This difference in "story-telling" between these two sources says a great deal about international perspective: how different nations interpret one nation. Japan, according to the primary documents, states that they have freed themselves of any foreign intrusion and continue to thrive over any outside forces. Strayer contrarily reveals, however, that Japan's exposure to outside influence changed the eventual outcome of their government structure, forever affecting Japan's nationalistic values. Japan attempted to prevent European imperialism initially by being isolationist. Meiji, however, planned to achieve independence by learning about the western world in order to "enlighten" the Japanese population. This "enlightenment" would ideally bring understanding upon Japanese people. Perhaps Japan learned that understanding one's opponent before resistance may be more effective than skepticism and prejudice. Not only does this make independence more likely - it also creates better relationships with outside nations, creating a more peaceful society.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Japan's isolation and superiority: successful or not?
In class, we learned from primary documents (mostly Japanese propaganda/writings) that Japan supposedly successfully fended off foreign invaders and remained superior to them in terms of technology, power, and nationalism. However, the text in Strayer states that foreign invaders provoked national discrepancies within Japan, stirring up the government and triggering civil war. Many new rulers came into power one after another, marking political unrest in Japan. The Meiji restoration helped Japan stay independent though a method other than isolation.
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I really like how you noticed the difference in point of view between the two sources. I too noticed that the Japanese propaganda insisted that Japan freed themselves of foreign influence while the reading showed otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Will in that I also really like how you picked up on the different sides of the restoration. From the outside world, we can see how the western world helped Japan change and become better, but from the documents we only got the view that Japan did it all on their own.
ReplyDeleteI think that you show greaet insight on many of these topics. However, I don't agree with your concencus that becoming closer to other nations in order to understand them would have been more effective for Japan's success. Japan seemed to play all the right cards at exactly the right time, in my opinion. They avoided too much influence from the outside world, borrowing information only as needed to make their nation stronger. They also managed to stay out of the way of many of the world's superpowers, which made them less of a target for colonization and inequal treaties. These pieces of evidence show how Japan's isolation helped to increase its success with other countries and its sense of nationalism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comments in that you did a very good job in acknowledging the difference in perspective between the documents and our reading. However, I disagree that exposure to Western society changed Japan's "nationalistic values." This implies that Japan's self pride changed, and the overall values of the general population changed. While Japan's definition of a nation probably changed a lot with the influence of foreign powers, they stayed the same, individual country they were before.
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