The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

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When did Japanese people start to have this characteristic? It is not written in “The Chrysanthemum and Sword”. I think that, to begin with, Japan is a closed island nation that is geographically difficult to interfere with from abroad, and since the nation land is mostly mountainous and there are few plains where people can live, the country and each village were isolated without much interference, and there was a foundation of strong ties within communities. Furthermore, historically, the feudal system as a ruling structure and the penetration of Confucian teachings from China spread the hierarchical patriarchal system to the warrior class in the family. The subsequent institutionalization of the Meiji period (1868-1912) spread the patriarchal family system throughout the country, creating a society in which it was easy for the authorities to convey the rules and regulations that people had to follow and the premise in the community(空気, kuki) in which they had to follow them, which may have led to a society that was increasingly concerned about others. Benedict is an anthropologist -- though I've read a good amount of anthropology, I had never read Patterns of Culture. And I was somewhat skeptical, remembering the bland cover of Patterns on the old copy my father had when I was a child. But Benedict writes with such depth and intelligence and broad vision that I now see that her reputation is fully deserved. She is brilliant..., and humane. That said the knowledge she draws from other books is quite decent and the section on ON is very interesting and worth a read. Having read it and feeling a slight hesitancy about it I will begin properly with respect and honour. It is a solid achievement. Benedict was a US anthropologist pottering about when she received a commission in 1944 from the government to write a study of the Japanese with a view to whether they would surrender, and if militarily defeated, if they would fight on, or rebel, or just generally cause a nuisance, and more generally to help get under the Japanese skin which might help an occupation to progress smoothly. Starting from scratch with no knowledge of Japanese she laboured on and the book was published in 1946, so I guess it represents twelve to eighteen months of contentious and solid work. Which is an achievement. The work consisted of reading the secondary literature on Japan, noting things she didn't understand, interviewing Japanese Americans, taking them with her to watch Japanese films and asking them to explain why the plots seemed so strange, reading novels, school books and memoirs - from one of these she cities the daughter of a samurai family who allowed in a missionary school a patch of garden to grow what ever she likes, experiences wild joy at planting potatoes while all her school-fellows plant flowers.

I was wondering... Could a treatise on an entire country and its people, no matter how beautifully worded and presented, be objective if... Doi, Takeo (1973). The Anatomy of Dependence. Tokyo, New York: Kodansha International. p. 48. ISBN 0870111817. The first half of the book was not very interesting because of the difficult expressions, so I summarized my impressions of the second half. 義理(giri): Fulfill your duty. a b c d e Lummis, C. Douglas, "Ruth Benedict's Obituary for Japanese Culture", article in Japan Focus, an online academic, peer-reviewed journal of Japanese studies, accessed October 11, 2013 Within the reign of the present Emperor, a man who had inadvertently named his son Hirohito – the given name of the Emperor was never spoken in Japan – killed himself and his child."I’m giving this work more stars that it might deserve because it was an early effort to understand Japan, started perhaps when WW II was still raging, but finished in the aftermath when American forces had occupied Japan and, in 1946, were still trying to understand what the best way to administer the country would be. It had been a terrible war, ending in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the fire-bombing of Tokyo and other cities. After that, Americans predicted that there would be fierce resistance. It didn’t happen. The acceptance of American occupation contrasted startlingly with the brutality of Japanese forces during the war. Why? We can say that Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist who did not speak Japanese and did not have the opportunity to go to Japan, wrote an amazingly insightful book in such a situation. Whether all her observations were true or if they still hold water today is entirely another subject. This is the famous contrast between the culture of guilt and the culture of shame. In the West, they have a culture of guilt, where there are absolute ethical standards and behavior is left to the conscience of each individual. Japan is a culture of shame, where the standard of behavior to avoid criticism from others. There is a code of conduct that says you should do it to avoid being criticized by the world, and you act in accordance with it. If this is the case, it means that the culture has a strong sense of sameness and synchronization. The unity of the team or organization may be strong, but the member would be criticized or be treated cold when straying from the unity. There are a variety of situations in which Japanese people have to fulfill one’s duty, such as in the relationship of master and servant, in family, and in helping each other in the community during weddings and funerals. A mother-in-law teaches her daughter-in-law the etiquette of the house, and the whole village comes together to welcome a daughter-in-law from another village. If you do not fulfill these duties, you will be treated coldly by others.

Shannon, Christopher. "A World Made Safe for Differences: Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword", American Quarterly 47 (1995): 659-680. doi: 10.2307/2713370. JSTOR 2713370. Ryang, Sonya, "Chrysanthemum's Strange Life: Ruth Benedict in Postwar Japan", Asian Anthropology 1: 87-116. doi: 10.1080/1683478X.2002.10552522. PMID 17896441.

Needless to say, Japan now is not like how Benedict saw it. Many aspects of the country's people and culture have evolved. Nevertheless, this book offers a good study of where the country was in the author's time. And what a chaotic time it was... For other example, in Japan, it is still customary for the attendees of weddings and funerals to wrap money and for the host to return the money. There is a standard amount of money for each, and if you deviate from it, you may be said to be embarrassed or have no common sense. The reason why Japanese people behave modestly with these values is because they were taught in the home at that time. During childhood, children are raised freely, but as they grow a little older and become more sensible, they are taught the rules of the world and trained to follow them. If they don’t follow these rules, even their family will be cold to you. In the past, the family had patriarchal and the power of the father was absolute, and the rules of the world were strictly taught. Nowadays, families have changed and couples work together to raise their children, and although they teach general rules, manners, and etiquette, they do not raise their children as harshly as they did in this era. Summary and my impression Still...this one gets a good rating from me. I rate it not for its objectivity, but for its relative accuracy. Benedict wrote with what materials she had and could obtain, and the result was not so bad. She did claim in the first chapter that Japan is a country of contradictions - "different". That claim alone gives the reader fair warning that she could be wrong in some of her interpretations (and that she could also be right). And this tone resonates in the whole book. She keeps repeating the word "different" that Japan appears quite exotic, even alien, in some parts (just try to grasp "giri"...getting out of Shinjuku Station when you get lost in it seems an easier task).