The Case of Hirose Akira: The Ethical Predicament of a Japanese Buddhist Youth during World War II
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 6
Abstract
The Japanese Buddhist clergy’s collaboration with the Japanese war machine during the Fifteen Year War (1931–1945) is notorious. Yet the struggles of ordinary lay Buddhist youths during World War II remain less publicized. This article examines the case of a young Shinshū Buddhist soldier, Hirose Akira, 廣瀬明 (1919–1947), and scrutinizes the diary he kept between 1939 and 1946. Mobilized between February 1942 and January 1945, Hirose became increasingly disillusioned, especially when he witnessed injustices and the officers’ thoughtlessness in ordering junior soldiers to make sacrifices while enjoying their privileges. His diary reveals an early skepticism toward the Japanese embrace of expansionism and the hypocrisy of its justifications for the war of aggression waged against China and Asia as a whole. Independently from the battle’s fate, by 1944 Hirose considered that Japan was already defeated because of what he saw as “her own people’s ego and selfishness.”
Authors and Affiliations
Kunihiko Terasawa
The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)
The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) is a measure of the centrality, importance or salience of religious meanings in personality that has been applied yet in more than 100 studies in sociology of religion, psychol...
The Congregational Social Work Education Initiative: Toward a Vision for Community Health through Religious Tradition and Philanthropy
The relationship between social work field education, religiously affiliated organizations, and local philanthropic organizations is explored in this case study of a grant-funded project called the Congregational Socia...
The Images of Jesus in the Emergence of Christian Spirituality in Ming and Qing China
Images of Jesus Christ played an important role in the emergence of Christian spirituality in Ming and Qing China. Of the great many images that we know from this period, this paper introduces five of them: Jesus as in...
The Manipulation of Social, Cultural and Religious Values in Socially Mediated Terrorism
This paper presents an analysis of how the Islamic State/Da’esh and Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia manipulate conflicting social, cultural and religious values as part of their socially mediated terrorism. It focusses on thr...
Religion and Family Life: An Overview of Current Research and Suggestions for Future Research
The primary aim of this paper is to offer an overview of current research into the relationship between religion and family life and to offer suggestions for future research. In order to do this, the paper distinguishe...