Are Seltzs New Japanese Museums 'Museums Museums' By Patterson's Definition?

Are Seltz’s new Japanese museums ‘counter-museums’ by Patterson’s definition?

Patterson and Seltz introduce new museums differing in subject matter, context and methodology, but sharing analogous goals. The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia (JCM) in the United States is touted by Patterson as a ‘counter-museum’ that ‘seek[s] to engage visitors as active participants in dynamic, continuing memorial processes’ (66), and one that ‘seeks to use products of intolerance to teach understanding’ (68) as it convinces visitors of the presence of modern-day racial prejudice in the US. Seltz illustrates how four separate new Japanese museums in Kyoto, Osaka, Kawasaki and Nagasaki, seek to reopen and reshape debate on Japan’s role in the Second World
Whereas the JCM seeks to establish the existence and relevance of racism as a contemporary issue, the new Japanese museums seek to shake up an age-old debate in Japan about Japan’s culpability in the Second World War and contemporary society’s attitude towards Japan’s wartime deeds. Japan’s history of colonizing certain neighbouring regions like Korea and Taiwan, and its military history in Asia and the Pacific date back many decades to the earlier half of the 20th century. Debate over Japan’s wartime culpability has been deadlocked for a few reasons. The opposing left- and right-wing factions in Japanese society both discourage deep analysis and criticism regarding Japan’s involvement in the war. The left demands unconditional repentance for Japan’s wartime atrocities (129) and the right frames the issue as one of self-defense, and employ ‘religious or quasi-religious rhetoric in discussing commemoration of the war,’ (128) making it impossible to criticize them without coming off as unpatriotic. That government bodies also exhibit such biases has meant that the Hiroshima museum ‘must balance a number of conflicting political interests in its exhibitions’ (129), which has also curtailed museums’ ability to present evidence or difficult questions regarding Japanese wartime
This highlights the possibility that ‘counter-museums’ can look very different if we look for them in different contexts, but can nonetheless still address the peculiar needs of their societal context, as in the case of the Japanese museums without resorting to the JCM’s method of engaging visitors. To treat Patterson’s idea of the ‘counter-museum’ itself more critically, it seems not very meaningful to talk about these in the way that Patterson does when it comes to certain genres of history museums, such as war museums, since their very subject matter means they would subvert objects and evidences of war to teach messages of peace. Noting that the new Japanese museums adopt more conventional methods of museums, while presenting new evidences and ways of seeing Japan’s wartime history, it would seem that the intuitive notion of ‘counter-museum,’ vis-a-vis the conventional museum, might be more meaningfully defined as any museum that goes one step ahead of other museums in its subject matter and context, and advances debate and understanding of that subject matter whereas other museums do not, regardless of what (seemingly) novel approaches it may take as the JCM