Some time ago I posted some comments about Imaging Japan by Robert Bellah, which had a very astute introduction. It was a book of essays and I’d like to comment on some of the more enlightening ones.
The essay “Continuity and Change in Japanese Society” was a look at how Japan is ancient and modern at the same time, which Bellah describes as the continuity of values in the face of modern change. He spends a lot of time discussing the connection between groups and national integration. The basic loyalty is to the group rather than status or abstract ideal or self-fulfillment. There is a strong sense of native culture, which is “contentless” like Shinto, which can be seen as a “container” or “formless form.” Therefore, contents (like foreign culture) don’t disrupt the container. Furthermore there is a lack of individualism and universalism. Two dysfunctional byproducts of the Japanese pattern are factionalism and xenophobia. In addition, Bellah points out that the emergence of religious/artistic aspect is in relation to the demands of the group on the individual.
“Intellectual and Society in Japan”: (p.163) “Behind the Meiji Restoration stood no Locke or Rousseau, nor Marx or Lenin, no Gandhi or Mao Tse Tung, but only a group of open-minded young men ready to learn, committed to Japan, but with no deterministic vision of the future.”
“Japan’s Cultural Identity” is concerned with the work of the intellectual Watsuji Testuro, who pointed out that “national Narcissism” was extreme in Japan seen in the pervasive use of the term “gaijin” for foreigner. In the Tokugawa period the idea that Japan was on top of the world was commonly held. The fact that the Meiji restoration gave rise to the emperor system rather than a system based on god as in the west is discussed. Furthermore the idea of ethics is base don “koukutai” the emperor and people / “chuu” obligation and loyalty to the emperor from the people / “kou” ancestor and filial piety. Then there’s His attempt to reconcile “particularism” with “universalism” and “individualism.” For him the individual cannot exist outside the group. Watsuji was attracted to theories by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard but finally found them unsatisfactory. This led to a newly Western inspired philosophical rationale manifested in the emperor system and fascism. He felt that the individual couldn’t exist outside the group (unite and fuse). Therefore, he felt that world religions have a false universalism.
There were some other essays of note that I’m to going to comment on but were worthwhile reading: “Notes on Maruyama Masao,” Ienaga Saburo and the Search for Meaning in Modern Japan,” and “The Japanese Emperor As a Mother Figure: Some Preliminary Notes.” The first essays seemed out of place: “The Contemporary Meaning of Kamakura Buddhism.” However, I would like to reiterate that this book of essays is worthwhile for the comprehensive and in depth introduction alone.
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