05-19-2020, 10:43 AM
(05-18-2020, 09:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:(05-18-2020, 08:14 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: China and Japan are part of the West? They're definitely on the WWII timeline.
Now that we've decided that we can't agree on the WW I timeline, we have to worry about whether we agree on the meaning of "West." Ever since the Anglo-Japanese alliance and Anglo-Japanese treaties of the early 1900s, I actually think of Japan as being part of the "West."
Once again, we're talking about terms of convenience, that are imprecise and can change meanings from time to time.
I could agree with the term, but not the date of the switchover. Japan remained autocratic, warlike and blatantly xenophobic until the cultural reboot at the end of World War II. Well, we were blatantly xenophobic too before that point. Japan was actually ahead of us for a while in switching to the racial part of the Information Age values.
Still, there is a reason that Japan was with the Axis.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
