Talk:Ningen-sengen
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[edit] Western belief
Do Westerners think that Japanese people believed the Emperor was a deity just as some Americans still believe God created all life? --Nanshu 08:20, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- The short answer would be "yes", and I'm restoring the content you deleted. Views of Ningen-sengen in Japan and the rest of the world vary greatly, this should be covered in the article. Jpatokal 23:15, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think this is very bad idea. For one thing, in wikipedia we are not teaching the westerns about God in Japan. For another thing, is this old version accurate at all? I don't mind to examine the speech in detail, but by no means it has to be done from the views of the West, whatever it is. -- Taku 03:28, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
- Huh? Of course you have to account for Western views, because Japan was under occupation by the West, and the famous paragraph was forced onto the Emperor by the West! See Dower's Embracing Defeat (敗北を抱きしめて）, quite a famous book in Japan too) for lots of detail. Jpatokal 09:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] popular Western view?
“the speech challenged the centuries-old claim that he and those before him were descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu”: The rescript have no mention to Amaterasu. It only said that the ties between the emperor and the people was not based on the legend and the myth. Although the rescript flatly denied the divinity of the emperor as “false conception”, it did not actually deny the legend and myth as one of Japanese cultures and traditions. Besides, was there really a speech? I always thought it was a document delivered.
“convoluted and archaic court Japanese nearly incomprehensible to the average person”: As an average Japanese, I can understand the rescript perfectly. The wordings are not really convoluted and there are not too many archaic words. Besides, you can always find the meaning of archaic words if you consult a dictionary.
"the key phrase akitsumikami (現御神), usually glossed as "divinity" in English but literally "manifest kami", is unclear.:" Akitsumikami is a “living god” and I cannot think of any other interpretation.
“he implicitly reaffirmed it by asking the occupation authorities for permission to worship an ancestress and then worshipping the Sun Goddess”: Being a living god is one thing and worshiping the ancestral goddess is quite another. You cannot say that he reaffirmed his divinity because he performed the traditional acts of worship for his ancestors.
In summary, the "popular western view" described here seems so weird to me that I cannot believe it is really "popular". I doubt it is worth mentioning in the article. Dwy
- I've tried to clarify the text a little. Jpatokal 01:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
