The Japanese Enigma

I am currently writing this blog on a flight from Kansai Airport to Sydney. We have just completed a cruise around Japan playing bridge and touring.  One of the highlights of the trip was hearing 6 brilliant lectures by Dr. John Freedman; 4 on Japan and 2 on Korea.   John is a complete Nippon Nut.  Go to his brilliant website ScholarAtSea.com and you will see the proof.  One of the interesting questions John posed was: “How could the Japanese, the kindest and politest people on earth be so cruel to Prisoners of War in World War 2.  I call it the Japanese enigma.

So I asked ChatGPT the question and here is its answer,

That’s a very insightful and painful question — and one that many historians, psychologists, and moral philosophers have wrestled with for decades. The contrast between Japan’s famously polite and harmonious culture and the extraordinary cruelty shown by many Japanese soldiers toward prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians in World War II is stark. But it becomes more understandable when you examine the historical, cultural, and psychological context of Japan before and during the war.

Let’s break it down carefully:

1. The Bushido Code and Its Militarized Distortion

• Traditional Bushido: The samurai code (Bushid?) emphasized loyalty, honour, courage, and self-sacrifice. It had noble ideals in peacetime.
• Militarized Version: In the early 20th century, the Imperial Japanese military distorted Bushid? into a state ideology that glorified dying for the emperor and viewed surrender as the ultimate shame.
• Implication: To Japanese soldiers indoctrinated in this mindset, an enemy who surrendered was beneath contempt—cowardly, subhuman even. This rationalized brutal treatment of POWs, who were seen as having forfeited honor.

2. Intense Indoctrination and Dehumanization

• From childhood through military training, Japanese citizens were taught:
  • The Emperor was divine.
  • Japan had a sacred destiny to lead Asia.
  • Westerners (and often Asians from other nations) were morally and culturally inferior.
• In the military, this was reinforced through extreme discipline and brutality. Soldiers were routinely beaten and humiliated by superiors.
  ? As a result, they often passed on this abuse to POWs and civilians — cruelty became normalized and even expected.

3. The Total War Mentality

• Japan’s leaders believed the war was a holy mission to free Asia from Western imperialism.
  • Anyone opposing Japan was an obstacle to that mission.
  • The concept of human rights had little meaning in a system focused entirely on duty and collective survival.
• When resources became scarce (especially late in the war), POWs were seen as expendable—essentially slave labor.

4. No Cultural Concept of “Chivalry in Defeat”

• Western militaries (especially British and American) had developed norms—partly from Christian ethics and 19th-century international law—that emphasized humane treatment of prisoners.
• Japan had not signed or did not internalize the Geneva Convention on POWs. The Japanese Army simply did not view captured soldiers as deserving of rights.

5. Psychological Factors in War Brutality

• Group conformity: Japan’s ultra-hierarchical society discouraged dissent; soldiers rarely questioned orders.
• Revenge and rage: Many Japanese soldiers had seen comrades die brutally or starve. Some took revenge on prisoners.
• Moral disengagement: The military system stripped soldiers of empathy through indoctrination and dehumanization, mechanisms that can make ordinary people capable of atrocities.

6. Aftermath: Postwar Reflection and Cultural Return to Humanity

• After 1945, Japan underwent a profound reckoning.
  • The Emperor renounced divinity.
  • Education was reformed to promote democracy, peace, and humanism.
• The politeness, empathy, and social harmony seen in postwar Japan represent, in part, a cultural reassertion of traditional values suppressed by militarism.

7. The Core Paradox

The “kindness and politeness” of Japanese culture was never erased — it was overridden by a totalitarian ideology that hijacked loyalty and obedience. When those same cultural traits (duty, conformity, self-sacrifice) were redirected toward a violent cause, they enabled collective cruelty rather than individual compassion.

I considered the psychological analysis to be weak so I asked ChatGPT to use my 7MTF system to analyse the enigma.

ChatGPT said:

Excellent question — and a perfect one for 7MTF (Seven Motivational Traits Framework) analysis.

Let’s unpack the paradox in the statement:

“How could the Japanese, the kindest and most politest people on earth, be so cruel to Prisoners of War in World War 2?”

This sentence expresses a deep psychological and cultural contradiction — between public civility and wartime cruelty. Using 7MTF, we can analyze both Japanese cultural motivations and how wartime ideology distorted them.

? 7MTF Analysis (core desire in brackets)

1. Politician (Power)

• Normal expression: Leadership, control, pride in hierarchy, loyalty to authority.
• Japanese context: The Japanese military and government were intensely hierarchical. Absolute obedience to superiors (Emperor worship, Bushido code) was a dominant cultural value.
• Wartime distortion: When combined with nationalism, this Politician trait turns into authoritarian dominance — unquestioning obedience, suppression of empathy, and justification of cruelty as “duty.”
  ? “I am not cruel; I am serving the Emperor.”

2. Engineer (Complete Projects and Systems)

• Normal expression: Precision, efficiency, planner, conscientious.
• Japanese context: Highly disciplined, process-driven, duty-bound society.
• Wartime distortion: The same systematic mindset led to ruthlessly efficient administration of prison camps and punishment routines. There was no compassion override built into the system.
  ? Bureaucratic cruelty executed with methodical order.

3. Artist (Creative and Aesthetic)

• Normal expression: Sensitivity, refinement, beauty, empathy.
• Japanese context: Deep aesthetic culture — refinement in manners, art, and ritual.
• Wartime distortion: Emotional repression and nationalistic indoctrination suppressed empathy. Emotional energy was redirected toward sacrificial idealism (dying for Emperor = beauty of death).
  ? Beauty and brutality coexisted under the same aesthetic discipline.

4. Regulator (Order / Tradition)

• Normal expression: Duty, rules, conformity, doing what is “right” by the code.
• Japanese context: Collective conformity, obedience to social order, moral rigidity.
• Wartime distortion: When moral codes define enemies as subhuman, cruelty becomes “right behaviour.” The individual suppresses compassion to conform to military virtue.
  ? “The rule says the enemy must suffer, so I obey.”

5. GoGetter (Financial Reward Abd Social Achievement)

• Normal expression: Striving, toughness, commercially realistic
• Japanese context: Perseverance (gaman) and stoic endurance are admired virtues.
• Wartime distortion: This turned into extreme toughness — both self-directed (suicidal devotion) and other-directed (harshness toward “weak” POWs).
  ? “If I can endure pain, they should too.”

6. DoubleChecker (Safety / Doubt)

• Normal expression: Caution, concern for doing the right thing, empathy from anxiety.
• Japanese context: In peacetime, this produced politeness, care, and attention to detail.
• Wartime distortion: In a militarized environment, anxiety about disobedience led to cruel overcompliance. Fear of appearing “soft” to superiors suppressed personal compassion.
  ? “If I show pity, I might be punished.”

? Integrative Summary

?? Conclusion

The Japanese people’s kindness and politeness arise from a cultural balance of Regulator, DoubleChecker, and Artist traits in peacetime — creating harmony, courtesy, and empathy.

During WWII, nationalism, military indoctrination, and hierarchical pressure overactivated Politician, Regulator, and GoGetter traits, suppressing empathy and amplifying cruelty.

So, the same motivational architecture that produces civility and discipline in peace can, under totalitarian pressure, produce ruthless obedience and cruelty in war.
It’s not that the Japanese people changed their basic psychology — it’s that their environment flipped the polarity of their motivations.

I do not agree with this conclusion

Instead I propose what happened is that Japan moved from a quasi-democracy to a (military) dictatorship.  The Dictator promises a fairer distribution of capital, abundant public housing and appeals to a soaring national spirit in which the people toil together and share in the spoils.

What actually happens are  sloth, corruption, absurdity and absolute control of everything by a ruling elite.  Unlike the population the ruling elite comprises people with dominant Politicians and GoGetter EQ traits.  Along with the Dictator they put the State above the Individual.  Gradually the rights and protection of the Individual such as The Rule Of Law, Presumption of Innocence, and Free Speech disappear.

I saw this when I visited the Soviet Union in 1965 and again during Covic (particularly in Victoria).

It is a path dictatorships follow again and again.  It is the reason my political beliefs are to the right of Ghengis Khan.  So when I see 100,000 marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge supporting Hamas I pity them for their ignorance.

My politics can be summed up by two quotes:

One by Churchill:   “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries”

The other by Thatcher: Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.