
Emperor Akihito of Japan Raises Possibility of Leaving Throne - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/world/asia/japan-emperor-akihito-retirement.html
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hristov
One interesting factoid that the new york times did not mention is that while
it was common for emperors to resign before the meiji restoration, a lot of
those resignations probably were not voluntary.

The Japanese emperors are the longest reigning royal dynasty in the world,
having reigned for the entire known history of the nation. But perhaps heir
secret is that they did not have much power most of the time.

During the time of the shoguns and even before that it was common to force an
emperor to resign before he reaches adulthood so as to ensure that there was a
child emperor on the throne at all times. A child emperor of course is
unlikely to use his position to seize power.

The Meiji restoration was a revolution whose stated goal was to restore the
power to the emperor. Perhaps it was in view of that goal and the history of
forced resignatons that they made a law that did not even give the emperor the
option to resign. However, I am not certain whether the present emperor for
life law dates back to the meiji restoration.

Or perhaps they put the law in after WW2 to ensure that foreign governments do
not mess with the emperors.

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timje1
Quick FYI - factoid: a false fact that is repeated often enough to become
accepted as true.

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cgriswald
Your little factoid is an example of the definition of factoid you're
describing. But there are other definitions of factoid and I suspect the most
common one is along the lines "small tidbit of information".

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cheiVia0
Actually, that's the factoid.

According to Wikipedia [1]:

> _The term was coined originally in 1973 as a neologism by American writer
> Norman Mailer to mean a "piece of information that becomes accepted as a
> fact even though it’s not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be
> true because it appears in print." Since its creation in 1973 the term has
> evolved from its original meaning, in common usage, and has assumed other
> meanings, particularly being used to describe a brief or trivial item of
> news or information. So it is a factoid that "factoid" means something that
> is true._

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid)

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bluejekyll
Perhaps we should disambiguate the two: factoid, brief fact. Infactoid, brief
seemingly true fact that is not due to repeated use.

It's not literally as bad as the figuritive misuse of literally, where
literally has come to mean figuratively and literally... This one I fight all
day long.

~~~
sbmassey
Well it is just a fairly recently invented word, sure, but it is rather
telling that it was apparently CNN that jumped on the word and used it to mean
'trivial fact'

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bluejekyll
Well, it was a reporter inside CNN, just a person like us, who through
repeatedly hearing factoid assumed that it meant what it sounds like.

Ironically, maybe this was the intention of the way this word was derived. It
seems like it should mean a brief/small fact, but in fact it means an untrue
fact, therefore serving as a perfectly recursive example of itself.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Well, it was a reporter inside CNN, just a person like us, who through
> repeatedly hearing factoid assumed that it meant what it sounds like.

"Factoid" does mean what it sounds like (that is, it is a simple application
of the common suffix "-oid" to the root "fact", both in their usual senses.)

The use CNN latched on to is _not_ what it sounds like.

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caminante

      “I am concerned that it will become more and more difficult
      for me to fulfill my duties as a symbolic emperor”
    

This sounds like the opening or the punchline for a Dilbert strip!

~~~
hrktb
I see how it can sound ridiculous if we take "symbolic" into any other
context. But in this case the symbolic part is a really big deal, just as the
pope has a symbolic role that affects a ton of people.

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ajuc
Pope can actually make decisions with consequences.

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ptaipale
Yes, the pope can actually make decisions with consequences, but as Stalin put
it, "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"

Well, he doesn't have any, the power comes through his symbolic position.

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robin_reala
He’s got one army:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard#Pontifical_Swiss_G...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard#Pontifical_Swiss_Guard)

~~~
ptaipale
Yes, I know, though I wonder if there will be a day when the halberds are
taken away for "health and security" reasons.

(Yes, I know they also have actual handguns hidden somewhere.)

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brandelune
The buzz in Japan is not so much about the resignation itself but about the
timing: exactly when Abe is strong enough to modify the constitution. It is
said that the Emperor is trying to slow the constitutional change by first
pressing a change that would allow him to resign.

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anabis
I don't think that is the case.

[http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2016-08-06...](http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2016-08-06/after-
shock-japan-warms-up-to-emperors-possible-abdication)

> The quiet discussion reportedly started about five years ago, around the
> time he had health problems

This is before Abe became PM. From this, I think the people who don't want to
change the constitution is using the Emperor politically.

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moogly
I propose a deal: Let the man rest in exchange for the abolishment of the
constitutional monarchy. Symbolic or not, it's outmoded and incongruent with
modern egalitarian society. The list of constitutional monarchies is rather
embarrassingly long (37 countries).

~~~
twblalock
The problem with replacing constitutional monarchs is that they know their
place, but the heads of state who would replace them might not. After all,
they are likely to be elected, and could therefore have a viable claim to
legitimacy in the exercise of their prerogatives. The Japanese emperor has no
political power, and really doesn't cost the country that much to keep around.

Remember that in parliamentary systems, the head of state and the head of
government (the prime minister) are not the same person. In some countries,
like Germany and Italy, the head of state is an elected president, usually an
fairly elderly politician. The emperor of Japan would have to be replaced as
head of state by someone holding some new office, who would do pretty much the
same things the emperor does now, at a similar cost to the taxpayer. It
wouldn't be the prime minister.

There is a similar aspect to the debate around House of Lords reform in the
UK. A lot of people in the House of Commons don't want an elected House of
Lords, because if it were elected, the Lords would have democratic legitimacy
just as the Commons does, and could therefore make a reasonable case that it
should have a lot more political power than it has now.

So, beware of unintended consequences.

~~~
moogly
Plenty of nations have successfully abolished constitutional monarchy in the
past couple of hundred years. The role and political power of the head of
state (be it Prime Minister/Chancellor or President, or a combination —
doesn't matter) should be well-defined in the constutition (which of course
needs changing). I don't really see any loopholes here... I find that argument
to be a red herring.

As you say, in some countries, the official (purely symbolic) head of state
has no real power (pointless in other words). That's OK-ish. I'd rather not
have a symbolic president. _But the main point is to not make the position
hereditary._

Germany's president, whilst largely ceremonial, actually has some (residual)
power by the way, but it's a 5-year term. Not elected by the people, however,
which is a shame. For example, Finland's president is.

~~~
twblalock
On the other hand, consider the example of France. The fourth republic had a
symbolic president, and the fifth republic has a very powerful president,
because DeGaulle demanded executive power as a condition of assuming the
presidency during the Algerian crisis of the late 1950s. That's why the fourth
republic ended and the fifth republic began -- DeGaulle had a new constitution
written.

The situation in Japan is pretty stable. Why mess with success? And if the
emperor has no power, why does it matter if the position is hereditary?

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moogly
As you yourself say, the situation in Japan is pretty stable. The events in
France you mention was during wartime, in the lead-up to what could be called
"colonial collapse". Hardly comparable.

It matters because a hereditary head of state position (actually, any
governmental/establishmentarian position) is _a terrible symbol_ in what
should be an egalitarian society, no matter if you have political power or
not. I don't know how to put this more succinctly.

~~~
twblalock
It may be a terrible symbol, but it seems like people get over it, if they
even care very much. Constitutional monarchies, such as the Nordic countries,
are among the most egalitarian countries in the world. Japan is egalitarian,
both in terms of how the Japanese view their society, and how the wealth is
distributed -- they are very close to European countries in that respect, and
far more egalitarian than the US.

~~~
moogly
Yes, I'm from Sweden. I consider "our" monarchy to be a ignominious wart,
ceremonial or not. We should always strive to improve society.

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lovart
Does anyone know how much of the 2,700 year 'official genealogy' is credible?

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twblalock
Not a lot of it. Before the 6th century AD, things get very murky, and belong
more to the discipline of archaeology than to history. Aside from some nutty
right-wingers, the Japanese are not under any illusions about this.

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BurningFrog
That's still 1500 years.

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twblalock
It is very long. It gets a little bit murky in the 1300s because there were
rival claimants to the throne, but they were all related to each other. It's
very likely that the dynasty has been in the same family since the 6th
century. Some historians think some of the early emperors might have been
unrelated to their predecessors, but even those emperors reigned during or
before the 6th century.

The throne was not always passed from father to son, but sometimes among close
relatives, which means that an emperors lack of children was not a problem for
the continuation of the dynasty. Furthermore, emperors have been figureheads
for most of Japanese history, so there was no significant benefit to usurping
the throne as there was in Europe. People who wanted to control the country
wanted to be the emperor's advisers, and later the shogun.

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known
First reported in banner headlines by the Japanese news media in July,
Akihito, who has been treated for cancer and heart problems, wants to pass the
title to his son Crown Prince Naruhito, 56.

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timwaagh
They should let him step down. They should have changed that law ages ago.
Japans politicians should be ashamed they did not. Whether or not Japan wants
to be a constitutional monarchy or not is of course their matter. But if you
consider what is happening right now in Turkey and Russia, the argument
against constitutional monarchy seems really thin.

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dmichulke
My take - the emperor is well educated and knows what's coming. Continuous
tensions with China, printing money for some 35 years now (correct me if I'm
wrong), a demography that's unsustainable, a treasury and stock market
controlled by the central bank, ...

1920s/30s all over again with first a collapse of the yen and later on a war
to distract the blame from the failed monetary policy and funnel the anger
into some nationalist ideology.

I certainly can't blame him for not wanting to take part in that.

~~~
erikb
Haven't read much about Japan. But I'm quite sure that China is looking for
someone to make a war with and they still have some grudges with Japan. If
Japan on the other side is also heading in the direction of war there may
really something happen. That's worrysome.

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Hitard
Nobody wants war in Asia. The question is how and at what rate the United
States withdraws from its ultimately unsustainable position as pacific
hegemon. China would like it to happen sooner. Most of the rest of Asia would
like it to happen later, and to share more equitably in a post-american
security coalition. To make that possible, Japan and South Korea may need to
show more strategic solidarity in the short term.

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erikb
If you only look at the public evidence you are right. If you get to drunken
politics discussions with Chinese men at 3am at night, then it looks a little
different.

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stuaxo
Then maybe Britains Queen could resign, she looks like she's eaten a wasp
whenever she appears in public or on TV.

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smcl
I'm not a fan of the monarchy by any stretch of the imagination, but "the old
lady looks bad" is not really a particularly persuasive argument

