form a government in Japan in favor of immigration reform? Not really, as of right now. I think the most likely scenario for more immigration would actually be a more liberal LDP admin, after Abe leaves office, pressured by business to alleviate the increasingly bad labor shortage. Even if that did happen it probably wouldn't happen till after 2020 Japan's immigration laws aren't actually that much stricter than European countries, the kind of major push for immigration that people want Japan to do would basically be unprecedented among developed countries The DP/J historically has been a pretty solidly Third Way party that triangulates to the middle on social issues, and the labor unions that back it don't really want more immigration either, so it probably won't come from the left icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 30, 2017 |
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Jun 30, 2017 05:02
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LDP just got trashed in the Tokyo metropolitan elections. Down to 23 seats out of 127, tied with Komeito and barely more than the Communists. They've never done this badly before, not even the year they were so unpopular that they lost the national election to the DPJ a few months later.
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Jul 2, 2017 21:18
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