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The deletion is another example of a company bending to outside pressure and conforming with the majority opinion.

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Teruyuki Hirota, a professor of the sociology of education at Nihon University. He was referring to a private-sector operator of cram schools that deleted history textbook passages about the Nanking Massacre and the Takeshima islets after coming under fire on social media and being questioned by a ruling party lawmaker.

© Asahi Shimbun

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They do not want future generations to know and thus be embarrassed by crimes committed by Japanese Imperial Army! Everybody needs to wear pink sunglasses so as to not see all the historical crimes and pretend that Japan has always been a very peace loving country and an example to the world!!! This way we can guarantee that Japan will always be criticized by every country that suffered under Japanese occupation!

5 ( +10 / -5 )

what paul said

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Should lead to some eye opening and embarrassing conversations with better informed foreigners in the future.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Some people have no backbone.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I agree with Paul above.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Soon it'll be like "WW2 has never happened" in Japanese history books.

In Europe we learned about all the war crimes of WW2. That is, the war crimes of the "German Reich", the USSR, Japan, China, and others. We also learned about the crimes committed by countries against the German civilian population after WW2. My country also committed these crimes. But to relativise them or even try to erase them is childish and shows that we still have not come to terms with history, and neither does Japan. And it is not now about who was the perpetrator or the victim. It's just about what happened.

Until the dinosaurs here realize this, we will be criticized by other countries for our attitude and ignorance. And just because we ignore it and pretend nothing is happening doesn't mean others do not criticize us for it.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Japan, been white washing since 1945!!!

Hint to Japan, this ISNT helping you, doing the opposite, very unbecoming!

4 ( +7 / -3 )

conforming with the majority opinion

Is denial of wartime atrocities "majority opinion"? Isn't it just a loud minority? It is a loud minority that is well organized and has friends in high places, of course, but a minority all the same. There is no need to appease them.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing

That's the actual quote and is from the great liberal John Stuart Mill, not the other folks versions of it are misattributed to.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

That should say "not the other versions of this quote that are mistakenly attributed to other people, commonly Edmund Burke."

1 ( +1 / -0 )

This sort of thing damages the status of the Japanese education system and devalues historical scholarship conducted in Japanese universities. Nothing ruins the reputation of a nation quite like nationalism.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

The deletion is another example of a company bending to outside pressure and conforming with the majority opinion.

Teruyuki Hirota, a professor of the sociology of education at Nihon University. He was referring to a private-sector operator of cram schools that deleted history textbook passages about the Nanking Massacre and the Takeshima islets after coming under fire on social media and being questioned by a ruling party lawmaker.

Firstly, 'conforming with the majority opinion' when the 'majority opinion' is **what one has been taught makes no sense at all. Who writes these headlines?**

As a comparison with "deletions" of Japanese History, take a look at American History curricula in the U.S.. if deletion, obfuscation, and flat out lies taught to children are a concern. In fact, MOST Americans, even as 'educated' adults still think that George Washington won the U.S. War of Independence rather than France, or that Hamilton was NOT a financial crook who sold out the nascent American economy and condemn the REAL American hero and wounded revolutionary soldier, Aaron Burr, who relieved us of that scum. Or the "Great Western Expansion" that was the conscienceless genocide of "Manifest Destiny". Or that Spain attacked America in 1898. Or that Pearl Harbor was a 'surprise'. Or that the Vietnamese attacked U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Or that guerillas hiding in remote caves in Afghanistan were able to wire enormous steel frame buildings for demolition during the weeks of the unsupervised 'electrical upgrade' just prior to the 9/11 event.

The deletion is another example of a company bending to outside pressure and conforming with the majority opinion.

And, truth be told, what elite doesn't 'massage' their own history of pathology to better control their own herds? And what culture really wants to know what monsters their ancestors really were?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

In fact, MOST Americans, even as 'educated' adults still think that George Washington won the U.S. War of Independence rather than France

You choose not to state that France helped the US to win the War of Independence but instead state that France won the War of Independence. That itself is obfuscation. Who declared independence?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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