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The expression captioned above, which I borrow from a Japanese literary critic for the title of the present article, refers to those aspects of irrationality and parochial spiritual tendency that the critic believes account for the nationalist militarism of modern imperial Japan. The militarism has often capitalized on what is known to the world as bushido or 'the way of the warrior' which, as the code of conduct of the samurai class, used to operate as well in terms of the ethical basis of the whole nation, emphasizing the spirit of absolute loyalty and sacrifice. As it turns out, however, the very notion of bushido is actually an invention of an amateur opinionist who had no knowledge whatsoever about the real nature of the historical samurai societies. Worse still, the fabricated notion of bushido has coupled itself with the notion of 'aesthetics of death,' itself a result of the militarists unjustly interpreting a document of the early 1700s as merely glorifying the way of dying of the warrior. As such, bushido has contributed to the strengthened practice of forced belly-slitting suicide during the wartime. It was also exploited as a means of compelling all of the soldiers involved to fight and die to the last man in the face of apparent defeat. Recent years have seen a new surge of militarist nationalism arising in Japan, which plans on expanding its self-defence forces, claiming its right to the so-called 'collective self-defence.' The notion of self defence, however, is what the country has habitually resorted to when waging a war against a foreign country. Besides, Japanese government is very active in implementing historic revisionism, thereby whitewashing the nation's wartime crimes against humanity such as sexual enslavement of 'comfort women.' The present article is meant to be a critical survey of the cultural aspects of Japan that seem to be responsible for its 'pathological conditions.' We look into the people's unique notion of the 'inner circle' as opposed to the 'outside,' their inconsistent observance of their dictum 'Do not make troubles for others,' the nationalist propaganda by means of cinematography, their false idea of samurai spirits, their fabricated notion of Tenno ('heavenly emperor'), and so on. This article hopes to bring to light some of the unwholesome factors deep-rooted in the status quo of Japanese militarist policy making processes.

This paper attempts to read Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1929) as an antiwar novel. Hemingway was seriously wounded while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver in the Italian front during the First World War. In spite of his rather short war experience, Hemingway determined to write his experience into a novel about the First World War. After years of assiduous research, particularly about historical events in the Italian front, Hemingway wrote a novel that incorporated his own war experience. By the time he wrote A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway's earlier romantic and glorified view of the war evolved into a bitterly critical one that conveys the meaninglessness of the First World War, particularly stressing the unprecedented scale of human casualties and destruction brought on by the war. Like his previous work In Our Time (1925), A Farewell to Arms highlights the theme of "separate peace." Frederic Henry deserts the war after witnessing the absurdity of the execution of Italian officers on the Tagliamento River. Deserting the war and finding no solace in religion or family, Frederic and Catherine Barkley seek their separate peace in their intense love against all odds. Catherine seems more brave and mature in love than Frederic who tends to be self-centered. The death of Catherine is at once tragic and controversial enough to invite female critics of Hemingway's gender representation. Nonetheless, my argument is that Hemingway, by focusing on the tragedy experienced by people embroiled in the war, succeeds in making his novel a representative American antiwar novel of the time.

There have been arguments concerning whether femininity is inherently peaceful or peace is in itself feminine. Whereas most radical feminists such as Sara Ruddick and Betty Reardon and anti-militaristic feminists such as Cynthia Enloe advocate the notion of peaceful women, equal rights or liberal feminists such as Barbara Ehrenreich and political realist such as Jean Elshtain reject the idea but with a different reason. Ehrenreich insists women are not peaceful and even war prone in order to prove that men and women are equal in their performances; Elshtain proclaims women can not be pacifists to advocate that war is functionally necessary to the sustenance of the state. Among many theories, however, Elshtain’s political thought related with gender, peace and war is under scrutiny here in this article, in that she has delved into these issues in a sustained and very controversial manner. As an exemplary proponent of political realism and liberal or “neoliberal” feminism in the arena of international relations, Elshtain negates the notion of feminine peace or peaceful femininity by providing examples of various women participating in the war around the world. The political realization that war has always been in the world and will not be “obsolete” makes her say peace is “problematic” and even “sterile,” because it robs a vital and driving force from the people and their history. In her ideal civic state where “purified patriots” do carry “necessary” just war against terror, no place is given therefore for the perpetual peace. Whether women are peaceful, bellicose, peaceful but warring if necessary (Johan Galtung, Christine Sylvester, Jan Pettman, and Dan Smith and Inger Skjelsboek, among others), one thing commonly accepted for all the feminists and IR theorists despite their political differences is that, ultimately “peace is better than war.” Elshtain’s theory of problematic peace, then, turns out to be “problematic” because she claims war has been inevitable as a vital force through which the world is constituted and thus peace, categorically passive and inferior, will politically never be actualized. For Elshtain, war matters, not peace. This article insists however that the notion of “negative peace” should be transcended by not positioning peace opposite to war in the world of nuclear war which in the end nullifies the notion of constituting war itself. A new notion of peace is thus desirable to move away from the outdated notion peace as an absence of war and from the obsolete notion of nuclear catastrophe, a structural and ultimate outcome of negative peace. After one massive nuclear war, there will be no more “deterrent” wars. The awareness that war’s opposite is not peace but ordinariness and “fullness of life”(Panikkar), and that ordinary “full” life is not achieved by war may relieve Elshtain from her relentlessly realistic but nevertheless idealistic conundrum, who is driven with the political notion of “homo homini lupus” and “bellum omnium contra omnes,” which should be negated in the civil society in vain.

David Graeber, a proponent of anarchist anthropology, criticizes that some of the major value theories in anthropology is based on misinterpretation of Marcel Mauss’ Essai sur le don, and proposes a return to the basic issues raised by Mauss. This thesis intends to examine some alternative value theories to “hermeneutics of suspicion” on the basis of such discourse. Mauss’ Essai sur le don itself does not suggest a value theory. Rather value theories in anthropology throughout the 20th century can be seen as re-interpretations, either directly or indirectly, of Mauss’ theory. The issue is a return to the basic question of whether a gift is possible. This particular question stems from the definition of reciprocity that Mauss provides at the introduction of Essai sur le don. The dyadic structure that appears constantly in value theories originates from interpreting Mauss’ definition of reciprocity as possibility of gift or its impossibility. Does a gift exist outside or inside the realm of economic cycle, and is it distinguishable from other forms of commodities or is it simply a different form of commodity? Ever since “hermeneutics of suspicion” became generally accepted, the foremost premise in value theory has been the impossibility of a gift. According to Jacques Derrida, the very definition of a gift should eliminate the possibility of a return. If there is such a thing as a gift, it “should not be part of a cycle nor should it be subject to exchange.” If a gift becomes part of a cycle or is subject to an exchange, then it is no longer a gift. Therefore, terms such as gift economy or gift exchange defy the original meaning of a gift. With regard to this particular issue, Graeber points out that such an outcome is the result of defining gift exchange from an economic perspective. In addition, he suggests that at the backdrop of the insistence on the impossibility of gift lies the assumption that value is created not from ‘motive(s)’ or ‘purpose(s)’ of exchange, but is borne from exchange itself.

Commonly, gesture has an expressive and semantic meaning. As considered in theories of communication, gestures such as body, hand gesture, facial expression, glance and body posture are main means of not verbal, but non-verbal communication. Yet talking about cinematographic gesture, it has to be understood in a different context. It is because cinema is a sort of architecture composed of an image-mouvement of audio-visual images, and also because gesture possesses a particular structure, different from dance and theatre that are crucial expressive means of artistic media. However, this study does not approach cinematographic gesture as specific studies will do, by analyzing its changes through the history of cinema, its esthetical composition or way of expression. It will rather question the meaning of gesture enabling an effet of existence without being signified, and discuss what ethical and political potentialities this absence of signification can suggest. In cinema, gesture appeals to the audience with a certain effet of existence. This study tries to explain the Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben's quote about the meaning of cinematographic gesture which is the following: "gesture is the communication of a potential to be communicated. In itself, it has nothing to say, because what is shows is the being-in-language of human beings as pure potential for mediation.” He develops this problem of cinematographic gesture's signification by briefly evoking the importance of Gilles Deleuze's image-movement. This is why this study, trying to explain Agamben's thought about the reflective meaning of cinematographic gesture, will reinvest Roland Barthes' "sense obtuse" and Deleuze's definition of gesture as image-affection. Finally, it will discuss Agamben's reflection on cinematographic gesture. Agamben had once emphasised that cinema, not image but gesture, does not simply belong to the esthetical, but also to the ethical and political order. This study's aim is to suggest that gesture shown in cinema is more than a simple mean of expression in a symbolic perspective: it is closely related to an ontological problem.