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Japan The Public Sphere: Order and Status
It is difficult to imagine a Japanese vision of the
social
order without the influence of Confucianism because prior
to the
advent of Chinese influence in the sixth century, Japan
did not
have a stratified society
(see Religious and Philosophical Traditions
, this ch.). Confucianism emphasizes harmony
among
heaven, nature, and human society achieved through each
person's
accepting his or her social role and contributing to the
social
order by proper behavior. An often quoted phrase from the
Confucian
essay "Da Xue" (The Great Learning) explains, "Their
persons being
cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families
being
regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their
states being
rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and
happy."
This view implies that hierarchy is natural. Relative
status
differences define nearly all social interaction. Age or
seniority,
gender, educational attainment, and place of employment
are common
distinctions that guide interaction. Without some
knowledge of the
other's background, age and gender may be an individual's
only
guidelines. A Japanese person may prefer not to interact
with a
stranger, to avoid potential errors in etiquette. The
business
cards or calling cards so frequently exchanged in Japan
are
valuable tools of social interaction because they provide
enough
information about another person to facilitate normal
social
exchange. Japan scholar Edwin O. Reischauer noted that
whereas
Americans often act to minimize status differences,
Japanese find
it awkward, even unbecoming, when a person does not behave
in
accordance with status expectations.
The Japanese language is one means of expressing status
differences, and it contributes to the assumption that
hierarchy is
natural. Verb endings regularly express relationships of
superiority or inferiority. Japanese has a rich vocabulary
of
honorific and humble terms that indicate a person's status
or may
be manipulated to express what the speaker desires the
relationship
to be. Men and women employ somewhat different speech
patterns,
with women making greater use of polite forms. Certain
words are
identified with masculine speech and others with feminine.
For
example, there are a number of ways to say the pronoun
"I,"
depending on the formality of the occasion, the gender of
the
speaker, and the relative status of the speaker and
listener. As is
appropriate in a culture that stresses the value of
empathy, one
person cannot speak without considering the other.
The term hierarchy implies a ranking of roles
and a
rigid set of rules, and Japan has its share of
bureaucracy. But the
kind of hierarchical sense that pervades the whole society
is of a
different sort, which anthropologist Robert J. Smith calls
"diffuse
order." For example, in premodern times, local leaders
were given
a great deal of autonomy in exchange for assuming total
responsibility for affairs in their localities. In
contemporary
Japan also, responsibility is collective and authority
diffuse. The
person seeming to be in charge is, in reality, bound into
the web
of group interdependence as tightly as those who appear to
be his
subordinates. Leadership thus calls not for a forceful
personality
and sharp decision-making skills but for sensitivity to
the
feelings of others and skills in mediation. Even in the
early
1990s, leaders were expected to assume responsibility for
a major
problem occurring in or because of their groups by
resigning their
posts, although they may have had no direct involvement in
the
situation.
Status in Japan is based on specific relationships
between
individuals, often relationships of social dependency
between those
of unequal status. Giri (duty), the sense of
obligation to
those to whom one is indebted, requires deferential
behavior and
eventually repayment of the favor, which in turn calls
forth future
favors. Relations of social dependence thus continue
indefinitely,
with their very inequality binding individuals to each
other. Rules
of hierarchy are tempered by the relationship itself. This
tempering is known as ninjo (human emotion or
compassion).
The potential conflict between giri and
ninjo has
been a frequent theme in Japanese drama and literature
(see Performing Arts;
Literature
, ch. 3). Although young
Japanese are
less likely to phrase a personal dilemma in those terms,
claiming
that the concept of giri was old-fashioned, many
continue to
feel stress in doing what they should when it was not what
they
want. Social order exists in part because all members of
the
society are linked in relationships of social dependency,
each
involved in giving and receiving.
Data as of January 1994
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