Use Of Propaganda In John Dower's War Without Mercy

Part II is very interesting during chapter 6 when Dower presents studies conducted by psychologists and other scientists that suggest that the Japanese are mentally inferior to Americans. “By 1944, a considerable number of social and behavioral scientists had thus turned their attention to Japan…they agreed that…immaturity was a critical concept in understanding Japanese behavior.”(Page 131) In the last chapter of Part II dower alludes to the history of racism in America. The Chapter is called “Yellow, Red, and Black Men” which refers to the different groups that the United States oppressed because of the color of their skin. In this chapter Dower relates the racial topic from chapter 6 to the different races oppressed by the United States. In Part II dower uses the hypocrisy of the United States to point out that the United States is not as “perfect” as they make themselves appear.

"In the United States and Britain," Dower reminds us, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) But there are two answers in the book that gives us a reason on why there was more hatred towards the Japanese than the Germans. These are the same Germans that engaged in a systematic genocide against millions of Jews. But why the Japanese were more hated than the Germans despite the latter’s orgy of violence, is surely in large part racial. It’s not a

In the Chapter Apes and Others, there is even more evidence that the United States directed more hatred towards the Japanese, rather than the Germans. Dower believes that the true feelings towards the Japanese could be illustrated by how the United States treated Japanese-Americans inside their own country. Japanese-Americans were forced to move out of their homes, and treated less than human at internment camps. A U.S. general even said “the only good Jap is a dead Jap”. (78) This is more blatantly obvious evidence supporting Dower that racism is a major and overlooked component of World War II. This chapter also mentions how “Japanese were perceived as animals, reptiles, and insects” and “the Japanese herd” (81) while Nazis were almost always called Nazis. This provides even further evidence of the obvious dehumanization of Japanese people.

Many Asian Americans were painted as evil villains or downright dangerous in the early 20th century (1900-1940s). Often they were stereotyped as "inscrutable" and often speaking in the broken English. During early 1900's, there were abudance of vicious images of Japanese being shown as forward and buck-toothed popped up in the media. The infamous journalist, Wallace Irwin, made mockery out of Japanese by publishing "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy". He produced various of anti-Japanese stereotypes such as switching letters "L" with "R" and continuing mocking them with broken English speech "Engrish". The White leaders spoke against the Japanese Americans regarding their alleged immorality, even they liken them to the ape-like imagery just like

The author used a very unique and disturbing attitude to look at the uses of racist ideology by both the Western Powers and Japan to fuel their pursuit of military, political and cultural dominance during the early 20th century which leading up through the brutal "War without Mercy" known as the Pacific War. In this book, John Dower argued that race not only colored America’s actions in the Pacific theater of World War II, but the Japanese harbored a similar preoccupation with their own racial superiority that motivated them to engage in martial and power pursuits. This sense of superiority fueled emotions which would bring both countries to act inhumanely to one another during the war.

The third WWII poster shows the negative stereotypes of the Japanese. It refers to the Japanese as “Murdering Jap”. This shows the stereotype that many Americans had about the Japanese. Many believed all from Japanese descent; even the ones born and raised in America were disloyal to the United States. This stereotype that all Japanese people are “murdering japs”, caused a dilemma in the United States. Consequently, the United States passed the Executive Order 9066, which allowed military officers to assign areas specifically for military purpose. This allowed military officers to assign areas for the Japanese-Americans. This showed the negative stereotypes of the perceived enemy, the Japanese.

“Japanese were perceived as animals, reptiles, or insects (monkeys, baboons, gorillas, dogs, mice and rats, vipers and rattlesnakes, cockroaches, vermin- or, more indirectly “the Japanese herd” and the like)… at the simplest level, they dehumanized the Japanese and enlarged the chasm between ‘us’ and ‘them’ to the point where it was perceived to be virtually unbridgeable. ”(Dower 81-82) John Dower, the writer of War Without Mercy, focused part of his book on the way the Japanese in American culture were viewed by the public and the other part on the way the Americans were viewed by the Japanese in their culture. Each chapter in Dower’s book is titled in a way so that they describe how the Japanese and Americans were viewed by each other’s culture. During WWII the Japanese were not the only culture that was viewed poorly, the Americans were also viewed very poorly while in the Japanese public culture. Race played a very large role in the war in the Pacific during WWII.

Japan’s extended victim narrative are reasoned to be that, “The Japanese.. alienated others because they had difficulty thinking in terms of equality and lacked any true sense of responsibility.”Dower claims. Japan’s view of their role in the war was defencive, any of these ideas spawned from propaganda spread during the war. A poll in a Yomiuri newspaper during the 1930s asked if Japan were aggressors during the war, 53% answered “Yes” while 24.8% answered “No”, the remaining had no response. Citizens alive during war time and the spread of war propaganda answered 39% dissaggreing Japan was an aggressor 41% in agreement and others had no response. Propaganda influenced and impacted the war memory for some citizens, allowing more negative memories cause by Japan to be

One of these dimensions is in the home front of the U.S, where the author mentions that the extreme unfair treatment of Japanese Americans was “a natural starting point for any study of the racial aspects of the war, for it reveals not merely the clearcut racial stigmatization of the Japanese, but also the official endorsement this received (Page 79).” The author proves this statement by providing evidence about Executive order 9066 and how it removed 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Furthermore, the author also provides evidence by illustrating that the president, secretary of war, the Department of Justice, Supreme Court, Congress and the military establishment supported Executive Order 9066. In other words, even at home, Japanese American citizens were stripped of their rights and privileges just because of their race. The author describes that this racism at home was done to only Japanese Americans, but not to German Americans or Italian Americans. Another dimension is the media and how racism and race also corrupted it like it did with the U.S home front. Throughout the second part of the book, the author provides a variety of evidence that shows racism in the media. One of these evidence is the occurring use of racial slang in the media. According to the author, the Japanese were not referred to as Japanese, but instead were referred to as beasts, apes, “yellow bastards,” and especially

The Author, John Dower, argues the conflict between the United States and Japan and how it was fundamentally rooted in the mutual hatred of both nations. The death and destruction during

Emotions spark things like conflicts, wars, and even revolutions. Typically, heavy emotions are triggered by some kind of aggressor and/or an event. In the case of the United States, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “Vengeful Americans never forgot or forgave that disaster.” ( Paterson et al, American Foreign Relations 226) The keyword in that above quote from the reading is, “vengeful”. The thirst for vengeance is a very common theme throughout military conflicts. It appears in some way shape or form in almost every war fought, even to this day. This also typically involves some form of discrimination as well. In the reading, it states that there was a common conception of the Japanese people as being, “yellow monkeys”, or, “yellowbellies”. This seems like a common trend within history, to assign names to one’s enemies. This likely bred even more hate into the American people. Again, hate is a very strong emotion, but a very driving one as well. Using the phrase, “I hate those yellow monkeys” was likely a common trend during this time period. Even President Truman said, “When you have to deal with a beast, you have to treat him like a beast”. (Paterson et al, American Foreign Relations 226) We can tie a lot of this mentality into how we view people of Muslim decent. We call them things such as, “ragheads”, or other offensive and crude terms. This was the same emotionally mentality that led to us dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Emotions have always had an influence in history, and it especially did during World War 2 and the dropping on the atomic

Americans view the Japanese as apes, monkeys and subhuman because to Americans the Japanese were savage animals and heartless. Americans view the Japanese with anger because the Japanese were people who did not care to kill an American or whoever got in their way. Other countries before the WWII also disliked the Japanese and thought they were useless and stating, which “looking upon the Japanese as animals, or a different species of some sort, was common at official levels in Washington and London before Pearl Harbor” (Dower, p.249). The book describes the racial comments Americans would make against the Japanese. Many racial comments were extreme, which shocked the reader on how much hatred existed against the Japanese. During the war, Americans were like the Japanese, they did not touch their heart to kill a “Jap” they believe Japanese were just like cockroaches; therefore, can be killed easily without a problem.

The Nazis are regarded as possibly the worst people to ever have lived, with Hitler being the worst of them. However, the Imperial Japanese, who also fought in World War II, have little or no image as bad people, despite their part in the war and their alliance with Germany. The Imperial Japanese could have been as bad as the Nazis, if not worse, yet are not recognized for this. This poses the questions of why this is, and whether the Nazis were as bad as they are portrayed, compared to the Japanese. This paper aims to compare the actions and philosophies of the two groups, and to determine which was actually worse, as well as why the groups have the reputations that they do.

There was much debate in the public and government about what to do with the Japanese in the country, and many people argued for the restricted freedom of the Japanese living in the US. One Seattle woman wrote a letter to the president asking him to “give some thought to ridding our beloved Country of these people who hold no love or loyalty to our God, our ideals or our traditions, or our Government; They should never have been allowed here (Davenport, 26).” This was not an uncommon opinion of people of Japanese descent at the time. Author Paul Fussell describes the common view of Japanese people, saying, “Among Americans it was widely held that the Japanese were really subhuman, little yellow beasts, and popular imagery depicted them as lice, rats, bats, vipers, dogs, and monkeys (Fussell,

During the time leading up to the onslaught of the Second World War, the Japanese had never been considered much of a threat on the international stage. The Japanese had stayed unindustrialized and rather primitive until this time. As far as White Europeans were concerned the Japanese were “little men”. They were not at all anywhere near comparable to the sophisticated and racially, economically, morally, and physically superior Whites of the Western Hemisphere (Dower 173).