Our Enemy- The Japanese
Encyclopedia
Our Enemy — The Japanese was a 1943 short film produced by the US Navy and Office of War Information to provide background knowledge about the wartime foe.
The film begins with the narrator, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew, stating that he has lived in Japan for ten years and that their logic is incomprehensible by Western standards, and that they are 2,000 years behind in ethical, social thinking.
The film is an odd assortment of truths and untruths; for instance, it was true that Japan had been geared to a war path for the last 11 years, that it was a totalitarian society with a tightly controlled press and militaristic education system, and that war production was being carried out in family houses.
However other things are statements of prejudice, or unsubstantiated: it implies several times that the Japanese are not inventive or resourceful, and that they get many of their ideas from the west, "aping American newspapers" or copying Nazi propaganda. It also states that the Shinto
religion had always been, and that the Japanese people had always believed, an ideology preaching world domination and fascism
—in fact the militarist brand of Shinto was a comparatively recent development.
The film begins with the narrator, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew, stating that he has lived in Japan for ten years and that their logic is incomprehensible by Western standards, and that they are 2,000 years behind in ethical, social thinking.
The film is an odd assortment of truths and untruths; for instance, it was true that Japan had been geared to a war path for the last 11 years, that it was a totalitarian society with a tightly controlled press and militaristic education system, and that war production was being carried out in family houses.
However other things are statements of prejudice, or unsubstantiated: it implies several times that the Japanese are not inventive or resourceful, and that they get many of their ideas from the west, "aping American newspapers" or copying Nazi propaganda. It also states that the Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
religion had always been, and that the Japanese people had always believed, an ideology preaching world domination and fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
—in fact the militarist brand of Shinto was a comparatively recent development.