University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan on the CONCEPT of NATIONAL CHARACTER with REFERENCE to JAPAN
MASTER'S THESIS M-1493
BLUMFIELD, Hanita F. ON THE CONCEPT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER WITH REFERENCE TO JAPAN.
The American University, M.A., 1968 Anthropology
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan ON THE CONCEPT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER WITH REFERENCE TO JAPAN
by Hanita F. Bltimfield
Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
Anthropology
Signatures of Committeei
Chairman t
Dean of the College
Date:
1968 The American University Washington, D. C, PREFACE
A yellow skinned "inscrutable" face appears on the movie screen; suddenly an arm is lifted and jerked forward to the accompaniment of a hysterical sounding "Banzai." Several more "masklike" oriental faces appear on the screen, each incongruous seeming, for murderously uncontrollable "Banzais" emanate from impassive mouths. (Movie: The Purple Heart)
The mask of Japan. The mask behind which treachery, hate and racist dogma lurk, implies this World War II film. War-time propaganda? Stereotyping? Yes— but does some truth accompany the exaggeration and caricature? Are there specific cultural features shared, by members of a group which constitute recognizable and. differentiable "character structures" so that one may point out the significant features which form the core of traits predisposing the individual to respond in culturally patterned ways? As early as the fourth century B.C. Heroditus pondered the differences between Egyptian and Greek customs. Tacitus, first century A.D., to name another scholar, contrasted the behavior of the northern Germanic tribes with that of urban Rome.^ The question of "national character,"
Ijictor Barnouw, Culture and Personality (New York; Dorsey Press, 1963)1 P« 28. Ill of the existence of shared values, themes and patterned behavior manifested by the participants of the culture, of shared group differences, has bothered investigators throughout history. Simplistic explanations of "national character" in terms of racial heredity, evolutionary stage, geographical influences, or other single-factor mysticism have lost their currency, particularly through the work of 2 Boas and his generation of anthropologists. The complexity of "national character" has been recognized along with the concern for utilizing qualitative as well as quantitative data in the attempt to discover the shared nucleus of core values and attitudes which characterize the group. The aim of this thesis is to show that "national character," formed by underlying modal themes and values and manifested in the behavior patterns of members of a group, can be found to be operative in Japan and to have maintained its importance in the face of cultural change. The first chapter will review the concept of "national character" paying particular attention to definitions in current use. In the second chapter the objections and modifications to the concept will be discussed. The complexity of the
^Douglas G. Haring, "Anthropology: One Point of View," in Douglas G. Haring (ed.). Personal Character and Cultural Milieu (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1956), p.I d, iv organism’s interrelationship with its environment and the difficulty of applying psychoanalytic principles to anthro pological research will be stressed. In the third chapter three main themes which underlie the national character of Japan will be discussed. I have utilized sources from both pre-war and post-war Japan and have attempted to abstract these themes from the data. I have elected to Include both normative and real character traits in as much as the real has as its guideline the ideal, or to use John Bennett, Herbert Passim, and Robert McKnight's terminology the ideal is always a "generalized protocol" for use by the individual in learning how to respond to social situations.^ I have also given a brief discussion of themes hitherto identified or discussed concerning Japan. The fourth chapter will attempt to analyze the ways in which these themes have formed the axis around which social change has revolved. The receptivity and the response of the group to the processes of culture change depend, heavily on the "character structure" shared by the group which predisposes it to act in culturally regularized ways.
3John W. Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert K. McKnight, In Search of Identity; The Japanese Overseas Scholar in America and Japan (Minneapolis; University of Minnesota Press, 1958T , p. 227. V I will take the three themes identified in Chapter Three and attempt to see whether they are operative in post-war Japan. TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE PAGE Statement of the P r o b l e m ...... ill CHAPTER I. ON THE CONCEPT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER ...... 1 II. OBJECTIONS TO AND MODIFICATIONS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER ANALYSIS ...... 11 III. THREE THEMES WHICH UNDERLIE THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF JAPAN ...... 25 O n ...... 25 H i e r a r c h y ...... 31 Aliocentric Morality ...... 3^ Thematic Development ...... 40 Interpretation of Modal Themes ...... 46 IV, FACTORS OF RETENTION AND CHANGE IN POST WAR J A P A N ...... 50 Retention and Change in the Family in Post-War Japan ...... 51 National Character Motifs in Post-War Japan . . 60 Persistence of National Character Themes In J a p a n ...... 66 V. CONCLUSION ...... 73 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 79 CHAPTER I
ON THE CONCEPT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER
Certain cultural features have long been identified with certain nations or cultural groups. Efficiency has long been deemed a German characteristic, volubility an Italian, stoicism a British trait, and passion a French. We all have made an image of the dark, brooding, sensitive Russian, prone to drink and to violence, and obsessed with love of Country and of Land. Such characterizations are without question clichés and cannot be utilized to determine the character of the individuals of the society. The question remains, however, whether there are identifiable characteristics, other than racial, by which one can differentiate the German from the Frenchman, the American from the Japanese, If we are able to abstract these differentiating factors, we are left with the question whether these factors comprise a core of personality traits commonly found through out the culture ; a nucleus of behavioral traits predisposing the Individual to act and react in culturally patterned ways. For example, if we can distinguish in Japan a distinctly patterned hierarchical structure which permeates all aspects of the society, can we then further find that each member of that society has as part of his gestalt a hierarchical orientation to life? In other words, is personality Influenced and determined by the culture In which It develops— does the Individual personality reflect the nuclear values of the society? The interrelation between Culture and Personality is a complex problem which has received a great deal of attention. Culture consists of those beliefs, actions and material devices that are characteristic of an ongoing society. Personality Is the "organization of forces within a complex of fairly consistent attitudes, values and modes of perception which account. In part, for the Individual's consistency of behavior."^ This personality system Is consistent with and responsive to cultural forces, otherwise personality disorder becomes manifest. A human being, in order to develop his humanity, must be a member of a social group. This social group carries on the culture. There can be no culture without human organisms who manifest the traits of this culture, and who pass on the heritage to their offspring. The human organism and the human personality carry the culture; the culture can not exist Independently of these carriers; and yet without the culture there would be no human personality, for an Individual cannot develop In Isolation. Personality and
^Victor Barnouw, Culture and Personality (New York; Dorsey Press, 1963)1 P* 8, 3 Culture are thus Inextricably intertwined and are constantly affecting and being affected by each other. As Spiro remarks, in analyzing the relationship between Culture and Personality, "personality and culture then are not mutually exclusive entities; they are part and parcel of the same 2 process of interaction," Although an individual's personality can be influenced by its culture In a variety of ways, "national character" studies attempt to answer these questions only as they refer to regularities and patterns inferred from group behavior. Individuals within a given group make similar adjustments In order to work and reside together. Of the great range of potentialities of human actions and reactions, certain patterns are manifested by participants of a given culture. It is this patterned behavior that "national character" studies attempt to analyze and these adjustments that it seeks to abstract. "National character" statements assume that there are consistent behavioral regularities which are standardized for members of the group.^ There Is a mental "set" of
^Melford Spiro, "Culture and Personality : The Natural History of a False Dichotomy," Psychiatry. 14:4-3, 1951. 3 Alex Inkeles and Daniel Levinson, "National Character* The Study of Modal Personality and Sociocultural Systems," In Gardner Llndzey (ed.) , Handbook of Social Ps; (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Addis on-Wesley, 195^)» Vol II, p. 980. attitudes and values shared by the group which predis poses the individuals to respond to social stimuli in predictable ways. Nhen this mental set Is Isolated, It exhibits a definite structure and design. Once this structure is defined, it can be used to describe and predict behavior. As Herlinger states : It Is possible to abstract common traits and to form a generalized personality structure which, while It may not accurately fit any one Individual, will offer convenient guldeposts for better jmderstandlng of a nation and the Individuals In It. Since one finds that this "generalized personality structure" is shared by members occupying similar milieus, one can speak of a "group" or "national" character. This Is not to say that each member of the group does not possess idiosyn cratic traits, but that there are shared personality features common to the group. One may. Indeed, adopt David Sidney's Image of a "single corporate person, such as the state, with a distinct personality over and above the personalities of Its participant members."^ As Geoffrey Gorer has pointed out, this "corporate entity" need not be a state or nation, but It may be any body of people possessing a common culture at a specified
^Pred N. Kerlinger, "Behavior and Personality in Japan; A Critique of Three Studies of Japanese Personality," Social Forces. 31:250, 1953- ■^David Sidney, Theoretical Anthropology (New York: Schocken Press, 1967), p. 343. time.^ The term "national character" applies to, as Clyde Kluckhohn, agreeing with Gorer and Mead, states: . . . those modalities of behavior and. of view of the world and experience in it that are found or claimed to be characteristic of a specified national or ethnic population at a particular period in time.' In order to avoid confusion with larger "national" units, certain anthropologists have found it advisable to substi tute other terms to express what we have called "national character." _ Abram Kardiner operates with the concept of a "basic personality"— that structure which is held in common by the members of a society and. which represents the constellation of personality traits characteristic of the members of that society. The individual becomes socialized within the family, the "primary Institution" responsible for the devel- Q opment of basic personality structure. (The notion of the family as the primary socialization mechanism for the young is indeed, a primary axiom In anthropology, and. it is used in
Geoffrey Gorer, "National Character: Theory and. Practice," in M. Mead, and R. Ketraux (eds.). The Study of Culture at a Distance (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, I953T, p. 5 7 . ^Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture and Behavior (New York; Free Press, 1962), p. 210, ^Abram Kardiner, "The Concept of Basic Personality Structure as an Operational Tool In the Social Sciences," in Douglas Haring (ed,), Personal Character and Cultural Milieu (Syracuse; Syracuse University Press, 1956) , p. 472. 6 all "national character" research.) A basic personality emerges in the society because the socializing agent, the family, is relatively standardized throughout that society, and consequently the methods of socialization in the family, and hence the forces operating on the various Individuals are relatively stable. The family, furthermore, lays the foundation for further societal development because it provides the mechanism whereby secondary Institutions develop, frequently by projection of the family situation itself, Kardiner restates the interrelationship between Culture and Personality as he points out that parental attitudes (and hence the methods of socialization) are determined by the social organization which itself is frequently a reflection and projection of the family situa tion. Thus the process is fundamentally circular, with the family being affected by the social organization which Itself is a reflection of the family.^ "Basic personality" and "national character" are fundamentally attempts to describe the same phenomenon; the Impartation of certain attitudes and characteristics to all members of a society ; the formation, by that society, of a certain basic character structure which the individual idiosyncrasies modify. As Kardiner states, "The character
^Kardiner, 0£. cit.. pp. 472-73- 7 structure Is formed within an ambit of a certain range of potentialities and within this latter the basic personality is to be found. Even a concept such as "basic personality" has the difficulty that, although one can Identify the Institutions which give rise to the "basic personality," the concept does not indicate how one determines prevalence of these charac teristics and attitudes which are part of this core personality. Cora Du Bols, therefore, has proposed the concept of a "modal personality" to overcome the quantifi cation difficulties Inherent in the "basic personality" concept. "Modal personality" attempts to utilize a statistical approach} those elements of personality which are relatively frequent in a social population compromise that society's "modal personality." The methodology of the "modal personality" theory is clear; it attempts to quantify the frequency of given actions, attitudes and value systems of the group through statistical analysis, Margaret Head, however, does not believe that regul arities of behavior are to be determined statistically. According to Mead;
^^Kardiner, op. cit. , p. 4-75.
^^Cora Du Bois, The ieople of Alor (New York: Earner and Row, 1944), p. xlv. 8
National character studies attempt to trace the way in which the identified cultural behavior is represented in the intra-psychic structure of the individual members of the culture, combining cultural theory and psycho logical theory (principally learning theory. Gestalt psychology, Freudian psychology, and child development studies) into a new psychooultural theory to explain how human beings embody the culture, learn it, and live It. For Mead the development and inclusion of psychological concepts along with anthropological research is crucial to an understanding of "national character." Each Individual manifests the characteristic traits of his group, provided that his individual position is taken Into account. Once one identifies the position and standing of an individual in his society, one can then treat him as indicative of the society as a whole, for he will manifest the same character istics as other members of his group occupying the same position. Thus each individual can be utilized as a bona- fide member of his group. Mead states: Each member of a society is systematically represen tative of the cultural pattern of that society, so that the treatment accorded infant or immigrant, pupils or employees or rulers, is indicative of the culturally regular character forming methods of the society.^3 Although there is no doubt that psychological techniques must be applied to "national character" analysis, and that Individuals do, in many ways, represent the groups
12Margaret Mead, "National Character," in Alfred L. Kroeber (ed.), Anthronology Today (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 051. ^^Ibid.. p. 645. 9 of which they are a part, nevertheless Mead's position has run into problems in practice because of the difficulty of its application. Our knowledge of psychology is not yet refined enough to permit us to analyze sufficiently the 14 given individual's representative qualities. It is still easier and more certain for us to utilize a variety of informants and techniques in order to differentiate the common from the unique. Mead's position is Intended primarily as a countermeasure to overreliance on statistical and sampling procedures which tend to ignore the holistic approach. "National character" investigators are concerned with standardization, consistency and regularity. They are interested in discovering the uniform styles of life, or modalities, which are shared by societal members and are incorporated into the fabric of their personalities. The authors are in agreement that the socially standardized behavioral regularities can be abstracted. The terminology may differ: "national character"; "modal personality"; "basic personality." But the underlying concepts are similar. These concepts refer to nuclear traits which are manifested in the shared behavioral predispositions of the group. The techniques utilized hinge upon the inclusion of
^^David G. MandeIbaum, "On the Study of National Character," American Anthropologist. 55:174-8?, 1953. 10 psychological principles, with particular stress on the variables of child rearing. There Is special emphasis on a holistic approach which takes into consideration as many institutions in the society as is feasible. Therefore, Rorschach, T. A. T., in-depth interviews are all methods utilized in order to recognize and abstract the underlying themes and values. CHAPTER II
OBJECTIONS Tü AND MODIFICATIONS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Neither the theory nor the methodology of "national character" analysis have received uniform and unqualified support from other exponents in the field of Culture and Personality. Not only have particular concepts come under severe criticism, but the entire assumption that uniformity of character structure is a necessary concomitant of societal living has come under attack. The major critic of the theory underlying "national character" studies is Anthony Wallace, who questions the existence of a uniform personality which is shared by the members of a society.^ He calls this the "replication of uniformity" theory, which has as its basic tenet the idea that all members of a society achieve, as a result of socialization, a similar personality structure, and that this personality structure is transmitted from generation to generation with only minor changes. The adherents to this theory feel that the society must form individuals with a basically uniform personality structure in order to assure its own societal harmony and continuity, Wallace,
^Anthony Wallace, Culture and Personality (New York: Random House, I961), p. 4l. 12 on the other hand, considers this unnecessary for the ongoing of the society and talks instead of the "organization of diversity." People can possess different traits, different personality structures, and they can have a different awareness of the world: the only requirement is that these diverse behaviors be mutually predictable and recognizable to interacting members of the society. Individuals within a society possess cognitive guidelines for action within that society. These maps contain the individual's understanding of the values, objectives and environment, both human and non-human, in which he must 2 function. At the root of Wallace's objection to "national character" theory is his understanding of Culture and Personality. To Wallace: Culture is those ways of behavior or techniques of solving problems which, being more frequently and more closely approximated than other ways, can be said to have a high probability of use by Individual members of a society. Personality, in this context, would be simply those ways of behavior or techniques of solving problems which have a high probability of use by one individual.^ The personality of the individual is not an "entity," but rather a complex mental image which contains values, objectives, imagery, ideas about the human and non-human
2 Wallace, op. cit., pp. 16-19. 3lbid., p. 6. 13 environment, the knowledge of the natural and supernatural world, and the techniques for participating in social relationships. In effect, it is a cognitive map providing the human being with the mechanism whereby he can coordinate his actions with those of other members of his society. This complex mental image Wallace terms a "mazeway" in order to avoid the image of personality as an independent reification.^ Since Personality and Culture are not to be conceived of as Platonic entities, but rather as abstractions Intuited by the observer, it would follow, therefore, from the "mazeway" descriptions of individuals, that "a personality is no more an embodiment of the culture than a baby is an embodiment of the birth r a t e . "3 with this reservation in mind, however, Wallace does see the value of delineating the preponderant character istics of the group for descriptive purposes. He feels that one may use "national character" or "modal personality" concepts for their heuristic value in considering structure and pattern. He does, nevertheless, offer strong criticism of the methodology used. He believes that the investigators build a "national character" from diverse elements which are
^Wallace, op. cit., pp. 16-I9 .
3lbld., p. 87 . 14 not adequately weighed as to their relative importance, and whose position in the pattern is not fully determined. For example, he states* The pattern analysts in Culture and Personality are prone to take a childhood memory from this informant, a neurotic phobia from that, the theme from a movie, and the history of an international incident and, by skillful maneuvering of the pieces, produce a "pattern" which is discoverable in no one individual but is attributable to all.^ Lindesmith and Strauss also question the methodology of various "national character" studies. They feel that these studies are oversimplified and rely too heavily on the "homogeneity postulate"--the theory that societies are extremely uniform and that the integration of a society demands a consistency of the attitudes and values of the group. ^ This theory may lead to a neglect of inconsistent data. For example, Mead de-emphaslzes the data on Arapesh warfare, because she believes strongly in the maternally oriented non-aggressive character of the Arapesh. Lindesmith and Strauss further remark that the analysts are frequently guilty of prejudicial representation of the data. The analyst's semantic usage in his description of the society may reflect his own value system to the
^Wallace, op. cit., p. 8 9 . ^Alfred R. Lindesmith and Anselm L. Strauss, "A Critique of Culture-Personallty Writings," American Sociological Review, 15>589» 1950. 15 g detriment of the society under study. An exemple of this prejudicial choice of words is La Barre's terminology in dealing with the Japanese* "The Japanese are the most 9 compulsive people in the world's ethnographic museum." A major criticism centers upon the uncritical acceptance of psychoanalytic theory by "national character" analysts. Indeed, one major objection to "national character" analysis has been the inclusion of psychoanalytic theory and concepts.As Barnouw states * Most anthropologists working in culture and personality are impressed by Freud's work and are inclined to accept much of psychoanalytic theory. . . . consequently culture and personality researchers tend to be eclectic and vaguely neo-Freudian., ^ As Mande Ibaum has pointed out in his critique of "national character" studies, the difficulty in utilizing such concepts is that "psychologists have not yet provided us with a solid, consistent, tested, applicable array of axioms
Q Lindesmith and Strauss, op. cit.. pp. 587-6OO. ^This type of phraseology is not peculiar to "national character" studies but reflects the fact that the investigator's own culture influences his perceptions of and attitudes toward other cultures. Ronald P. Dore discusses this difficulty in his introduction to his book. City Life in Japan* A Study of a Tokyo Ward (Berkeley, California* University of California Press, 1958)» pp. 7-9 ^^Lindesmith and Strauss, loo, cit. letor Barnouw, Culture and Personality (New York: The Dorsey Press, I963). pl 1 6 5 . 16 and principles, among which we need only make an apposite selection to ply our trade." 12 A primary problem is the postulation that person ality is programmed in the early years of life and that the resultant constellation of traits, or character structure, in the adult rarely deviates from the predetermined mold. Lindesmith, Strauss and Little believe that one must consider subsequent learning and experiences, since later develop ments may be as essential for the development of the personality as childhood experiences. It is also exceed ingly difficult to assess the relative importance of the 13 diverse experiences of an individual in his development. Another difficulty in the Freudian underpinnings of "national character" research, pointed out by Orlansky, is the imputation of adult attitudes and characteristics to l4 the neonate. Erikson, for example, discusses the Yurok
^avid G. MandeIbaum, "On the Study of National Character," American Anthropologist. 55*180, 1953* MandeIbaum, however, does not indicate what he would regard as solid psychological theory. Investigators can only utilize the current knowledge and Insights of the field and hope that the discipline will continue to develop theoretical models which will be of help in analyzing the complex interrelationship of the organism and his society. 13 Alfred R. Lindesmith and Anselm L. Strauss, loo. cit.I K. L. Little, "Methodology in the Study of Adult Personality and 'National Character,'" American Anthropologist 52*279, 1950. ^^Harold Orlansky, "Infant Care and Personality," Psychological Bulletin. 46*33, 1949» 17 "nostalgie need for intake" which develops from weaning too early.Does the infant have an "insatiable" yearning for the breast? As Orlansky comments, "This view that the infant has an ' insatiable ' yearning for the breast can only be regarded as an adult reading in of emotion into the young 16 infant." It is possible, however, that the adult perception, which sees the neonate as yearning "Insatiably" for the breast. Influences the adult’s handling of the situation so that the infant's reaction is tempered by the mother's tone and attitude. The application of Freudian concepts to anthropo logical data runs into further difficulties. A major concern of the Freudian viewpoint is the frustration potential of infant discipline. This viewpoint holds, for example, that early severe toilet-training leads to frustration in the neonate, and it leads to the concomitant development of the "compulsive" anal personality. However, it is difficult to determine objectively the extent to which, in the entire range of childhood experiences, any given discipline is frustrating. To take but one example of this problem, Orlansky points out that the use of the cradleboard among the Sioux contributed, in Erikson's
^^Erlk H. Eriks on, Childhood and Society (New York: W, W. Norton and Company, Inc., I9 6 3 )» P, 177. ^^Orlansky, op. cit.. p. 9* 18 analysis, to frustration which ultimately led to aggressive ness and sadism; for Belden the cradleboard provided for the 17 development of stoicism (a more positive result). There appears to be no society which does not in some way constrict its young. Society, on the other hand, is also the developer of satisfactions and social needs which can be fulfilled within the. societal setting alone. Whether a given set of disciplines will be considered positive or negative appears to depend heavily on the predisposition of the researcher. This problem is seen clearly in a comparison of Ruth Benedict's and Esther Goldfrank's analyses of the Hopi initiation rites. Benedict is impressed by the homogeneity and harmony of the Hopi society with its secure and defined position of each individual in the harmonious world order. She therefore believes that the whippings inflicted by the Kachina gods on the children at the initiation ceremony are intended to remove the bad happenings from the child. These whippings are essentially therapeutic in nature and are not very severe. Goldfrank, valuing heterogeneity and individualism, is struck by the coercive features of Hopi society and the resultant development of deeply disciplined human beings. She believes that the whippings are punitive rather than therapeutic and that the
^^Orlansky, cit. , p. 2 7 . 19 more recalcitrant the child, the harder the whipping will he. She points out that the whippings are severe enough so that blood is drawn, and the children urinate involun- tarily. Yet another tenet of "national character" studies that has been called into question is the assumption that childhood training is consistent within a society over time. Gorer has claimed that "the fact that societies continue, though their personnel changes, implies that the learning of today’s children is likely to be very similar to the 19 earlier learning of today’s adults." However, authors such as Bronfenbrenner and Wolfenstein have pointed out 20 shifts in baby care within American society, Wolfenstein, in studying the emergence of a "fun morality" in America, draws attention to the change in baby training from 1914, when playing with the baby was considered unwholesome and
18This comparison is made by John J. Bennett in "The Interpretation of Pueblo Culture * A Question of Values," in Douglas G. Earing (ed. ), Personal Character and Cultural Milieu (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 195é). 19^Geoffrey Gorer, "The Concept of National Character," in Clyde Kluckhohn and Henry A. Murray (eds.). Personality in Nature. Society and Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959). p. 253. 20urie Bronfenbrenner, "Socialization and Social Class Through Time and Space," in Yehudi A. Cohen (ed.), Social Structure and Personality (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1 9 6 1 ), p. 5 4 . 20 dangerous, to 1942, when the prevalent attitude held that playing with the infant was not only wholesome, but was, in fact, a new parental duty.^l Child rearing methods, there fore, are far from constant within a society, particularly within a complex society in which change may occur with greater rapidity because of the exposure of major segments of the population to mass media. It appears that many of the concepts involved in these attempts to determine the patterns of adult personality from the childhood situation depend upon the predispositions of the investigator. It should be noted, however, that later scholars in the field are aware of the problems cited; objective analysis of data, relative weighting of infant disciplines, influence of childhood training on adult personality, and the consistency of childhood training. Hallowell, Honigmann and Spindler, in particular, recognize the importance of subsequent learning in the development of the individual. Hallowell and most of the more recent scholars in the field of Culture and Personality, believe that a basic personality structure may be produced within the society, since membership in a given sociocultural milieu presents a
^^Martha Wolfenstein, "The Emergence of Fun Morality," Social Structure and Personality, Yehudi Cohen, editor (New York; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, I96I), p. 102. 21 oommon set of conditions significant for the development of the personality organization of these individuals. In effect, the world view of the individual is culturally structured, and the human personality is the product of the socialization process with the subsequent structure a result 22 of the nature and condition of the experience. They believe that child training is a major key to the organization of personality and the concomitant 23 participation in the societal system. They are, neverthe less, concerned with subsequent as well as childhood training variables in the development of the functioning member of society. As Spindler has stated* There is nothing in the data that contradicts the assumption that childhood experience is a general determinant of personality structure. But the Menomeni data indicates very clearly that the situations occurring in adult life are determinants of equal significance and that personality structure is perhaps more, flexible in its group dimension than we might p r e s u m e . Perhaps the best discussion of the relationship between childhood training and later experiences in the development
^^A. Irving Hallowell, "Culture, Personality and Society," Anthropology Today. A. L. Kxoeber (ed.) (Chicago* University of Chicago Press, 1953)» PP> 60 6 -8 . ^^John J. Honigmann, Culture and Personality (New York* Harper and How, 1954), pp. 226-261, oil, '^George S. Spindler, "Menomeni Acculturation," in Yehudi A. Cohen (ed.). Social Structure and Personality (New York* Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Ï9 6 1 ), p. 444. 22 of a basic personality structure, or "national character," has been given by Cohen, who points out that the "generalized, value-attitude systems" that a child gets are reinforced and/or modified by later experiences* This culturally conditioned behavior towards the child is the source of the most generalized value- attitude systems capable of extension to any generically similar set of stimuli. Insofar as it exists as a uniform tendency among a modal population it is the source of . . . basic personality structure. Beyond this the specific content of the character type and the degree to which the basic tendencies are expressed are defined by observation and Instruction in the patterns of behavior characteristic of the Individual's society. This latter field is more directly affected by the social, economic, military and political events than is the former. Experience in it will logically reinforce or inhibit the tendencies established in the first field. The Integration of the dynamic results of experience in both fields, the final result, including both form and content, is the social or "national" character. ^ In addition to considering the variables of experience and the political, economic and sociocultural milieu in the development of "national character," these more recent scholars have attempted to make the study of "national character" more precise. They have incorporated statistical analyses of the "modal personality," which they abstract from in-depth interviews, T. A. T, and Rorschach tests.
^^Yehudi A. Cohen (ed, ), Social Structure and Personality (New York* Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 19&1), p. 233. 26 The inclusion of statistical analysis also reflects the , predispositions of the investigator, particularly with the stress on the new "scientism" which requires and expects considerable quantitative data. 23 They have also recognized the dangers of prejudicial selection and presentation of data and have been careful to avoid the pitfalls and difficulties of unconscious 27 subjectivity In their work.
The basic premise that "national character" develops because of the existence of modal themes within society is understandable when one considers that human society and culture must have a complex of beliefs, themes, values and behavioral patterns which would make for a "modal person ality. " Even Wallace's maps are products of the interaction of the organism and his society, for the cognitive maps contain values, objectives and environments which can only be organized and ascertained by members of social groups, Man does not develop human qualities in isolation. It is plausible that even the "organization of diversity" of which Wallace speaks has its "end factors." A society does seem to be organized around certain postulates, effective in so many contexts that correct apprehension of them offers a key to prediction of behavior in that society. These postulates
^"^These studies have been done by (to cite only a few) j John J. Honigmann, Culture and Ethos of Kaska Society (Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 40. New Haven, Connecticut* Yale University Press, 1949): Melford E. Spiro, Children of the Kibbutz (Cambridge* Harvard University Press, 1 9 5 8 )J and John W. Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert K. McKnight, In Search of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, I958T. 24 that enable the prediction of diverse behavior in a society are precisely the "modal personality" of that society. Students of "national character," in abstracting themes, are pointing out the regularities of man's existence, the cultural understanding which accords the Individual the system to live by. Personality, society and. culture interact and affect one another. Human beings both respond to the culture and modify it. Man and culture are indisputably Interlocked, for truly the child is "father to the man," retaining and modifying the core traits and values of his society and transmitting them to the future. CHAPTER III
THREE THEMES WHICH UNDERLIE THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF JAPAN
As we search for an understanding of Japanese society, we find three themes which offer a key to the understanding of the "modal personality" of the Japanese. These themes permeate all aspects of the society. Although they are in fact interrelated and Intertwined, it is convenient to separate them for analysis, for they indicate the relationship of the Japanese to his environment, both human and non-human, and to his self,
I. ON
A primary theme for the understanding of Japanese culture is the concept of on. This is the conception that the individual owes obligations and. repayments for the privilege of being part of a social group.^ As Dore remarks, "All his social acts must be guided, and. directed by an awareness of that indebtedness and of the duties towards others which it entails."^
^Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and, the Sword (Boston; Houghton Mifflin Company, 19% ) , p. 114. ^Ronald P. Dore, City Life in Japan; A Study of a Tokyo Ward (Berkeley and. Los Angeles; University of Calif ornia Press, 1958), p. 374. 26
On Itself can be divided into two categories* Gimu. which is the fulfillment of intimate obligations stemming from one's birth and family affiliation; and Girl, the fulfillment of obligations to non-kin. Both giri and gimu can be further divided, Giri can be understood in two separate ways* what Benedict calls "giri to the world," which is the fulfillment of contractual obligations; and its necessary corollary, "giri to one's name," the necessity of keeping one's name unblemished. Gimu also has two separate spheres* the repayment of one's on to one's parent, which is termed and the repayment of one's on to the emperor, which is called chu.^ For purposes of clarity, we may indicate these on a simplified graph.
FAMILY NON-KIN
ON 1 I--- 1 GIMU GIRI _J ___ __L_
Chu M Giri to World Girl to Name (filial piety "filial piety" (to fulfill (obligation due the (the debt owed contractual not to be emperor as one's parents, obligations dishonored the super repaid to and not to to "save paterfamilias ) one's parents dishonor) one's face") and children)
^Benedict, o£. cit., pp. 115-16, 134. 27 These obligations are conceived of as compulsory and are part of the human condition, Gimu serves as the basis for the famous "filial piety" of Japan, the placement of the parent in an authoritarian position by virtue of the on which one owes to them. The on is conceived of as an 4 infinite obligation— one can never finish paying it. Chu, the repayment of one's m to the emperor, is not a form of giri. which refers to obligations to non-kin. It is part of gimu. because the familial obligation is extended to the emperor. As Embree remarks, "The nation itself is conceived of as one great family, with the emperor as the head and benevolent father."^ This conception of obligation permeates the fabric of Japanese society. For this reason obeying laws, not only in terms of filial piety, but in interrelationships with non-kin, is considered a means of partial repayment of indebtedness. As a result of this principle, conformity to regulations is a means whereby one attempts to fulfill this on. It is incumbent upon every individual to define the supreme task of life as the fulfillment of on. ^ Within the home, "filial piety" often results in a
^Benedict, op. cit.. p. II5 . ^John F. Embree, The Japanese Nation: A Social Survey (New Yorks Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1945), p. 15^» ^Benedict, loc. cit. 28 situation wherein the grown son, owing on to his parents, is likely to place their desires and needs over those of his wife and himself. To this point, the daughter-in-law recognizes that on to her own parents requires her to manifest obedience to her in-laws. As De Vos has pointed out, this feeling of on obligations is also found to be a central focus in Japanese arranged marriages : "any discord . , . even with an unreasonable mother-in-law, injures the reputation of her [the daughter-in-law'si parents. The repayment of one's on to one's parents, of one's ko. involves not only obedience, but the fulfillment of their expectations in role behavior in the family and in outer society. Failure on the part of the individual to live up to the family's expectations creates great stress. This is exemplified by the high suicide rates of students who fail examinations, and who thereby do not fulfill their on to their parents. Vogel has shown that the failure in the entrance examinations affects most deeply those children whose parents have expended the greatest amount of energy and sacrifice to attain their admission, and he has even shown this ratio to exist among sons of the same
^George A. De Vos, "The Relation of Guilt Toward Parents to Achievement and Arranged Marriage Among the Japanese," in Robert Hunt (ed.). Personalities and Cultures (New York: The Natural History Press, 1967), p. 274. 29 family.^ The emperor is conceived- of as a super-paterfamilias to whom one owes gimu. For example, Benedict reports that "teachers in training were flunked if they phrased man’s duty as love of country; it had to be phrased, as repayment to the 9 emperor in person." One’s obligation to the emperor even extended to the salvaging of the emperor’s picture in case of fire, and many a pedagogue lost his life by dashing into the burning school to save the pictures of the emperor which 10 hung on the walls. And. yet this is not simply a question of divinity, for the emperor was not so much a god incarnate as he was the focus of all obligations. To the Japanese the emperor symbolized the fundamental assumptions regarding values. Benedict reports: It is said that when it was suggested to the emperor that he disavow his divinity, he protested that it would be a personal embarrassment to strip himself of something he did. not have. The Japanese, he said truthfully, did not consider him a god. in the western sense.^1
C Ezra F. Vogel, "Entrance Examinations and Emotional Disturbances in Japan's 'New Middle Class,'" in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds.) , Japanese Culture : Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago; Aldine Publishing Company, 1962) , p. I5I. Benedict, pp. pit,., p. 129.
^^Embree, pp. cit.. p. 157-
^Benedict, pp. cit. , p. 309. 30
The obligation to the emperor has affected Japanese military attitudes, particularly in the development of the kamikaze. The kamikaze gave their lives because they owed it to their emperor, not because of any idea of "other worldly salvation" attained through death in holy battle, as exists in Islam, nor because of any longing for nirvana. As Benedict has pointed out, neither nirvana nor transmigration 12 ever became a key interest in Japan. When we turn to the question of girl, we see "giri to the world" expressed in obligation to the firms for which one works. One does not lightly change jobs, as one does in the West, but rather one remains in the same firm for most of one’s life and works up through the hierarchy of that firm. Patience, politeness and deference to superiors remain the traditional virtues even outside the home, with laws of etiquette observed scrupulously in order to avoid any chance 13 of dishonoring one's colleague. "Giri to one's name" is an extension of this other giri and of gimu to one's parents. One must keep one's name inviolate and avoid situations in which there is a chance of loss of dignity, since one's
^^Benedict, pp. cit., p. 2 3 8 . ^^John W. Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert K, McKnight, In Search of Identity* i?he Japanese Overseas Scholar in America and Japan ( Minneapolis * University of Minnesota Press, 1 9 5 8 ). pp. 71-2. 31 14 family cannot exist and survive without its good standing. In the final analysis what one sees is the obligation of on operative in all circumstances, whether familial or non, and. the extension of the familial ethic to contractual . situations. The Japanese society has a famllistic- particularistic base; therefore, one fulfills "giri to the world" and gimu, which are intertwined in the ethic of on. The divisions between these two are in fact arbitrary and serve only to differentiate manifestations of the same phenomenon of on.
II. lilERARCKY
Along with the consideration of "filial piety" is a hierarchical structure in which the individual, from an early age, is programmed into a number of particular places and. has a set of statuses in the society. It is not that status is immutable, but that the society is oriented, along a super ordinate subordinate axis. We have said previously that within the family the father was super ordinate in the hierarchical structure, with the female considering her role as secondary, and as obliged to treat her husband as master.
The relationship between male and female in general was unequal with the male, even the young male, in a position of
^^^Dore, op. oft. , p. 376. 32 dominance over the female. By generalization from the family situation In a culture which used this type of famlllstlc model, other institutions also show development of a hierarchical structure. As John Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert McKnight point out : The family system had developed historically along patrilineal lines, and during Tokugawa times such patterns of relations between kin were proclaimed as an official social code, After the Meijl restoration the Samurai class maintained these social rules which have become part and parcel of 17 the Japanese ethics. The school is a prime example of the extension of filial piety outside the home, for the student owes this piety to his master. As Embree states, "unquestioning acceptance of everything the teacher says is on subordination to superiors and slow acceleration up the statut, ladder. One does not disturb the harmonious 18 conditions. One's position in Japanese society is not determined
^^Edward Norbeck, Changing Japan (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965), pp. 4-5. ^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, 0 2 . cit.. p. 227. ^^John F. Embree, Suye M w a : A Japanese Village (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19^4), p7 lôo. T A Bennett, Passim and McKnight, op. cit.. p. 3 6 . 33 primarily by individual abilities and initiative, but rather 19 on one's membership in a particular order or group. For example, certain areas and positions have traditionally been under the control of particular cliques: "It was and to some extent remains almost impossible, for example, to hold a senior civil service post without being a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University." 20 The hierarchy operates through minute rules of rei. or etiquette, for as Bennett, Passim and McKnight comment; A tight social organization based on concern with status and hierarchy is by necessity one in which social behavior tends to be governed more by norms and public expectancies and less by free or idiosyncratic response to a given situation.^ Sharply defined procedures for social intercourse have been one of the most outstanding features of Japanese life. During the Tokugawa regime, social classes were frozen.
^^This is not to suggest, however, that mobility is not possible. In traditional Japanese society, marriage and/or adoption could effect a change in group membership. John F. Embree, The Japanese Nation, op. cit.. p. 127. One could also lose social status by descending into a group of lesser rank. Embree further comments on Samurai who descended into the merchant class. Embree, 0£. cit.. p. 23. In contemporary Japanese society upward mobility is possible through the mechanism of education, though one's social position and family membership often determine whether one will be able economically to utilize this avenue of upward mobility, Vogel, op, cit.. pp. l4l-43. 20 Bennett, Passim and McKnight, op. cit,. p. 35. ^^Ibid.. p. 2 3 0 , 34 A necessary concomitant of this stratification saw the formation of minutely defined rules of behavior for every recognized class and category. As Norbeck points out : Rules governing behavior between categories that stood in superior-inferior positions to each other were especially elaborate and important. Formal prescriptions told Samurai-commoner and husband-wife how to conduct their relationships and the precise^p nature of their mutual obligations and privileges. Even after the Tokugawa regime was overthroiin, the strict guarding of hierarchical place in society was consistently 23 and constantly taught in Japan.
III. ALIOCENTfilC MORALITY
In attempting to explain the significance of the Japanese ethical system, several authors have suggested a dichotomy between cultures which are shame-oriented and cultures which are guilt-oriented. Benedict has defined this dichotomy thus : A society that inculcates absolute standards of morality, and. relies on men's developing a conscience Is a guilt culture. . . . True shame cultures rely on external sanctions for good behavior, not, as true guilt cultures do, on an Internalized, conviction of . sin. Shame is a reaction to other people's criticism. Japan has been called a "shame" culture. The
2 2Norbeck, o£. cit., p. 8. ^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, op. cit.. p. 227. pit Benedict, pp. cit., pp. 222-23- 35 Japanese have been said to have no sense of guilt or sin, but to be situâtionally oriented to respond to patterns of etiquette and codes which have no absolute moral standing, in other words, to be concerned only with doing the correct action at the proper time. It is, indeed, difficult to see how a society with no internalized concept of wrongdoing could exist. As De Vos has stated: Generally speaking, the processes involved in resolving early identifications as well as assuming later adult social roles are never possible without some internalized guilt.26 We must, therefore, ask what it is in Japanese society that leads some observers to conclude that they were dealing with a "shame" society, and what it is that is the moral code of Japan. There are two major reasons why Japan has been called a "shame" culture. In the first place, Western observers tend to equate sin, or guilt, with physical gratification. 27 The individual is considered required to exercise manifold restraints in respect to his own body in
^Geoffrey Gorer, "Themes in Japanese Culture," in Douglas G, Haring (ed.), Personal Character and Cultural Milieu (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1956), p. 283. ^^De Vos, op. cit.. p. 266. ^"^Ibid. . p. 285. 36 accordance with a rigid "moral" code absolutely conceived of. The individual must, regardless of the situation, adhere to the moral imperatives granted and the prohibitions imposed. Ho other people need be involved in sexual trans gression. For example, auto-eroticism is conceived of as an absolute sin in traditional Christianity. It is simply not to be done. In the West, indeed, we tend to equate "morality" with "sexual morality," particularly when we think in terms of the "decline of morality." In Japan, on the other hand, there is apparently no concept of evil inherent in physical pleasure, nor of any sexual misdeed. Auto-eroticism, to take the same example, is not viewed as any sort of transgression, but it is rather accepted as a 28 natural phenomenon and. is not much considered. It is sufficient to assign it and other sexual pleasures to an appropriate place in life; it only becomes a wrongful act if it is the focus of life. As Benedict points out, even when there is a "negatively toned, attitude" expressed, towards physical expression of sexuality, the concern expressed is with the possible loss of control suffered by becoming involved in a relationship that interferes with the prescribed life goal of the individual. The act itself is not wrong, it must simply not be allowed to become a
^^De /os, iqp, cit. , p. 188. 37 29 a focus of life. The second reason that Japan has been considered a "shame" culture is that obligations have been expressed and conceived of in particularistic terms. The Western observer has been told what the Japanese are expected to do in each particular case ; indeed, the codification and articulation of rules in Japanese society explicate the functions and. duties of society. It has, therefore, been tempting to view Japanese ethics as being totally founded upon and concerned, with the particular rules, and an under go lying moral-guilt system has not always been recognized, When we look at Japanese society, however, we find, that they describe and. define the supreme task of life to be the fulfilling of one's obligations. Personal happiness and. satisfaction, like sex, is a nice pleasure to be indulged in for relaxation. As Benedict points out, "The idea that the pursuit of happiness is a serious goal of life is to them an amazing and immoral doctrine.This should be an indication to the Western observer that the Japanese do have strong moral feelings and convictions. Indeed, De Vos points out that "filial piety has in itself certain
^^Bened.ict, op. cit. , p. 1?8. ^^De Vos, pp. cit.. p. 285. ^^Benedict, op, cit.. p. 192. 38 moral absolutes that are not completely situatlonally determined. The entire concept of on underpins all the specific rules and regulations with the all-pervading concept that obligation, debt to one's society for life itself, is the primary focus of the individual's morality. That which does not express the repayment, partial though it may be, is Immoral, Benedict has already noted that " a man's indebtedness [jorQ is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the Job of gratitudePlacing his own personal desires, whether they be for sex or for immediate "happiness" in the Western sense, or simply for personal aggrandizement, is the essence of moral transgression. Similarly, the failure to perform the act of gratitude in the socially approved ways is also a moral transgression. One might even categorize these two transgressions as the "sin of commission" and. the "sin of omission." These concepts of sin and morality are internalized; they are true guilt propositions. As De Vos puts it, "the feelings related to this sense of life purpose are similar to those related to religion by those who strongly adhere
32De Vos, pp. cit., p. 285. 33Benedict, pp. cit. . p. Il4. 39 to a religious code,"^^'' Takeo Doi, a psychoanalyst writing about the nature of the guilt feelings of his Japanese patients, points out: The word sumanai is generally used to express guilt feelings, and this word is the negative form of sumu which means "to end." Sumanai literally means that one has not done as he was supposed, to^do, thereby causing the other person trouble or harm. If we are to look for the ethical explanation of the nature of these guilt feelings and of the moral system of Japan, it would appear that the basic difference between the Western consciousness of guilt and. that of Japan is the question of self. Within Japan, the self is submerged, within a larger entity: the family and. the projected society-family. In the West the self, though it contacts others, is conceived of as an independent entity. The individual is responsible to his creator for his own moral development not only as he relates to society, but as he relates to his own person. In Japan, notes De Vos, "the
George A. De Vos, "Deviance and Social Change: A Fsychocultural Evaluation of Trends in Japanese Delinquency and Suicide," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds.), Japanese Culture ; Its Development and. Characteristics (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1902), p. 163.
^-^Takeo L. Doi, "Amae: A Key Concept to Understanding Japanese Personality Structure," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds), Japanese Culture ; Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962), p. 133. 40 Japanese self concept Is not viewed clearly as separate or as coterminous with the biological body. The family is traditionally an entity of which the individual forms a part,
IV, THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT
Several theories have been proposed to explain the development and retention of these themes of Japanese life during periods of great historical upheaval. The models range from stressing various elements in child-rearing to a consideration of the effect of dictatorship on Japanese social structure and. organization. Geoffrey Gorer is particularly concerned, with child- rearing patterns, for he states; The habits established early In the life of the individual influence all subsequent learning and therefore, the experiences of early childhood are of predominant importance.J' Gorer identifies several of the features that we have been discussing and attributes them to restrictive childhood training, particularly early cleanliness training, Gorer relates that the Japanese baby is taught sphincter training at the age of four months by being held over the balcony or the road and by being punished severely for any
-^^De Vos. "Deviance and Social Change," op, cit., p, 164.
^^Gorer, 0 2 . cit., p. 274. 4l lapse of control. He believes this to be a major mechanism by which the baby learns patterns of submission and conformity. The individual is taught to respond and be concerned with the correct action (i.e., defecation) at the correct time. Consequently, Gorer feels that the Japanese develop a "shame" ethic, situationally determined, rather than a "guilt" ethic, which is absolute.^ It is obvious that excretion cannot be entirely forbidden, but that it can only be regulated to the correct place and time. Gorer feels that in Western cultures the concept of sin develops through the repression, not of the anal activities of the organism, but of the sexual, which can be prohibited, absolutely. We have already indicated that the concern for the proper action in Japan is not primarily a matter of "shame," but it is in effect the essence of the "guilt" in Japan. Even assuming that there is in operation here a fundamental difference in that in Japan actions are only situationally prohibited (as Gorer maintains), evidence has since come to light that the prevalence of rigid, toilet training is not as great as Gorer assumed.In fact. De Vos reports that
3 % orer, op. cit. , p. 278. ^^Ibid., p. 284. ^^This is noted by Betty Lanham, "Aspects of Child Care in Japan: Preliminary Report," pp. 565-82, and by 42 the child-rearing patterns most prevalent in Japan are those which "manifest permissiveness in regard to weaning and 4l bowel training," After all, most societies do toilet- train their young. In addition, we cannot claim that infant sexuality is absolutely prohibited in the West. The question arises: what constitutes infant sexuality? Breast feeding, bathing and fondling may all be conceived of in a sexual light. It is possible, however, to search in the family life for the explanation of the aliocentric morality that we have found in Japan. De Vos, Caudill, Doi and Vogel all mention the intense mother-child relationship, which apparently fosters this concept of guilt-shame within the 42 obligations set forth by on. As De Vos states: On the level of cultural conditioning, the traditional teaching of On obligations enhances the feeling of guilt in the child, who is repeatedly taught by parents, teachers, books and so forth that his parents have expended hardship and trouble and have made many sacrifices in order to bring him up.^3
Edward and Margaret Norbeck, "Child Training in a Japanese Fishing Community," pp. 651-73# In Douglas G. Earing (ed.) , Personal Character and Cultural Milieu (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, I9 5 6 ). ^^De Vos, "The Relation of Guilt Toward Parents to Achievement and Arranged Marriage among the Japanese," OP. cit.. p. 264. 42pe Vos, "Deviancy and Social Change," op. cit., p. 163. Vos, "The Relation of Guilt Toward Parents to 43 Doi and De vos mention that the unique element in Japanese socialization is that the culture reinforces the Intense parent-child, relationship, rather than weaning him away 44 from the family as Western culture does. The other institutional areas, such as the school, reinforce the concept of on with its submergence of the self and with its emphasis on correct action. Thus Japanese society emphasizes the obligations of on which are taught in the home and it stresses the submergence of self; these qualities are reinforced in the 45 training given by the schools and in religious philosophy. This stress on "other-centeredness" cannot be understood without a look at Japanese history, particularly the impress left on Japanese Institutions by the Tokugawa dictatorship. Methods of child-rearing evolved to fit and meet the needs of the Tokugawa era. The classes within the society were arranged in a rigid hierarchical fashion with rules and. regulations established for the various
Achievement and. Arranged Marriage among the Japanese," op. cit., p. 273.
4%oi, _op. cit., p. 136; De VOS, "Deviancy and Social Change," op. cit. , p. l64. ^5|£orbeck, op. cit., p. 9- ^Douglas G. Haring, "Japanese National Character: Cultural Anthropology, Tsychoanalysis and. History," Yale Review. 42:391, 1953. 44 groups.The regulations were so comprehensive that they included statements as to permissible dress including such minute details as hair combs.Within the family the child learned the rules of hierarchy, for the father and the elder brother stood supreme with females occupying a position of subordination in the society.The child also learned, to recognize the superiority of age and to address individuals with specific honorific titles which denoted their superior status. As Norbeck states, "Rules governing behavior between categories that stood in superior-inferior positions to each other were especially elaborate and Important. The rules of behavior were also specifically taught in the schools in order to minimize competition, damurai, in particular, vied among themselves for social standing,and the schools were to alleviate this problem as much as possible by stressing rules and codes of ethics and obligations. These values also diffused to the common man who received, amule instruction as to his place in the
^At the top were less than three thousand members the nobility and their near noble retainers, the Samurai. Korbeck, o£. cit., p. 3 . hext came the farmer who ranked above the artisan and the merchant. George Sansom, Japan; A Short Cultural History (hew York; The Century Company, Ï93ÎT, PP.”V56-57. — ■ ^^Norbeck, o£. cit., p. 3. 49lbid., p. 4.
^^Ibld., p. 8. 45 society. This crucial role of the Tolcugawa era is further emphasized by Karing when he contrasts the people of Amami Oshima (situated between Kyushu and Okinawa) ,who were never under the control of the Tokugawa, with the Japanese who did experience the dominance of the Tokugawa. The Amamians do not appear to repress their emotions or to be concerned with the regulations of a strict hierarchy, 53 r'rom this study Karing concludes that prior to I6OO the Japanese were a people who "loved and brawled with abandon, bore obligations lightly, were not overawed by ancestors or Emperor, and manifested no taut preoccupation with ceremonial suicide."'^54 Certainly Japanese history cannot be over looked in any study of "national character." The Tokugawa era made its stamp felt upon the institutions of the society. The modal values which stress conformity to rules of hierarchy and the obligations of on were reinforced by
■^^Norbeck, Ion. cit. ^^Haring, "Japanese National Character: Cultural Anthropology, Psychoanalysis and History," o£. cit., p. 434, The Amamians escaped domination by the Tokugawa dictatorship, because they were subjugated by the duchy of Satsuma. Satsuma managed to keep Amami ûshina out of Tokugawa hands. Haring, oit.. p. 435- ^Haring, op. cit. , p. 436.
^^*'lbid. . p. 429. 46 this long period of isolation and restriction.-^^
V. INTERPRETATION 0? MODAL THEMES
These modal themes and values developing within the unique history of Japan can be Interpreted in various ways. There appears to be great difficulty in applying "Western" concepts and frames of reference to personality structures which are products of different sociocultural environments. Authors, such as Gorer and La Barre, build theories on a psychoanalytic model which stresses freedom in the ego from "irrational" social controls as a major goal of maturation.They view Japan with its emphasis on group loyalty, submergence of self, and codification of minute rules, as a repressive society conducive to the development of the "compulsive" personality (which in Western theory is often thought to develop from the trau- matic experience of severe restrictions to ego growth). 57
^^To this point, Japanese literature is often modeled on the traditions of the pre-Meiji period. For example, the story by Kikuchl Kan, "On the Conduct of Lord Tadano," presents a picture of the hierarchical, minutely regulated Tokugawa period. Modern Japanese Stories : An Anthology, Ivan Morris, editor (Rutland, Termont : Charles E. Tuttle Company, I962), p. 32, ^^De Vos, "The Relation of Guilt Toward Parents to Achievement and Arranged Marriage among the Japanese," op. cit., p. 287. ^^Gorer, o_p. cit. , pp. 273-90. 4? La Barre, for example, states that the Japanese manifest traits of secretiveness, fanaticism, arrogance, sado masochism and scatological obscenity. He finds the Japanese overly touchy, as is evidenced by their”paranoid" 58 reaction to the Exclusion Act.^ In surveying the "incredibly harmful" Japanese society, he decides that Americans "owe it to the Japanese to modify Japanese social systems with great drasticness, sureness of purpose and toughness."59 in the light of statements such as these, one sees the Japanese as bedeviled by early anal repression, burdened with the observance of minute rules, masking the emotions which lurk in their conscious and. unconscious beings, hounded, with the fear of losing face and bringing down on their hapless heads the wrath of their family group and. their ancestors, and finally, one sees them as mere puppets before the voice of authority. On the other hand, authors such as De Vos and Caudill view the situation in a more positive light. Rather than stressing autonomy and individuation, they stress the ideals of Japanese society, which "put far more emphasis
5®Weston La Barre, "Some Observations on Character Structure in the Orient: The Japanese," Psychiatry, 8 :326-2 9 , 1 9 4 5 .
59ibid.. p. 342, 48 60 on concepts of ‘belonging' and adult role identity." W’e could question the interpretation of repression and trauma as a necessary concomitant of adherence to rules and regulations of a particularistic nature, for in Japan this very adherence expedites the repayment of on, which is one of the prime motivating values in the society. The stress on on, the response to hierarchy and. the "other- centered morality," permits the security of a defined place in the society and the recognition of correct role behavior, or, to use Wallace's model, makes for shared expectancies and. predictability.
Viewing a society as restrictive or not seems to a certain extent, as we have mentioned previously, to depend on the predispositions of the researcher. Human beings, as products of their sociocultural and. physical environments, are subjected to restrictions within the process of development of their humanity. Nevertheless, most cultures provide pleasurable experiences for their inhabitants which motivate the individual to procreate and carry on. The Japanese have their "chrysanthemums and. swords," we, our
De Vos, "The Relation of Guilt Toward Parents to Achievement and Arranged Marriage among the Japanese," loc. cit. 5 William Caudill, "Patterns of Emotion in Modern Japan," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds.), Japanese Culture : Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago: Aldlne Publishing Company, 19^2) , pi 115. 49 "guns and butter." In any analysis the entire milieu must be taken into consideration. A weighing of antecedent and subsequent experiences, an acknowledgment of the complexity of the interrelationship of organism and environment, is necessary to the development of a model which sufficiently explains the underlying themes and values shared by the members of a society, and which comprise their "national character." CHAPTER IV
FACTORS OF RETENTION AND CHANGE IN POST-WAR JAPAN
In Chapter Three the central themes underlying the "national character" of Japan have been discussed. "National character," however, does not necessitate the ossification of the society. Change has occurred in Japan. This chapter will consider the persistence of Japanese modal themes despite periods of social change. "National character" studies have stressed the focal place which the family occupies in transmitting, via the process of socialization, the normative and behavioral patterns of the culture. In Japan the familistic model has been extended outward so that other societal institutions reflect the patterns established, in family life.^ Change in the family structure has great impact upon the society, i-br this reason we will focus our attention on change in the family In post-war Japan.
^Ronald P. Dore, City Life in Japan ; A Study of a Tokyo Ward (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1958), p. 94. 51 I. RETENTION AND CHANGE IN THE FAMILY IK POST-WAR JAPAN
Ideally, the traditional Japanese family was a tight hierarchical structure organized as a stem family. The head of the household ruled the family; the eldest son inherited by right of primogeniture ; the younger sons left the house and began branch families which maintained a formal prescribed relationship to the stem family. Although the headship of the family and all the property of the family were considered to belong to the family as a group, they were both under the supreme control and authority of the patriarch, either the father or the eldest son. However, as Kitano has Indicated, the patriarch himself was under the control of the family and was obliged to judiciously exercise the authority entrusted to him, 3 particularly to see to the continuation of the family. The patriarch was expected to donate family property to the other sons and daughters so that they could settle them selves elsewhere or marry.
SeUjchi Kitano, "Dozoku and IE in Japan: The Meaning of Family Genealogical Relationships," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds.), Japanese Culture ; Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago: Aldlne Publishing Company, 1962), 43.
^Ibid., p. 44, 52 Thus male primogeniture had the effect of making the eldest son supreme in authority among his siblings. Respectful behavior was expected from younger to elder brothers, perhaps in anticipation of the day that the elder brother would take his position at the head of the house, and his younger brothers would be dependent upo-n him for their donation of family property. The elder brother could obtain legal title to the family property before the father died, since the father could transfer title to his son upon retirement.^ The elder brother was early given a sense of his own importance as the heir designate in the Japanese familyÎ he had the use of the family bath before his brothers, was given the choice portions at dinner, and was generally indulged. Younger brothers grew up expecting to defer to their elder brothers' wishes.^ When the elder brother became the head of the house, he exercised his headship with the full authority that his father had had before him. However, this ideal Japanese family lost its hereto fore legal structure when the Japanese Civil Code of 1948 abolished the Japanese "house"; it abolished the entire system of formal relations between a stem family and its
4 Dore, op.. cit. , p. 101.
^Ibid. p. 102. 53 branches. It tendered legal recognition only to Independent nuclear families. It further weakened the traditional structure by providing for equal inheritance by all children, including the daughters, and by providing a 1/3 inheritance for the widow with dependent children. ^ In rural Japan, though the impetus for this change in the family structure is external and legal rather than internal, the new law dealing with inheritance has not been 7 enforced. It is interesting in this connection to note that the Japanese equivalent of the P.T.A. uses as its term for parents the word fukei. literally "father and/or elder 0 brother." Younger children generally renounce their claim in favor of the first born. There are sound economic reasons for this, since families are reluctant to break minor possession into still smaller fragments. Parents who depend on their children for support in their old age would like to pass on consolidated family wealth, and the new law 9 is frequently an advocacy of the economically impossible.
^Dore, pp. cit., p. 119. ^Y. Scott Matsumoto, "Notes on Primogeniture in Postwar Japan," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (eds,), Japanese Culturei Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago» Aldlne Publishing Company, 1962), p. Së. ®Dore, 0£. cit., p. 102.
^Matsumoto, o£. cit.. p. 6?, 54 Consequently, the superordinate position of the father/elder brother is yet intact. There is, however, a gradually widening gap between the cities and the villages. In the town there has long been an attenuation of the traditional family and of primo geniture. The economic factors in favor of primogeniture decrease with increased, industrialization and the concomitant shift to wage labor. In the towns the obstacles to equal division of property are not very great, except for families which own retail or craft businesses, where there is an occupation and property to inherit. The Civil Code of 1948, therefore, has added strength to the already developing trends toward mobile nuclear families in the cities. Even in the villages, attitudes toward primogeniture seem to be changing, although economic considerations make equal inheritance unfeasible. There seems to be a gradual shift toward single inheritance by any son, rather than by 12 the eldest son alone. Many eldest sons seek emancipation from family responsibilities, particularly if they have been educated and cannot find satisfaction on the farm. More
^^Matsumoto, loc. cit.
^4p)ore, ££. cit. , p. 132.
^^Matsumoto, jop. cit. , p. 68. 55 emphasis is being placed on the view that responsibility for the parents and for the family should be shared, by all 13 children. As Matsumoto points out: If more heirs to households are based on the choice and decisions of the family members concerned, such a modification would represent a social transformation within the family away from the traditional hierarchical arrangements. The future course of development may be indicative of the progressive weakening of the element of hierarchy in family relationships and the corresponding strengthening of those more in line with egalitarian values. ^ Along with the abolition of the "house family" structure in Japan, and. the change in inheritance patterns, the post-war period has marked a change in husband-wife relationships. In the traditional family, a man took a woman in order to procreate heirs and to serve his parents. His marriage was generally arranged with the goal of affirming the position of the family in the hierarchy and insuring that the daughter-in-law would be of proper social status. The relationship between the husband and the wife was subordinate to the relation between the son and his parents, particularly in the case of the eldest son who lived in his parents* home. The parents could even order the
^^Katsumoto, loc. cit. ^^‘'ibid .
^5pore, op. oit., p. 108.
48ibid.. p. 98. 56 dissolution of their son's marriage. 17 The daughter-in-law was, therefore, required to adapt to the ways of her husband's family, since at times of friction she could expect no support from her own. I or a Japanese woman, marriage was conceived of less — as an entry into conjugal relations with a man, than as entry into another family group. As long as her mother-in-law was still alive, she was usually referred to as yome. best translated as "married woman of the youngest generation"— a term which obviously defined her position in her husband's family group as a whole. She was only rarely referred to as "wife." Submission to the mother-in-law's commands and the obedient absorption of her instruction were the essential duties of the bride, beginning with the period of training and orientation conducted, by her mother-in-law as she entered the family. The bride was also subordinate, to a lesser extent, to her husband's sisters, who were iq significantly called the kojuuto, "little mother-in-law." 1 or the husband there was a distinct dichotomy between his wife, who reared his children, and the women to whom he went for sociability, such as the geisha. This was
^^Dore, pp. oit., p. 99*
^°Ibid., p. 97. ^^Ibid. 57 recognized by both parties to the marriage, to the extent that a dutiful wife was expected to help her husband dress 20 before he went to the geisha in the evening. Communication of a companionship nature between husbands and wives appears 21 to have been negligible. Japanese literature has provided examples of female subservience, as in the story of
"Ohan," Tvritten by Chiyo Uno. This story expresses the qualities of submission and. obedience of females that were part of the female's mode of existence. Donald Keene comments that, "Ohan, the wife in the story, is a distillation of the submissive, inarticulate, self-sacrificing wife, who 22 was so long the Japanese ideal." The Japanese woman was subordinate most of her life: to her father and brothers when young; to her husband when married: to her son if widowed. This position of the female was officially bolstered; it was taught in the schools and reinforced by the official moralists and. propagandists of the Japanese regime. For example, the Imperial Rescript on Education, taught in all the schools, stressed, filial
^^Benedict, _on. cit. , p. 186.
^^Dore, ojD. cit. . p. 158. O p Donald Keene (trans,), Three Hodern Japanese Short Novels ; The Old. Joman. The Wif e. and The Archer (hew York: The Viking Press, I961H p. xiv.
^^Dore, £p. cit.. p. IO9 . 58 piety, obligations to the emperor, the hierarchical structure of the society, with the necessary and proper 24 obedience of child, to parent and. female to male. The defeat of 1945 lessened the official promulgation of the old. morality. The sweeping reforms of the Occupation established coeducation in the schools at all levels. female equality was embodied in the new election laws, the labor laws, and the Civil Code, which abolished, "houses," primogeniture and. all other legal supports for familism. 25 Women became civil servants. A new branch of the Labor Ministry, staffed, by women,— the Woman's and Minor’s Bureau-- ooncerned itself with fighting "feudalism" in workshop and home by organization of women's groups, etc. The schools are now consciously attempting to teach and reinforce feminine equality and the new husband.-wife relationship which must accompany it. For example, a new government-approved textbook states, "It is our task to build a real, and not simply a formal, system of monogamous marriage." 27 Although the ideal love-marriage has come to the forefront within the urban community, there are as yet no established patterns of courtship. For most individuals
24 Dore, pp. pit,, p. 91.
^^Ibld.. p. 162. ^^Ibid. ^7lbid.. p. l64. 59 arranged marriage is still the common practice. 28 The custom of mial. or mutual viewing, first developed in the Tokugawa period among the merchant classes, gives the individuals the option of not continuing their arrangement 29 after having seen each other. A "go-between" sets up this meeting. This "go-between" has a definite position in the societal structure, in that he becomes the patron of the married couple, and he is expected to give economic help “ to the couple ; they are to help him should he need it. The young man is therefore advised to choose his "go- between" with care and to select someone who can help his 30 career. In spite of the new concern with women's social equality, the husband is still dominant in the marriage. Riesman points out that the wives of colleagues of comparable status were generally not present at the social occasions at which he met their husbands. As a rule, women do not attend 31 receptions and luncheons, but they remain in the home.^ The idea that the "good" woman remains in her place, at home,
28i)ore, op, cit. . p. 170. ^^Ibid.. p. 1 6 8 . ^°Ibid. ^^David Riesman and Evelyn Thompson Riesman, Conversations in Japani Modernization, Politics and Culture (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1967)» P* 219. 60 is still present in Jajian. The home, however, is becoming more of a focus in a man's life, in that he tends to enter tain more at home now. Geishas and mistresses still exist, but as Uore points out: As the conception of a mistress as a legitimate piece of extra self-indulgence is replaced by the conception of a mistress as a remedy for a dissatisfied home life, so it becomes harder for a wife to accept the situation with equanimity, As a result of the new stress on husband-wife companionship, the rates of divorce are rising as coupoles seek love within the marriage, and. divorce if it is not found. 33 Although the ideal of family life in Japan has definitely changed, or, at least, the official norms have changed, for the majority of Japanese families, family life has not changed overnight, and the new norms may not yet have behavioral reality.
II. NATIONAL CHARACTER MOTIFS IN POST-WAR JAPAl^i
The majority of Japanese still consider on as the moral imperative for life. However, chu, loyalty to the emperor, has lost its raison d'etre, and, ko, filial piety, is lessening, corresponding to the change in structure of the
5^Dore, 0£. cit. , p. 181. 33lbld.. p. 183. 6l family and the destruction of the "house" concept. Neverthe less, filial piety remains a definite keynote in Japanese society, with the desire to live up to parental expectations remaining a crucial moral commitment. As De Vos points out, "the feelings related to this sense of life purpose are similar to those related to religion by those who strongly adhere to a religiously code." 34 Japan continues to give much importance to kinship and personalized ties. Industrial and commercial concerns are heavily paternalistic, looking after their employees by maintaining apartments for married employees, and by providing 35 recreational facilities. A firm can ordinarily dismiss a man for only gross incompetence,^^ and thus it provides a man with security from the press of population. Similarly, firms will sometimes create jobs for their employees, as do department stores that hire girls to push the buttons on self-service elevators. For his part, the employee rarely
34 George A. De Vos, "Deviancy and Social Change," in Robert J. Smith and Richard K, Beardsley (eds.), Japanese Culture : Its Development and Characteristics (Chicago: Aldlne Publishing Company, 1962), p. 1 6 3 . ^^Edward Norbeck, Changing Japan (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965), p. 14. ^^Ezra F, Vogel, "Entrance Examinations and Emotional Disturbances in Japan's 'New Middle Glass,'" in Japanese Culture: Its Development and Characteristics, op. cit. , pi i % 7 3?David and Evelyn Riesman, op. cit., p. 195. 62 leaves his firm to accept a better position elsewhere, and a man who leaves his job is considered disloyal to his old firm and not to be trusted as loyal to his new firm. The individual, therefore, relies more on advancing to a better 38 social position within his own firm's established hierarchy. In order to enter the firm or government hierarchy one must be a graduate of a leading university. The universities are clearly ranked, and the most depended upon criteria for judging competence is the university attended. This, of course, accounts in large measure, for the intense entrance examinations. For once a student gains entrance the institution will help to provide employment. Consequently competition lessens and paternalism becomes much more apparent once the individual has passed the qualifying examination. Individuals who leave Japan to go to the best universities abroad, such as Harvard, Yale, Cambridge or Oxford have great difficulties in reentering the hierarchical structure, since the Job opportunities are more readily available to students from selected Japanese universities, 39
3 ®vogel, 0£. cit.. p. 145. ^^John W. Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert K, McKnight, In Search of Identity; The Japanese Overseas Scholar in America and in Japan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 195^» PP* 35-39» and David and Evelyn Riesman, op. cit..pp. I89, 268. 63 especially since these universities act as a funneling mechanism whereby the graduates gain access to prestige positions, To further insure a good position one usually relies also on the patronage of some man of Influence, If the sponsor gets the young man a position, he becomes the patron and is the logical person to act as "go-between" in economic and marital matters. In the firm the young man is considered attached to the clique of his patron, called a habatsu. is expected to support the patron in interoffice disputes and to be loyal to the habatsu. This dependence on cliques to attain a better position in the hierarchy is an Indication of the importance on group membership. Clique behavior is evident not only in the academic world and in business, but also in the area of art. These cliques are reinforced by bonds of loyalty and obligation. Ivan Morris traces the development ' of exclusive literary groups to the pre-Meiji period. He states I . . . the individual young artist had scant chance of recognition unless he could be Identified with some established family or school t M t would give him its protection and encouragement .41
^®Dore, 0£. cit., p. 208. ^^Ivan Morris (ed.). Modern Japanese Stories (Rutland, Vermont, Tokyo, Japan» Charles E, Tuttle Company, 1962), p.17. 64
The new stress is not on individualism, but on what Caudill calls "collaterality." There Is reliance on group associations, both inside the family, where one finds greater emphasis on collaboration between siblings and between 42 husband and wife, and outside the family, where the post-war period has marked a burgeoning of the old Japanese 43 tradition of "common-lnterest groups." The Japanese have retained both "group orientation" and formalism developed to facilitate relationships between people, and the ordering of "girl to the world," which has as one of its prime functions the desire not to dishonor others. Rules of societal behavior, and the necessity for etiquette taught the Japanese since childhood have not disappeared. The Japanese are still characterized by a strict adherence to protocol and a minute concern for the niceties of etiquette. There are rules for gift-giving, visiting, greeting, and all other relationships. As noted by Dore, these patterns are deeply ingrained; As I discovered, it requires several months of training before, on meeting an acquaintance one auto matically thinks back to the previous meeting and has ready either the phrase "Thank you for your kind
4? William Caudill and Harry A, Soarr, "Japanese Value Orientations and Culture Change," Ethnology. 1»53-91. I962. 43 Edward Norbeck, "Common-Interest Associations in Rural Japan," in Japanese Culture; Its Development and Characteristics. op. cit.. pp. 73-83. 65 entertainment the other day" or, If one happens to have been the entertainer rather tjgan the entertained, "I was rude to you the other day." The Japanese respond to emergencies in formal ways. Dore relates an incidence of fire, after which condolence visits were paid by the people in the neighborhood to those shopkeepers whose shops had burned down, and to those near the burnt out area (the latter visits being in order to inquire about the health of the escapees of the catastrophe) . These visits were paid at the shops, in front of which the owners sat and received their guests, noting them down in order to send thank-you notes. Each shop had an appropriate sign thanking the visitors for their condolences. The shop where the fire started posted an apology for its negligence. This is but one example of the prescribed rules 45 of interpersonal behavior in Japan. The Japanese retain the extreme formality partly because the formal maintenance of relations still serves some important economic ends. However, many formal patterns remain even when their material sanction has disappeared. Indeed, as Riesman states: Apart from other considerations, the bowing and saying of farewells, the gift-giving and studied politeness were efforts to retain in the new impersonal
44 Dore, op. cit., p. 257,
^5ibid.. p. 2 6 0 . 66 and metropolitan Japan the human relations of an earlier Japan. 4o We must also remember that the concern for etiquette and proper conduct is part of the Japanese "character"t it has been taught and ingrained since childhood. The Japanese individual, used to specific and hierarchical patterns, and to formalized ways of dealing with the world, is uncomfortable in a society whose rules he cannot detect. Thus the Japanese student, for example, upon entering the egalitarian and apparently formless American society, is bewildered and retreats into enryo (reserve), a term which originally designated the humility and obsequiousness of the inferior before his superior. The Japanese abroad, not knowing his societal position, and not knowing the rules of behavior, immediately acts as an inferior should act, lest he offend unwittingly. This, as pointed out by Bennett, is a major reason for the prevalent 47 conception of the Japanese as restrained and repressed.
III. PERSISTENCE OF NATIONAL CHARACTER THEMES IN JAPAN
Contemporary Japanese society has had to cope with a vigorous period of social change. The "national
46 David and Evelyn Riesman, op. cit., p. 79. ^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, pp. pit., pp. 231-4. 67 character," with its underlying themes of on, aliocentric morality and hierarchy, has been altered by the impact of the defeat of World War II which created confusion within the national ethic. Nevertheless, these themes are still operative, albeit in modified form, and do reflect the social consensus of modern day Japan. Although the impetus for social change in 1945 came from the occupying forces, the history of Japan in the last century shows that many of these changes in the national patterns had already begun in the Meijl period. The Samurai-merchant alliance attempted to accelerate the forces of westernization and modernization. In response to the loosening of restrictions the landlords and ex-Samurai turned their attention to developing the land. The early years of the Melji period witnessed significant technological innovation in agriculture and a new emphasis 48 on improving the methods of production. The merchant class in alliance with ex-Samurai, and freed from the old restric tions of the feudal system, placed greater emphasis on 49 social mobility and capital accumulation. The old values of on and hierarchy were, however, not discarded but were,
48 Iwao Ishino, "Social and Technological Change in Rural Japan: Continuities and Discontinuities," in Japanese Culture : Its Development and Characteristics. op. cit. , p. lo6. ^^Dore, pp. cit.. p. I83, 68 on the contrary, exploited for the development of new Industry and "mock" kinship groups. The employer and employee maintained a familistic relationship with the employer often providing housing and being concerned with the employee's private life. One owed obligation to the famil istic business organization within the hierarchy of which one ascended. Japanese society, as it moved toward westernization,did not abandon its old themes. Benedict comments that Meljl leaders were quite explicit about their objectives. Marquis Kido, for example, consulted with Herbert Spencer as to the efficacy of retaining traditional Japanese patterns such as hierarchy. Spencer stated that Japanese traditions provided the means whereby the society
could effectively modernize.5® Education, particularly standardized training of teachers and students, provided a mechanism whereby the Samurai virtues could be disseminated to the public, especially the stress on obedience and loyalty to superiors,5^ The period between the two world wars was marked, however, by a return to rigidity akin to that of the Tokugawa period. The reasons for this are complex and we shall only mention a few. With the transformation of the old merchant
^^Benedict, o£. cit.. p. 8 1 . ^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, 0£. cit., p. 1?. 69 class into a new capitalistic class, there was a conscious attempt on the part of this group to solidify its position 52 and freeze the status quo. There was thus a deemphasis on social mobility and a reemphasls on rigid hierarchy. The Japanese government also turned away from America, partly as a result of the Exclusion Act and of a growing resentment of America’s opposition to Japanese aspirations on the 53 continent of Asia. This coincided with the growth of strong Japanese nationalism and her accelerating confidence as a result of her victory in the Russo-Japanese War. These two factors resulted in a turning away from America as a model for social change, and resulted in a further solidification of the forces of conservatism. The trends mentioned were given momentum by the world wide economic crisis of the twenties and thirties. In rural Japan the price of farm products declined and the landlords lost their lands to absentee owners who were uninterested in innovative techniques.These landlords, therefore, exhorted the peasants to Increase productivity by stressing the obligation of greater personal effort.
52 Dore, op. cit., p. 198. •53Bennett, Passim and McKnight, op, cit.. p. 21. ^^Ibid. 33ishino, pp. pit., p. 108, 70
For example, the nOhon s h u m l movement promoted the ideology that problems could be solved by diligence, thrift and personal sacrifice,Throughout Japan the society rallied to weather this period of upheaval by the increased stress on self sacrifice and primary obligation to the family and the emperor. During this interwar period., as in the Tokugawa and the Meiji, the leadership utilized the traditional values of on. hierarchy and aliocentric morality to keep the society functioning in the directions it desired. In the Meiji the desire was for change since the groups in power had a vested interest in developing the economy. The aspects emphasized were, therefore, chu. the familistic obligation to the emperor who was newly occupying a focal position, and the desirability and obligation to advance upward within the 57 hierarchy in fulfillment of parental expectation. After I867, Embree comments, that the government retained the idea that the society was of far greater importance than the Individual, and it kept the patriarchal family as a model for the governmental structure.In the interwar period, since the groups in power, for the reasons previously mentioned.
^^Ishino, cit. . p. 1 0 9 . ^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, cit.. p. 1 6 , ^^Embree, The Japanese Nation, op. cit.. p. 59. 71 desired a freezing of the status quo, the aspects emphasized were obligations to family and emperor as super-paterfamilias j this required obedience to one's superiors and a proscription not to go outside established bounds, Japan was conceived of as a single familial nation whose patriarch was the emperor. This concept was officially bolstered in the schools which were under the centralized control of the 59 government. Courses: iin ethics and morals were given to 60 every grade in school. In the post-war period, with the dissolution of the militaristic rulers and the destruction of Imperial power, it is possible to note an attenuation of strict hierarchical relationships, Caudill remarks that in post-war Japan there is less of an emphasis on "lineality" and more on "collaterality, The Civil Code of 1948, for example, stresses the position of the individual and attempts to curb the power of the family group. Nevertheless, as we have previously indicated, Japan is far from an individualistic society. Mary Ellen Goodman comments that in Japan, as children get older, attention is deflected from the self
^^Embree, op. cit.. 1 1 5 . ^^Ibid.. p. I4l. ^^William Caudill, "Observations on the Cultural Context of Japanese Psychiatry," in Marvin K. Opler (ed.). Culture and Mental Health— Cross-Cultural Studies (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1959)t P. 221. 72 and directed toward submergence within family, community and 62 wider society, "Group consensus" and "collaterallty" still maintain the stress on on and "other-centeredness" which strongly affect Japanese "modal personality,"
6? Mary Ellen Goodman, "Values, Attitudes and Social Concepts of Japanese and American Children," in Bernard S, Silberman (ed.), Japanese Character and Culture (Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 19^2), p, 251. CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
In viewing "national character," which is based on the modal themes characteristic of Japan, one may see the retention, in spite of periods of change which we have previously mentioned, of the basic character structure. For example, the concept of on, which stresses obligation to the group rather than the uniqueness of the individual, was present during the Tokugawa and Meiji periods and is still part of the dominant mode of behavior which characterizes the Japanese. The stress on duty to one's parents is operative throughout the individual’s life and is of prime importance in his behavior at school, his relations in marriage, and his role in the outer business world. This obligation to one's parents, which is internalized, serves as a model for behavior toward teacher, employer and government. Obligations and repayments for the privilege of being part of a social group are still of prime importance to the Japanese. This is evidenced by the stress which the Japanese place on patterns of "collaterallty.The group
William Caudill, "Observations on the Cultural Context of Japanese Psychiatry," in Marvin K. Opler (ed.). Culture and Mental Health; Cross-Cultural Studies (New York; The MacMillan Company, 1959)» p. 223. 74 oriented personality is further indicated in Japanese literature, which reflects the Japanese submergence of 2 self and concern with proper role behavior, Aliocentric morality, with its concern for particularistic rather than universal regulations, is still strongly a part of the Japanese "modal personality," The Japanese are greatly concerned with the relationship of the individual to his society and retain the ethical system, particularly which defines the family group as paramount 3 and the individual as of lesser importance. As Embree states t In general, the Japanese of this [jTokugaw^ period, have been concerned not so much with heaven and hell, with abstract good and evil, grace and sin, as with problems of behavior, and questions of man's duty to others and to the society of which he is a member. Hierarchy is still prevalent in interpersonal familial relations, in the educational setting, and. in the business world. Rigid and strict social rules are still in force, and deference to superiors is very much present. Donald Keene emphasizes this point in his discussion of
^Ivan Morris (ed.) , Modern Japanese Stories (Rutland, Vermont; Charles E. Tuttle Company, I9 6 2 ), p. 3 2 . ^William Caudill, "Observations on the Cultural Context of Japanese Psychiatry," op. cit. . p. 221, ^John F. Embree, The Japanese Nation; A Social Survey (New York; Farrar and rinehart, Inc., 1945)* p. 35* 75
Japanese literature, when he comments on the moral code which insists on the subservience of wives to husbands, children to parents, subjects to rulers. This subservience is still part of Japanese life.^
The Japanese "national character," which these themes underlie, has persisted through time. Patterns of obligation and obedience, which became solidified and codified during the Tokugawa period, were retained in the meiji period of modernization. The Samurai, particularly, utilized the loyalty-duty values of Tokugawa feudalism and
Western knowledge to effect change. The patterns of obligations, sacrifice and. hierarchy retained their utility and helped provide the discipline needed for rapid trans formation from Tokugawa feudalism to the industrialization of contemporary Japan.^ The continuing popularity of the classic story of "The Forty-Seven Ronins,"^ exemplifying the moral ideals of o^n, hierarchy and aliocentric morality present in the Tokugawa period, indicates the strength of
^Donald Keene (trans.), Three Modern Japanese Short liovals ; The Old Woman. The Wife, and. The Archer (Mew Yorlc: The Jilcing Press’^ i9^1 ) , p. x. ^John W. Bennett, Herbert Passim and Robert K. McKnight, %n Search of Identity; The Japanese Overseas Scholar in America and. Japan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Tress, 1958), p. 254. '^The story of "The Forty-Seven ilonins" may be found in Tales of Old. Japan, edited and translated by Lord Redesdale (London: The MacMillan Company, 1910), pp. 1-19 76 these values. Industrial Japan has further provided a new Importance for these patterns, especially girl relations. Dore comments t In an industrializing society in which the dependent employee's advance in a bureaucratic organization has been not only the most easily available, but also the most highly valued form of social advancement, the strict fulfillment of obligations towards superiors who have taken one under their wing, and the careful avoidance of their displeasure, have been of the greatest importance . . . ° The large corporations, the government welfare services and economic controls, and the forces of mass communications have all provided new reason for the retention of patterns of 9 dependence and conformity. Japan has remained a group oriented society and has been able to modernize without the loss of Its traditional ethics and values. The Japanese have been extremely successful in working both internal change (the pressure of the merchant class in the Tokugawa era) and external change (General MacArthur's edicts) around modal patterns. Urbanization permitted deviations from patterns of conduct obligatory in the feudal period but did not demand them. On. filial piety, hierarchy and aliocentric morality do not appear to be dysfunctional in Japan.
®Dore, o£. cit., p. 384.
^Ibid., p. 3 9 1 . ^°Ibid.. p. 379. 77 "National character" retention does not necessitate the ossification of the society. Japan has changed from feudalism to Industrialization, from the rigid rules and regulations of the Laws of lyeyasu of Tokugawa Japan to the codes of 1948, which altered the rules of primogeniture and familial relations. However, as we have previously shown, change has tended to revolve around the modal themes which have served as a fulcrum for the society. "National character," as we have stated In Chapter One, consists of "those modalities of behavior and of view of the world and experience In It characteristic of a specified group . . ."^^One can observe "national character," with Its themes of on, aliocentric morality and hierarchy, still In operation In the Japan of today. As Embree points out, group responsibility and the family system have been 12 relatively constant throughout the history of Japan. Japan exemplifies a society which has weathered periods of change and which has retained Its traditional structure. It Is an example of the persistence of "national character," which has served as both a force of conservatism, precluding the wholesale Importation of the Individualism
^^Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture and Behavior (New York: The Free Press, 1962), p. 210 John F. Embree, The Japanese Nation, op_. cit. , pp.235-36. 78 of the West, and as a force responsive to change, in that the traditional values have been effectively utilized by the leadership to advance the cause of modernization both In 13 the Mel jl era and In post-war Japan, Japan as a society seems to bear out the contention of Marshall Sahllns and Elmer Service that, . . a culture will. If necessary, undergo specific changes only to the extent of and with the effect of preserving unchanged Its fundamental structure and lit character. . . ." "National character" might be conceived of as the modal adult personality, and It Is formed In the process of enculturat1on by experiences In group behavior. The deter minants, the childhood socialization and subsequent life experiences, develop the dominant "modal personality" and are Influential enough so that a "group personality" endowed with the behavioral patterns which reflect the focal themes of on, aliocentric morality and hierarchy, has endured through time, The recognition of these patterns and the awareness of the "national character" of Japan may help to predict the behavior of Individuals In a particular social context. "National character" patterns provide a "map" of the expectancies and behavioral regularities which characterize a group.
^^Bennett, Passim and McKnight, o£. cit.. p. 15. ^^Marshall D. Sahllns and Elmer R. Service (eds,). Evolution and Culture (Ann Arbori University of Michigan Press, i9 6 0 ), pi 5 4 . BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY
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