Talk:Emperor Jimmu/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"Commemorating Jimmu's reign"

About half the text of this article is irrelevant material that has nothing to do with Jimmu, gleaned from sources about World War II that either don't mention Jimmu at all, or briefly name-check him as the legendary founder of the Imperial dynasty. Most of this text is barely even relevant to discussion of the imperial cult in the early Showa period. This is entirely inappropriate, and is akin to filling the entire Joan of Arc article (2/4 images, most of the text) with material about Nazi Germany, because some sources briefly mention her being used as a symbol by the Free French.

User:CurtisNaito has reverted me twice in my attempts to remove this WP:OR that would ot have been allowed in other, better-patrolled articles. Per WP:BURDEN and WP:BRD I am going to remove it again, and it is not to be re-added in any form before discussion has taken place.

182.249.240.38 (talk) 10:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I checked both Britannica Kokusai and MyPedia. Both of them have substantial, independent articles on Emperor Jimmu. Neither article makes even one word of reference to World War II, Showa- (or Meiji-) era Japanese nationalism, or modern-day "commemoration" of "Jimmu's reign". I sincerely doubt that there exists a mainstream, general-reference, print encyclopedia that differs significantly on this point. User:CurtisNaito, can you locate such an encyclopedia article? And no, I will not accept and article on 神武天皇 that mentions 神武天皇祭, which mentions 大祭, which in turn mentions 皇室, which finally mentions 第二次世界大戦. It has to be an article on this subject that gives significant coverage to the material you want to add to this article. Let alone significant coverage, you won't be able to find one that even mentions that stuff. 182.249.240.10 (talk) 11:24, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The name of Jimmu did not disappear from history in ancient Japan. I think the current sourcing is sufficient because all these sources mention Jimmu in reference to events that are clearly based off his life and the alleged date he ascended to the throne. Not discussing this briefly would be like talking about Buddha's life without mentioning that his teachings formed the basis for modern-day Buddhism.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:32, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Why don't the other encyclopedias say so, then? The fact that sources discussing Showa-era Japanese nationalism and World War II briefly mention Emperor Jimmu doesn't mean anything for this article. If you want to go and create an article on those subjects and briefly mention Jimmu like your sources do, be my guest. But until you can locate an encyclopedia article on Emperor Jimmu that mentions World War II Japanese nationalism, you can't mention them in this article, and until you find an encyclopedia article on Emperor Jimmu that devotes half its text to World War II Japanese nationalism, you can't devote half of this article's text to the subject. When determining WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV we use WP:TERTIARY sources. End of story. 182.249.240.27 (talk) 06:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

A couple of things: first, Wikipedia's articles tend to be much longer and more comprehensive than other encyclopaedias, so there's no point comparing to other paper encyclopaedias. Having said that, the material ChrisNaito wants to keep does need a serious trim—the releant bits really could be stated much more concisely, and would serve the reader much better if they were. And can we cut out this "you don't have consensus for/against your edit" stuff? Nobody needs "consensus" to edit an article until after it's been established that there's a controversy. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:16, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Curly Turkey. Wikipedia isn't limited by what other encyclopedias contain or don't contain. The section should be shortened, but there's nothing wrong with its inclusion. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 07:25, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

My suggestion is that we delete the bit on music (the sentence starting with "The 1940 celebrations also included a concert..."), but the rest should be kept though possibly rearranged a little. I feel that the information dealing with Kigensetsu, the modern-day National Foundation Day, and Hakko Ichiu are all highly relevant to this article. In the event that Jimmu himself never existed one could even say that his legend, which was highly venerated during prewar Japan and is still remembered today through National Foundation Day, is more significant than the man himself.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:34, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Those subjects all have their own articles, though. An extensive discussion of the National Foundation Day in this article is equivalent to including an extensive discussion of modern-day (or 1940s!) 4 July customs in our George Washington article. A one-sentence explanation of each, linking to said articles, should be sufficient. The photos need to stay out, though, per WP:WEIGHT and WP:RELEVANT. 182.249.240.30 (talk) 12:44, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

A few paragraphs of discussion is not particularly extensive. For the record, I favor keeping the photos and more or less maintaining the number of paragraphs. In terms of relevance, Jimmu may himself be a legend and thus the impact that his legend has had in modern times is just as relevant, actually maybe more relevant, than the rest of the article. It's important that we give it sizable weight in this article, though I naturally expect articles like the one on National Foundation Day itself to include a whole lot more than the one or two paragraphs that we use in this article to discuss it.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:24, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

We should at the very least keep the photograph of the Hakko Ichiu monument, though I suppose actually that all the photographs in this article are relevant to the modern era since that is when they were created. The IP user suggests that the pictures from the modern era represent undue weight but actually, ALL the pictures in this article were produced during the modern era which further indicates the importance of this period.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:33, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Artistic representations of the events in Jimmu's life as depicted in the very limited primary-sources are inherently relevant to the subject of this article. Photographs of tombs associated with and shrines dedicated to him are as well. In fact when I think of "modern commemoration" of "Jimmu's reign" I think of the Kashihara Shrine. Photos of obscure 1940s rituals that hardly anyone at the time (much less now) associated with Emperor Jimmu, are not. You have yet to provide any real justification for this material's inclusion in the article, instead merely expressing your (frankly quite irrelevant) opinion that the material is relevant. You have not provided a single source. And you have now admitted that you are unwilling to compromise with me or with either me or User:Curly Turkey with your insistence that we not even trim the "mere two paragraphs" in question. 182.249.240.37 (talk) 02:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

So why did you remove all that information when it was cited and was obviously about Jinmu, and the statement that National Foundation Day is still celebrated? I don't really care that the photo stays, but the article still mentions Hakko Ichiu and should be explained. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 04:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I find that the material in question is certainly relevant to Jimmu and the haphazard deletion of these portions of it doesn't make much sense. Incidentally, Peter Martin who wrote profiles of each of the emperors of Japan in his book "The Chrysanthemum Throne" devotes more than half of his biography of Jimmu to the veneration of him that occurred in the modern era. This period is prominently mentioned by so many historians in so many different sources that I can't imagine why we delete this material.CurtisNaito (talk) 05:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

You asked to come to the talk page, but you continue to remove cited information. At the very least, can you explicitly explain why each sentence you removed doesn't belong in the article? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not about whether it's "cited". It's about whether it belongs in this article and not in National Foundation Day. No one has demonstrated that it does, other than appealing to the fact that it's in "reliable" (but not relevant) sources. 182.249.240.13 (talk) 05:45, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Peter Martin who wrote profiles of each of the emperors of Japan in his book "The Chrysanthemum Throne" devotes more than half of his biography of Jimmu to the veneration of him that occurred in the modern era So what you're saying is, a book written by a Western historian, primarily focussing on the role the Imperial Family played in the politics of the Meiji-Showa periods, also focuses on modern politics when discussing the mythical first emperor? Shocker! You really got me there. I guess now that you have pointed this out, I should drop my request that you find a general encyclopedia with an independent article on Emperor Jimmu, that devotes half its content to this material. </sarcasm> 182.249.240.13 (talk) 06:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN deals with information lacking sources, so that doesn't really apply. How is it not relevant when it's about him, and why can't the information be in both articles? That's like erasing half of Okinawa Prefecture#History because it basically repeats what's on History of Ryukyu Islands. Besides, National Foundation Day doesn't even mention Hakko Ichiu.

I'm pretty sure that most general encyclopedias with independent articles on Emperor Jinmu don't even have as much information as what's here without the debated information. If they're limited by space and editibility, then it's not a fair comparison. How about we just call for a WP:RFC? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 07:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

If the Okinawa and Ryukyu history articles were on completely different, only peripherally related subjects, your analogy would hold weight. It's not about the length of the articles, but what's in them. If all of the other encyclopedia articles are 33% the size of our one with the disputed points, but our coverage of the same basic information takes up only 50% of our article, with the other 50% being made up entirely of peripheral material that the editorial teams of every single print encyclopedia decided didn't belong in their Emperor Jimmu articles, then we have a WP:WEIGHT problem. If this was Hijiripedia I would say excise the 50% peripheral undue material entirely. But since Wikipedia is collaborative I'm settling for the 60% (mostly blatant WP:SYNTH) I removed yesterday. We could keep arguing over the 60%, but I guarantee you you will lose that argument as soon as we take this to WP:ORN, WP:FTN or wherever else we can get unbiased community input. 182.249.240.13 (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

None of what you deleted was synthesis. Are you certain you've read the sources in question because it appears to me that they report precisely what the article says. Peter Martin's book was a full history of the imperial family which included profiles of other ancient emperors, but only in Jimmu's case is the modern era especially relevant.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Taking a source that barely mentions Jimmu, written by an author who probably has no training in the relevant fields, and overrunning this article with a summary of what it says about a subject only peripherally related to this article is WP:SYNTH. You have already been called out for this. Also, Martin was one author, arguably on the fringe of this field, whose personal choices regarding how he wrighs his book are utterly irrelevant to how we should write this encyclopedia article. PERIOD. 182.249.240.16 (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

It's still not clear where the alleged synthesis is because all the sources are correctly cited and they all mention Jimmu prominently. Neither was there any clear evidence of synthesis in the other discussion you linked to. If this matter weren't significant then Jimmu's name wouldn't be mentioned so frequently in this regard in so many reliable secondary sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Break for convenience

Okay, so it seems in the disputed section we have 14 citations to 10 different sources by 9 authors. Below I examine these sources and how they are being (mis)used in this article.

detailed analysis of the 10 sources cited in this section, and how m ost of them are being misused

Martin 1997 is a book primarily discussing 19th- and 20th-century Japanese political history, with brief entries on most pre-1868 Emperors. In its 45-line (1.5-page) article on Jimmu, it begins with a 16-line paragraph about how in 1873 the Japanese government determined that Jimmu founded Japan on 11 February 660 BCE, and the dates were determined for political reasons related to international relations. It then goes into a fairly-detailed description of Jimmu's reign as described in the Nihon Shoki. It closes on a 3-line statement that from 1873 to 1945 an imperial envoy was sent to visit Jimmu's tomb in Kashihara. World War II is barely mentioned: "Accordingly, 11 February was designated National Foundation Day, a national holiday, and it was ritually celebrated as such until the end of the Second World War, when it was renamed National Foundation Memorial Day". The chronology here is overly simplified, as might be expected from a book that is not about this subject, and is contradicted by several of our other sources. Ruoff 2001 is a book that is explicitly written to discuss Japanese politics between 1945 and 1995. It contains some brief mentions of Emperor Jimmu when discussing National Foundation Day and Kashihara Shrine, but otherwise does not appear to give him any significant coverage. It is therefore inappropriate to be basing large chunks of our BIO article on Jimmu on a book primarily about his great, great, great ... great grandson. Ponsonby-Fane 1959 is a very old source that seems to at least be relevant, though it is only being used as a source for a non-controversial statement that I have never advocated removing. Since the statement is essentially "Kashihara Shrine was built in 1890", I would prefer a government- or shrine-linked source to the two peripheral sources (one very old, the other about Showa-Heisei politics) currently cited. These three sources are cited exclusively for non-controversial statements to which I am not opposed, with the only things that need verification being dates, and using two or three sources for dates is tricky because even if they do say the same thing, it looks like they are being SYNTHesized, especially when they do so in different contexts. For instance, when briefly analyzing Ruoff I got the impression that he didn't say "1890" for the foundation of Kashihara Shrine, until I noticed "two years later" followed several lines down from "1888". We could just use the official Kashihara website for this date, though. Bix 2001 is a massive (800-page) biography of a particular 20th-century emperor that appears to barely mention Jimmu at all. It is the only source given to a largely no-context half-paragraph about the "Hakko Ichiu" monument. The book was available from Google Play and at a discount, and Bix appears to be a respected scholar, so I bought the book (I'll read it on the bus to work in the coming months). The preview's claim that Jimmu's name is mentioned three times in the whole 800 pages is accurate. In particular, page 201, the page being cited, makes no reference to Emperor Jimmu. Citing a source on a completely-unrelated topic in order to include an extensive commentary on said topic in this article is definitely WP :SYNTH. What Curtis (and whoever added the material initially) has done is created an article that claims "The phrase Hakko Ichiu comes from the Nihon Shoki.<source=Nihon Shoki> The phrase Hakko Ichiu was also associated with early-Showa Japanese nationalism.<source=Bix 2001>" This is the very definition of WP:SYNTH, as the article now leads the reader to an entirely original conclusion that neither of the sources give by themselves. Worse still, though, is the fact that "Hakko Ichiu" itself does not appear to be mentioned on page 201! The article claims specifically that Emperor Jimmu and "Hakko Ichiu" had since 1928, [...] been espoused by the Imperial government as an expression of Japanese expansionism. But while page 201 does cover events in 1928 (NOT 1940, though), it is focused on military expansion in Shandong and suppression of communism and Sect Shinto. Curtis, where the devil is the discussion of "Hakko Ichiu" and Emperor Jimmu in Bix 2001!? Earhart 2007 appears to be an even more blatant example of a book about World War II that doesn't even mention Jimmu once, being SYNTHesized with other sources that may or may not mention the phrase "Hakko Ichiu" in relation to Emperor Jimmu. Unfortunately the book doesn't appear to mention "Hakko Ichiu" either. Curtis: World War II is not my primary area of interest, and I'm not that interested in going out of my way to acquire this book. This should not disqualify me from editing this article, of course, since Emperor Jimmu has hardly anything to do with World War II. Can you provide me with a relevant quotation from page 63? I'd prefer you don't give me your own paraphrase, since I know how prone you are to reading things into sources that aren't there. If you give me the quote, then we can talk about how relevant this book on World War II is to our article on Japan's first emperor. Of course, the statement that Hakko ichiu [read=Emperor Jimmu] envisioned the un ification of the world [...] under the Emperor's "sacred rule" definitely requires a top-class source that not only mentions Emperor Jimmu, but specifically makes this claim. Otherwise, we can't include the claim in the article. Dower 1993 is another book on World War II that (barely?) mentions Emperor Jimmu's name five times in 400+ pages. The statement to which it is attached is not really controversial, assuming that the Nihon Shoki actually does say Jimmu found five races in Japan and made them all "as brothers of one family". However, why would we need a book about World War II for a statement like this? No, the real problem is that this statement begins "... just as ...", creating an original, artificial connection between what Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993 say. (Asa less critical aside, quotations should generally be directly attributed to their source, even if not in the form of an inline citation. If the phrase "brothers of one family" originates with the Nihon Shoki or its translator, you have to mention that somewhere, not just falsely attribute the quotation to Dower.) Ruoff 2010 is (SURPRISINGLY!) actually a book about the 1940 celebration of Emperor Jimmu's supposed founding of the country 2,600 years earlier. Unfortunately, page 186 isn't actually about the "Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites" that "still exist today"; it mentions these as one (the lesser?) of two examples of monuments that the author apparently believes should probably be taken down or altered to reflect the historical/archaeological consensus that they are inauthentic. Brownlee 1999 appears to actually be about a topic relevant to this article (TWO IN A ROW!!), but why do we need two citations from this book, on top of Ruoff 2010, for this factual statement? Page 136 actually doesn't support the statement at all, as it discusses political pressure on professional historians (not archaeologists) to support the Founding Day celebrations in 1940, with no reference to sacred sites. Curtis, what exactly is on Brownlee 1999 pages 180-185 that backs up this statement? And why is it relevant to cite another page from Brownlee 1999 that doesn't? And why is Brownlee 1999 necessary at all when Ruoff 2010 is (almost) sufficient? JT 1998 is attached to a factual statement that is not wrong, but belongs in the article on National Foundation Day, not here, since it is discussing National Foundation Day, not Emperor Jimmu. Additionally, I would worry that while it might be adequate in describing modern-day (or 1990s? Japan has changed a lot since then...) political controversies surrounding the holiday, the (anonymous?) writer of the article is probably a staff writer at the Japan Times, not a professional historian, and so is likely just re-stating the claims of more reliable sources. This is another reason the statement (and the source) belong in an article on the modern holiday, not the mythical emperor. Tokutake 1995 is an apparently-reliable source being attached to a statement that may or may not belong in the version of this article I am aiming for. The problem is that I don't know a whole lot about school history textbooks in Japan and the problems they have, and I'd be willing to bet that while this statement may have been relevant in the 1970s or the 1990s, we are now at a stage where no Japanese under 50 would even remember this, and so the statement as worded (many Japanese history textbooks continued well into the 1970s to promote the story) is lending undue weight to something that isn't even a concern anymore. And while I don't know very well what Japanese politicians force Japanese schoolchildren to learn, I do know what Irish politicians forced me to learn, and blurring the lines between legends and facts seems to be something first- and second-level history syllabi do throughout the world, not just in Japan. If this is the case then we are essentially lending undue weight to one particular scholar's view of the Japanese education system. Perhaps, if someone would clarify what Tokutake actually says on pages 172 to 178, we could say something like "Pedagogical historian Toshio Tokutake has criticized Japanese history textbooks for continuing to claim the myth of Emperor Jimmu as fact several decades after World War II"?

So we can clearly see that of the 10 sources:

• 2 (Ruoff 2001 and Bix 2001) are specifically discussing a different emperor and give only passing reference to his legendary ancestor;
• 2 (Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993) are specifically discussing World War II and not Emperor Jimmu, and these are being WP:SYNTHesized together to make them seem relevant;
• 2 (Ruoff 2010 and Brownlee 1999) are clumsily attached to the same statement that one doesn't appear to support, and the other doesn't indicate is relevant;
• 1 (JT 1998) is specifically about a modern holiday that has its own article already, and not about Emperor Jimmu;
• 1 (Martin 1997) blatantly doesn't say what Curtis claims it does (World War II gets all of half a sentence);
• 1 (Ponsonby-Fane 1959) is extremely old and barely necessary, since it is attached to an uncontroversial statement;
• 1 (Tokutake 1995) appears to be taken out of context, as it only appears to be talking about how Japanese (primary school?) history textbooks (at one time?) blurred the line between legend and history -- without further international context that I don't think we can provide here, this statement as worded is problematic.

@User:CurtisNaito: Your refusal to even discuss this issue with me is beginning to get frustrating. I left your version of the page intact for six days[1][2] while I waited for you to respond to me on the talk page. After you didn't, I assumed you had given up, and so reverted[3][4] to a reasonable compromise version that cut out most of the problem material but left the section basically intact. You immediately reverted me claiming there is "no consensus to delete".[5] It is increasingly unclear whether you know what the word "consensus" means. It doesn't mean that I need your consent. It seems right now that there's a 3-1 consensus, against maintaining the section as is.

It's worth noting that of the two users other than Curtis and myself who have weighed in one stated unequivocally that Curtis's preferred version needed to be trimmed but that we shouldn't delete the whole section; the other (initially?) agreed. Therefore, my most recent edits to the article, that trim the problematic POV, UNDUE and SYNTH material but leave the section intact, is tentatively supported by all parties but Curtis, whereas the latter's insistence on not cutting a thing has not been supported by anyone.

@User:CurtisNaito & User:Sturmgewehr88: Even if WP:BURDEN focuses on material that lacks sources entirely, WP:LETTER says that that doesn't matter; the letter of BURDEN may say that, but the spirit of BURDEN is that the BURDEN is on the party wishing to include material to obtain consensus to do so, not on a party wishing to keep said material out. If consensus is not explicitly in favour of inclusion, then it stays out. I don't need "consensus" to remove contentious material if Curtis is the only one who wants to keep it; if Curtis wants to keep it in the article HE is the one who needs consensus to include it. At the moment we have one user (me) with a solid proposal to trim the section, one user (Curly Turkey) saying we should trim the section but not indicating how, and one user (Sturmgewehr88) who apparently supports a weaker form of trimming; no one here actually agrees with Curtis that all the material needs to stay as is. Therefore, the default position should be that the material is all cut and discussion should take place as to what is put back in. I have tried to compromise by only cutting the blatantly SYNTH, POV or WEIGHT material, but Curtis has continued to revert me nonetheless. I will continue to discuss here (and elsewhere if need be) before reverting again, however. If, like last week, Curtis drops out of the discussion only to come back after I edit the article, we may have a problem.

@User:Sturmgewehr88: When you stated that you agreed with Curly Turkey's proposal to trim but not remove the section, what did you mean, exactly? I cut several POV/UNDUE/SYNTH sentences, but you now seem to be saying that you are in favour of including these SYNTH/UNDUE/POV sentences.

Unlike Curly Turkey, I never said trim; I meant rewrite the section (i.e. Summarize) so it doesn't take up half the article, but keep the meaning of what the original section said. I was also neutral on removing the monument photo and in favor of removing the second image which was removed. With SYNTH, you could always rewrite it to fix it. I understand the WEIGHT issue is because of the length of the section compared to the rest of the article, but this can be fixed by summarizing the section or expanding the article. And lastly can you give an example of which sentences you consider POV? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 13:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

"rewrite the section (i.e. Summarize)": is pretty much what I meant by "trim". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@User:Curly Turkey: You stated that you were in favour of trimming the section, but not removing it entirely. What do you think of the edit I made earlier that trimmed the material I believe to be problematic? Also, you and I seem to be in basic agreement on the "consensus" issue: have you noticed how many times Curtis has been claiming I need "consensus" to make this edit?[6][7]

I thought the section was messy and took longer than it should to get to the point—I wasn't questioning the validity of the material or the sources, which I haven't looked at and probably won't. I don't think I'll have much more of any opinion on it until someone gets around to doing a proper job on this article. WP:SYNTH is a bad thing, but it's not necessarily SYNTH to use a variety of sources for different aspects.

You definitely don't need consensus to add the material, especially if it's sourced. If it's legitimately disputed (say, due to SYNTH or WP:DUE), the consensus may be to remove it. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@User:Nishidani You haven't been involved in this dispute, but CurtisNaito has been repeating a SYNTHy pattern you pointed out on Talk:Battle of Shigisan, so I'm interested in getting your opinion here. Curtis today claimed that there was no SYNTH on the "Battle of Shigisan" article, which seems like a refutation of your point from last year.

Lastly, I must apologize to all involved for an incredibly wordy post (it's even more if you check the WP:COMMENTs I left in the code). But after more than a week of tippytoeing around the issues that I thought were so numerous and obvious I thought I would receive no resistance, it seems several users still needed the SYNTH and WEIGHT problems laid out as plainly as possible.

182.249.240.4 (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The fact is that all the sources in question mention aspects of Jimmu's legend in a prominent manner, and Jimmu wouldn't keep cropping up in reliable secondary sources like this if it weren't relevant. You say that Jimmu is mentioned too briefly in these sources, but that's true of the entire article. Look at the sources which this article cites relating to Jimmu's actual reign, which you say is relevant, such as Wakabayashi, Kelly, Kitagawa, Brinkley, Ooms, etc... Most of these sources actually mention Jimmu in LESS space than the sources cited in the "Commemorating Jimmu's reign" section. This is not really due to synthesis, but basically because no full-length scholarly discussion of Jimmu's entire life and legacy has been written in English and so with English sources we basically rely on those books which have written chapters or paragraphs on Jimmu rather than detailed treatises on his entire legacy. That's true of Jimmu's modern-day legend and even more true of his ancient reign. The first complaint you made against the article was insufficient sources but it was only after I fixed the sourcing issues that you mentioned the synthesis problem. The fact is that the section on the modern-day veneration of Jimmu has been a longstanding and uncontroversial part of the article which is well sourced, and given these facts it should not be subject to deletions without consensus. The parts you deleted seemed fairly arbitrary to me because it still isn't clear why Hakko Ichiu and treatment of Jimmu in post-World War II textbooks isn't relevant to Jimmu's legend. The 1940 Kigensetsu, for instance, which you had earlier implied was only peripherally relevant to Jimmu, was highly infused with Jimmu's life. The Hakko Tower was constructed on the site of Jimmu's former palace and was named after a direct quote of his. One of the sources noted that millions of pilgrims paid homage to Jimmu at Kashihara Shrine in the year 1940. The sources cited for this which mention Jimmu are actually more detailed than the ones dealing with his alleged actual reign. Originally you wanted to delete the entire section, but I don't think one other person has supported that. None of your other edits have achieved consensus yet, so for the time being we should leave the sourced information as it is until a consensus to change is reached.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

no full-length scholarly discussion of Jimmu's entire life and legacy has been written in English and so with English sources we basically rely on those books which have written chapters or paragraphs on Jimmu rather than detailed treatises on his entire legacy

That's an extraordinarily confident statement. There are numerous detailed studies on the Jimmu legend, on the reasons for its fabrication, and the uses it was put to. You can begin with the old article by Boleslaw Szczesniak,'The Sumu-Sanu Myth. Notes and Remarks on the Jimmu Tenno Myth,' in Monumenta Nipponica,Vol. 10, No. 1/2 (1954), pp. 107-126.Nishidani (talk) 16:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

That's a good source which should be added to the article, but still fairly short compared with Japanese scholarship. That article is quite narrowly focused and even describes itself as being "notes and remarks", so I stand by my previous statement. In Japanese, by contrast, Jimmu has been the subject of full length biographies such as the ones written by Teiji Kadowaki and Seiji Uemura in 1957. Since I'm working on other projects I don't currently have the time to read those books, but the point I want to make is that the section on "Commemorating Jimmu's reign" is still more reliably sourced than the rest of the article. Certainly, a long-term project can be embarked on to expand the entire article, but deleting reliably sourced material from the article won't help that goal.CurtisNaito (talk) 17:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

There's scholarship, Japanese scholars now publish in English, as non-Japanese scholars of Japan publish in Japanese. They are a community beyond ethnic or linguistic divisions, and what is published in Japanese is read as rapidly abroad as in Japan. (2) There is no such thing as a biography of Jimmu, anymore than there are biographies of Yamato-takeru, Achilles or Gilgamesh. Non-existent people don't have biographies. What you have are studies of Jimmu traditions. The material you mention is too dated to be of use. There is an opportunity being missed here to write a scrupulouslo close article of Jimmu in ancient texts, later tradition, scholarship and commemoration, but editing the wreck we have here in bits and pieces is a waste of time, since no one will read it.Nishidani (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think deleting the entire article would be an extreme solution, and if no one will step up the plate to rewrite the entire article we might as well proceed step-by-step. I should note that the section on "Commemorating Jimmu's reign" was mostly written with modern sources, and while I agree that sources from before World War II are potentially tainted anything written after 1945 when free speech existed in Japan should be okay. You say that sources from 1957 are too old, but didn't you just recommend the use of a source from 1954?CurtisNaito (talk) 18:29, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

You made a statement about the lack of sources in English. I cited one of the early studies as a starting point. I didn't say 'use it'. I said it's a useful starting point if you wish to explore English-language studies focused specifically on Jimmu.

Look, we write wikipedia in order to have articles that, for their topic, aspire to gain a reputation as the most reliable, up-to-date quick but comprehensive introductions to everything. It's painful to see that a country with such an extraordinarily rich culture and an equally profound culture of scholarship so poorly treated. I looked at this article today, and shook my head. Most of the elementary things are ignored, there's no coordination of templates for sourcing, errors abounded, like the example of Jimmu's Japanese name, googled stuff, random sourcing, abounds, and what is the discussion engaging? The use of Jimmu's legend in modern times.

There is a logical order in articles.

• Intro summing up the article

  Jimmu's various names, and perhaps etymologies.

  His ancestry according to myth.

  The earliest legendary accounts of his deeds and utterances

  The way modern scholarship handles the issue of when and to what purpose this legend was tailored (710-720.

  Further early mentions, and the development of the legend in medieval, and Tokugawa times

  The way the Jimmu legend was redeployed from Meiji onwards.

  Commemorative rituals

  His appearances in general culture, films, books, television etc.

Of all of these, only the commemorative and political aspects in modernity is being focused on, which is a case of putting the 乗り物 or 牛車 before the 馬.

If one did this by methodical editing, in chronological order, one would have a GA template to do all the other articles on Japan's legendary emperors.

Everyone begs off saying they are busy. Busy enough to drop in dribs and drabs for a patchwork of 'stuff' that no right-minded reader would care for. Editing in this manner is quite pointless, and is usually indexed by the quantity of discussions that accompany incompetent pages. Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, that does look like a good template. I'm curious to know though whether you yourself have a plan to implement it in the article.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:37, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

He does have a point, and that's basically the template that most encyclopedic articles follow. But that is the issue of completely rewriting this: who will do it? I honestly wouldn't be interested in doing it, especially not single-handedly. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 21:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

In the name section, it would take anyone just 2 minutes to copy the variants from the Japanese sister page, transliterate them, adopt the format for this that we have, and plunk them down here. Just to start the first section. It's obvious, no sweat, and no one does it. If I see signs of a willingness to work, I always help. That's why I don't work many of these pages.Nishidani (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

There are over four million articles on Wikipedia, most of them as badly in need of work as this one. Some of us are busy working on some of them. If it's "obvious, no sweat", and important to you, then get to work on it. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 08:43, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you proposing we translate the Japanese Wikipedia article on Jimmu into English? Although that would be easy to do, the problem is that the Japanese Wikipedia article is not well cited. It's actually even more poorly cited than this one. One thing I wonder if you could do, which would be easy and useful, would be to append a list of recent English-language articles or books dealing primarily with Emperor Jimmu to the "References" list. You said that you were familiar with a lot of more recent English-language scholarship on Jimmu but probably a lot of other people aren't and the next person who wants to take up this job could use the new sources listed in the reference section in order to help them expand the article. It's not much, but it might lay the seeds for a better article some day later.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I keep having to explain clear remarks. I never advised translating the Jimmu article into English. Please dfon't read between the lines when the surface grammar is unambiguous. I gave one short pointer on how easy it is to fix one glaring problem, i.e., on Jimmu's name. Watching the clock, I excerpted in 17 seconds and plunked here

『古事記』では神倭伊波礼琵古命（かむやまといわれひこのみこと）と称され、『日本書紀』では神日本磐余彦尊（かむやまといわれひこのみこと）、始馭天下之天皇（はつくにしらすすめらみこと）、若御毛沼命（わかみけぬのみこと）、狹野尊（さののみこと）、彦火火出見（ひこほほでみ）と称される。神武天皇という呼称は、奈良時代後期の文人である淡海三船が歴代天皇の漢風諡号を一括撰進したときに付されたとされる。

You can neglect the etymological speculations for the moment. Oumi no Mifune's role in creating the names is found with a 5 second search in Jacques H. Kamstra Encounter Or Syncretism: The Initial Growth of Japanese Buddhism, Brill 1967 pp.65-67 which also explains how ōkimi titles after the Taika reforms were reworked as tennō, and that all putative 'Emperors' before Ōjin were probably conferred with this monicker by Omi no Mifune. There I've done the work you all suggest is arduous, tough, for someone else, another day, in, . . .165 seconds, less time that it took for any of the comments above to be written.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

"Hakko Ichiu" etymology

@User:CurtisNaito: You've claimed numerous times in the article text that Hakko Ichiu is an "ancient phrase ... attributed to Emperor Jimmu".[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] I would like you to to tell me exactly which of your (専門外) sources makes this claim, and exactly how "ancient" they consider the phrase to be. My source (the Britannica Kokusai Dai-Hyakkajiten article "hakkou ichiu") says the word was coined in 1903 by Tanaka Chigaku and borrowed in 1940 by Fumimaro Konoe. What gives? 182.249.240.33 (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it pointless to ask CN's opinion, since it is just patently wrong. It is well known that it was coined from the line: 然後、兼六合以開都、掩八紘而為宇、不亦可乎 in the 日本書紀 巻第三 (Sakamoto Tarō, Ienaga Saburō, Inoue Mitsusada, Ōno Susumu (eds.) Nihon Shoki, Iwanami Koten Bungaku Taikei 67 1967 p.213 column 6 midpage), by Tanaka Chigaku in 1904, or in 1912-13 from the above passage. Wiki articles usually cite Walter Edwards,'Forging Tradition for a Holy War:The Hakko Ichiu Tower in Miyazaki and Japanese Wartime Ideology,'in Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol 29, No 2 (Summer 2003) p.304 (which is the English version of his paper in Miyazaki-hi shozai 'Hakkō ichiu' no tō' in Tenri University Journal (1998) 187:pp.143-155).Taeko Teshima's doctoral dissertation, Myths of Hakkō Ichiu: Nationalism, Liminality, and Gender in Official Ceremonies of Modern Japan, University of Arizona 2006 p.85 n.154 says Tanaka first used the term in 1912-13(contradicting the main text which pins it down to 1904). I see now that this is already clear from the wiki article Hakkō ichiu, which means CN is violating repeatedly the available wiki-based and extra-wiki sourced evidence, behaviour that, if persisted in, should be drawn to administrators' attention. Nishidani (talk) 12:47, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I already pointed out "loosely based" on a quote attributed to Emperor Jimmu in an email to User:Sturmgewehr88. And since no one since ... Motoori Norinaga(?) has taken the Chinese-influenced quotations from Emperor Jimmu seriously as literal history, it seems pretty pointless to include that information in our article on Emperor Jimmu. As I've stated numerous times already, while some (very few) books and articles on subjects 1940s Japanese nationalism, the Pacific War, and the phrase itself might briefly mention this emperor, almost no books or articles on this emperor even mention any of those things, and even when they do they never say the kind of things CN's preferred version of this article says.

Also, CN's most recent string of reverts have cited Edwards for the "ancient phrase" wording (actually naming the source "jimmu", implying he has no interest in actually consulting sources that are about Emperor Jimmu). I haven't taken the time to read Edwards yet but does he actually specify that this is a modern coinage? Because if he actually says the opposite of what CN claims then we might have a problem.

126.0.96.220 (talk) 13:02, 6 June 2014 (UTC) (182...)

All the sources cited in that section directly link Emperor Jimmu with Hakko Ichiu. If you have a disagreement with these sources then it's the noticeboard on reliable sources that we should consult because the claim of original research is not true. Here is what the sources say.

Edward="Atop a tableland in the city of Miyazaki stands a stone tower, nearly 37 meters tall, its front face bearing the cryptic motto "hakko ichiu" in large characters (Figure 1). On its back, another bold inscription gives its date of construction as "kigen 2,600 nen," or year 2,600 of the current era. Both in scriptions link the tower to the realm of Japanese myth and, moreover, to the account contained therein of Jimmu, the legendary first emperor credited with founding the Japanese nation... The four-character formula hakko ichiu derives from a statement attributed to Jimmu just prior to his ascension... The text from which hakko ichiu thus derives is the Nihon shoki, compiled in a.D. 720 as the official history of the ancient Japanese state, whose ruling dynasty laid claim to Jimmu as its founding ancestor, and through him to divine descent from the Sun Goddess herself."

Dower="When Emperor Jimmu founded the Japanese state 2,600 years earlier, the Japan Times and Mail explained, the land was inhabited by at least five different races. Jimmu declared that they should unite under 'one roof'... it was the same account of Jimmu extending his sway over the diverse peoples of ancient Japan, based on a passage in the earliest written chronicles of Japan, dating from the eighth century, which inspired Japan's World War Two slogan about the country's divine mission to bring all races and nations of the world under 'one roof'."

Earheart="After all, it was Emperor Jinmu, the founder of the nation, who was said to have used the phrase, 'Hakko Ichiu' ('the eight corners [of the world] under one roof') to describe his unification of the known world under his sacred rule."

This information is well sourced and clearly relevant to Jimmu. Since we have three scholarly sources stating that Hakko Ichiu was directly linked with Emperor Jimmu, we can't delete it unless we find a number of reliable sources explicitly stating that Hakko Ichiu was not attributed to Emperor Jimmu.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, dearie, weary me. I must assume you are sincere but as at Shigisen, your inability to understand what informed scholars are saying causes editors endless grief . .

All the above shows you are utterly incapable of reading your sources, lack an intuitive or acquired feel for the niceties of scholarly prose, and the evidence suggests you are either googling bits you want to read, or ignoring anything else in those texts which clarifies precisely what Hijiri and myself are saying.

• The statement from Edward 'The four-character formula hakko ichiu derives from a statement attributed to Jimmu just prior to his ascension,'is on p.290.
• On page 304 'the four-character slogan hakko ichiu derived from Jimmu's proclamation. Its invention is attributed to Tanaka Chigaku. Here 'derived from' is glossed' by '(invented by) Tanaka Chigaku'.
• The statement from John Dower p.221 reads:based on a passage in the earliest written chronicles of Japan, dating from the eighth century, which inspired Japan's World War Two slogan . Dower is reporting WW2 hypernationalist rhetoric in the Japan Times, not what scholars know. Dower everywhere in that book refers to it as a 'popular slogan' (pp.246,284)

This confirms that both Dower and Edward are fully aware that hakkō ichiu is not an ancient phrase, but a phrase 'invented' by a modern figure or one based on words in Japan's early chronicles. To call it an ancient phrase is to completely misunderstand the very sources you cite. It is not an ancient phrase because, as the direct quote from the Nihonshoki I cited shows, only 3 of the four characters are in that source, and two are separated from the third. That is why in the form used by fascists which is endlessly repeated, is derived from the Nihonshoki, but does not appear in the Nihon shoki. It is a precise, important and simple distinction, and one you have utterly failed to grasp.

For the record, Tanaka coined the phrase in a four-hour lecture given in November 1903, Kōso no Kenkoku to Honge no Taikyō.(皇宗の建国と本化の大教) The lecture was published in April 1904 as Sekai Tōitsu no Tengyō (世界統一の天業). In the written version (1903) he used 天地一宇. In his 1912-1913 lectures he reverts to 八紘一宇, ‘his succinct version of the Nihongi wording (whose Chinese text gave him trouble in interpreting). ‘This is the origin, it seems, of the slogan adopted by the ultra-nationalists of the 1930s and 1940s'. Edwin B. Lee, ‘Nichiren and Nationalism: The Religious Patriotism of Tanaka Chigaku,’. in Monumenta Nipponica 1975, 30:1 (1975).pp.19-35 pp.28-29.

Got it, then? Please stop waffling and wasting people's time.Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

However, all the sources mention Jimmu in association with Hakko Ichiu. One could certainly argue that Jimmu's alleged intentions were being misused, but the fact is that during the 1930's and 1940's everyone in Japan attributed the phrase to Jimmu and that is notable. In consideration of your concerns, however, I'll add "derived" into the text. There is still no reason to delete it.CurtisNaito (talk) 17:25, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

You are correct that the article on Jimmu can have a section on the uses to which his legend was put in modern times. But please, please, try to understand what fellow editors say, the nuances of scholarship. To avoid WP:Synth you just need to get documents and books which address specifically the modern uses of the Jimmu legend. I gave you two (Lee now), but there are many, in Japanese and other languages.Nishidani (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the edits you made are fine. Frankly, I would have provided these additional details myself but I was being urged by another user to cut rather than expand the text so my originally goal was to keep it short and leave the details for other articles. Having said that, I like the current version better and I hope that the information in this article which is reliably sourced will not be subject to further deletions.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, fine, but not understanding the points being made has forced other editors to do a lot of work and spend time here more profitably spent on other things. Your last edit left in the very phrasing I had shown to be dubious, suggesting to me that, even while accepting my points, you were reluctant to actually edit to the facts. There's a large amount of crap in the article. The Eastward campaign is pure WP:OR for the simple reason that the Kojiki and Nihon shoki accounts conflict on several points. There is no one 'eastward movement'. There are legends that tells of this in different ways, and serious editing means that one must use secondary sources aware of the clash in the versions in order to rewrite the crappy synthetic version we have. Actually, it's far far more interesting than the dull story we tell here. But I'm fucked if I have more time to waste on fixing these articles. The faults are obvious.Nishidani (talk) 20:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

CurtisNaito, stop edit-warring

@User:CurtisNaito: The material you are still arguing to include has been challenged. Some of it has been thoroughly disproven with reference to reliable sources. Other bits are not supported by the sources you are citing. Please discuss here before reverting again. You are the only one arguing for the material's inclusion, while other editors (User:Curly Turkey, User:Sturmgewehr88 and User:Nishidani) have all agreed with me to varying degrees that at least some of this material needs to be cut, and you have been roundly called out for WP:SYNTH by more than one user on more than one occasion.

The default state is that material that is disputed is not included in the article unless there is consensus to include it. One user can never be considered a consensus. If you re-add the material again I will revert you. You need to come to the talk page and actually discuss the issues we raise. Don't just wave us off by claiming "The sources use Jimmu's name. End of story." The fact is that even if the sources use Jimmu's name, most/all of them do not say what you want them to. For example, I challenged you to quote Earhart in a way that demonstrates the claim made in the article. You quoted Earhart as saying something completely unrelated (and actually getting the facts wrong). Please stop this. Discuss the issues at hand, and do not make fallacious, straw man arguments.

126.0.96.220 (talk) 22:41, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) Okay, per Curtis' latest revert, the issues under discussion are:

1. The statement Hakkō ichiu was thus employed in a way that envisioned the unification of the world (the "eight corners of the world") under the Japanese Emperor's "sacred rule".
2. The use of two sources (Ruoff and Brownlee) for the sentence The same year, the Japanese government erected numerous stone monuments relating to key events ascribed to Jimmu in his legendary life, at "Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites", which still exist today.
3. The assertion that Kenkoku Kinen no hi is "a patriotic holiday".
4. The inclusion of an inline translation of the name of this holiday.
5. The division of paragraphs between the sentence about monuments, the sentence about modern Kenkoku Kinen no hi, and the sentence about history books.

My arguments are as follows:

• (1) This claim is not supported by Earhart. When I challenged Curtis to produce the relevant quote from Earhart p63, he quoted a passage that did not make this claim. The claim it did make (that the phrase "hakko ichiu" itself was attributed to Jimmu) was WRONG, which brings Earhart's reliability as a source of information on this subject into question. Additionally, the sarcastic-looking scare-quotes around "sacred rule" are definitely inappropriate, even if they are meant to mark a quotation from Earhart.
• (2) I don't see why this statement needs two sources. Given CurtisNaito's history of misrepresenting and/or misquoting sources, I am innately sceptical of a source he cites that I can't see, and the statement itself is suitably supported by the source I can see.
• (3) I forgot to undo this in my initial revert, so I laid out my problem with this claim in my edit summary here. Basically this is a POV statement, attributed to one anonymous journalist, and directly smears the overwhelmingly majority of the population of Japan, who celebrate this holiday whether or not they are "patriotic" (read: right-wing nationalists).
• (4) This may or may not simply be a misunderstanding, but I don't see why this is relevant. We can use the English name in the text, or the Japanese name, but why do we need both when the subject already has a Wikipedia article and MOS:JAPAN says we shouldn't?
• (5) I'm interested to hear Curtis' reasoning behind this. The last sentence has nothing to do with the holidays. The sentence about modern Kenkoku Kinen no hi is a direct continuation of the previous paragraph. This problem has nothing to do with sourcing.

126.0.96.220 (talk) 23:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Reliably sourced information should not be deleted without consensus and none of your deletions were accepted by anyone in discussions. "Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600–1945" spends one chapter discussing various issues involved in the designation of the sacred historical sites. I urge you to read the book yourself so you can see that it does in fact deal with this issue. Earhart was also correctly cited as quoted above. Saying that Emperor Jimmu "was said to have used the phrase" Hakko Ichiu, as Earhart does, is not a mistake. Earhart is only accurately reporting on what Japanese people believed at the time. Earhart mentions Jimmu in a number of places in the book.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Per my above summary, I made five edits to the article that you revert. Of these five, only one was to remove "sourced information". I explained why I do not believe this to be "sourced" information, since you yourself quoted Earhart as not supporting this claim. And no, I do not need "consensus" to removed badly-sourced, POV information. I'm reverting again, and if you continue to EDITWAR we will take this to WP:ANEW and let the administrators deal with you. 126.0.96.220 (talk) 23:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

(1.)The claim is supported by Earhart. Though the quotes around sacred rule were part of the original we could delete them if you want. Earhart, however, was not wrong to say that Hakko Ichiu was attributed to Emperor Jimmu. The book could have also said that the phrase was "derived from Jimmu's own words" but those might be just two different ways of saying the same thing and there is no evidence any error was made. (2.) There is no reason to delete the second source because it provides details on the designation of the historical sites which would be of interest to people wanting to read further into this. For what it's worth, that is the only source in the whole article which mentions Jimmu's name in the title of the book itself. (3.) We can take out the word patriotic. I didn't revert that one. I'm aware that it's the same as any holiday which may or may not have religious or political connotations depending on the person. (4.) I didn't revert that part either. We can use either the Japanese or English name for the holiday. (5.) I don't think that the paragraphing matters that much, though for the record I was just thinking about chronological order when I wrote it. The first paragraph was pre-war, the second was wartime, and the third was post-war.CurtisNaito (talk) 23:24, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Curly Turkey noted earlier "You definitely don't need consensus to add the material, especially if it's sourced."CurtisNaito (talk) 23:59, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

If Earhart claims the phrase itself was attributed to Jimmu, without also noting that it was neologism coined in 1903 by Tanaka Chigaku, then Earhart is WRONG. If he does correctly point out that it was a neologism coined in 1903 by Tanaka Chigaku, then you are quoting him out of context. 182.249.240.32 (talk) 00:07, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Earhart mentions Jimmu numerous times the book, including this sentence which is correctly cited. "After all, it was Emperor Jinmu, the founder of the nation, who was said to have used the phrase, 'Hakko Ichiu' ('the eight corners [of the world] under one roof') to describe his unification of the known world under his sacred rule. The ancient phrase was an imperative to all Japanese subjects to bring the world together under imperial rule, a goal requiring the undivided energy and devotion of all members of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere." Maybe you believe that Earhart's choice of words was different from the ones you would have chosen, but that is not the same thing as a mistake. Also, why would you complain about sources which do not deal specifically with Jimmu but then keep on deleting the only major reference which Jimmu is actually mentioned in the title of.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

We've both breeched WP:3RR, so I've taken this to WP:ANEW. Your talk page comments are becoming almost incoherent. Please actually address the issues being discussed. 182.249.240.23 (talk) 00:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Well the good news is that I think there are only two issues left. (1.) Inclusion of the Brownlee source: I advocate that we include this because it is a supporting reference to the preceding statement, and what's more's it's a book specifically about Jimmu, which you already stated was the kind of source you particularly wanted. (2.) There is a statement in the article "Hakkō ichiu was thus employed in a way that envisioned the unification of the world (the 'eight corners of the world') under the Japanese Emperor's 'sacred rule'" which is cited to Earhart. What part of this sentence do you think is not in accordance with what Earhart said? I'm sure we can just change the sentence rather than deleting it but I can't do that until I can figure what discrepancy you think exists between the text of the book and the text of the article.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:12, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

What's wrong with calling National Foundation Day "patriotic" when it celebrates the founding of Japan? I thought all national days were considered "patriotic" whether it's celebrated by everyone or only by "right-wing nationalists". ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 02:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

It is technically patriotic, as is noted in the National Foundation Day article, but then again Christmas is technically religious. I'm okay with it either way. I can see how each person naturally interprets holidays in their own way.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:51, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with both of you that is technically patriotic. But I think we should remove the phrase anyway because it somewhat problematically assigns political motivation on the part of all Japanese whoo don't actively boycott it. (Like, as Curtis points out, calling Christmas a religious holiday in a work aimed at non-specialists from non-Western countries who have never heard of Christmas.) As to Earhart, I still don't see the quotation that backs up the statement in question. Until such a quotation is provided, I won't take Curtis' word that it's in there somewhere. Additionally, if Earhart does in fact say that "hakko ichiu" is a quotation from Jimmu, and never qualifies this with the actual etymology of the term, then we must reject Earhart as a reliable source for this article. He clearly is writing about World War II, not the subject of this article, so our default position should not simply be to take his word for it unless he agrees with actual experts in the field. And if the sentence stays, then "sacred rule" (scare quotes implying a theological rejection of the emperor's rule being "sacred") must be replaced with the neutrally-worded rule (no quotes, the word "sacred" excised entirely). 182.249.240.17 (talk) 04:09, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Well I already gave you the relevant quote from both the article and the book, so I still can't figure out where the discrepancy lies. Still, we can solve this by changing it into a complete, direct quote as in, "Hakkō ichiu was understood as 'an imperative to all Japanese subjects to bring the world [(the "eight corners of the world")] together under imperial rule'". As noted above, Earhart does not say that hakko ichiu is a direct quote of Emperor Jimmu's, he says that it was attributed to Jimmu, which is true. Also, there is no need for mistrust here. No proof has ever been found that I ever misrepresented any sources. Even if we interpret the sources in different ways, all we have to do is change the wording to reflect a broader interpretation. In no case were the facts presented in the article different from the facts presented in the sources. When Nishidani was editing this section, all that was necessary was adding some minor changes to the wording which I myself would have added if I didn't feel constricted by space. None of the sources nor any significant information was deleted from the article precisely because I didn't put any incorrect information into the article.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)