TOWARD A UNIFIED THEORY OF POLITICS,
MEDICINE AND SENSUAL EVOLUTION
Skeleton for a Suggestive Body
of Evidence
Revealing the Secrets
of Corporate Organisms,
Japanese Industrial Anthroculture
and Most Modern Diseases of the Biosphere
In studying the reactions of a social group we deal with the character structure of the
members of the group. That is, of individual persons; we are interested in, however, not
the peculiarities by which these persons differ from each other, but in that part of their
character that is common to most members of the group. We can call this character the
"social character"... The social character comprises only a selection of traits: the essential
nucleus of the character structure of most members of a group which has developed as the
result of the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group... If we want to
understand one individual most fully, the differentiating elements are of the greatest
importance. However, if we want to understand how human energy is channeled and
operates as a productive force in a given social order, then the social character deserves
our main interest.
Escape from Freedom
The changes in Japanese society in the course of modernization have attracted much
research and discussion. It has often been argued that war brought a fundamental change in
the Japanese. It might be truer to argue that since the circumstances and supports of life in
Japan have altered radically, ideas and attitudes to life have in turn changed, just as clothes
are changed with the seasons. But a superficial change of outlook, as facile as changes in
fashion, has not the slightest effect on the firm persistence of the basic nature and core of
personal relations and group dynamics.
While the outlook of Japanese society has suffered drastic changes over the past hundred
years, the basic social grammar has hardly been affected. Here is an example of
industrialization and the importation of Western culture not effecting changes in the basic
cultural structure.
Japanese Society
Medieval society did not deprive the individual of his freedom, because the 'individual' did
not yet exist; man was still related to the world by primary ties. He did not yet conceive of
himself as an individual except through the medium of his social (which then was also his
natural) role... The lack of self-awareness of the individual in medieval society has found
classical expression in Jacob Burckhardt's description of medieval culture:
The structure of society and the personality of man changed in the
late Middle Ages. The unity of medieval society became weaker;
capital, economic initiative, and competition grew in importance;
a new moneyed class developed...feudal class stratifications became
less important. From the twelfth century onwards nobles and burghers
lived together within the walls of the cities. Social intercourse began
to ignore distinctions of caste. Birth and origin were of less importance
than wealth and power...At the same time we begin to find urban
masses of exploited and politically suppressed workers. As early
as 1231, as Burckhardt points out, Frederick II's political measures
were 'aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal state, at the
transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and
the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the
exchequer'.
Escape from Freedom
Perhaps the most important division in Japan's period of feudalism is that between the
decentralized form, in which subordinates of the Shogun retained a considerable amount of
power and control over their respective provinces, and the centralized form, in which the
Shogun managed to exercise quite direct control over his subordinates called 'daimyo.'
Centralized feudalism began with the brief rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the end of the
sixteenth century and culminated during the 250 year hegemony of his successors, the
Tokugawa family.
Several significant points should be made about Japan's feudalism. First, it resulted in the
establishment of a military government and raised the status of warriors to powerful rulers,
of whom even the court aristocracy had to take heed.
Second, military rule meant that the society sanctioned male dominance. The former high
status of court noblewomen was now gone. Arranged marriage and even political
marriage, in which women were simply pawns in the political chess game, became a
common practice among warriors.
Third, a political system based on personal loyalty became entrenched in feudalism. It is
important that kinship as such was not a crucial consideration in the feudal system, as can
be seen from a number of occasions when kinsmen as close as brother and brother and
father and son fought against each other for power.
Fourth, this personal relationship between the leader and the follower was rationalized into
the normative concept of 'on'. On is personal indebtedness which binds subordinates to
their leader. It is a debt which the subordinate accrues as his master grants a favor, a
benefice like land or employment, which the subordinate desires but cannot obtain in any
other way because he does not control the resource. This favor or debt is to be repaid by
the subordinate in the form of personal loyalty and service. As we shall see, the political
value of on has played an enormously important role in Japan's modernization.
In addition, centralized feudalism, perfected in the early Tokugawa period, has special
significance for modern Japan because this period immediately preceded the modern
period and thus provided the base line for Japan's modern transformation.
Japanese Society
Socialization is the process through which individuals come to internalize moral norms and
become committed to institutional patterns, as in all societies, the family was the primary
focus of socialization. It is important to remember that the family in Tokugawa society
was in many ways a microcosm of the total society: it had largely the same value system
and was penetrated with the same tensions as the total society. It was not, then, a refuge
from society... In early childhood children were treated on the whole with great indulgence
and permissiveness. As the child grew into the years of pre-adolescence into the world of
rigid conformity with customary forms and high expectations of performance that would
form the context of his adult life. The high expectations of conformity and performance
were enforced more through psychological pressure than through physical punishment,
though moxa cautery was apparently widely used by all classes for misbehaved children.
The basic psychological pressure was the threat of rejection symbolized most pointedly,
perhaps, by disinheritance. To be cast adrift in a society such as Japan was indeed the
worst of all possibilities.
Tokugawa Religion
Authoritarianism is the tendency to give up the independence of one's own individual self
and to fuse one's self with some body or something outside oneself in order to acquire the
strength which the individual self is lacking. The more distinct forms of this mechanism
are to be found in the striving for submission and domination, or as we would rather put it
here, in the masochistic and sadistic strivings.
The most frequent forms in which the masochistic strivings appear are feelings of
inferiority, powerlessness, individual insignificance. Their feelings are more than
rationalizations of actual shortcomings (although they are usually rationalized as though
they were); these persons show a tendency to belittle themselves, to make themselves
weak... Quite regularly these people show a marked dependence on powers outside
themselves, on other people or institutions. They tend not to assert themselves, not to do
what they want, but to submit to the factual or alleged orders of these outside forces.
Escape from Freedom
Japanese morality and the fundamental doctrine of 'on' then were rooted in the idea that
man is the humble recipient of endless blessings from divinity, nature, his social superiors,
and quite helpless without these blessings... Religious action was thus conceived as a
return for such blessings from benevolent superordinates and was based on a view of man
as weak and helpless by himself. Only with the help of his benevolent superiors can he
live, and the blessings he receives are so much greater than his ability to return them that
he can actually only return an infinitesimal fraction of the amount owed. By devoting
himself utterly to returning these blessings he assures himself continuation of them, and in
some sense he is thereby saved from his weakness. But he can never truly repay; he
perpetually stands in debt. The obligation to make the effort, however, is unrelenting, and
not dependent upon the feasibility of the task... selfless devotion, however, establishes a
'perfect' relation with the benevolent superordinates and at the same time allows the
individual to identify with him, lose himself within him...
To achieve such selflessness, for the destruction of self, 'ko' (filial piety) is the best
means:
Such material is interesting because it contributes to a rather complete 'theology' for a
'religion of filial piety'. Moreover, this theology is derived from elements of the general
religious system, and is furthermore a religion with no necessary connection with sect,
shrine, or temple.
And just as we may speak of a 'religion of filial piety,' so also we can speak of a 'religion
of loyalty'. Actually, this term has been used to denoted Bushido, the status ethic of the
samurai class, but loyalty was also one of the prime tenets of the family religion. Filial
piety did not compete with loyalty, it reinforced it. Nakae Toju, when questioned as to
whether the obligation to preserve one's body as a gift of one's parents would prohibit one
from going into battle, replied that the obligation to preserve one's virtue was higher than
to preserve one's body, and that if need be one should willingly die for one's lord or
master. This is true filial piety. We may see in the following quote from Nichiren that filial
piety in the last analysis meant loyalty for the Japanese:
The influence of Confucianism also worked in the direction of political 'rationalization'
through these centuries. The Classic of Filial Piety (Hsiao Ching) was especially widely
propagated. By the end of the eighth century it was taught in every school, and every child
who knew how to read could recite it by heart. By order of the Empress Koken (reign:
749-758) a copy of the Classic of Filial Piety was required to be kept in every home.
Even in Kamakura times the samurai, high and low, even though they might have no other
book, were apt to have a copy of this one. The unparalleled importance of the book can be
perhaps be seen as a rough measure of the increasing importance the ethic it preaches was
coming to have in Japanese society. As long as filial piety yields precedence to loyalty as
the highest virtue, and as long as it is taught in a context of political values, the increasing
institutionalization of the Confucian ethic of filial piety can be seen as a major
evolutionary step in the direction of political 'rationalization' [and centralization of social
control] - the family itself is penetrated by [and subordinated to] political values and
authority, indeed becoming a miniature polity...
The net effect of these various developments was to lead to a conception of loyalty,
ostensibly to the Emperor, which could override all other religious and secular
commitments. This clearly was a necessary step in overcoming the "primitive
traditionalistic objections" to the extension of centralized power. We may quote a single
concrete example from Shinto teachings to illustrate the process:
Tokugawa Religion
It is instructive to note that those centuries which saw the almost fanatical exaltation of
loyalty, should have seen the lowest ebb of the fortunes of the actual imperial families...
Still the cultivated regard for the Emperor when linked to this identification of loyalty and
filial piety has some very interesting implications for the concept of the state. God,
emperor, lord and father tend to be made into equivalents. The whole nation is a single
family. The Emperor is 'divine', he is 'lord', and he is 'father' of the national family. The
people are worshippers, retainers and children. Loyalty is the 'great filial piety', and
devotion to the parents is the 'small filial piety' which exists only so that the great filial
piety can be fulfilled...
As loyalty and filial piety became almost identified with each other, the training of the
child in filial piety was so that he might fulfill loyalty as an adult:
What has been described above is one aspect of what is meant by 'kokutai' [the 'mystical
body' of the state]. It is a concept of the state in which religious, political and familialistic
ideas are indissolubly merged... and consequently all action is governed by the concept of
'on'.
Further, 'kokutai' is also conceived as the identification of the Emperor and the gods, and
the people are identified with both. The Emperor's will is the gods' will, and the people's
will is the Emperor's will. To be thus united in will with the Emperor and deities is what is
meant by being 'sincere', having a pure heart, etc. 'Kokutai' then is also an identification of
the religious body and the political body.
Tokugawa Religion
The same considerations hold true with respect to religion. An example of the tendency to
value religion for its [political] results rather than for its own sake would be the attachment
of the warrior class to Zen Buddhism. It was seen almost as a system of training which
aided in the self-abnegating performance of actions expressing loyalty to one's lord. The
latter remains the central value and religion is subordinated to it (or subsumed in it).
Additionally, religion supplied a context of ultimate meaning to the central value system
through the fact that the primary collectivities in the society were conceived of as religious
as well as secular bodies. Loyalty to these collectivities and their heads had not only a
mundane significance, but also an ultimate meaning: fulfillment of obligations to them was
in one sense a religious duty. Acting in closest accord with the political values of the
society, that is, giving one's full devotion to one's superiors, and expressing this devotion
in vigorous and continuous performance with respect to the collective goals, was seen as
the best means to acquire the approval and protection of divine beings.
Tokugawa Religion
Human existence begins when the lack of fixation of action by instincts exceeds a certain
point; when adaption to the environment loses its coercive character; when the way to act
is no longer determined by inherited injunctions. In other words, human existence and
freedom are from the beginning inseparable. Even the Christian myth of Eden identifies the
beginning of human history with an act of choice... From the standpoint of the Church,
which represented authority, this is essentially sin. From the standpoint of man, however,
this is the beginning of human freedom. Acting against divine order means freeing himself
from coercion, emerging from the unconscious existence of pre-human life to the level of
man. Acting against the command of authority, committing a sin, is in its positive human
aspect the first act of freedom, that is, the first "human" act. The act of disobedience as an
act of freedom is the beginning of reason.
Escape from Freedom
Action with respect to deity as a benevolent superordinate takes us once again into the
theory of 'on'. Deity in some form dispenses 'on' [blessings] and it is the obligation of the
recipient to make return for these blessings ['hoon']. (It is interesting to note that the theory
of 'on' holds for superordinates within the social system, such as parents or superiors, in
exactly the same terms as it holds for entities above the social system, gods or buddhas,
etc. The significance of this will become clear at a later point.)
The term 'on' appears in Mencius and in the Li Chi several times, but 'hoon' seems to be of
Buddhist origin and reflects an important aspect of Buddhist ethics, the stress on
indebtedness. The Anguttara Nikaya, an early Buddhist work, quotes the Buddha as
saying, 'the wicked person is one who is not grateful and who does not bear in mind any
good rendered to him.' Another quote from the Anguttara is interesting because it shows
the early connection of the theory of 'on' with filial piety, and because it maintains that 'on'
can never be fully requited:
This sentiment is echoed in a common exhortation of the Jodo Shin sect, 'one returns
thanks to the source of the Buddha's benevolence by pulverizing one's body and breaking
one's bones for countless kalpas.'
The compelling and overriding loyalty toward authority must [therefore] be seen in the
context of the idea of 'on'. Political authority, for instance, has the obligation of bestowing
blessings upon the people subject to it, e.g. peace, famine relief, public works, favorable
economic and political conditions, etc. In theory loyalty was not dependent on the actual
carrying out of these blessings but was an absolute obligation, but there can be little doubt
that in fact the failure of 'blessings' to materialize undermined authority.
Coordinate with the concept of 'on' is the concept of 'hoon' or the return of 'on'. This
involves the general obligation to respect and comply with the orders of political authority.
The official notice board on which were posted the latest governmental decrees in every
town and village, and the respect shown toward it, are evidences of the degree of
compliance with political authority even at the lowest levels of the social structure. The
relatively high degree of public order, as compared with even China, for example, is
another instance of this compliance, as is the readiness of samurai to commit seppuku
when so ordered. These and other examples which could be given illustrate the
considerable degree to which authority could exercise control through influence, that is,
through the manipulation of sentiments. The central and local governments of course had
force at their commands with which to compel compliance, but sociologically more
interesting is the fact that in so many contexts compliance was voluntary. In the last
analysis this depended on the fact that people identified with the polity. They felt
themselves part of what became known as the 'kokutai', the national polity (or 'mystical
body' of the state), a symbol of great importance, especially in Meiji and post-Meiji
periods. They received gratifications through their identifications as members of it, they
participated in the prestige and meaning of the polity, and thus they voluntarily submitted
to the requirements of its authority, feeling its interests to be identical with their own.
Tokugawa Religion
Buttressing this adherence to prescribed forms was the principle of group responsibility.
Serious failure to conform to the norms was considered not merely to be a matter of
individual responsibility. Rather, families, five-family groups, and even villages and wards
might be involved in the responsibility for the act of a single individual. Thus every person
in his social actions was in a representative role with respect to his primary collectivities.
A wrong step would jeopardize not only himself but could bring disaster upon his group or
at best leave it open for contempt and ridicule. Further, the group itself tended to place
conformity with the social norms higher than group membership, and, thus, in addition to
external social sanctions, a transgressor was more apt to receive rejection than support
from his primary group. This situation leads to a close identification with the collectivity
and a tendency for all the sub-collectivities to support the morality of the total collectivity
at whatever cost to themselves, which is perhaps close to what Durkheim was talking
about when he used the term 'mechanical solidarity'.
Tokugawa Religion
Although long, the length of gestation for man is insufficient; it is prolonged by an extra-
uterine gestation during which the child builds up its bodily organs and at the same time
undergoes the fashioning effected by the family and social environment... The respective
confines of biological and cultural existence cannot be exactly determined, but the idea of
some biological inscribing of culture onto the human species cannot be rejected... Man's
historical and cultural generation by means of pedagogy is indissolubly related to his
physical generation by natural means. According to Portmann, the Swiss biologist, 'human
heredity in its own proper way, is not essentially genetic, but social.'
Heredity, Encyclopedia Brittanica
The family, too, is the polity writ small. Practically all that has been said above about the
value system of the total Japanese society can be applied to the family. Instead of loyalty
the highest value is filial piety ('ko'), but its function is the same. It implies the same
attitude toward the head of the collectivity and the same central concern for the collective
goal... On the broadest level, in fact, family and nation are conceived as one, the Imperial
family being the main house of which all Japanese are branches... But it is still important
to stress that in the dominant value system filial piety is subordinate to loyalty; polity
overrides family; and in the case of conflict of loyalty the first duty is to one's lord or
superior rather than to one's family. This is in clear contrast to China (and most other
cultures) where the reverse holds true...
Further, the family tends to be the fundamental unit of society rather than the individual.
The status of the family head is both internally central and externally the lowest 'official'
role in the polity. Family does not stand over against the polity but is integrated into it and
to an extent penetrated by it.
Tokugawa Religion
In Japan, the infant is seen more as a separate biological organism who from the
beginning, in order to develop, needs to be drawn into increasingly interdependent
relations with others. In America, the infant is seen more as a dependent biological
organism who, in order to develop, needs to be made increasingly independent of
others.
"Maternal Care and Behavior
in Japan & America"
The emergence of the individual has two aspects: one is that the child grows stronger
physically, emotionally, and mentally and simultaneously as intensity and activity in each
of these spheres increase they become more and more integrated. An organized structure
guided by the individual's will and reason develops. If we call this organized and
integrated whole the personality of the self, we can say that the process of individuation is
the growth of self-strength.
The limits of the growth of individuation and the self are set, partly by individual
conditions, but essentially by social conditions. For although the difference between
individuals in this respect appear to be significant, every society is characterized by a
certain level of individuation beyond which the normal individual cannot go.
Escape from Freedom
The close affective interdependence between mother and child which develops as a result
of the relatively lenient child-rearing practices in Japan is turned into a mechanism of
social control... As the child develops dependence on the mother's affectionate indulgence,
the mother in turn begins to seek satisfaction of her emotional needs through her child's
dependence on her. The child attempts to act contrary to the mother's desire (and thus act
independently) tends to provoke anxiety in the mother, since she is thus no longer needed
and can no longer satisfy her emotional needs. The mother's anxiety and consequent
suffering, when communicated, is likely to cause the child to feel guilty... As a parental
suffering tends to be interpreted by the child as a result of his failure or deviance, he tries
to relieve it by conforming.
Japan: An Anthropological Introduction
Sadistic tendencies are often entirely covered up by reaction formations of over-
goodness or over-concern for others...The sadistic person quite manifestly 'loves' those
over whom he feels power. He may think that he wishes to dominate their lives because he
loves them so much. He actually loves them because he dominates them. He bribes them
with material things, with praise, assurance of love, or by showing concern. He may give
them everything - everything except one thing - the right to be free and independent. This
constellation is often found particularly in the relationship of parents and children. There,
the attitude of domination - and ownership - is often covered by what seems to be the
'natural' concern or feeling of protectiveness for a child. The child is put into a golden
cage, it can have everything provided it does not want to leave the cage.
Escape from Freedom
In Caudill and Weinstein's (1969) comparative study of mother-infant interaction in
middle-class families in Japan and the United states, they discovered that at the early age
of three to four months, Japanese and American babies already behave differently and also
that mothers in these cultures interact with these infants rather differently.
Their findings show among other things that infants in the United States tend to be left
alone, be much more active (in bodily movements), and express vocally either to
themselves or to the mother significantly more than Japanese infants. Japanese infants, on
the other hand, tend to make more frequent protests or complaints to be satisfied by their
mother than American infants do. American mothers tend to talk to their infants more,
physically stimulate them by patting or positioning them and show overt affection toward
them more often than Japanese mothers. Japanese mothers, more than American mothers,
tend to quietly rock the infants rather than provide vigorous physical stimulation. These
differences even at so young an age in infant behavior and maternal care already point to
later personality differences between Japanese and Americans. For example, because they
are often left alone, American infants must learn to handle the problem of emotional
security by themselves, whereas Japanese infants tend to rely on the constant physical
presence of their mothers for emotional security. Another important difference is that
mother-child interaction in the American sample tends to stimulate the infant's physical
activity as well as verbal responses, whereas in the Japanese sample interaction tends to be
less active and less verbal and instead tends to have a soothing and quieting effect on the
infant.
Feeding patterns may also influence behavioral development. In contrast to the traditional
Japanese practice of feeding on demand, scheduled feeding forces the infant to keep
crying and to learn to somehow manage by himself the emotional tension which develops
with hunger. If left alone in a room, as an infant often is in the U.S., he must learn in
addition to cope with the insecurity of being alone. It is important to note that an American
develops the capacity to deal with his emotional problems alone and that this emotional
independence serves in the ideology of individualism. The on-demand feeding, on the
other hand, tends to create the opposite effect, not only eliminating opportunities for
developing emotional independence, but creating further opportunities for reinforcing
dependence.
Sleeping habits also appear significant. Japanese family members tend to sleep in groups
of two or more in the same room, rather than spreading themselves throughout the house,
even when there are enough rooms to accommodate all members separately. In the United
States solitary sleeping starts only a few weeks after birth in many cases, and as we saw is
a method of training a child to manage his emotional security by himself. Japanese
sleeping arrangements emphasize the opposite: mutual dependence for emotional security.
Japanese, indeed, find it deeply satisfying to sleep in the company of others. Here again,
one sees the primacy in Japanese emotional life of sharing each other, as it were, over the
idea of privacy. As one sociologist puts it, among Japanese the very desire to sleep alone
is somewhat suspect.
Japan: An Anthropological Introduction
Inevitably what is of value and meaning to individual spheres of life - especially matters of
ethics and personal growth - becomes entangled with the machinery of great political and
social ambitions. Economic large-scale efforts recognize and attempt to create a specific
kind of ideal person suited to the requirements of large-scale mobilizations.
For Japan's economic and military development... a disciplined and dedicated populace
was of crucial importance. Here, personal character became entangled with issues of the
efficiency of the modern state... a pattern of state-sponsored moral education and military
training gradually emerged that aimed at efficient mass action. The requirements of large-
scale mobilization thus provided further reason to set aside the (educational) ideal of
gradual and highly individual progress.
Distortions took place most visibly in the worlds of public institutions and political
schemes... Political authority was inserted where personal experience and perhaps a
personal teacher had been appropriate. What was to be learned from life was replaced by
codified rules and principles. Action of service to the state was made the central
concern.
"The Promise of Adulthood in Japan"
The importance of the collectivity and of one's particular relation to it, is indicated by the
enormous symbolic importance of the head of the collectivity, whether this be family head,
feudal lord, or emperor. This tended to be a representative role - the head stood for the
collectivity. Thus one's particularistic tie to one's collectivity is symbolized as loyalty to its
head. Given the enormous importance of loyalty in Japan...it is important to note that this
loyalty is loyalty to the head of one's collectivity, whoever that person may be. It is loyalty
to a status rather than to a person. As such it implies the possibility of a deep loyalty to a
person (of rank or perceived power) with whom the individual has no personal relation at
all, and thus of a powerful political influence far beyond the sphere of mere personal
respect.
Tokugawa Religion
The social function of education is to 'qualify' the individual to function in the role he is to
later play in the social body; that is, to mold his character in such a way that it
approximates the social character, that his desires coincide with the necessity of his social
role. The educational system of any society is determined by this function. Therefore we
'explain' an educational system by the necessities resulting from a given social and
economic structure... However, the methods are extremely important in so far as they are
the mechanisms by which the individual is conformed to the required 'shape', the means by
which social requirements are transformed into 'personal' qualities.
Escape from Freedom
After experimenting briefly with the American elementary-school plan in the late
nineteenth century the Japanese found they could not adjust to the local autonomy of the
American school-board system and switched to German models. With the German
influence came school uniforms, military calisthenics, a central Ministry of Education, and
the principle that schools were "not for the sake of the pupils but for the sake of the
country", as the first Minister of Education phrased it. From 1930 to 1945, the school
system was "a gigantic factory for the production of soldiers or of well-indoctrinated
workers on the home front," in the words of historian John Whitney Hall...
The bitterest battle over the shape of lower-school education, meanwhile, has been fought
over the teaching of 'morals'. Until the end of the war, morals meant devotion to the
kokutai (the 'mystical' body of the nation) and exaltation of the state. "I was taught to die
for duty - you are not a good Japanese if you think of your own welfare," recalled the
principal of a grade school I visited. The Occupation banned morals instructions, but no
sooner had the Americans gone away than the Ministry of Education revived the subject in
another form. Now "social ethics" courses, made compulsory in 1985, inculcate codes that
vary with the teachers inclinations... The issue still stirs strong emotions. Takao Kusu, 56,
company president: "if in our society everyone starts doing what he wants to, believing
erroneously that this is the way to guard one's privacy, can any organization ever attain its
purpose or realize its ideals?" Masami Sakurai, 20, student: "the kind of moral education
enforced by the state is designed to create characterless people who are obedient to the
Establishment."
Japan Today
The suppression of spontaneous feelings, and thereby the development of genuine
individuality, starts very early, as a matter of fact with the earliest training of the child...
His education too often results in the elimination of spontaneity and in the substitution of
original psychic acts by superimposed feelings, thoughts, and wishes. (By original I do not
mean that an idea has not been thought before by someone else, but that it originates in the
individual, that it is the result of his own psychic activity and in this sense is "his" thought.)
To choose one illustration somewhat arbitrarily, one of the earliest suppressions of feelings
concerns dislike. To start with, most children have a certain measure of rebelliousness as a
result of their conflict with a surrounding world that tends to block their expansiveness and
to which, as the weaker opponent, they usually have to yield. It is one of the essential aims
of the educational process to eliminate these antagonistic reactions. The methods are
different; they vary from threats and punishments, which frighten the child, to the subtler
methods of bribery or explanations which confuse him. The child starts with giving up the
expression of his feeling and eventually gives up the very feeling itself. Together with
which he is taught to suppress the awareness of hostility and insincerity in others; and
sometimes this is not entirely easy, since children have a capacity for noticing such
negative qualities in others without being so easily influenced by words as adults usually
are...
Escape from Freedom
Recent research of suggestibility hypnotic phenomena have demonstrated how feelings and
thoughts can be induced from the outside and yet be subjectively experienced as one's
own, and how one's own feelings and thoughts can be repressed and thus cease to be part
of one's self. Such phenomena, however, are by no means to be found only in hypnotic
situations. The general fact that the contents of our thinking and feeling are induced from
the outside and are not genuine, exists to an extent that gives the impression that these
pseudo-thoughts are the rule, while indigenous mental acts are the exception....
What holds true of thinking and feeling holds also true of willing. A great number of our
decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside. We have
succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we
have actually only conformed with the expectations of others, driven by he fear of isolation
or more direct threats... In watching that phenomenon of human decision-making one is
struck by the extent to which people are mistaken in taking as 'their' decision what in effect
is submission to convention, duty, or simple pressure. It almost seems that 'original'
decision is a comparatively rare phenomenon.
Escape from Freedom
In his everyday existence the Japanese acts, feels, thinks, decides, as if Japan would act
through him. If asked to what extent his acts emanate from himself, and to what extent
from his group, he would not only be unable to give a rational account but he would also
be unwilling to admit the validity of the question... He stands to his group in a relation in
which we imagine the life of a cell stands to the life of an organism.
Mirror, Sword & Jewel
Such a man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants
what he is supposed to want... The particular difficulty in recognizing to what extent or
wishes - and thoughts and feeling as well - are not really our own but put into us from the
outside, is closely linked up with the problem of authority and freedom. In the course of
modern history the authority of the church has been replaced by that of the state, and that
of the state by the anonymous authority of common sense and public opinion as
instruments of conformity. Because we have freed ourselves of the older overt forms of
authority, we do not see that we have become the prey of a new kind of authority that
propagates the illusion that we are self-willing individuals. Gradually the self of the
individual is weakened, so that he feels powerless and extremely insecure. He lives in a
world to which he has lost genuine relatedness and in which everybody and everything has
become instrumentalized, where he has become a part of the body of the great machine
that his hands have built. He thinks, feels, and wills what he is supposed to think, feel,
will; and in this very process loses his unique self upon which all genuine security of a
free individual must be built.
The loss of the self has increased the necessity to conform, for it results in a profound
doubt of one's own identity. If I am nothing but what I believe I am supposed to be, who
am 'I'? The loss of identity then makes it still more imperative to conform. It means that
one can be sure of oneself only if one lives up to the expectations of others. If we do not
live up to this picture we not only risk disapproval and increased isolation, but we risk
losing the identity of our personality, which means jeopardizing sanity. By conforming to
the expectations of others, by giving up spontaneous individuality, by not being different,
these doubts about one's own identity may be silenced: I have no identity, there is no self
excepting the one which is the reflex of what others expect me to be: thus I am "as you
desire me."
Escape from Freedom
Where the quasi-magical force of rite and custom prevails, the give and take, address and
reply, the warp of daily life, assume the harmonious aspects of a self-regulated organic
process. The movements of a Japanese seem not to originate in his frail body but to avail
themselves of it... making him bend and bow and vibrate like a tree in wind and rain.
Mirror, Sword & Jewel
It is the inherent mental make-up of the Japanese that allows the formulation of
such over-riding group decisions. One of the factors dominating Japanese thinking and
aspiration is relativism, to put it in a Japanese way, 'a desire to be level with or similar to
the other person who is supposed to be higher than oneself.' The Japanese have no
religious practice or belief that controls individual thinking and behavior on the strength of
a supernatural being. The vital role is played not by religion or philosophy, but by a very
human morality. The yard-stick of this morality is always determined by contemporary
trends. The feeling that 'I must do this because A and B also do it' or 'they will laugh at me
unless I do such-and-such' rules the life of the individual with greater force than any other
consideration.....
Japanese Society
[The corporate core] is not a class in the old sense of the word, it does not aim at
transmitting power to its own children. The continuity of an oligarchy need not be genetic
or physical. Hereditary aristocracies have always been short-lived, whereas, adoptive
organizations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or
thousands of years. The essence of oligarchic rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the
persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, a ruling group is a ruling
group as long as it can nominate its successors. It is not concerned with perpetuating its
blood but with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not
important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.
1984
Now, if the cooperation of some thousands of millions of cells in our brain can produce
our consciousness, a true singularity, the idea becomes vastly more plausible that the
cooperation of humanity, or some sections of it, may determine what Comte calls a "Great
Being".
Essays on Science and
Ethics
In the middle ages, both sides of human consciousness - that which
was turned within as that which was turned without - lay dreaming
or half awake beneath a common veil, the veil was woven of faith,
illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and
history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of
himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation
- only through some general category.
"All the errors of mankind arise from 'self' as we think
'this is my body', 'this is mine', but 'ko' slays self."
"When a father opposes the sovereign, dutiful children desert their
parents and follow the sovereign. This is filial piety at its highest."
"Under an Imperial order to build ships, Kawabe-no-Omi,
disregarding admonishings by the people, felled the trees on
mountains sacred to the Thunder God. Then it thundered very
violently, but the Thunder God - a deity in the nature religion
- could do no harm to Kawabe-no-Omi because he did what he
ought to as a loyal subject under the command of the Empress
Suiko (reign: 593-629), who was a deity by far superior to the
divine Thunderer."
"A samurai who possesses the spirit (filial piety) when he enters service
will thoroughly understand the way of loyalty, regarding his life as nothing
when carrying out a warrior's fealty. And so, though the terms 'parent' and
'lord', 'filial conduct' and 'loyalty' are distinct, they are in no way different
in meaning. There is a saying of the ancients, 'Look for loyal retainers
among the filial.'"
"We may carry our mothers on one shoulder, and our fathers on the other,
and attend on them even for a hundred years, doing them bodily services
in every possible way, and establishing them in a position of universal
sovereignty: still the favour that we have received from them will be far
from being repaid."
The theory of 'on' and 'hoon' is prominent in Japanese Buddhism, especially the great
'reform' sects of the 12th and 13th centuries. In his great work Kaimokusho, Nichiren
quotes with great approval the following passage from the Saddharma-pundarika
Sutra: "We are greatly indebted to Sakyamuni. He loved us and taught
us and bestowed on us grace. We cannot repay his great
benefits to us even if we endeavored to do so for countless
aeons... Even if we take his feet on our upturned palms and
carry him on our shoulders through eons countless as the
sands of the Ganges, or honour him with all our hearts; or
offer ambrosia or innumerable robes, or costly bedding, or
build him great monasteries with wood of sandal and adorned
with precious jewels, yet shall our debt remain unpaid."
The Occupation planted the concept of general education in college
curriculums, but it is not thriving. Former minister of education,
Michio Nagai contends that as Japanese universities tried to
compress the transition form the European medieval model to
white-collar general education, the schools "came to be
characterized by easy adaptation to the practical needs of society
rather than by long term contributions to culture or the detached
pursuit of truth. Education designed to develop men who think for
themselves has already been abandoned..."
Out-sourcing the Inner Voice
Japan: An Anthropological Introduction Harumi Befu, Tuttle, Tokyo, '81, 162
Japan Today, W.H. Forbis, Tuttle, Tokyo, '75
Japanese Society, Chie Nakane, Univ. of California Press, '86
Mirror, Sword and Jewel, Kurt Singer, Croom Helm, London, '73
Tokugawa Religion, Robert Bellah, Falcon's Wing Press, Glencoe, Ill., '57