However, those who would seek to undermine history are not the only ones who are blameworthy, included in such a grouping should also be those who would choose to haggle over the numbers of casualties. Blame should be leveled towards all the parties who continue to subject themselves to disputes over casualty figures, forging forth into the realm of cold statistical academic rhetoric. Such rhetoric does not explain or further enlighten us about the horrors that occurred, the impetus that promoted this tragedy, or the means to prevent such an act from ever occurring again.

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The continuing debate has too often boiled down to determining actual figures, while ignoring the most crucial aspect of all, individual voices and context.

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Instead, such arguments ultimately trivialize the memory of those individual lives that were unceremoniously brutalized in 1937. While statistical reference is of extreme importance in the accurate study of history, the Nanking Massacre stands as an event in which exact figures are extremely difficult to come by due to the nature of the tragedy itself. The continuing debate has too often boiled down to determining actual figures, while ignoring the most crucial aspect of all, individual voices and context. Those arguing for the higher casualty figures perhaps may feel that their work ultimately leads to honoring the memory of those who had lost their lives. But too often these disputes have in fact strayed further and further from telling the stories of survivors, victims, and perpetrators, as a result of the haggling over whether it was 340,000 or 380,000 would redeem the lost lives.

Added to this trivializing dispute over numbers, is the added insult of ranking atrocities. In the popular and stirring work "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang, the ranking of atrocities is meant to increase the relative magnitude of the Nanking Massacre in comparison with other atrocities, but this only serves to slight memories of those who suffered in the Nanking Massacre as well as those in the compared atrocities.

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