Redefining Japan

Margaret Scott notes the inscription on the Hiroshima cenotaph: “Let all souls rest here in peace, for the error shall not be repeated” (“Re-Imagining Japan,” Nov. 13). There’s an error, all right, but it was not the use of the atomic bomb. It is describing an evil act--a sin--as a simple human error.

In the scientific view, humans do not sin or do evil but merely make mistakes. They are the products of scientific determinism, and they cannot be held responsible for evil more than can any other animal. There is no sin, no moral basis for judgment.

Can this be the source of our inability to cope with crime and social evils? We have lived through concentration camps, genocide and the Holocaust, and all that the scientific mind can say is that someone erred.

Perhaps the answers to the questions on the enigma of Japan lie in that nation’s worship of technology. Perhaps the reason the Japanese will not officially admit guilt for war crimes lies behind the way they approach admitting responsibility, by saying “mistakes were made.” Pearl Harbor was a “mistake,” as was Nanking. Our fearful vengeance at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, of course, not a mistake but rather “strategic necessity.”

It’s time we reread our Niebuhr.

Frederic E. Pamp

Santa Ynez