Interviewing the Victims

My wife did not want to see the HBO Documentary White Light/Black Rain; so I have to confess that I did not get around to seeing the copy on my DVR hard drive until today. Watching it was not a pleasant experience; but it was such a well-made film that the unpleasantness of it all was at least tolerably bearable. Indeed, there was a strong positive feeling to be derived from the ways in which the survivors were able to finally talk about their experiences in ways they either could not or would not do over the past sixty years. Also, the balancing interviews with the Americans involved with the bombing missions over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki added to the value of the Japanese interviews without overdoing any sense of regret or contrition.

Most disconcerting, however, was the opening footage of interviews with today's "youth culture" in Japan. This simply documented, without any effort to pass judgment, how oblivious today's young are to what happened over sixty years ago; and one of the interviewed survivors was even blunt enough to state (without any particular emotional coloring) that the memory of what happened in August of 1945 will probably die with the last survivor. For me this confirmed my post on Hiroshima Day, where I talked about our proclivity for "cultural blindness." As one of the Americans observed, those who talk about using nuclear weapons today have absolutely no idea what they are talking about (not that ignorance has ever impeded any culture from making decisions with catastrophic consequences).

Finally, I was impressed by the clarity of language engaged by both the Japanese and Americans interviewed for this film, because it contrasted so radically with the way I hear and read language used today, whether through the media or in the workplace. Hegel spoke of the "end of history" as the culmination of progress to an ideal state from which further progress is impossible. For me the "end of history" will be a time when we either will not or (worse yet) can not talk about the past in clear and straightforward language. I fear we are close to that "end" than most would like us to believe; and, worse yet, I fear that those who care are a pretty sparse minority.