I used to be surprised when I discovered that many Millennials (and even some Gen Xers) are unaware of the Japanese Kamikaze attacks on American aircraft carriers and other warships largely during the 10-week battle for Okinawa from April to June, 1945. When told what it was all about, many were flummoxed to hear that nearly 4,000 Japanese aviators flew to their violent deaths in the attacks. (By comparison, the total estimated number of militant Islamic suicide bombers since the advent of the Islamic Jihad in the late 1970s is just over 4,000 in a half century.)
And then ask, "How did the Japanese government get them to do that?"
The answer has been a bone of contention for 75 years. Some assert that a natural patriotic spirit combined with the "typical discipline" of the Japanese people made for a generous pool of volunteers. Others claim the phenomenon was the result of cynically organized emotional blackmail, gaslighting and other types of typical cultic manipulations, including powerful coercion of adolescents already predisposed to putting the culture before their individual interests. (See the Wikipedia entry.)
Considering its obvious relevance to the events of 9-11-2001, and having plowed into several of the major and minor media articles that appear on Google when one searches their way into the topic, I was surprised myself to find that none of the "big names" -- like Jon Atack, Joel Kramer, Michael Langone, R. J. Lifton, Joost Meerloo, Margaret Singer in A Basic Cult Library -- have perused the matter. So I read what I could find and came up with a preliminary thesis:
Contrary to the popular notion generally seen when the motives of Jihadists and 9-11 "aviators" are examined, the Kamekazis were nowhere near as driven by patriotism and sense of duty to their culture as has been supposed for three generations. And moreover, similar circumstances may be the case among at least some of the Jihadists.
Because there are first-hand accounts of extreme coercion and even complete lack of election among those who were trained but either never flew a mission or survived when they did. Some even reported Soviet Communist-style pressure including threats against prospective trainees' family members, along with the same sort of intense, North Korean-style, group dynamic, conform-or-die-right-now peer pressure so often seen in Asian style meditation and 20th century "human potential" cults inducing "nowhere-else-to-turn" Learned Helplessness.
I propose that thesis as a starting point for further research on the basis of Michigan State University Prof. Hans Toch's Social Psychology of Social Movements on Cults & Political Parties, a widely accepted book published 55 years ago. Moreover a book that was widely trotted out after 9-11. for sure. And ask the following:
If it was possible for those at the ninth and tenth levels of a Cultic Pyramid in Japan in 1945 to put together a force of over 20,000 adolescents to not risk but surely give their lives to defend those at the top, what's to stop someone else from doing it now?
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