Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Why did Japanese Buddhists want to Kill Charlie Chaplin | Japan in WW2, Japanese Nationalism" video.

  1. Interesting. Chaplin was just an interested spectator of horrendous events going on in Japan then, but his visit was obviously out of cultural interest in Japan. As a Western film celebrity without diplomic immunity, he was a target of these fanatics in Japan. I've heard of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism in Japan, and the ultranationist offshoots of Nichiren that formented in Japan during the 1920s to 1940s which reversed the fundamental teachings of Buddha, against violence and war. The Nichiren sect was a particularly mystical sect which prophesied certain ages of Buddhism in Japan, without seemingly clear edicts (shrouded in mysticism) or much evidence. The Japan ultranationist fanatics used the vapid nature of Nichiren as a sounding board justification to pursue their own aims of aggressive warlike expansionism in Asia, with lethal assassination attempts at government officials at home in Japan. This Nichiren inspired fanaticism was quite well exposed, albeit in one chapter by the book, "Why God is not great, how religion poisons everything", by the author Christopher Hitchens.
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