9. Tradition hampers Japan’s global dreams

By SHIN-ICHI TERASHIMA

Since the end of World War II, the rules governing Japan’s vertical society and the West’s horizontal society have been in conflict in Japan. The Western concept of sin and the Japanese concept of shame clash in our contemporary world. For example, in recent years certain companies paid a lot of money to sokaiya to save face, because it is shameful for a general meeting of stockholders to be disrupted and prolonged. Money bought these company executives escape from shame, but now they find themselves charged as criminals under a law based on the concept of sin.

Japanese have traditionally focused on the concept of shame rather than that of sin, yet now we are living in a society characterized as at once sinless and sinful. The unfortunate company employees involved in sokaiya payoffs might be called the victims of superficial civilization. They are legally responsible despite the fact that traditionally they can be considered to have done nothing ethically wrong.

The coming financial “Big Bang” in Japan will show that our hidden activities are unacceptable from the standpoint of international law. This judgment means that our activities based on giri (hierarchical considerations) and ninjo (natural human tendency; human feeling and self-interest) are inferior and shameful in Japanese sense. But since these Japanese criteria for behavior are personal and situational, it is difficult to explain them to the rest of the world. In a superior-inferior society, it is merely common sense that insiders (Japanese) should not be looked down upon by outsiders （foreigners), because the status of being looked down upon is shameful to a person brought up in a hierarchical society and therefore unbearable in the Japanese sense. This notion (kojoshin) is what has motivated the Japanese in their drive for progress. We make winning or losing (shobu) our objective, just as in a militaristic system. The Japanese have to realize that it is very important to make our basic standards clear to both insiders and outsiders, even in ethical matters.

  We all remember that we were taught how to make our new Constitution by America, but we still don’t understand the thought behind the words. We need to learn more from the United States, because in little more than 200 years they have build a great nation infused nationwide with the magic of patriotism. Japanese law should be a reconfirmation of our ethics, as American law is of theirs.

  The typical Japanese belief that ”Good and bad are different from person to person,” should be interpreted as follows: “Convenience and inconvenience in giri and ninjo are different from person to person, and the problem about sin is open to question.” Although “under God” and “liberty and justice for all” in the American pledge of allegiance makes sense to American, for Japanese justice is only a word or a label, because we have no traditional ethical standard. So ideas of justice and honor are neglected in our country; since the war, only liberty ? which includes the incapability of making ethical criticisms ? has been stressed. This is the confusion caused by the denial of values and standards.

  Although no condition that defines the state of being human is imposed on the Japanese, only a hierarchical human is treated as a normal person. For creating the old type of Japanese, the stifling traditional training; imbued with considerations of inferiority and superiority, is necessary. Japanese believe that this training is the true human education. We have hierarchical courtesy (reigi), but no universal courtesy for people outside the hierarchy. The Japanese, it seems, are only human in our own imaginary world. But if we remain unaware of the socio-psychological mechanisms that govern our behavior, we will be unable to escape from our problematic tradition.

  A fundamental solution in foreign affairs also seems to be impossible in terms of our traditional (self-centered) hierarchical considerations. Older Japanese are reluctant to make apologies to “inferior” Asian people for having disturbed them by waging war. They believe that we were defeated only by America, but we were not defeated by Asian countries, so they are still our little brothers. To the Japanese, this is a way of keeping weak and strong living together peacefully. It can be seen in microcosm in the sumo wrestlers’ world, where humans are arranged in hierarchical order according to their strength. A corollary of all this is that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are unable to work effectively in Asia even for peacekeeping purposes.

  In order to avoid confusion it should be clearly explained that our legal judgments are not compatible with our traditional habits of the past. The sense of superior-inferior will no longer work effectively either inside or outside Japan. We should create a code of conduct that will make our countrymen trustworthy in the eyes of all people, and we should establish a sound human education appropriate to the demands of the 21^st century.

The Japan Times, Saturday, January 10, 1998

  Go to Japanese Society