Japanese society

is a high synergy society in which institutions fit together coherently and personality coincides with culture.

For Benedict, Japan exemplified a 'high synergy' society, in which institutions fit together coherently and personality coincides with culture. Benedict indicates .'

culture

institution

personality

society

Japanese culture

is a vertical society, which is to say that human relations are based on 'place' (shared space) instead of 'attribute' (qualification).

where human relations are based on 'place' (shared space) instead of 'attribute' (qualification). <Nakane, C. (1970). Japanese society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.>

context

hierarchy

Japan

place

qualification

vertical society

is marked by a coincidence of strict, vertical systems of order and high degrees of lower-level autonomy.

As Tom Rohlen argues persuasively, Japan is marked by a coincidence of strict, vertical systems of order and high degrees of lower-level autonomy. 'The center is a locus of legitimacy and balance, but not one in which great authority and power are united . . . the Japanese preference is to avoid majority rule . . . .Qualities of group maintenance take precedence over expeditious use of rules. In this system minorities have considerable veto power and can play a 'game of reluctance' that applies rational strategies to the political conflicts through which norms of collective identity are contested and reshaped' .

social system

is a kind of conglomerate, in which borrowings from many places at many times are fossilized and united by the cement ofJapanese tradition.

Japanese Society is a kind of conglomerate, in which borrowings from many places at many times are fossilized and united by the cement ofJapanese tradition.

is a culture socialized to emphasize working over being

Miyamoto's radical view—that overwork was consciously engineered into the Japanese system to displace or discourage resistance—was too extreme for most workplace counselors, who simply suggest that Japanese have been socialized to emphasize working over “being.” Tsukasa Mizusawa, who treats burn-out victims and alcoholics in his own treatment center, faulted Japan's “codependent society.” Workers loyally sacrifice themselves for their companies, and families routinely accept that the male adult will not play the full part in family life expected in other societies. “In Japan, unless you have a real sense of being enmeshed with others, dependent on others, then you cannot feel secure. We're still a country where it's difficult for each person to live for himself,” Mizusawa said. “That has been the foundation of our society. That makes us code-pendent in a way that Americans raised in a culture of independence have great difficulty understanding.” If some Americans tend to put their families above all else, many Japanese put their bosses ahead of all others.

is homosocial. On the weekend, shops and cafés are filled with smartly dressed women, eating Italian panini, sorting through scarves, or lining up for a matinee performance at the movie theater. But—you will see almost no men.

If you take a weekend stroll through Ebisu Garden Place, or any of a dozen other modern Tokyo shopping centers, you will see what the anthropologists who label Japan's society “homosocial” really mean. You will find shops and cafés filled with smartly dressed women, eating Italian panini, sorting through Fendi scarves, or lining up for a matinee performance at the movie theater. But—unlike the scene in a typical American suburban shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon—you will see almost no men. Of the people visible, 90 percent will be women, with only a handful of couples. Rarer still would be a man and woman strolling together with their child.

is like a duck pond whose tranquil mirror-smooth surface hides the legs churning furiously below the waterline to keep their places in the flock.

Tragically these are not subjects the Japanese themselves normally choose to discuss. Indeed, they often likened their society to a duck pond, whose tranquil mirror-smooth surface hides the legs churning furiously below the waterline to keep their places in the flock.

japanese society, n.Definitions

japanese society