8. Japanese take refuge behind social masks
By SHIN-ICHI TERASHIMA
When I was a child, my mother told me that if I did something wrong
I would be punished by heaven. After
Recently,
the consequences have become apparent. A lot of wrongdoing in the financial
world has been disclosed. Japanese business is not going well. It is our custom
to pray for divine aid in hard times. We can go for divine aid to Shinto
shrines, Buddhist temples or Christian churches. We visit not only religious
places. Such secular activities may seem similar to the practice of lobbying in
the
Confucius (B.C. 552-479) taught us that what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. So, asking the opinions or wishes of others is inevitable from such a standpoint. From this perspective, MOF-tan could not refuse to comply with what the mandarins asked, and likewise, mandarins could not refuse MOF-tan’s request; in this way, they reached an agreement to mutually accept their counterpart’s request.
The Japanese language is an “I/You” language that is suitable for small talk, but not for public statements. Selected vocabularies create a specific situational atmosphere imbued with a hierarchical sense. Mandarins can be thought of as personnel who are employed by the government and expected to engage in “small talk” under the name of gyosei-shido (administrative guidance). We prefer intimate situations in which we can communicate smoothly, even when the communication has a sense of inequality or unfairness. We have various terms for this kind of insider coziness, such as nareai (collusion), yuchaku (adhesion) and amae (mutual indulgence).
Law enforcement is considered punishment (bachi) if we can see God’s teaching behind it, but if not, it is considered harassment (ijime). When the forgiveness of the people is unavailable for a Japanese, it is likely that he will interpret it as having been harassed. The consequence of this is that many people who are not forgiven become discontented and reproachful (this concept is difficult to translate exactly). In this country, even ghosts enter with the word “Urameshiya (I am reproachful).” Law enforcement seems to be rather impossible for a warm-hearted people. Our current legal system was imported from the West, which has its roots in a concept of absolute value with which we are unfamiliar. So for the Japanese there is no way to relate the meaning of “just” of justice (seigi) to ethical standards.
Giri is based on personal affairs. In modern times, we have to trust mandarins in hopes that they will remove unfair practices rooted in a private hierarchical system (iemoto-seido). Although mandarins constitute a “nonprivate sector,” it does not follow that they guarantee fair practice in the public hierarchical system. They are also apt to be cronies where superior-inferior considerations are perfectly preserved. Superior persons, especially government authorities, are sometimes arrogant enough to make the idea of relative morals work for their benefit. This can happen because people believe that “reason gives way to force (hierarchy); “this has been our traditional way of maintaining a smoothly functioning society in the world of relativity. This half-authorized self-interest (yakutoku) motivates us to have a great concern for a person’s position in the hierarchy.
In the Tokugawa Era, we tried to shift this unfair superior-inferior system from private to public in the name of Emperor, but failed in the last war. Instead, democracy was introduced by the Americans, but the democratic system did not remove the hierarchical concept from our mentality. Now again, warm-hearted people feel that they have no way to go with these mandarins and our tradition. The Japanese create a private hierarchy within a public one, so how to separate the private hierarchical system from the public hierarchical system is not a true problem. Unfairness does not reside either in the private or public sector, but resides in the Japanese hierarchical system itself. Currently, the main problem is that this fact is rather difficult for Japanese to grasp.
The
wealth of the Japanese people have become too great to be housed in this tiny
country. We have to make our country more open in order to utilize our wealth.
Making our country open means making our minds open. Our way of thinking must
be adjusted to a universal standard or rule. If Christianity is opium for a
horizontal society, “Nihonism” as maintained through the Japanese language
structure might be the equivalent of opium for our vertical society.
Traditionally we stand collectively being supported by our hierarchical system. Now we have to stand on our own feet individually with an absolutist moral standard (individualism). This is the true difficulty for the warm-hearted (relativist) Japanese. So, intensive study of human nature is an inevitable necessity for us.
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