70101
This is a sentence from the fifth story in キノの旅, which is 大人の国. For context,
the narrator is talking about a time when she was a kid and she said something
about the "surgery" that offended her parents. Everyone in the country has a
surgery to become an adult when they turn 12.

>
> 子供だから戯言を言っただけとは思えないほど、彼らにはそれが重要なことだったのだと思う。今までみんなが、そして何より自分達が無理矢理されたことを、抵抗ができなかったからこそ素晴らしいことと思い込む。心の平穏を保つための防衛手段だったのではなかったかと。

I find this whole section pretty difficult, and it's hard for me to say
exactly which part I'm confused about. I'm assuming それ refers to the surgery
(and not, for example, what she said to her parents). If that seems wrong
please correct me.

How should I parse the second sentence? Are みんなが and 自分達が part of the clause
that ends with 無理矢理された? Are they the subject of 思い込む? Does 自分達が無理矢理されたこと mean
"what was done to them against their will"? And why does the sentence end with
the dictionary form 思い込む rather than something like 思い込んでいたのだろう?

Sorry for asking so many questions! Feel free to just answer whichever
questions seem most important.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-15T02:46:40.597
70098
2019-08-15T04:06:50.003
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question
passive-voice narration
Confused by passive verb in 無理矢理されたこと
I don't know what それ refers to without reading the previous context.

> ｛今までみんなが、そして何より自分達が無理矢理されたこと｝ **を** 、抵抗ができなかったからこそ｛素晴らしいこと｝ **と** 思い込む。

The basic structure of this sentence is A **を** B **と** 思い込む, which means "to
(wrongly) assume A as B", "to make a false assumption that A is B", "to
convince oneself that A is B", etc. See [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/55169/5010) for the `A + を + B +
(だ)と + verb` pattern. A is the **object** of 思い込む because it's clearly marked
with を. The implied subject is adults in the country, who already underwent
the surgery.

You have correctly parsed the A part. 「今までみんなが、そして何より自分達が無理矢理されたこと」 means "the
thing forcibly done to everyone, more importantly, themselves (=adults)".

思い込む is in the dictionary form because it makes the sentence sound more vivid
and dramatic than the teiru-form or the past tense (i.e., [historical
present](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/61679/5010)).

* * *

My translation attempt:

> 今までみんなが、そして何より自分達が無理矢理されたことを、抵抗ができなかったからこそ素晴らしいことと思い込む。  
>  (Adults in this country) convinced themselves that what had been forcibly
> done to everyone, including themselves, was a wonderful thing -- exactly
> because they could not resist it.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-15T04:01:16.233
70101
2019-08-15T04:06:50.003
2019-08-15T04:06:50.003
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70098
answer