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Flowers are beautiful. People often communicate their love, sorrow, and other feelings to each other by offering flowers, like roses. Flowers can also be symbols of collective identity, as cherry blossoms are for the Japanese. But, are they also deceptive? Do people become aware when their meaning changes, perhaps as flowers are deployed by the state and dictators? Did people recognize that the roses they offered to Stalin and Hitler became a propaganda tool? Or were they like the Japanese, who, including the soldiers, did not realize when the state told them to fall like cherry blossoms, it meant their deaths?
Flowers That Kill proposes an entirely new theoretical understanding of the role of quotidian symbols and their political significance to understand how they lead people, if indirectly, to wars, violence, and even self-exclusion and self-destruction precisely because symbolic communication is full of ambiguity and opacity. Using a broad comparative approach, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney illustrates how the aesthetic and multiple meanings of symbols, and at times symbols without images become possible sources for creating opacity which prevents people from recognizing the shifting meaning of the symbols.
— Nicolas Gattig
"Flowers That Kill is a timely reminder of the limits of resistance and the power of symbols in a time where entrenched ideologies continue to propel political conflicts from all sides."
— Jason Danely
"Flowers That Kill is a monumental work of political philosophy. Powerfully argued and dazzlingly precise, Ohnuki-Tierney's nuanced portrait of the linguistic, cultural, and historical underpinnings of political symbols across Japan and totalitarian Europe is essential reading for anyone interested in how propaganda actually works."
— Sharalyn Orbaugh
"Contrasting the symbolism of cherry blossoms manipulated by the Japanese military state and that of the rose in Europe, Ohnuki-Tierney explores how authoritarian regimes use icons of popular culture to foster their domination. This superb book opens a new chapter in political anthropology, showing how the use of symbols in political discourse both produces meaning and disguises the foundations upon which this meaning is constructed."
— Philippe Descola
"Flowers That Kill is an impressive, wide-ranging feat of scholarship that illuminates a fascinating topic: the capacity of flowers to shift imperceptibly from benevolent symbols to harbingers of death and destruction. The deft but nuanced way in which Ohnuki-Tierney handles this sensitive material makes the book of crucial importance to academics and non-academics alike—really, to anyone still troubled by the horrors of World War II or by the human calamities of our times."
— Peter Geschiere
"Flowers That Kill is an important and daring new contribution to political anthropology. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney investigates the use of owers, and other living things, in the schemes to bolster and enforce certain forms of political power, especially authoritarian politics.This is an audacious intervention into the political anthropology of propaganda and of the political gods and god father politicians that devise and deploy it. The book is certain to provoke much thought and debate."
— Magnus Fiskesjö
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.
The universe represented by Japanese cherry blossoms is full of paradoxes that become a generative power operating at both individual and collective level—simultaneously subverting and upholding the cultural and societal structure. Cherry blossom viewing is an arena for developing the collective identity of various social groups, and ultimately, the Japanese as a whole. All, including the self, are beautiful. When the Japanese military state foregrounded the symbolism of cherry blossoms to represent the sacrifice for Japan, hardly anyone, including the soldiers, recognized the change. The Japanese cherry blossoms offer an excellent example of how multiple meanings of a symbol and their aesthetic contribute to the ambiguity and opacity of communication through symbols.
Like Japanese cherry blossoms, roses in Western European cultures are assigned a large number of meanings: Christ and the Virgin, birth, death and rebirth, love, beauty, life, joy and sorrow. As an important symbol of the common people against the establishment, the rose occupied a central place in the May Day festivals in medieval Europe, later leading to its role in the festival of the French Revolution. At the end of the nineteenth century, it became the symbol of the Socialist International. The rose as an important symbol of love and comradeship among workers was then used and abused to portray the dictator—Stalin and Hitler in particular—as the benevolent "Father" who loves the people. This flower is another example of how aesthetic and multiple meanings lead to the opacity of the message, preventing people to see the thorns behind the beauty.
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.
As the animal considered closest to humans, the monkey is an important symbol in Japanese culture. Its symbolism consists of three major themes: mediator, scapegoat, and clown, each acquiring a dominant meaning in a particular historical period, but all three always constituting a palimpsest. As expressed in the monkey performance, its symbolism involves a subversive element—against the stratification in medieval times, against militarism at the height of Japan's imperial aggression, defiance against a social superior, and questioning the throne on which humans sit, ruling over all other animals. Yet, it never ignited a revolution or a social protest, even when the monkey was symbolically associated with the discriminated social group within which the monkey trainers were recruited, precisely because the simultaneous presence of the multiplicity of its meaning prevents any communicative clarity.