{"text":"If the Emperor had not delivered his [15 August 1945] address urging the Japanese people to lay down their swords—if that speech had been a call instead for the Honorable Death of the Hundred Million—those people on that street in Sōshigaya probably would have done what they were told and died. And probably I would have done likewise. The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self-sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life. We were accustomed to this teaching and had never thought to question it.","author":"Akira Kurosawa","tags":["1945","1982","japanese-culture","self-abnegation","self-sacrifice","suicide","surrender","wwii"],"id":168894,"author_id":"Akira+Kurosawa"}