JAPANESE CULTURE AND WOMEN
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This research paper summarizes the insights into the roots of Japanese culture, its value systems and its outward manifestations which are contained in Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and Robert C. Christopher's The Japanese Mind. It also compares and contrasts the roles and patterns of conduct of Japanese women, as depicted in these books, and of American women. Both authors provide an in depth explanation of the unique features of Japanese culture and its seeming contradictions. As a cultural anthropologist, Benedict searches for cultural patterns which have evolved over Japan's long history. She is at her best in probing the inner workings of Japanese society. As a journalist, Christopher uses history to buttress his observations of contemporary Japanese life, including the post-war period up to 1982.Japan's Historical Adaptation and Ethnocentrism Christopher says that "Japan throughout its long history escaped having alien institutions and cultures imposed on it by force" and that its "society and culture developed in comparative isolation" (45). He stresses the homogeneity of the Japanese which resulted from the absence of any new genetic infusions after the eighth century A. D. (51). Benedict says that the basic social structure "has been ingrained in them by their own social experience" (47). Both point out that Japan has on a number of occasions borrowed external ideas and institutions, such as from Chinese civi
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cushion all Japanese from unnecessary conflict and confrontation. These include the never-ending search for group consensus on the proper course of action, indirection in speech and the use of go-betweens in sensitive situations, including the arrangement of marriages. The Japanese go to great lengths to "avoid occasions in which failure might be shameful" (Benedict 157). This inbred and instinctive indirection and face-saving behavior is often a source of misunderstandings with non-Japanese who confuse it with deviousness or insincerity. Sincerity or makoto to the Japanese is not a matter of one's intentions, it is "the zeal to follow the 'road' mapped out by the Japanese code and the Japanese Spirit" (Benedict 217). So long as they are on that road, actions which might be regarded as immoral in the West, such as excessive cruelty or revenge, may be acceptable or even encouraged in Japan. When circumstances change, since "they feel no moral necessity to hold" to a previous course of action, the Japanese are capable of sharp changes in direction, such as
their otherwise. inexplicable and rapid acceptance of defeat in 1945 (Benedict 172).
Modernization and Its Consequences
Since their system of values imposes enormous pr
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Approximate Word count = 1506
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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