(p.29-p.30) The ease with which the great majority of Japanese were able to throw off a decade and a half of the most intense militaristic indoctrination, for instance, offers lessons in the limits of socialization and the fragility of ideology that we have seen elsewhere in this century in the collapse of totalitarian regimes. (That Japan’s monarchy was propped up while so many other imperial houses were toppled offers, in itself, a suggestive comparative story in politics and ideology.) Or again, American veterans of the Vietnam War will surely experience a shock of recognition on learning how the emperor’s soldiers and sailors struggled to come to terms with the contempt … Continue reading Embracing Defeat