Japan

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Japanese (language)

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is a country characterized by the idea that if something is merely an appearance, politeness is not simply insincere. Surfaces do matter. If you disturb the surfaces you may lose a lot more than you account. You shouldn't play with rituals. Masks are never simply mere masks.

There is another notion, that is popular now amongst American sociologist, the civilizations of guilt versus civilizations of shame.The Jews and their inner guilt and the Greeks with their culture of shame. The usual cliche now is that Japan is the ultimate civilization of shame. What I despise in America is the studio actors logic, as if there is something good in self expression: do not be oppressed, open yourself, even if you shout and kick the others, everything in order to express and liberate yourself. This stupid idea, that behind the mask there is some truth. In Japan, and I hope that this is not only a myth, even if something is merely an appearance, politeness is not simply insincere. There is a difference between saying 'Hello, how are you'' and the New York taxi drivers who swear at you. Surfaces do matter. If you disturb the surfaces you may lose a lot more than you account. You shouldn't play with rituals. Masks are never simply mere masks. Perhaps that's why Brecht became close to Japan. He also liked this notion that there is nothing really liberating in this typical Western gesture of stealing the masks and show the true face. What you discover is something absolutely disgusting. Let's maintain the appearances, that's my own fantasy of Japan.'

is a country that embodies a technology without a message. It cannot engage in cultural imperialism because its message is nonverbal, crystalized instead in its social structure.

Johan Galtung believes that those norms did not emerge from recent military defeat but were buried more deeply in history. For him, Japan is a country that embodies 'a technology without a message.' Japan cannot engage in cultural imperialism, Galtung argues, because its message is nonverbal, crystalized instead in its social structure.

is a place where things are not simply manufactured, but caressed into existence.

Japan was the country where things were not simply manufactured, but 'caressed into existence'

care

technology

is a kind of cultural dumping ground where otherworldly elements of oriental religion did not take very strongly.

Weber, Japan was a kind of cultural dumping ground. Beginning in the sixth century, Buddhism (in highly magico-animistic Mahayana form), Confucianism, aspects of Taoism and yin-yang thought, and, to a tiny degree, Christianity were simply deposited there on top of a primitive, Shintoist folk religion. That appears to have been Weber's view. Indeed, most of what Weber said directly about Japan is contained in the 'mission chapter' of his book on India (Weber, 1958). In that perspective Japan was a relatively passive receiver of, but was not greatly penetrated by, Indian, Chinese and Korean religions. For Weber, Japan seems to have been perhaps the only exception to his general rule that religion and culture have played a crucial part in what we now problematically call the modernization of societies and civilizations. Roughly speaking, his argument was that the otherworldly elements of Oriental religion did not take very strongly in Japan and that the completeness and the specific circumstances of the Meiji-imperial overthrow of the feudal Tokugawa system enabled it, given late nineteenth-century technological and economic conditions, to instigate capitalism 'from above.' But that view almost renders Japan as a society without religion of general-societal relevance. Certainly, it begs the question as to why Japan was and has been not merely such a systematic selector of ideas for import (Westney, 1987) but also increasingly a shaper of the global field.'

influence

eclectic

is a museum of asiatic civilization such that even chinese scholars of the present day (1903) look to Japanese as the fountainhead of their own ancient knowledge.

Already in the now famous first line of this first book, Okakura accepts one of the main ideals of Asia-as-techne: the fundamental alterity of the East: 'Asia is One,' he wrote. And by 'One,' he meant the difference among the asian nations were merely shining points of distinctness in an ocean of approximation,' and that the 'Asiatic races' formed a 'single mighty web.' But if Asia was 'One' for Okakura, Japan was a rather special 'one' within that 'One.' It has been the 'great privilege of Japan,' he explains, 'to realize this unity-in-complexity with a special clearness' (IE, p.5). This distinction may have been due to geographical advantage or cultural openness, but regardless, he wrote, 'Japan is a museum of Asiatic civilization,' such that even 'Chinese scholars of the present day' look to Japan as 'the fountainhead of their own ancient knowledge' (p.38)

museum

is a place of decentered geography, non-subjectivity and elaborate surfaces without depth.

For Barthes 'Japan' is a place of decentered geography, non-subjectivity and elaborate surfaces without depth.

geography

surface

is a reactive state. It does not play a leadership role in the world, and reacts to rather than shapes international relations because of domestic constraints imposed by the bureaucracy and interest groups.

It was Kent Calder who, in a 1988 article, first put forward a conceptual way to understand Japan's susceptibility to foreign (US) pressure with the idea of Japan as a reactive state. By focusing on foreign economic policy, he demonstrated how Japan reacts to rather than shapes international relations. More specifically, the argument is that, due to domestic constraints, particularly those imposed by the bureaucracy and interest groups, Japan is contained in any attempt to play a leadership role in the world, and instead it simply reacts to US pressures in determining its policy.

is a semiotic system, an exercise to experience cultural difference on an abstract level.

Barthes is firs and foremost interested in form, not content, in the 'signs' of Japan rather than the 'meaning' of things Japanese. He postulates at the outset that for him Japan is a semiotic system, an exercise to experience cultural difference on an abstract level.

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