Talk:Sonnō jōi

Change

Changed the See Also reference to Clavell's Gai-Jin rather than Shogun. Shogun is set in the 17th century, beginning of the Edo Era, predating sonno-joi. Gai-Jin is set at the end of the Edo Era, mid-19th century, when the Sonno-joi movement was pivotal in overthrowing the bakufu. I really enjoy Clavell's work, except for his benighted changing of Tokugawa to Torunaga for reasons I cannot begin to fathom. I mean, Ieyasu is not going to sue! TimBovee 18:09, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Origins

Unfortunately, the section on "Origins" adopts a rather unsatisfactory stance. It treats Sonnō Jōi as a "philosophy", thus allowing the roots of the movement to be traced back to ancient China. In fact, Sonnō Jōi was a political movement. While it borrowed its name from (and was perhaps inspired by) the ancient Chinese zūnwáng rǎngyí, the two are completely distinct and unrelated movements. The Japanese are quite fond of borrowing historical labels from the Chinese -- 南北朝 and 戰國時代 are two obvious ones that spring to mind -- but that does not mean that these eras in history had anything to do with the Chinese ones. Similarly with the borrowing of the political slogan.

I therefore suggest that the section on the ancient "philosophy" of zūnwáng rǎngyí should be moved to a different section or location (say, "Etymology"), or the wording should be changed to indicate that the only connection is that the Japanese borrowed the slogan, not that they borrowed the "philosophy". At any rate, the Chinese slogan should not have pride of place in this article. If anything, zunwang rangyi should have its own separate article, quite distinct from sonnō jōi.

Bathrobe (talk) 01:21, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the article saying anything like that at all: it already states that the slogan sonno joi originates from China, but "the origin of the philosophy" can be traced to various Japanese 17th century scholars. Jpatokal (talk) 05:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the ordering may be the problem. By placing the etymology of the Chinese phrase first, it gives the impression that the Japanese movement is descended from the Chinese movement. I think that the etymology should occupy a subordinate or explanatory position in the article, after the Japanese origins of the movement have been explained. That is, the current "chronological ordering" (Chinese antiquity followed by Japanese modernity) should be changed to a "descriptive ordering" (description of Japanese movement, with note of its etymological origins).

Unless there are strong objections to this reordering, I propose to slightly rearrange that section.

Bathrobe (talk) 06:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of this request is reversion to the previous title, Sonnō jōi. Per Wikipedia:Consensus#No consensus, "In article title discussions... If an article title has been stable for a long time, then the long-standing article title is kept". In this case, the support for moving the article back to the original title outweighs the opposition, and supporters present a compelling case in weight of citations. bd2412 T 17:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians → Sonnō jōi – undiscussed move-incorrect interpretation Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. And citations were already provided, which you removed with no reason. Not to mention that ja.wiki doesn't even uses the charcter of "emperor" unlike here in the lead at your uncited revert, so what's that about "incorrect interpretation" of what's verifiable correct? --Cold Season (talk) 16:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
  • According to WP:MOS for Japanese, we _don't_ literally translate Japanese terms in titles that are not normally translated into English. Sonno joi is not usually translated. We don't need Infobox Chinese, and your changes are too broad and sweeping all at once. Propose them here, they can be added in bit by bit, not one sweeping block.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 19:04, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Too bad that it isn't a Japanese term. Also, I do not have to add it in bit by bit, especially considering that I'm replacing uncited information and that you have not explicitly explained the faults of the edits. You can point out the flaws bit by bit on your own, because your suggestion that I have to explain every cited edit is ludicrous to the extreme. --Cold Season (talk) 19:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

CS, ja.wiki is not a reliable source. GBooks gives 338 Japanese print sources that use 尊皇攘夷 and 585 for 尊王攘夷 -- clearly this is not a case of one orthography being "correct" and the other being "incorrect". Given how often the emperor of Japan is referred to as "王", and how Japanese dictionaries variously give one, the other, or both, how can you possibly give the use of one kanji over the other as reason for using an extremely rare English translation as the article title. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. How about you stop canvassing at WP Japan, Kintetsubuffalo? Also, your canvassing comment about the "king" being incorrect there does not apply, considering that the topic is an expression and not literal. --Cold Season (talk) 20:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not canvassing, it's bringing in parties who are better at stopping unilateral bullshit than I am. How about you assume good faith and relax when someone objects to your wholesale changing of an article's tone and focus?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Selectively informing one party, but not the obvious other party. Check. Non-neutrally and biased informing that there is a move request (by bringing in arguments). Check. Throwing around AGF for this is weak, might as well call me naive, because the actions (whether intentional or not) are black and white. --Cold Season (talk) 22:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment to the rest. This is the version of the article that Kintetsubuffalo is trying to hide --> (click). --Cold Season (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not trying to hide anything, you twat, I am trying to stop you from steamrolling the article into something it's not.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

"No. Yes. No. Yes." Whatever. I've answered your request, laying it out bit by bit. I'm waiting for your found flaws, which I welcome. If not, then your request was ridiculous and useless, just to hinder, since you were set on the plain-old mass revert from the start. --Cold Season (talk) 22:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support move, but shame on you two for edit warring like this. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should not literally translate things unless that's what the majority of reliable sources do. Also, Cold Season's version of the article is much better than the one Kintetsubuffalo keeps reverting to.—Ryulong (琉竜) 21:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

"Better" is subjective-it was a Japanese article with a paragraph on China, not a dual article.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I've pulled out after two reverts. He did three and called the kettle black. --Cold Season (talk) 22:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should first canvas English language citations of the term. It may be true, as Cold Season emphasizes, that the term is originally Chinese. But if the majority of English language sources discuss the Japanese usage, the rule is to use that version, not the Chinese one. Michitaro (talk) 22:11, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I've mainly seen sonnō jōi in English texts about the Japanese usage, but it is probably very uncommon in texts about the Chinese usage. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:18, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Part of the problem seems to be that the article was originally about the Japanese movement, which makes sense to be titled "Sonnō jōi". Now that the Chinese origins of the name are elaborated on (same name, radically different policy/movement), the Japanese name Sonnō jōi isn't adequate (we rarely use Chinese terms to refer to Japanese topics, much less the other way around. And in pan-East Asian topics we tend to use the most neutral English translation.) Here is what I think, if the only thing that's connecting "sonnō jōi" to the Chinese "zunwang rangyi" is the name in hanzi/kanji, why not split the two usages to avoid the naming problem, and add a footnote in each article about how the Japanese movement was inspired by Guan Zhong? _dk (talk) 02:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!!! "the article was originally about the Japanese movement, which makes sense to be titled "Sonnō jōi"" Yes! Hence my objections to the steamrolling.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support per Google Book result. Recently a fact was found that the Google book does not necessarily distinguish a word with or without macron. See Talk:Empress Jingu#Requested move 2. In this case the result of "sonno joi" shows the most of books use a macron.

• "sonno joi" 4,660
• "Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians" 2
• "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" 1,960

As for the Chinese relation, There is almost no description relating to "Guan Zhong" OR " Zhou". So the Chinese related description should be confined to "Etymology" section if necessary per WP:UNDUE.

• "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" "Guan Zhong" OR " Zhou" 1
• "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" "Tokugawa" 2,360

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 03:15, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

That you couldn't find anything relating to the Chinese context using the narrow "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" translation doesn't mean there is no coverage, in English or in other languages. _dk (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, so enlighten us? A phrase like that doesn't seem like a narrow search perameter.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Phoenix, per my !vote below your numbers are dramatically inflated. In this case you're still essentially right, but I've noticed a consistent problem with you blindly citing GBooks hit counts and disregarding the actual contents of the books. Your disastrous 2012 RM of Empress Jingū was recently reverted, which is a good thing. But I should not have had to exert the amount of edit I did for it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose (for now). Ideally there should be two separate articles, one about the Chinese term and its historical context and one about the Japanese. For although the Japanese term originates from the Chinese one (and written identically in Hanzi/Kanji), it was used in a completely different context and more than two thousand years later. However, for as long as there's one article for the two concepts, the English translation should be used. -Zanhe (talk) 05:38, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree, it should be split, and never should have been conflated in the first place.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know enough to say definitively, but does the Chinese term meet GNG? The description currently given in this article makes it sound like we have next to no sources on it, and the historical instance is only noteworthy by association with Confucius and with the far more important 19th-century Japanese usage. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment The Google Book result shows that the Chinese article 's title if any is never "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" nor "Sonnō jōi" of course. Probably it should be "Zunwang rangyi".―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 07:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Fine, pull the Chinese stuff out, make an article for it, and leave the Japanese stuff alone. It's like putting Navajo together with Gandhi, because hey, they're both Indians, right? Except they're not...--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

While I agree with your idea, your combative tone and irrelevant analogy are totally inappropriate. Unlike the Navajo/Gandhi comparison, the Japanese term is indisputably derived from the Chinese one, and the two are written identically in Hanzi/Kanji. So it was not unreasonable for Cold Season to expand the existing article with the original Chinese historical context. And it was not unreasonable for him to rename it to an English translation of the term as the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations are quite different. -Zanhe (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

It is not reasonable to make a controversial move per WP:RM/CM to the least common name "Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians". Also it is not reasonable to overwrite the notable Japanese topic with the least notable Chinese topic. Cold Season should have created a new Chinese article called "Zunwang rangyi".―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 19:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Brief discussion of the etymology of the phrase in an article about the 19th-century Japanese slogan is entirely appropriate. Shifting an article that for a decade was about the Japanese slogan to suddenly about ancient China is extremely problematic, though. Check the page history for uta monogatari to see what happened when a similar attempt was made in complete good faith and toward the more notable topic. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support move per Phoenix7777. Oda Mari (talk) 09:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:UE and WP:PRECISE. "sometimes translated as Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" is definitely incorrect, as this is by far the most common translation in English.[1][2] However, since the article currently also discusses the original Chinese meaning (which I think is written with a different kanji[3][4]) it is also inadequate to use "Emperor" in the article title. I also think using the Japanese name is the best option, since if we use "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" we'll face problems with capitalization, and this also appears to be three times more common in English print sources. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:46, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• SPEEDY CLOSE I didn't notice when I posted above, but this is a WP:BRD case. Unilateral moves, when challenged in a timely manner, should always be automatically reverted. How has the page not already been moved back?? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Bit by bit

As above... the oh-so-sweeping edits of the content save the lead sentence in the context of the version.

• Additions

1. sometimes translated as Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians,
2. During the Warring States period of China, Chancellor Guan Zhong of Qi initiated a policy known as Zunwang Rangyi (尊王攘夷; lit. "Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians"), in reference to the Zhou kings.
3. Adopting and adhering to it, Duke Huan of Qi assembled the Chinese feudal lords to strike down the threat of barbarians from China.
4. Confucius himself praised Guan Zhong for the preservation of Chinese civilization by noting the example that they didn't have disheveled hair or wore clothing that folded to the left, a reference to the customs of barbaric peoples.
5. Through the Analects of Confucius, the Chinese expression came to be transmitted to Japan as sonnō jōi.

• Removed

1. The slogan sonnō jōi (尊王攘夷 or 尊皇攘夷 in Kanji) has its origins in China with Duke Huan of Qi, the ruler of the state of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period. Foreign invasions, especially by the Quanrong, had by then destroyed the centralised power of the Zhou Dynasty court, rendering the Zhou kings nominal rulers while its vassals became independent states. Under Duke Huan, Qi had grown to preeminence among the states, and the slogan was used to give legitimacy to Qi's position as the hegemon among the states; instead of usurping the legitimate authority of the Zhou kings to command its vassals, Qi claimed that it was using its dominant position to defend and support the existing order.
2. In Japan, the origin of the philosophy can be traced to works by 17th century Confucian scholars Yamazaki Ansai and Yamaga Sokō, who wrote on the sanctity of the Japanese Imperial house and its superiority to the ruling houses of other nations. These ideas were expanded by Kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga, and seen in Takenouchi Shikibu's theory of absolute loyalty to the Emperor (尊皇論 sonnōron), that implied that less loyalty should be given to the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate.
3. Mito domain scholar Aizawa Seishisai introduced term sonnō jōi into modern Japanese in his work Shinron in 1825, where sonnō was regarded as the reverence expressed by the Tokugawa bakufu to the emperor and jōi was the proscription of Christianity.
4. But this turned out to be the zenith of the sonnō jōi movement, since the Western powers responded by demanding heavy reparations and then bombarding the Satsuma capital of Kagoshima when these were not forthcoming. While this incident showed that Japan was no match for Western military powers, it also served to further weaken the shogunate, permitting the rebel provinces to ally and overthrow it in the Meiji Restoration.
5. The slogan itself was never actually government or even rebel policy; for all its rhetoric, Satsuma in particular had close ties with the West, purchasing guns, artillery, ships and other technology.
6. After the symbolic restoration of the Meiji Emperor, the sonnō jōi slogan was replaced with fukoku kyōhei (富国強兵), or "rich country, strong military" (enrich the nation, strengthen the armies), the rallying call of the Meiji Era and the seed of its actions during World War II.

• Ref

• Note

Added cited info, removed unverifiable info. Note that ref 5 is a primary source that has been replaced with secondary source ref 2 & 3, while its info is paraphrased accordingly. --Cold Season (talk) 19:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Per the above, this article has been moved back to Sonnō jōi; please see to the appropriate revision of the lede. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Folksy etymology

I'm confused about the current Etymology section that says Zunwang rangyi comes from the Warring States Period. When was this 尊王攘夷 phrase coined? Both the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (no. 7445) and Hanyu Da Cidian (vol. 2, p. 1281) cite Pi Xirui 皮锡瑞's (1907) Jingxue lishi 經學歷史 as the earliest usage. Keahapana (talk) 00:00, 6 October 2013 (UTC)