Talk:Daijō Tennō

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Japan To-do:

[edit] To merge with Cloistered rule

This article and Cloistered rule deal exactly with the same topic. Švitrigaila 23:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Information is inserted in Cloistered rule. Please remove Daijō Tennō and all merge links. Bulmabriefs144 12:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Empress Gemmei

The first to style herself "Daijō Tennō" was Empress Jitō (持統天皇 Jitō-tennō?) in 697. Also, Empress Gemmei (元明天皇 Genmei-tennō?) abdicated and took the title "Daijō Tennō" in Wadō 8 (715). Neither women did not do anything post-abdication which turned out to be anything like the cloisterd rule of Emperor Shirakawa in Heian era Japan .... In my view, it would be inappropriate to merge Cloistered rule and Daijō Tennō at this time. --Ooperhoofd 23:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It would have been nice if you had brought this up before the merge happened since the history shows you have edited the article during this time period, but I am not going to argue over the issue. However I do expect you clean up to Cloistered rule which has all this material repeated in it from the October merge and remove the merge tags. Reverting my edit alone does not help the status of these articles. BTW finishing up a merge that was done in October is completely appropriate. Just because you disagree with someone does not mean their edits are "not appropriate". -BirgitteSB 00:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Birgitte -- There are several issues here.
FIRST: The first and most important, it seems to me, is a matter of common courtesy. Your response suggests that the the words "not appropriate" were ill chosen -- that a connotation of offense or some other unwarranted association is implied. That wasn't my intention, but now that you bring it to my attention, I can readily imagine situations in which that reading would be precisely on point. Although I have not myself encountered the word "appropriate" in a Wikipedia setting, I can guess that it has a specific usage in this venue. In any case, I meant neither disrespect nor derision. In this context, why not consider the following:
  • Please suggest an alternate, non-controversial way I could have/should have explained my response to the merge of daijō-tenno and cloistered rule. Other than this plain apology, there is nothing I can do to retrieve the sense of frustration and annoyance I inadvertently caused you; but with a little more care, I can avoid a similar needless blunder in future.
  • Please suggest an alternate action I could have/should have considered other than "undo." Perhaps it would have been better to place a heads-up message at Birgitte rather than at the discussion page for Daijō Tennō ... or maybe a better protocol is to leave word in both discussion venues. I duuno.
Bottom line: I am sorry to have caused annoyance. It is very clear that YOU did nothing wrong. In fact, it's clear that your actions were not only justified, prudent, modest and timely; but that you had every reason to feel that you'd accomplished a thankless task for which your only reward was knowing that you'd done something to help make Wikipedia better. Instead, you reaped an entirely unwelcome and un-looked-for harvest of disagreeable complaint. I entirely empathize -- been there, done that.
SECOND: You are quite correct in observing: "It would have been nice if you had brought this up before the merge happened since the history shows you have edited the article during this time period, but I am not going to argue over the issue." But in this case, I didn't understand what to do or say until just yesterday. I just didn't "get it" .... For this I need have no apology. There is no explaining the time it takes for anyone to come to understand something as simple as 2+2=5.
THIRD: You have plainly construed my objection to this "merge" to mean that I believe:
Yes, this is correct. I do note that Švitrigaila expressly argues that these two articles were (or are), in his/her view, duplicative, redundant, unnecessary ... but at Talk:Cloistered rule, you will see that, like me, Tensaibuta does parse the consequences of this merge quite differently. The exchange of views in which Tensaibuta participated prior to the merge involved Shimoxx and Aotake and Fg2 and Spirituelle; and the focus shifted over time as various aspects of the Insei system were considered. The somewhat scholarly commentary examines the ramifications of this subject across the span of serial post-Taika Reforms (大化の改新 Taika no Kaishin?) or post-Emperor Kōtoku (孝徳天皇 Kōtoku-tennō?) Imperial history. My approach was quite different. I only identified one very specific illustrative example to explain why Švitrigaila was mistaken. I focused solely on Empress Gemmei, the first to take the post-abdication title of daijō-tennō.
The more interesting point to make here is that you seem to have understood Daijō Tennō as something like a mathematical sub-set of Cloistered rule. You seem to have construed the retired emperor as a subset of the system in which he exercised significant political and other powers.
Without going into it too much, I assumed the exact opposite: that Cloistered rule was and is self-evidently a logical sub-set of Daijō Tennō -- not quite in the same relationship as a work of literature (Chushingura) can be seen as a logical subset of an historical event (Forty-seven Ronin) ... but a plausible connection which might be argued with some merit. I assumed that engagement in Imperial government after retirement was amongst the options which were possible, but that it was also possible for an emperor to devote himself entirely to spiritual pursuits as a "mere" Buddhist monk.
The difference between your seeming assumptions and mine is a little like the difference between the hand saw of a Japanese carpenter (cuts on the pull-stroke) and the hand saw of a European carpenter (cuts on the push stroke).
I have more to say, but this is already taken more time that I'd originally anticipated. Frankly, I can't tell whether what I've just written will be perceived as helpful, thoughtful, constructive or simply tedious, rambling, irrelevant. The response -- if any -- which this posting engenders will guide me in better assessing what I might want to write in future. --Ooperhoofd 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for taking your edit so badly. I was not feeling my best last night and did not react very well. Even with our misunderstandings; I could have been much more gracious. I suppose it was that the article was reverted to the point where it was still marked for merger with no edits to Cloistered rule that frustrated me. I would have been less frustrated if you had removed the merge tags and added the new information about Emperess Gemmei other differences to the correct articles, but that is no excuse for my poor response to your correction. Thank you for responding so graciously.--BirgitteSB 19:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)