European Journal of Sociology

http://journals.cambridge.org/EUR
Additional services for European Journal of
Sociology:
Email alerts: Click here
Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here
The construction of collective identity
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen
European Journal of Sociology / Volume 36 / Issue 01 / May 1995, pp 72 - 102
DOI: 10.1017/S0003975600007116, Published online: 28 July 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/
abstract_S0003975600007116
How to cite this article:
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen (1995). The construction of
collective identity. European Journal of Sociology, 36, pp 72-102 doi:10.1017/
S0003975600007116
Request Permissions : Click here
Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/EUR, IP address: 128.250.144.144 on 11 Jun 2014
S H M U E L N O A H E I S E N S T A D T
& B E R N H A R D G I E S E N
The construction of collective identity
Introduction
S O C I O L O G I C A L theory has only reluctantly responded to the
challenge of new historical agenda which converge in the theme of
'collective identity' (i) : the breakdown of traditional cleavages between
political camps as well as between class formations, the increase of
international migration, the rise of new social movements, the revival of
nationalism and ethnic conflicts but also the growing public attention to
issues of citizenship, civility and otherness. The 'Grand Theories' of
modern society rarely focused on the construction of collective identity
in the same way as they did on themes like functional differentiation and
equality, rationalization and market exchange, bureaucratization and the
legitimization of authority. Instead, collective identity was frequently
considered to be a side effect of basic social structures or as a remainder
of traditional lifeworlds which would dissolve on the road to modern
universalism and global inclusion.
Although the recently renewed interest in nationality and ethnicity
engendered a broad range of comparative and historical studies and
some stimulating constructivist theoretizations, attempts to bridge the
gap between comparative historical research on collective identity and
the theoretical discourse on modernity are still rather limited (2). We
(1) Notable exceptions are: A. PIZZORNO, bridge, 1990); P. ALTER, Nationalismus
Identita e interesse, in L. SCIOLLA (ed.), (Frankfurt/M., 1985); R. BRUBAKER, Citizen-
Identitd (Torino, 1983); E.O. SHILS, Society ship and Nationhood in France and Germany
and Collective Self-Consciousness, unpublished (Cambridge, Mass, 1992); L. GREENFELD,
paper (Chicago, 1993), 61 p.; C. CALHOUN, Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity (Cam-
The Problem of Identity in Collective Action, bridge Mass, 1992). For an almost classical
in J. HUBER (ed.), Macro-Micro Linkages in analysis cf. R. BENDIX, Nation-building and
Sociology (London, 1991), 51-75; A. MELUCCI, Citizenship (Berkeley, 1964) (also includes a
Nomads of the Present (London, 1989); R. comparison between Germany and Japan);
MUNCH, Das Projekt Europa (Frankfurt, 1993). also K.W. DEUTSCH, Nationalism and Social
(2) Cf. E. GELLNER, Nations and nationalism Communication (Cambridge, Mass, 1966);
(Oxford, 1983); B. ANDERSON, Imagined C.J.H. HAVES, Nationalism. A Religion (New
Communities (London, 1983); E.J. HOBSBAWN, York, i960); M. HROCH, Social Conditions of
Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cam- National Revival in Europe: A Comparative
72
SHMUEL N. EISENSTADT, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem).
Bernhard GIESEN, European University Institute (Florence).
Artb. Mrop. soiiol., XXXVI (1995), 72-102 0003-97S6/93/0000-648 $7.50 per art. + $0.10 per page 199) A.E.S.
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
will suggest a general theoretical model which tries to account for the
fundamental status of the problem, but also gives way to a range of
historical case studies (3). Guided by the Weberian conception of ideal
types, a typology of symbolic codes of collective identity is presented
(chap. 1) and used for the interpretation of German and Japanese
national identity. The theoretical approach is macro constructivist and
tries to combine the Weberian tradition with structuralist elements of
the Durkheimian heritage. In both authors the sociology of religion
provides a paradigmic orientation for a theory of collective identity:
Weber's sociology of religion focused on different symbolic ways to
solve the problem of salvation and related world-views to the life-world
of particular social groups. Durkheim explained symbolic systems as
classificatory grids bridging the gap between society and nature and
presented religion as a model of coping with the requirements of social
integration.
Although relating symbolic culture to social structure, neither
Durkheim nor Weber explained religion as the planned and intentional
outcome of rational action. This holds true also for Durkheim's
conception of 'conscience collective' and Weber's notion of Gemein-
schaftsglanben, which may be regarded as classical paradigms of collec-
tive identity. Both refer to symbolic constructs which are objectified and
which are hardly viewed as contingent on instrumental reasoning. Like
religion, collective identity can also fulfill its 'function' only if the social
processes constructing it are kept latent. In this respect the construction
of collective identity differs from the rational choice of solidarity groups
and requires a different theoretical model of analysis (4). Instead, col-
lective identity represents a reference by which costs and benefits are
defined and within the framework of which preferences are constructed
(Pizzorno 1983). Attempts to question it and to lift the veil of latency are
usually rejected by pointing to its naturalness, sacredness or self-
evidence. Sociological analysis, of course, has to reconstruct the process
by which latency is achieved and by which the fragile social order is
considered to be the self-evident order of things.
Analysis of the Social Composition of special The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford, 1986);
Groups among smaller European Nations W. CONNOR, Ethnonationalism. The Quest of
(Cambridge, 1985); C. TILLY, Coercion, Understanding (Princeton, 1994).
Capital and European States AD ggo-jg8o (3) For a more detailed presentation of this
(Oxford, 1990); J. BREUILLY, Nationalism and model cf. B. GIESEN, Die Intellektuellen unddie
the State (Manchester, 1982). Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).
For the anti-constructivist primordialist (4) e.g. M. HECHTER, Principles of Group
position cf. J.A. ARMSTRONG, Nations before Solidarity (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1987).
Nationalism (Chapel Hill, 1992); A.D. SMITH,
73
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
I. A general model for the analysis of collective identity
1. Collective identity is not naturally generated but socially constructed: it is
the intentional or non-intentionai consequence of interactions which in
their turn are socially patterned and structured. Membership of, and
partaking in, a collective identity depends on special processes of
induction, ranging from various rites of initiation to various collective
rituals, in which the attribute of 'similarity' among its members, as
against the strangeness, the differences, the distinction of the other, is
symbolically constructed and denned (5). Therefore, constructing social
collectivities requires the construction of equality among the insiders:
the members of the collectivity have to view each other as equals in a
certain respectotherwise trust and solidarity will not develop in the
collectivity.
2. Collective identity is produced by the social construction of boundaries.
These boundaries divide and separate the real manifold processes of
interaction and social relationships; they establish a demarcation be-
tween inside and outside, strangers and familiars, kin and akin, friends
and foes, culture and nature, enlightenment and superstition, civiliz-
ation and barbary (6). Constructing boundaries does necessarily entail a
process of inclusion and exclusionand of what in sociological parlance
was often designated as 'in-groups' and 'out-groups'. Any such process
of inclusion and exclusion entails the designation of the difference
between insiders and outsiders, or of the strangers, as against the
members of the inside community.
Such a distinction also poses the problem of crossing boundaries: the
stranger can become a member, and a member can become an outsider
or a stranger. Religious conversion and excommunication represent
obvious illustrations of this process of crossing boundaries (7).
3. Constructing boundaries and demarcating realms presuppose symbolic
codes of distinction, which enable us to recognize differences in the
fluidity and chaos of the world (8). These codes are at the core of the
(5) See DOUGLAS, M., Natural Symbols. Boundaries. The Social Organization of Cul-
Explorations in Cosmology (New York, 1982). tural Difference (Boston, 1969).
See also with special emphasis on the different, (7) GENNEP, A. van, The Rites of Passage
media-dependent modes of collective remem- (London, i960).
bering ASSMANN, J., Das kulturelle Geddchtnis. (8) COHEN, A. P., The Symbolic Construction
Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identita't in of Community (London, 1985); BOON, J. A.,
fru'hen Hochkulturen (Miinchen, 1992). Other Tribes, Other Scribes. Symbolic Anthro-
(6) See BARTH, F. (ed), Ethnic Groups and pology in the Comparative Study of Cultures,
74
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
construction of collective identity. Without them no boundary could
exist on an intersubjective level. In order to understand the logic of
constructing collective identity, we have to deconstruct, i.e. analyse and
reconstruct the most elementary differences and distinctions presup-
posed by the basic codes of collective identity.
The basic codes of distinction are constructed around the spatial, the
temporal and the reflexive dimensions of coding. References to the
spatial dimension include the differences between above and below, left
and right, inside and outside; references to temporality include the
difference between past and future, or the difference between the
simultaneous and the non-simultaneous; and references to the reflexive
dimension center around the difference between a center and the
periphery and this difference coincides frequently with the difference
between the sacred and the profane, the transcendental and the mun-
dane (9).
Referring to the world by this categorical framework emphazises
dichotomic distinctions. A closer look reveals, however, thatat least in
occidental thinking, if not universallythis seemingly dichotomic
dimension contains hidden trichotomies. Between inside and outside lies
the boundary, between left and right is the center, between past and
future is the present, and between God and the world is the human
subject (10). Even on the most elementary level, codes exhibit a tri-
chotomic structure inserting a mediating and separating realm 'in be-
tween'. This mediation and separating realm is the phenomenal focus of
identity: the center, the present, the subject. The 'here', 'now' and ' I' are
unquestionable and self-evident starting points for exploring the world,
for interacting with others, remembering the past and planning the
future (11). Constructing a world means starting at this given and
immediate identity and extending the construction from this center to
further and distinct realms, from the present to the past and the future,
from the subject to God and the world (12).
Histories, Religions, and Texts (Cambridge, Strukturale Anthropologie I (Frankfurt/M.,
1982); ZERUBAVEL, E., The Fine Line. Making 1971), 148-180; SPENCER-BROWN, G., Laws of
Distinctions in Everyday Life (New York, form (New York, 1979); PEIRCE, C. S., Pha-
1991). There are some interesting parallels nomen und Logik der Zeichen, edited and
between these sociological perspectives and the translated by H. PAPE (Frankfurt/M., 1983);
distinction-based calculus of indications by G. DUMEZIL, G., L'ideologie tripartite des Indo-
SPENCER-BROWN, Laws of form (New York, Europeens, Collection Latomus, vol. XXXI
1979). (Bruxelles, 1958); GIESEN, B., Die Intellek-
(9) GffiSEN, B., Die Entdinglichung des tuellen und die Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).
Sozialen. Eine evolutionstheoretische Perspektive (11) See SCHUTZ, A., Der sinnhafte Aufbau
auf die Postmoderne (Frankfurt/M., 1991). der sozialen Welt (Vienna, 1932).
(10) See LEVI-STRAUSS, C, Gibt es duali- (12) This logic of construction which lo-
stische Organisationen?, in LEVI-STRAUSS, C, cates the identity in the mediating realm, has
75
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
Codes of distinction refer in all human societies to some basic givens
of social and cultural life. The differences between parents and children,
male and female, between kin and akin, the raw and the cooked, hi-
erarchy and equality, cooperation and independence, are among theses
original references of codes, and even after a long series of evolutionary
transformations, cultural codes can never escape entirely from the
meaning of these original references (13).
The core of all codes of collective identity is the distinction between
we and others, but this constitutive distinction has to be reinforced by
and related to other elementary distinctions (14). Collective identities
differ in the special way they combine and interfuse the 'them and us'
distinction with other distinctions like 'sacred and profane', 'parents and
children', etc. These special combinations are central for a typology of
codes of collective identity. The primacy of one of these original dis-
tinctions defines different types of codes.
The major codes of the construction of collective identity are those of
primordiality, civility, and culture or sacredness(i5). These codes have
to be seen as ideal types, while real codings always combine different
elements of these ideal types. Therefore concrete historical codings of
collective identity are not homogenous. They contain various compo-
nents, the importance of which varies in different situations.
4. The construction of boundaries and solidarity is not, however, a purely
'symbolic' affair, unrelated to the divisions of labor, to the control over
resources and to social differentiation. Obviously, solidarity entails conse-
quences for the allocation of resources, above all for structuring the
entitlements of the members of the collectivity as against the outsiders (16).
an important implication if we believe in a change the past, the world outside is not
certain parallel between the logic of entirely to be trusted, etc. See PIAGET, J.,
construction and the evolutionary genesis of Genetic Epistemology (London, 1970); SHILS,
constructions. It implies a certain and limited E., Center and Periphery. Essays in Macro-
analogy, or close homology, between the order Sociology (Chicago, 1975).
of the center, the present and the subject on (13) See LEVI-STRAUSS, C, Strukturale
the one hand, and the order of the far distant Anthropologie I (Frankfurt/M., 1971).
realms, of the past and the future, of God and (14) See KRISTEVA, J., Fremde sind teir tins
the world, on the other. Transferring the selbst (Frankfurt/M., 1990).
structure of the known to the unknown, of the (15) See SHILS, E., Center and Periphery.
familiar to the unfamiliar, of the present to the Essays in Macro-Sociology (Chicago, 1975),
past and the future, imaging God according to 111 ff.
the human subject, etc., are well-known strat- (16) For the concept of entitlements cf. SEN,
egies of understanding and observation. The A., Poverty and Famines (Oxford, Clarendon
analogical coding of the world, of course, does Press, 1981); DAHRENDORF, R., The Modern
not wipe out the fact that there art fundamental Social Conflict. An Essay on the Politics of
differences between past and present, center Liberty (Berkeley / Los Angeles, University of
and distance, subject and world: we cannot Cal. Press, 1988).
76
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
Such entitlements refer not only to the different resources distributed
within the collectivity but also to access to public goods, and to major
institutional markets or arenas.
Societies may differ with respect to what resources are distributed in
the name of the collectivity to its members; they differ with respect to
the nature of public goods that are instituted within them and to the
legal mode of this institution; they differ with respect to the mode of
distributing entitlements (hierarchical v. egalitarian) among the various
groups within a society and they differ in their capacity to back the
interests and ambitions of particular subgroups within a collectivity.
Therefore particular codes of collective identity are affiliated to particular
social groups who are the carriers of a symbolic code and function as
constructors of collective identity.
But the structure of distribution, the availability of resources and the
power relations between social groups, in their turn, influence the
constructive operation of codes: there is an elective affinity between
codes on the one hand and the structure of power and allocation on the
other. The analysis of this elective affinity between the social structure
and the codes of collective identity is at the core of the research program
outlined in the following pages. This research program views collective
identity as a social construction produced by social carrier groups which act
in a particular situation and within a framework of symbolic codes.
Before we outline some case studies of collective identity, we have to
return to the distinction between primordial, civic and cultural codes
and to point to their particular dynamics of construction.
5. Primordiality is the first ideal type of collective identity (17). It focuses
on gender and generation, kinship, ethnicity and race, for constructing
and reinforcing the boundary between inside and outside. Primordial
codes obviously link the constitutive difference to 'original' and
unchangeable distinctions which are by social definition exempted from
communication and exchangemainly because they are attributed to
structures of the world which are given and cannot be changed by
voluntary action. The occidental term for this realm is 'nature'. By
relating collective identity to nature, codes of primordiality provide a
firm and stable basis beyond the realm of voluntary actions and its
shifting involvements. Primordial types of collective identity appear to
(17) See SHILS, E., Center and Periphery. ution: Primordial Sentiment and Civil Politics
Essays in Macro-sociology (Chicago, 1975); in the New States, in GEERTZ, C, The Inter-
EISENSTADT, S.N./ROKKAN, S. (eds), Building pretation of Cultures (New York, Basic Books,
States and Nations, 2. vols. (Beverly Hills, 1973), 255-310; GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen
973); GEERTZ, C, The Integrative Revol- unddie Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).
77
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
be 'objective' and unquestionable; the boundaries cannot be moved, and
crossing the boundaries seems to be extremely difficult. Any chance of
crossing the boundary between inside and outside would obviously blur
the distinction and weaken the control over the members of the col-
lectivity. However, sometimes a limited crossing of the boundary is
sometimes necessarywhether to oust members from the community in
order to avoid internal crisis, or to adopt new members from outside.
This procedure of crossing the boundaries of primordial communities,
however, is never simply determined by and entrusted to natural
processes like birth and death, breeding and parenthood; instead, highly
elaborated and important social 'rituals of passage'(i8) control and
construct the crossing of boundaries: consecration and funerals, mar-
riage and inauguration, expulsion and inclusion. Instead of neglecting
the boundaries, these very rituals construct and reaffirm them.
Even more important than these rituals of passage are rituals of
purification by which the traces of the outside in the members of the
primordial communities are extinguished: rituals of baptism, of silence
and isolation 'purify' the members and ensure the homogeneity of the
collectivity.
Thus, in fact, primordiality does not emerge out of natural givenness,
but is an essentially fragile social construction whichlike every social
constructionneeds special rituals and communicative efforts in order
to come into existence and be maintained.
Defining and demarcating a boundary by a primordial code implies
not only a special way of constructing the inside, but also a particular
way of mapping others outside the collectivity. The relationship of
primordial collectivities to their environment is not a missionary one:
the 'others' cannot be converted and adopted, they are not guilty for
committing a wrong choice, they cannot be educated, developed or even
understood, every effort to instruct them will fail, because they simply
lack the essential preconditions of understanding. Primordial attributes
of collective identity resist by their very mode of social construction any
attempt at copying them successfully; they seem to be fundamentally
exempted from communication between, or reflexivity by the members
of the primordial community, they are simply unalterably different, and
this difference conveys inferiority and danger at the same time.
Strangers are frequently considered as demonic, as endowed with a
(18) See GENNEP, A. van, The Rites of tinguish between the performance of ritual as a
Passage (London, i960); TURNER, V. T., The duty and theater as a choice. See WAGNER-
Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure PACIFICI, R. E., The Moro Morality Play.
(Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell U.P., 1969). For Terrorism as Social Drama (Chicago, Univer-
modern societies it seems to be useful to dis- sity of Chicago Press, 1986).
78
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
strong and hostile identity which threatens the existence of primordial
communities.
Mapping the environment to primordial codes results therefore in a
pressure to keep a certain distance of security, or, if this is impossible, to
prepare for war. This distance can rely on physical separation, but also
results in a lack of trust, and consequently in a restricted range of
interaction and communication. The boundaries of primordial com-
munities consist of strong lines separating incommensurable insides and
outsides.
But in fact, as is the case with all such codes, sometimes even the
seemingly unquestionable primordial boundaries of collective identity
may be questioned and negotiated; their social importance may be
debated. Their latency is also in principle, given the basic ambivalence
of social codes, open to questioning. Hence even primordial construc-
tions call for a distinct mode of intellectual reflexion and justification.
Here, primordial types of codes rely on naturalizing the constitutive
boundary between inside and outside (19). Kinship and gender, eth-
nicity and territoriality are explicitly located beyond the realm of
communication, definition and construction: any attempt to question the
validity of 'natural boundaries' (and obligations) will fail because they
are by definition exempted from social definition and alteration (20).
Obviously, the naturalizing mode of achieving latency presupposes the
distinction between the realm of history, action and human conventions
on the one hand, and the impersonal realm of nature, governed by
eternal and objective principles on the other. If a society conceives of
nature in this special way, the fragility of social constructionswhich is
fundamentally brought out and emphasized by distinguishing between
nature and historycan be concealed by ascribing the structure in
question to the opposite realm, to nature. Here, by describing the
collective identity as naturally given one guarantees the latency of its
social construction. The unity of the collectivity itself is seen as a basic
natural similarity of its members. There is no personal representation of
collective identity apart or above this natural similarity; primordial
codes reduce the identity of the whole to the sum of its elements and
these elements are conceived as similar and equal. Therefore primordial
codes question hierarchies and entail a tendency toward egalitarian
(19) See BARTHES, R., Mythologies (Paris, especially within the realm of modern aes-
957); DOUGLAS, M., HOW Institutions think thetics see KOHLER, E., Je ne sais quoiZur
(Syracuse / New York, Syracuse University Begriffsgeschichte des Unbegreiflichen, in
Press, 1986), p. 48. KOHLER, E., Esprit und arkadische Freiheit
(20) For a general account of this discour- (Frankfurt, 1966), 230-286.
sive strategy which became predominant
79
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
distributions of entitlements. This egalitarian tendency and the sharp and
distinct boundaries of primordial collectivities have an elective affinity to
the structural properties of modern nation states (21).
They foster the institution of relatively wide package deals of
resources and access to public goods to all members of the community
and any such access and entitlements to 'strangers'.
6. The second major code of construction of collective identity is the 'civic'
one. This code is constructed on the basis of familiarity with implicit
rules of conduct, traditions and social routines, that define and
demarcate the boundary of the collectivity (22). It links the constitutive
difference between 'us and them' to the difference between the routine
and the extraordinary (23). This type of coding collective identity may
be called 'civic' (or civil). Civic codes do not consider collective identity
as representing an 'external' reference like nature or the sacred; instead,
the routines, traditions and institutional or constitutional arrangements
of a community are regarded as the core of its collective identity. Here
collective identity refers to temporal continuity, to the recurrence of
social practices, and the constitution of the community (24). These
routines and rules are on the one hand difficult to separate from the
praxis of acting and the participation in everyday life, while on the other
hand, especially but not only on the scale of the macro order, the tides
are embedded in the institutional practices of the public arena. On the
daily level they tend to be exempted from argumentation, communi-
cation and debates, while most attempts to question them, to ask for
instructions with respect to proper behavior, or even to justify them and
to mark the boundary, can be made mostly from the insideotherwise
they mark the outsider.
The insider is familiar with the rules, even if he is unable to name
and explicate them. In contrast to cultural codes (to be discussed
shortly), there isexcept for civic ritualsno particular ritual of ini-
tiation, commitment or confession demarcating the boundary, but only
an undefined and diffuse frontier; the only chance to be accepted as a
member of a civic community and to partake in its collective identity is
(21) DUMONT, L., Homo Hierarchicus. The chapter II. 1; for Bourdieu's concept of 'habi-
Caste System and its Implications. Complete tus', see BOURDIEU, P., La distinction. Critique
Revised English Edition (Chicago, University socialedujugement (Paris, 1979).
of Chicago Press, 1980), Appendix D: Nation- (24) This of course is due to the fact that
alism and Communalism, 314flf. tacit and formal knowledge are not of the same
(22} SHILS, E., Tradition (Chicago, 1981). order. Cf. POLANYI, M., Personal Knowledge.
(23) For the conception of habitualization Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago,
see BERGER, P.L./LUCKMANN, T., The Social University of Chicago Press, 1962), 87ff.
Construction of Reality (New York, 1966),
80
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
to participate in the local practices and institutional arrangements and
slowly to adopt the local customs and routines and even the modes of
reflexive criticisms thereof. Time, patience, and a certain cautiousness to
avoid anything extraordinary are indispensable for this endeavour.
Breaking the rules, challenging the existing practice or establishing new
patterns of routines guided by some culture external to the community
are as incompatible with this code as is missionary expansion. Consider-
ing the implicitness of most of the rules and routines, any special
instruction and education will failexcept civil socialization whether the
more informal daily or more organized civic education to participation
in civic life. Civic codes of collective identity maintain the boundary by
not mentioning it.
They conceive of inside and outside in a symmetrical way and depict
the outsider as the stranger who is simply different and extraordinary
without attributing particularpositive or negativecharismatic qual-
ities to him. Because the stranger is unfamiliar and different, his actions
are difficult to understand and his behavior is difficult to account for;
the logic of interaction itself requires a certain cautiousness and distance.
In a sense the civic code of collective identity can be regarded as the
most fundamental and constitutive one of any such constructions. It
refers to its own continuity and has some similarity to Weber's concept
of 'tradition' (25). But as already alluded to above, such forms of col-
lective identity also have built in elements of fragility and reflexivity
especially in macro situations, and in which particular strategies for
restoring latency are requiredabove all collective civic rituals. Once
tacitly observed traditions are now declared and elaborated, the com-
petence of participation is explicitly formulated by the praise of par-
ticular virtues, the constitutive rules of the collectivity are written down
and commented upon. In particular the distinctive virtues which accrue
to the members of a community become the focus of ritual celebration
and artistic praise. In its more sophisticated versions, as in ancient
Greece, reflections about civic virtues can even become the issue of major
intellectual debates and of ritual celebration. Here, however, the con-
struction of collective identity gives up its roots in everyday routines and
may gradually approach the realm of cultural and transcendental ideas.
Even more important than intellectual reflections or virtues are
commemorative rituals and the representation of continuity, routine and
tradition in particular persons, places and events. Traditions are
reconstructed and related to mythical origins, to founders or historical
events, like revolutions or migrations.
(25) Cf. SHILS, E., Tradition (Chicago, 1981).
8l
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
Here the particularity of a person, a locality or a historical event
provide the core of the construction of collective identity. It is not
sufficient simply to know about the myth of origin; instead the members
of the community have to visit the mythical place and to partake in the
commemorative ritual. Although commemorative rituals construct and
continue the traditions of a community by particular patterns of social
practice, these traditions are rarely questioned by the members of the
community; instead they are defended against outsiders who attempt to
challenge them by universalistic arguments. Therefore the discourse
across the boundaries of civic communities frequently shifts towards the
'cultural' mode of constructing collective identity.
Civil codes of collective identity usually engender hierarchical dis-
tinctions between the bearers of traditions and new members slowly
approaching the core of the collectivity. Therefore they entail a tend-
ency to unequal distributions of entitlements and to restrict egalitarian
distributions to particular spheres or social arenas. This has a certain
affinity to the separation of the political from the economic sphere, with
a sharp distinction between, on the one hand, the rights to entitlement
and access to public goods, and on the other hand, access to various
goods and commodities exchanged in economic markets. The former
are restricted to members of the community, while access to the latter
may also be permitted to strangers. The range of public goods and
entitlements distributed to all the members is smaller than in primordial
communities and a distinction between private and public arenas is
fostered under these circumstances.
7. A third type of code links the constitutive boundary between 'us and
them' not to natural conditions, but to a particular relation of the
collective subject to the Sacred. This mode of constructing collective
identity may be called cultural in a specific sense. (Of course, primordial
and civic codes are also 'cultural' in the general meaning of the term. All
of them consist of symbolic distinctions, but it is only the 'cultural' code
in the narrow sense, which has the special dynamics of universalism).
These constructions of collective identities overcome the problem of the
fragility and fluidity of social boundaries by relating the collectivity to
an unchanging and eternal realm of the sacred and the sublimebe it
defined as God or Reason, Progress or Rationality (26). Constructing a
close relationship to the realm of the sacred is obviously a product of
human activity, but it extends beyond mere conventions and alterable
definitions to a supernatural source of identityand it is often presented
(26) TENBRUCK, F. H., Die kulturellen Grundlagen der GeseUschqft (Opladen, 1989).
82
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
as a human construction in accordance with some divine command-
ment. Such cultural codes can be found either as the dominant or the
secondary ones in various preliterate and above all historical 'archaic'
societies, but the purest illustrations of such collectivities are the re-
ligions which developed in the Axial civilizations (27).
Admitting the constructive function of communication engenders a
radically different stance toward the problem of crossing the boundary
and of depicting the others outside of the collectivity. The boundaries
between inside and outside can be crossed by communication, education
and conversion, andat least in principleeveryone is invited to do so.
Therefore, cultural types of collective identities imply a universalistic
orientationin a latent (as in most archaic societies) or manifest (as in
the Axial civilizations) manner (28). If this universalism is brought out
explicitly, cultural codes engender a missionary attitude towards others.
The difference between those who have a close relationship to the
sacred, and those who do not, is certainly a hierarchical one, but
everybody is capable of overcoming his inferiority, his emptiness and his
errors, by converting to the right faith, adopting the superior culture,
and crossing the boundary. The missionary zeal of 'culturally'
constructed communities, however, not only opens up the boundaries to
include the outside, but also exerts a certain pressure to overcome
distances and differences. Outsiders are inferior. Those who resist the
mission are not only different and inferior, but mistaken and erring; they
have to be converted even against their own will, because they are not
aware of their true identity. Here, outsiders are considered as empty
natural objects requiring cultural formation and identity (29).
However, crossing the boundary between nature and culture, bet-
ween the demonic and the sacred, between superstition and reason,
requires particular social mechanisms reinforcing and emphasizing the
boundaries, and counteracting the missionary zeal of the center. The
main institutional mechanism protecting the center of the collectivity
from the too intensive penetration of the periphery, is cultural or sacral
stratification. The openness of boundaries is compensated for by a
graded and stratified access to the center and by complicated rituals of
initiation; the toils and inconveniences of learning and education have to
be overcome in order to approach the sacred center of a cultural
community; only the chosen few, the 'virtuosi', who have endured all
(27) See EISBNSTADT, S. N. (ed.), Kulturen The Emergence of Transcendental Visions
der Achsemeit. Ihre institutionelle und kulturelle and the Rise of Clerics, Archives Europeetmes
Dynamik, 2 vols. (Frankfurt/M., 1987). de Sociologie, XXIII, 1982, 294-314.
(28) In the Weberian tradition see EISEN- (29) See GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen und
STAOT, S.N., op. cit., 1987 and The Axial Age: die Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993), 61 ff.
83
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
the hardships and are radically committed to the service of the sacred,
are finally accepted to enter the center and to see the unveiled secrets.
Between the virtuosi and the laity, there is an internal boundary within
the community. The very fact that the cultural attributes can be easily
diffused and communicated requires social barriers to communication
and particular taboos to protect the sacred from profanization. The
expansive movement at the periphery of cultural collectivities is there-
fore counteracted by a defensive blockade of the center, and the
combination between these two movements can result in an elaborated
stratification and internal ranking of the collectivity, and constitutes one
of the major poles of the dynamics of these civilizations (30).
Cultural codes achieve latency by another strategy, which may be
called a certain type of 'categorization'. Categorization presupposes a
distinction between the transcendental level of eternal values, principles
of reason or divine commandments on the one hand, and the historical
laws, conventional rules and worldly communities on the other. This
distinction also emphasizes the fragility of social constructions and
challenges the stability of collective identity. Categorization meets this
challenge by linking the seemingly constructed and historical identity to
the transcendental realm: behind the surface of a perishable community
its hidden core, its foundation in the transcendental realm, can be
discovered. Therefore, the 'cultural' construction of collective identity is
based on a privileged access to the sacred, on a divine mission, on a
particular representation of universal reason and progress. In contrast to
the civil orientation to tradition, myth and the continuity between past,
present and future, the cultural code presupposes a rupture between
past and future; it has a tendency to devaluate past experience and to
open up the future for Utopian orientations.
Yet another tensionbut inherent in the cultural code itselfis that
between relative emphasis on hierarchical as against egalitarian criteria
of distribution of resources and access to the major arenas of social life.
II. Case studies
The following two case studies focus on the national identities of
Germany and Japan. Both countries are among the leading modern
industrialist societies, but differ considerably from the classical front-
running nation-states like France, Great Britain or the United States.
Both were late-comers (Bendix) in the process of political modernization
(30) See EISENSTADT, S. N. (ed.), op. cit., 1987.
84
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
and produced an authoritarian imperialist regime on their road to
modernity, but they differ fundamentally from one another in their code
of collective identity and in the historical embeddedness of these codes
in social carrier groups.
i. Germany: the Kulturnation
Germany is frequently regarded as the historical paradigm of the
late-coming European cultural nation: in contrast to France or England
where the political formation of the nation state in early modern history
preceded the cultural construction of national identity during the
'classical' period of art and literature, the German national identity
started as such a cultural construction (31). Its architects were not kings,
princes or politicians but intellectualswriters, philosophers or other
members of the Bildungsburgertum, i.e. an educational class comprising
also higher state officials, lawyers, professors, engineers or army
officers (32).
In the second half of the eighteenth century this educated class grew
in demographic size and social importance. Its members could rely on
new entitlements for public offices generated by the administration of
enlightened princes striving for modernization. It was no longer feudal
privilege or simply money, but education and professional qualification
which opened the access to higher positions in public administration or
in new public enterprises in agriculture or the manufacturing industries.
Most members of this new modernizing elite obtained their position by
special state privileges and were appointed to locations far away from
their region of origin; there, it was difficult to get a close connection to
the local bourgeoisie or the local nobility. This situation of local
uprootedness and disembeddedness fostered an emphathetic
identification with the enlightened absolutism of the Prussian King
Frederic the Great and in general with the project of modernity and
enlightenment. In Germany the modernizing elite never had that
pronounced distance to the royal government and the monarchic state as
was so typical for the French enlightenment. But it differed from the
(31) PLESSNER, H., Die verspatete Nation 18. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1987), 167-182;
(Stuttgart, 1959). LEPSIUS, M. R., Zur Soziologie des Biirger-
(32) MEINECKE, F., Weltburgertum und turns und der Biirgerlichkeit, in: KOCKA, ] .
Nationalstaat (Munchen-Berlin, 1908); KOHN, (ed.), Burger und Biirgerlichkeit im 19. Jah-
H., The Idea of Nationalism (New York, 1944); rhundert (Gottingen, 1987), 79-100; CONZE,
for newer approaches to the German type of W. et al. (eds), Bildungsburgertum im IQ.
'Bildungsbiirger' see VIERHAUS, R., Umrisse Jahrhundert, Vol. 1-4 (Stuttgart, ig85ff.);
einer Sozialgeschichte der Gebildeten in GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen und die Nation
Deutschland, in: VIERHAUS, R., Deutschland im (Frankfurt/M., 1993).
85
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
Anglo-Saxon enlightenment too. The rationality of the German
enlightenment did not come out of the particularities of commercial
interests, but from the praxis of administration, education, jurisdiction
and science. The main opposition didn't run between state and
modernizing elite but between state and Bildungsburgertum on the one
side and the traditional and local bourgeoisie on the other (33). There-
fore, primordial and civic codes such as locality and traditional class
distinction couldn't provide an appropriate construction of collective
identity for the Bildungsburgertum. A new cultural code was needed in
order to reflect the situation of this new class and to establish ties
between the participants of the expanding network of public communi-
cation in the second half of the century.
1.1 This rapid expansion of public communication is one of the most
striking developments in Germany during the enlightenment. It pro-
vided the basis for a particular German national culture and united the
German society on the level of culture in a marked contrast to the
scattered political map of the small German principalities and kingdoms.
Germany's eighteenth century revolution was a revolution of reading. Its
conception of modernity was not the political or the economic but the
cultural liberties: the society as a reading public (34).
This expanding and accelerating communication via written and
printed texts addressed to a wide-spread anonymous public whose
attention was caught by appealing to morals and virtue instead of local
and regional issues.
The organizational basis for the revolution of reading was the new
institution of Leseverein (reading association) (35). These reading
associations spread rapidly during the second half of the 18th century;
(33) RUPPERT, W., Burgerlicher Wandel Mittel- und Unterschichten, 2, enlarged edition
(Frankfurt, 1983); ENCELHARDT, U., >Bil- (Gottingen, 1978), 112-154; WELKE, M.,
dungsburgertunf. Begrtffs- und Dogmengeschich- Gemeinsame Lektiire und friihe Formen von
te eines Etiketts (Stuttgart, 1986); RUSCHE- Gruppenbildungen im 17. und 18. Jahrhun-
MEYER, D., Bourgeoisie, Staat und Bildungs- dert: Zeitungslesen in Deutschland, in:
biirgertum. Idealtypische Modelle fur die DANN, O. (ed.), Lesegesellschqften und burger-
vergleichende Erforschung von Biirgertum liche Emanzipation-Ein europdischer Vergleich
und Biirgerlichkeit, in: KOCKA, J. (ed.), Burger (Miinchen, 1981), 29-53.
und Biirgerlichkeit im ig. Jahrhundert (Got- (35) DANN, O., Einleitung, in: DANN, O.
tingen, 1987), 101-120. (ed.), Lesegesellschqften und burgerliche Etnan-
(34) HABERMAS, J., Strukturwandel der zipation -Ein europdischer Vergleich (Miinchen,
Offentlichkeit-Untersuchungen zu einer Kate- 1981), 9-28.; NIPPERDEY, T., Der Verein als
gorie der burgerlichen Gesellschaft (Neuwied, soziale Struktur in Deutschland im spaten 18.
1962); ENGELSING, R., Der Burger als Leser und friihen 19. Jahrhundert, in: NIPPERDEY,
(Stuttgart, 1974); ENGELSING, R., Die Peri- T., Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Gottingen,
oden der Lesergeschichte in der Neuzeit, in: 1976), 174-205.
ENGELSING, R., Zur Sozialgeschichte deutscker
86
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
they provided a modern institutional pattern of social life and communal
association for the enlightened Bildungsburgertum of the cities. In
contrast to courtly sociality, but also to membership in traditional
corporations or in modern organizations, interaction in these associations
is based on shared convictions and morality. Communication and ac-
tivities have to give proof of common sense and the right commitment
to moral and reason. Set free from external restrictions and practical
considerations, the conversation is stimulated by a focus on the moral
construction of public welfare.
Membership is based on free individual decisions, but private
interests and personal considerations are not accepted as reasonable
motives for membership: the focus is on universal morality and not on
individual utility. A strong emphasis on morals and virtues promoted
extreme rhetoric and radical commitments to the moral ideal; those who
failed to show the necessary zeal, were excluded.
The expanding public communication and the moral zeal of the
associations in Germany prepared the soil for a construction of a
national identity based on patriotic virtue and moral commitment.
Communication processes in the Bildungsburgertum thus generated a
pattern which could easily be transformed into a cultural code for the
collective identity of the total society. This code was Patriotism (36).
Patriotism provided the integrative tie for an anonymous and vast
public regardless of descent and region. The primordial basis for
community and collective identityregion, kinship and class mem-
bershipis replaced by morals and reason, thus expanding collective
identity to the whole societyalthough it is unmistakenably shaped by
the life-world of the enlightened Bildungsburgertum and its ideas of civil
virtue.
The moral integration of society and the collective identity of Patriots
surpass the differences of region and rank; collective identity is
(36) VIERHAUS, R., Patriotismus, in: VIE- zum Problem der Sakularisierung (Frankfurt,
BHAUS, R., Deutschland im 18. Jahrkundert 1973); KAISER, G., Klopstock als Patriot, in:
(Gottingen, 1987), 96-109; GIESEN, B. / JUNGE, WIESE, B. V. / HENB, R. (eds), Nationalismus in
K., Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus. Germanistik und Dichtung, Dokumentation des
Zur Evolution der uDeutschen Kultumation* Germanistentages in Muncken vom 1J.-22.
in: GIESEN, B. (ed.), Nationale und kulturelle Oktober ig66 (Berlin, 1967), 145-169; PBIGNIZ,
Identitdt. Studien zur Entwicklung des kollck- C, Vaterlandsliebe und Freiheit, Deutscher
tiven Bewufitseins in der Neuzeit (Frank- Patriotismus von 1750-1850 (Wiesbaden,
furt/M., 1991), 255-3
o
3; BRUNNER, O., Die 1981); SCHMITT-SASSE, J., Der Patriot und sein
Patriotische Gesellschaft in Hamburg, in: Vaterland. Aufklarer und Reformer im sach-
BRUNNER, O., Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und sischen Retablissement, in: BODECKER, H., E.
Sozialgeschichte, 3. Aufl. (Gottingen, 1980), et al. (ed.), Aufklarung als Politisierung-
335-344; KAISER, G., Pietismus und Patriotis- Politisierung als Aufklarung (Hamburg, 1987).
mus im literarischen Deutschland: Ein Beitrag
87
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
decoupled from its seemingly natural and personal roots, society is
imagined as an anonymous public and the stage is set for the modern
idea of unpersonal inclusion of abstract individualsabstract by refer-
ence to equality, moral and virtue.
1.2 At the turn of the century, this cultural code of patriotism could
no longer be regarded as a powerful idea transforming social relations
and establishing a new level of societal integration. Instead a new social
carrier emerged promoting a new idea of collective identity: the romantic
intellectuals and the aesthetic idea of Volk and nation. The social situation
and practical problems of these intellectuals were entirely different from
those of the enlightened Bildungsburgertum (37).
Scattered all over the country and separated from other intellectuals,
most of them lived a lonely life in the small cities of the German
provinces. This inferior position contrasted sharply to their self-respect,
their education, intellectual ambition and frequently also to their
experience. It is no surprise that most of them despised the bourgeois
world of money, administration and professional narrowmindedness.
Their relation to the new and modern center of society was determined
by distance and dislike (38).
In compensation for their modest situation in the bourgeois world,
they thought themselves endowed with a superior perspective on the
essence of things; they aspired to a new and deeper foundation of the
charismatic center beyond the world of money and politics. In addition
to this distance from the bourgeois society of the enlightenment, which
could not offer professional positions, the romantic intellectuals had to
cope with a generational problem. The preceding generation of the
German classics had been extremely successful in the literature market.
The esoteric attitude of these romantic intellectuals excluded the broad
public and its bad taste. Their literature was not published in the large
(37) KIESEL, H. / MUNCH, P., Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1976); SCHULTE-SASSE, J., Das
und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert, Vorausset- Konzept biirgerlich-literarischen Offentlich-
zungen und Entstehung des literarischen Markts keit und die historischen Griinde seines Zer-
in Deutschland (Miinchen, 1977); HAFERKORN, falls, in: BURGER, C. et. al. (eds), Aufkldrung
H. J., Zur Entstehung der biirgerlich- und literarische Qffentlichkeit (Frankfurt/M.,
literarischen Intelligenz und des Schriftstellers 1980), 83-115; for the widespread role of the
im Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800, in: Hauslehrer see FERTIG, L., Die Hofmeister.
LUTZ, B. (ed.), Deutsches Burgertum und lite- Befunde, Thesen, Fragen, in: HERMANN, U.
rarische Intelligenz iy50-1800, Literaturwis- (ed.), Die Bildung des Burgers. Die Formierung
senschajt und Sozialwissenschaften 3 (Stuttgart, der burgerlichen Gesellschaft und die Gebildeten
1974), 113-275; for more details see GIESEN, im 18. Jahrhundert (Weinheim-Basel, 1982),
B., Die Intellektuellen und die Nation, op. cit., 322-328. Most of these arguments can already
130-162. be found in GERTH, H., Burgerliche Intelligenz
(38) BRUNSCHWIG, H., Gesellschaft und urn 1800 (Gottingen, 1976).
Romantik in Preufien im 18. Jahrhundert
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
patriotic press but in special journals, which were usually shortlived and
had an extremely restricted circulation (39).
Obviously the patriotic association with its straightforward moral
orientation was not the appropriate forum for this exclusive and esoteric
form of communication. Instead, the institutional pattern of intellectual
communication was the clique, the small informal group based on personal
friendship and personal communication (40).
These cliques of romantic literates however were not merely informal
networks of personal communication but they cristallized around a
transcendental idea of superiority: the 'religion' (Schleiermacher),
'absolute poetry' (Novalis) or 'romantic irony' (Schlegel) (41). The
programmatic obligation of esoteric and demanding forms of discourse
conveyed an exclusive and superior self-image and offered opportunities
of detachment from mundane and ordinary life, that is from the world
of money and politics.
But this aesthetic detachment had political implications. The strict
observance of aesthetic principles and the aesthetic education of the
nation was thought to be a cultural remedy to political problems (42).
The center of this aesthetic integration is the transcendental idea of
'Volk' and Nation. The romantic idea of nation did not refer to the
'superficial' reality of state and economy, but located the collective
identity in the transcendental realm of sublime essences and forces of
history. Because Volk and Nation are conceived as the eternal and sacred
center beyond the fluidity of modern communication, these processes of
communication cannot touch them: an entirely new and detached form
of communication is required in order to penetrate the opaque surface of
modernity and to reveal the hidden core of history: the nation (43).
The nation is considered to be the sublime collective individual of
historical action, and by definition individuality cannot be compared
(39) HOCKS, P. / SCHMIDT, P., Literarische (Opladen, 1983), 174-209; HAHN, A., Kon-
und politische Zeitschriften 1789-1805 (Stutt- sensfiktionen in Kleingruppen. Dargestellt am
gait, 1975). Beispiel von jungen Ehen, in: ibid, 210-232.
(40) HESELHAUS, C, Die Romantische (41) HOFFMANN-AXTHELM, I., Geisterfami-
Gruppe in Deutschland, in: BEHLER, E. (ed.), lie Studien zur Geselligkeit der Fruhromantik
Die europaische Romantik (Paderborn, 1974), (Frankfurt/M., 1973).
44-161; GIESEN, B. / K. JONGE, Vom Patrio- (42) NIPPERDEY, T. , Auf der Suche nach
tismus zum Nationalismus. Zur Evolution der Idenn'ta't: Romantischer Nationalismus, in:
Deutschen Kulturnationa, in: GIESEN, B. NIPPERDEY, T. Nachdenken uber die deutsche
(ed.), Nationale und kulturelle Identildt Geschichte (Munchen, 1990), 132-150.
(Frankfurt/M., 1991), 255-303; NEDELMANN, (43) Cf. e.g. AST, Fr., Mythologie als
B., Georg SIMMEL, Emotion und Wechsel- Nationaldichtung, in: KLUCKHOHN, P. (ed.),
wirkung in intimen Gruppen, in: NEIDHARDT, Die Idee des Volkes im Schrijttum der deutschen
F., (ed.), Gruppensoziologie. Perspektiven und Bewegung von Moser und Herder bis Grimm
Materialien, Sonderband 25 der Kolner Zeits- (Berlin, 1934), p. 63.
chrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
89
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
and communicated on a general level. The individual essences of nations
are exempted from ordinary and mundane communication and it is this
very fact that conveys to the nation a singular position: the categorical
and ultimate center of history (44).
This construction of a transcendental center allowed for a remarkable
parallel between national and personal identity. In the same way as the
economic situation of the romantic intellectuals didn't match their
education and intellectual ambition, the political situation of the small
German states didn't correspond to the importance of Germany as a
Kulturnation. In the same way as the identity of intellectuals was
constituted by their education and by their distance from the realm of
money and official careers, the German national identity was not to be
based on the particularities of political and economic interests but on the
universalism of art and culture (45).
Beyond the surface, beyond the idle talk and the vain affairs a deeper
and imperishable ground was proposed to guarantee the unity of society and
the identity of individuals. The transcendental identity was contrasted to
the mundane order, to the worldly affairs of politics and economy.
Both realms were irreconcilable spheres which nevertheless urged
forward to unity and synthesis. This synthesis was to be based on a pure
and simple fundamental and it was to be accomplished by aesthetic
education overcoming the narrowmindedness of the economic ration-
ality and political bargaining.
1.3. At first this transcendental conception of the nation was an
exclusive code of the romantic intellectuals, but during the 'war of
liberation' against the French occupation the romantic idea of Volk and
nation broke out of the intellectual ghetto and mobilized large parts of the
middle classes to join the rebellion against Napoleon. The follow-up
period, between 1815 and 1848the restaurationprovided a new and
expanded social-structural basis for this idea of the nation. Not only the
educated public or esoteric cliques of intellectuals but also the petite
bourgeoisie was inspired by this idea of the nation (46).
(44) For more details see GIESEN, B./ Kriegen bis zum 3. Reich (Frankfurt/M.-Berlin,
JUNGE, K., op.cit., 1991, z86ff. 1976); DUDING, D., Organisierter gesellschaft-
(45) NIPPERDEY, T., PreuBen und die licher Nationalisms 1808-1847. Bedeutung und
Universitat, in: NIPPERDEY, T., Nachdenken Funktion der Turnerund Sdngervereine fur die
uber die deutsche Geschichte (Miinchen, 1990), deutsche Nationalbewegung (Miinchen, 1984);
169-188; NIPPERDEY, T., Probleme der DUDING, D./FRIEDMANN, P./MUNCH, P. (eds),
Modernisierung in Deutschland, in: ibid, 2-70. Qffentliche Festkultur. Politische Feste in
(46) MOSSE, G. L., Die Nationalisierung der Deutschland von der Aufkla'rung bis zum Ersten
Massen. Politische Symbolik und Massenbewe- Weltkrieg (Hamburg, 1988); DANN, O.,
gung in Deutschland von den napoleonischen Nationalismus und sozialer Wandel in
90
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
In contrast to the romantic intellectuals (47) some of them like
Gorres and Arndt were ardent leaders and supporters of the broad
national movement culminating in the big ceremonies of the Hambacher
Fest and Wartburg-Festa new generation of writers, the jfunges
Deutschland were repulsed by the beer-drinking and chanting national-
ism of the petite bourgeoisie (48). (This group included Heine, Borne,
Gutzkow, Biichner, Herwegh). They used irony and satirical poems to
distance the preceding generation of romantic literates as well as the dull
nationalism of the petite bourgeoisie and the authority of the restaurative
state, its censorship and repression. More important even than this
group of literates were the left Hegelian philosophers whose critical dis-
tance from the social and political establishment was not based
on subjective and aesthetical detachment but on a 'scientific philos-
ophy of history'. By applying dialectics, the fundamental forces and inevi-
table stages of historical progress could be discovered behind the superficial
views and illusions of public and administrative reasoning (49).
Viewed from this situation of exile and distance, the clamour of the
national movement in Germany could only be the target of mockery and
satirical commentaries. German national identity should not be left to the
middle class and its trivial rituals, instead it had to be founded on the
genuine 'Volk'. Influenced by the French socialists, the critical intel-
lectuals of the German restauration considered the lower classes to be the
'Nation'a nation without language and national consciousness,
oppressed by the state and waiting for intellectual advocates (50).
However, the lack of political resonance on the part of the lower
classes didn't weaken the collective identity of these intellectuals; it even
reinforced this identity by maintaining the essential tension between the
cultural critique on the one hand and the realm of politics and econ-
omics on the other.
Deutschland 1806-1850, in DANN, O. (ed.), (49) LOWITH, K. (ed.), Die Hegebche Linke.
Nationalisms und sozialer Wandel (Hamburg, Einleitung (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt, 1962),
1978), 77-128. 7-38; MEYER, G., Die Anfange des politischen
(47) GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen und die Radikalismus im vormarzlichem PreuBen, in:
Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993), p. 168. MEYER, G. (ed.), Radikalismus, Sozialismus
(48) HOMBERG, W., Zeitgeist und Ideensch- und burgerliche Demokratie (Frankfurt/M.,
muggel. Die Kommunikationsstrategie des Jun- 1969), 7-107; EBBACH, W., Die Junghegelianer.
gen Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1975); KOSTER, U., Soziologie einer Intellektuellengruppe (Mvin-
Literarischer Radikalismus. Zeitbewufitsein und chen, 1978).
Geschichtsphilosophie in der Entwicklung vom (50) WENDE, P., Radikalismus im Vormarz.
Jungen Deutschland zur Hegelschen Linken Untersuchungenzur politischen Theorie derfruhen
(Frankfurt/M., 1972); KOSTER, \J.,Literaturund deutschen Demokratie (Wiesbaden, 1975). For
Gesellschaft in Deutschland 1830-48. Dichtung the theorists of the'Weltgeist'in search of a his-
am Ende der Kunstperiode (Stuttgart, 1984). torical agent see EBBACH, W., op. cit., 1978.
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
However, failing to mobilize the masses didn't mean that there was
no audience at all. On the contrary the new and growing group of teachers
(of elementary schools) provided an eager followership to the project of
a democratic nation suggested by the writers oijunges Deutschland and
the left Hegelian intellectuals (51). These teachers found themselves in a
situation similiar to the romantic intellectuals: economic misery contrasted
with high intellectual ambition. This time however the gap was not
bridged by aesthetically referring to a transcendental realm; instead
pedagogical action was considered as the prime road to salvation.
Throughout the different historical scenarios outlined above, Ger-
man national identity was constructed mainly by a cultural code. This
code is based on an essential tension between the profane sphere of
politics and economy and the sacred sphere of morals, aesthetics and
culture. German identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is a
contrafactual and transcendental one: an invisible nation is sharply
opposed to the mundane level of particular and superficial interests.
Although this code of the German Kulturnation represents the cultural
mode of constructing collective identity in an exemplary way, it has some
elements of primordialty too. National identity is rooted in a particular
moral commitment or in a particular access to the transcendental realm,
but this access cannot be easily transferred to anybody willing to acquire
it. There are primordial limitations to the missionary zeal of the
romantics to immerse the world into the depth of German thinking.
Partaking in the spirit of the nation is based on education (Bildung) but
this is not achieved by simple pedagogy, but by referring to a language
like a cultural home which cannot be substituted by another, by living in
an ultimate reality of primordial myth and symbols, by a particular
reference to a tradition, to ties which cannot be exchanged (52). Even
the left Hegelians who admired the French nation for its revolutionary
politics, considered the spirit of philosophy and reflexion to be a pri-
mordial German property. Thus the cultural construction of German
national identity is stabilized by tacitly assumed primordial elements.
Later constructions of German collective identity could refer to this
and change the focus from culture to primordiality: after the unification
of the German Reich by Bismarck some intellectuals constructed a
(51) NIPPEHDEY, T., Volksschule und dominated by the pluralistic vision of Herder,
Revolution im Vormarz. Eine Fallstudie zur but in the different processes of trivialisation
Modernisierung II, in: NIPPERDEY, T., developed the much discussed 'germanism'.
GeselUchqft, Kultur, Theorie (Gottingen, See KOHN, H., The Idea of Nationalism (New
1976), 206-227. York, 1944).
(52) The discourse of the intellectuals was
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
collective identity of the Germans by a code of primordiality mixing up
aesthetics and biology: 'Volk und Rasse' (53). Again this construction of
national identity was carried by intellectuals and again it was opposed to
the 'superficial' and profane reality of the 'Kaiserreich' against indus-
trialism and the expanding urban centers. The focus however shifted
from cultural to primordial constructions, the moral vision of society
proposed by the enlightened German patriots is entirely dismissed and
replaced by the post-moral idea of ethnic purity and racial distinction.
Here the exclusion of strangers and outsiders is enforced and cultural
inclusion is sacrificed. The very concept of culture is 'primordialized'
and confined to the 'undeniable' roots of the Germanic 'Volk' which
were to be defended against the polluting impact of the modern
industrial world. Cultural pessimism and antiindustrialism continued
this particular blinding of cultural and primordial codes even in
contemporary German thinking. In contrast to cultural and primordial
codes, civic codes have never been prevalent in the constructions of
German identity.
2. Japan: principled primordiality
2.1 The Japanese collective identity is markedly different from that
which developed in either Europe or the United States (54). It is above
all characterized by principled primordiality, in combination with some
weaker elements of civility.
This conception of collective identity crystallized relatively early
(probably in the 8th century) out of Japan's encounter with other
societies or civilizationsespecially the Chinese one, but to some extent
also the Korean oneand with Axial civilizations (Buddhism and
Confucianism) with their universalistic premises.
The strong impact of these 'external' universalistic religions or
civilizationsalready of Confucianism and Buddhism in the 8th cen-
tury, of Neo-Confucianism in the Tokugawa period, and of Western
ideologies from late Tokugawa throughout the modern and contem-
porary erashas continuously loomed large and provided a continuous
challenge to the definition of the Japanese collectivity, especially in
relation to other collectivities and broader civilizational frameworks (55).
(53) MOSSE, G.L., The Crisis of German (54) The following analysis is based on S.N.
Ideology (New-York, 1964); STERN, F., The Eisenstadt's Japanese Civilization-A Compa-
Politicsqf Cultural Despair. A Study in the Rise rative View (University of Chicago Press,
of Germanic Ideology (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1995) (forthcoming).
1961). (55) KITAGAWA, J.M., On Understanding
93
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
However, the outcome of Japan's encounters with Axial civilizations
was a code of collective identity which was certainly distinct, for in-
stance, from the Korean or Vietnamese onesboth of which also came
under heavy Buddhist and Confucian pressure. Unlike in the latter
cases, where the 'local', identities were, in principle at least, subsumed
under the broader Confucian and Buddhist ones, Japan reacted to this
encounter by a principled denial of these universalistic orientations, and
the concomitant principled emphasis on primordial elements (56).
2.2 The first encounter of Japan with Buddhism, in about the 7th or
8th century, already transformed the older kingship into a particularistic
liturgical community rooted in the older 'Shinto' conceptions. The
subsequent reformulations of the nature of this community have only
strenghtened the core conception. This conception of collective identity
crystallized into what Joseph Kitagawa has described as an imma-
nentist-theocratic model in which the idea of a liturgical community
(which to some extent could also be found in China) became combined
with strong soteriological-immanentist components, and with the
conception of sacral kinship. This sacrality was markedly different from
the sacrality of universalistic cultural codes; it was confined to and tied
to a particular person.
The formulation of such conceptions already entailed the relati-
vely early formulation, in the Heian period, which had combined
such definitions of the national community with a view of Japan as a
divine nation (Shinkoku)a nation under the protection of the de-
itiesa conception which developed in close relation to the elaboration
and promulgation of what could be defined as Shinto and of Imperial
ritual.
This conception of a nation under the protection of the deities
differed from the Jewish conception of a chosen nation, for instance, and
its later transformation in Christianity. This conception of a divine
nation, while it obviouly emphasized the sacrality and uniqueness of the
Japanese nation, did not characterize its uniqueness in terms of a
transcendental and universalistic missionas was the case in the
monitheistic religions and civilizations. In Japan, such particularity did
not entail the conception of a responsibility to God to behave according
to precepts or commitments (57).
Japanese Religion (Princeton N.J., Princeton sity Press, 1991). See also J.M. KITAGAWA, On
University Press, 1987). Understanding Japanese Religion, op. cit.
(56) ROZMAN, G. (ed.), The East Asian (57) WAIDA, M., Buddhism and the
Religion, Confucian Heritage and its Modern National Community, in: REYNOLDS, F.E. /
Adoption (Princeton N.J., Princeton Univer- LUDWIG, T.M. (eds), Transactions and Trans-
94
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
The Japanese conception of collectivity also stands in rather marked
contrast to the way in which tendencies to the sanctification of Sri Lanka
have developed in Buddhist terms. As Michael Carrithers has put it: '...
In other words, no Buddhism without the Sangha, and no Sangha
without the Discipline. And indeed Sinhalese historians, who were
always monks, tended to addno Sri Lanka without Buddhism' (58).
The development of this particular Japanese conception is one of the
most important illustrations of the 'nativization' of Confucianism and
Buddhism in Japana nativization which entailed the immanentization
and particularization of the strong transcendental and universalistic
orientations of Buddhism and Confucianism (59).
2.3 A very interesting manifestation or derivative of this Japanese
conception of particularity was the very strong tendency in Japanese
Buddhism to sanctify locality, as can for instance be seen in the way in
which a specific mountain or region in the Kunisaki peninsula, 'tex-
tualized' in the interpretation of the Lotus Sutra in the nineteenth
century (60). In most such cases the sanctification of any locality was
formations in the History of Religions (London,
E.J. Bailly, 1980). See also BLACKER, C, TWO
Shinto Myths: The Golden Age and the
Chosen people, in HENNY, C. and LEHMAN,
J.-P. (eds), Themes and Theories in modern
Japanese History (Atlantic Highlands, N.J,
Athlone Press, 1995), 64-78; and WERBLOWSKI,
J.R., Beyond Tradition and Modernity (Atlantic
Highlands, N.J, Athlone Press, 1976).
(58) CARRITHERS, M., They will be Lords
upon the Islands: Buddhism in Sri Lanka, in:
BECHERT, H. / GOMBRICH, R. (eds), The World
of Buddhism (London, Thames & Hudson,
1984, 1991), p. 11; see also KAPFERER, B.,
Legends of People, Myths of State-Violence,
Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka
and Australia (Washington D. C, The Smith-
sonian Institute, 1984), esp. part I.
(59) NAKAMURA, H., Ways of thinking of
Eastern people (Honolulu, East-West Center
Press, 1964).
(60) A. Grappard's analysis is very perti-
nent here: 'Of the many techniques that were
recommended for copying the Lotus Sutra,
that which was called nyobokyo, or 'Natural
text', enjoined one to refrain from using an
animal-hair brush and to use instead grass and
plants as brush, stones as ink, and to bow after
each graph was copied, so that the natural
character of the tools that were used would fit
the natural character of the scripture that was
copied. These epistemological directions led
them to postulate that natural sounds were the
sermon of the Buddha, and that the natural
world was the body of Buddha. This 'episteme
of identity' led them to manage a natural area
in accordance with a vision which held that the
Lotus Sutra was embodied in the mountain,
and that the mountain was a 'natural discourse'
expounding the Lotus Sutra. In other words,
their perception of the world was already a
sophisticated interpretation that was doctri-
nally related to the Tendai motto to the effect
that 'all animate and inanimate beings possess
the buddha nature', and to the proposition that
'inanimate beings can expound the doctrine of
the Buddha'. '... Foucault stipulates that the
world, by means of this interplay of resem-
blances and likenesses, was as if forced to
remain "identical", in an identity in which
"the same remains the same, riveted onto
itself. The world was filled with "signatures"
in which similitudes could be recognized ... A
systematic study of combinatory cults supports
this claim, and Kunisaki is a case in point
because of its relation to the Hachiman cult. It
is important to note that the apparent lack of
distinction between religious and political
realms in Japan means simply that Japanese
society had a mythical vision of itself: first
expressed in the Kojiki and in the Nihogi in the
eighth century, it served as a structuring
95
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
usually limited to that locality as the bearer of the more general, uni-
versal values. In Japan it was often extended to the whole country.
The sanctification of distinct places also developed within Buddhism,
as in other countries, for instance in India where the Kailari, the source
of the four rivers, was considered to be Mt. Meru, or in Tibet where all
snow mountains were sacred. In Japan such a tendency moved easily
into the identification of any such sacral place with the country as such.
The sanctification of Mt. Fuji, especially in later medieval Tokugawa
and to some extent also in the Meiji period, not only as a symbol of Japan
but also as the symbol of overcoming the foreign, is very indicative.
2.4 This conception of particularity was closely related to some of
the characteristics of the major Kulturtraeger in Japannamely their
being relatively non-autonomous, embedded in frameworks and co-
alitions defined in some primordial (often kinship) terms.
Many cultural actorspriests, monks, scholars, and the like, and in
the modern age, specialists and scientistsparticipated in such coali-
tions. But with very few exceptions, their participation was defined in
primordial or liturgical terms; in terms of achievement set within such
settings and of social obligations according to which these coalitions
were structured. Only secondarily was such participation structured
according to any distinct, autonomous criteria rooted in or related to the
arenas of cultural specialization in which they were active. Or, in other
words while many special social spaces and frameworks, in which the
specialized cultural activities were undertaken, were continuously
constituted and reconstructed, the overall cultural arenas were not
defined as distinct ones, autonomous from the broader social sec-
tors (61).
device of the sacred geographies that devel- relating the birth of fire, in which all the kami
oped thereafter. In that vision, society and the born before the birth of fire belong to the
world were conceived of as single sociocosm in realm of nature whereas all the kami born after
which the pantheon of kami and its hierarchy belong to the realm of culture'. A. G. GRAP-
were a mirror-image of the social construct PARD, The Textualized MountainEnmoun-
and a mirror-image of the Buddhist pantheon. tained Text: the Lotus Sutra, in: TANABE, S.J.
Furthermore, the world in which people lived and TANABE, W.J. (eds), The Lotus Sutra in
was thought to be impacted by symbolic forces Japanese Culture (Honolulu, U. of Hawaii
(such as those of stars or of diseases believed to Press, 1984), 159-191.
originate in symbolic realms). In such a (61) F. Hsu, Iemoto (New York, ]. Wiley,
scheme the position of ritual was central, 1973); NAKANE, Ch., Japanese Society (Lon-
because people used it as an effective means to don, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970); Y.
act over symbols. What one could qualify as MURAKAMI, The Society as a Pattern of
the cosmonatural aspect of the sociocosm was Civilization, Journal of Japanese Studies, 10, 2
the definition of nature according to myth- (1984), 279-364; R.J. SMITH, Japanese Society,
ology. That definition is clearly, though in- Self and the Social Order (Cambridge, Cam-
directly, given in the Kqjiki in the myth bridge University Press, 1981).
96
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
Accordingly, the religious and intellectual elites, while often engaged
in very sophisticated cultural activities and discourse, evinced little
autonomy in the social and political realm, i.e. as actors upholding
values and orientations not embedded in existing social frameworks, but
enunciated and articulated by them, and according to which they are
recruited.
It was this embedding of the cultural elites in broader social settings,
defined in primordial and often hierarchical terms, that made it very
difficult, as can be seen in the mode of Japanization of Confucianism
and Buddhism, as well as of Western influences, for universalistic
criteria based on a transcendental vision, stressing the existence of a
chasm between the transcendental and mundane orders, or on func-
tional specialization, to become predominant in the major arenas of
action. Such orientations and criteria tended to become subsumed under
the various primordial ones.
It was because of these characteristics of the major Kulturtraeger
that the particularistic conception usually held its own even when
confronted with universalistic ideologiesbe they Buddhist, Confucian,
or, in recent times, various modern onesliberal, constitutional, pro-
gressivist, Marxist, or the likeall of which seemingly called for a
redefinition of the symbols of collective identity in some universalistic
directions.
Of course Japanese intellectuals sometimes attempt to redefine the
Japanese collectivity in more universal terms and to imbue it with
universalistic and transcendental dimensions, but such redefinition did
not strike roots in the Japanese collective consciousness. There was little
response from wider sectors of society where some version of the
liturgical, primordial, 'natural' collectivity ultimately prevailed.
A similar closely related pattern developed with respect to the
definition of the relations of the Japanese collectivity to other collec-
tivities. Many Japanese intellectuals, elites or influential also acutely
sensed the necessity to define the relation of the Japanese nation to
otherespecially the Chineseand later in the nineteenth und twen-
tieth centuries to the Western civilizations and to religious and cultural
movements. The conceptions of the Japanese collectivity that developed
in such periods entailed very intensive orientation to 'others'China,
India, the West, and an awareness of others, encompassing civilizations
claiming some universal validity. This awareness constituted a central
continuous focus of Tokugawa Neo-Confucian discourse (62). Such
(62) Nosco, P., Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (Princeton, Princeton University Press,
1984).
97
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
orientations, however, did not give rise to a conception of the Japanese
collectivity as part of such broader civilizational frameworks, structured
according to the universalistic premises prevalent in them. Japan was
not seen as one, even if possibly a central, component of such a uni-
versalistic framework. At most, these orientations entailed the assertion
that the Japanese collectivity embodied the pristine values enunciated by
the other civilizations and which were wrongfully appropriated by them
or attributed to them.
Thus for instance many Japanese scholars claimed that it is in
Japanor at least not in Chinathat the pristine Confucian vision of
the sage (as promulgated by Confucius and Mencius) was realized. They
showed that the very institutionalization of Confucianism in a state-
bureaucratic mold could perhaps be seen as a perversion of this original,
pristine idealwhich was to some extent also to be found among some
of the Chinese Neo-Confucians.
Such claims about the superiority of Japan, claims that the Japanese
collectivity embodies the pristine virtues proclaimed by 'foreign' uni-
versalistic religions were promulgated especially under the Meiji, often
together with claims for Japanese hegemony on the: East Asian scene.
But again these claims did not entertain the possibility that Japan was
onepossibly the leadingcountry in terms of the transcendental and
universalistic orientation in which all the others could equally partici-
pate. Rather, these claims were based on the assumption thatas was
already promulgated by the schools of nativistic learning under the
Tokugawait was the primordial character of the Japanese collectivity
that represented these universal pristine values (63).
This conception of particularity provided the background to the
different 'schools' of Japanese uniqueness as they developed in the
modern periode.g. in the emphasis on the uniqueness of Japanese
language, race or culture in the later development of Nihonjiron litera-
ture.
This conception veered even between on the one hand a strong
emphasis on the incomparable uniqueness of Japan, often in the
direction of rabid nationalismand on the other hand the claim that the
Japanese people or culture embodied the pristine values promulgated by
all humanity (64).
(63) K. Wildman NAKAI, The Naturaliz- Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (Prince-
ation of Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan: The ton, Princeton University Press, 1984).
Problem of Sinocentrism, Harvard Journal of (64) A very interesting illustration of the
Asian Studies, Vol. 40 (1980), 157-199; P. persistence of such conceptions of the Japanese
Nosco, Introduction: Neo-Confucianism and collectivity can be found in the attitude to
Tokugawa DiscourseAn Idea, in: P. Nosco, Marxism of some very distinguished Japanese
98
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
One crucial derivative of such a definition of the Japanese collectivity
was the impossibility of becoming Japanese by conversion. The
Buddhist sects or Confucian schoolsthe most natural candidates for
channels of conversioncould not serve as such in Japan. True enough,
in the pre-Heian period and in later times Koreans as well as other
groups became assimilated into the different regional Japanese settings.
But these earlier experiences of assimilation did not entail a 'conversion'
or principled acceptance into a common collective entity sharing a
specific transcendent vision. When more articulated conceptions of such
collective consciousness developed in modern times, they tended to
exclude even the possibility of such assimilationas the fate of Koreans
in contemporary Japan attests.
2.5 Civility constituted the second component of the Japanese col-
lective identity. But the emphasis on civility did not entail the recog-
nition of civility as an autonomous dimension, but rather in term of its
contribution to the collectivity denned mostly in primordial terms. The
central focus of civility that developed in Japan was that of loyalty. It
was closely related to that of the legitimation of political authority and
accountability of rulers as they developed in Japanboth of which
entailed a far-reaching transformation of the Confucian conceptions
thereof.
The 'original' Confucian conceptions of political authority, of its
legitimation and of the accountability of rulers, prevalent in China and
later transferred also to Korea or Vietnam, underwent a far-reaching
transformationvery much in line with the conception of kingship and
immanentist theocracy analyzed above (65). One of the central foci of
such transformation was the encounter with the Chinese concepts of
authority, especially with the concept of the 'mandate of Heaven', which
became a focus of very intensive intellectual and ideological discussion
in the Tokugawa period. This discourse touched on the central core of
political ideology, on the conceptions of legitimation, of rulership, and
leftist intellectuals in the 20th century. In or essence. Cf. HOSTON, G.A., A 'Theology' of
common with many Chinese intellectuals of Liberation? Socialist Revolution and Spiritual
such disposition, the Japanese ones like Regeneration in Chinese and Japanese Mar-
Kotuku or Kawakawi Hajime attempted to xism
t
in: COHEN, P. A. and GOLDMAN, M.
de-emphasize the 'materialistic' dimension of (eds), Ideas Across Cultures-Essays on Chinese
Marxism and infuse them with 'spiritual' Thought in Honor of Benjamin J. Schwartz
values, with values of spiritualistic regener- (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
ation. But while most of such Chinese intel- 1990), 165-194.
lectuals tended to emphasize the transcen- (65) See also ROZMAN (ed.), The East Asian
dental and universalistic themes of 'classical' Region, Confucian Heritage and its Modern
Confucianism, the Japanese ones emphasized Adoption, op. cit.
the 'kokutai', the Japanese national community
99
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
of the accountability of rulers, minimizing the principled accountability
of rulers and the transcendental and universalistic dimensions or
principles of legitimation, emphasizing instead loyalty to the Em-
peror (66).
... If one were to sum up in a single statement the main quality of loyalism in its first
three phases, one would say that loyalists used the figure of the emperor rather to
justify than to undermine the institutions under which they lived. The emperor
symbolized the legitimacy of the state, and hence national unity, continuity, and
stability. Furthermore, he symbolized the morality of subjects, without regard for the
specifics of an individual's moral duty. More and more he became to connote the
moral duties that transcended particularistic bonds of obligation between persons.
When the loyalist message was addressed to ordinary people, the result was to affirm
the primacy of that highest particularism, the loyalty of a man to his country (67).
The full impact of this concept of loyalty in Japan can be best
understood in the discussion about the relation between loyalty to one's
father on the one hand and to one's lord on the other. The problem of
the relative priority of filial piety as against loyalty to one's lord indeed
constituted one of the major problems of intellectual debate among the
neo-Confucian scholars in their confrontations with the 'nativistic'
school, as well as with Chinese Confucian scholars. In both countries
there were far-reaching disputes around this problem and different
opinions were voiced, but among the Neo-Confucians in China the
tendency was to emphasize filial duty.
Some Japanese scholars opted for the classical Chinese-Confucian
emphasis on filial pietywhich was justified in terms of a transcendental
evaluation of the place of the family. But most of them stressed the
priority of loyaltyto the family, to the head of the family, to the lord,
and ultimately to the Emperoror, in other words, to the existing social
nexus. This emphasis on loyalty to one's lord was also closely related to
the acceptance in Japan of non-agnatic adoptioni.e. of the possibility
of adopting as sons people who had no blood or kinship relation to the
adopting family (68). While the practice of such adoption seems to have
been rather widespread in various sectors of Chinese society, it was on
(66) As P. Nosco has put it: 'For example, era', in: Introduction, op. cit. (1984).
in a Confucian-inspired history of Japan, (67) Hsu, F., Filial Piety in Japan and
Hayasi Razan's (1583-1657) son, Hayuashi China: Borrowing Variations and Significance,
Gtraho (1618-1680) cast Tokugawa Yesaka in Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Spring
the classical guise of the newly appointed 1971, 57-74; WEBB, H.F., The Japanese
recipient of the mandate of heaven, equipping Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Period
him both morally and spiritually for the task of (New York, Columbia University Press, 1968).
human rulership. However, the obverse side of (68) MCMULLEN, I.J., Rulers or Fathers? A
this issuethat heaven might withdraw its Casuistical Problem in early modern Japanese
mandate from any specific regimewas of Thought, Past and Present, No 116, Aug.
necessity skirted by all Tokugawa Confucian 1987, 56-98.
thinkers until the very last years of Tokugawa
IOO
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
the whole seen by Chinese Neo-Confucian scholars as wrongun-
dermining the very basis of the conception of Chinese family and
kinship and of ancestor worship.
At the same time such loyalty, focused on the 'lord'up to the
Emperorand on the group or collectivity of which individuals formed
a part or with the fate of which they were embroiled, could not be
questioned, contrary to what was the case in China, in terms of some
universalistic principles borne by a higher, transcendental authority; nor
was the lord's authority legitimized by such principles. The nativistic
scholars presented the very possibility of such questioning as anathema
to the Japanese spirit or culture (69).
True enough, this very reformulation of the concept of loyalty
contained within itself strong possibilities of a wide extension of family
loyalty beyond any given setting, possibly in a universalistic direction.
But in fact such extension always took place within the confines of the
Japanese collectivity. In China the emphasis on filial piety usually was
not easily extended beyond the kinship frameworks, but given the
relatively strong transcendental justification of such piety, especially in
Neo-Confucianism, it could also seem a potential basis for challenging
existing authority structures. Such a possibility was less feasible in
(69) H. Watanabe makes a similar obser-
vation: 'This relationship of samurai and his
lord is extremely different, in any phase, from
that of the Chinese scholar-official and
emperor. And of course it is dissimilar to the
Neo-Confucian ideal of this relationship ... A
disciple of Zhu Xi wrote in the biography of
his master. The master worried about the
affairs of state all the time. When he heard the
defects of the current administration, he was
distressed. When he spoke of the deteriorated
situation of the state, tears would at last drop
from his eyes. However, he respected the
ancient manner, Li that a virtuous man hesi-
tates to serve. Therefore whenever he was
offered an official position, he tried hard to
decline it. He made much of the ancient
manner, Li that a good vassal does not hesitate
to resign. Therefore whenever his opinion did
not coincide with the lord's he resigned
immediately. He dared not impair the Way to
get and keep his official position. He dared not
compromise with vulgar opinions, because he
had sympathy with the people ... This is a very
rationalistic relationship. There is no emotion-
al attachment to the lord. He shied away from
serving, because he respects the principle
more...'
'... We can see the rationalistic, normative
character of Zhu Xi's image of the lord-vassal
relationship here. The contrast with samurai's
relationship and his lord is really remarkable.
And yet the Japanese Confucianists thought of
samurai's relationship when they read Neo-
Confucian teachings on the scholar-official's
relationships. They must have been embar-
rassed sometimes. They understand that what
they were talking about was quite different
from what Chinese philosophers had talked
about ... So here too was a big task for
Japanese Confucianists. It seems to me that
most of them accepted or compromised with
the samurai version of the loyalty relationship'.
'... Unlike in China, in Japan a vasal's duty to
the lord often came to be regarded as prior to
this duty to his father, as many scholars have
pointed out. And Confucianists almost una-
nimously applauded the deed of Ako master-
less samurai, the hero of the famous play
Chushingura, though there were a few
conspicuous expections'. WATANABE, H., The
Transformation of Neo-Confucianism in Early
Tokugawa Japan, Paper presented at the
conference on Confucianism of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (Cambridge,
Mass., 1992).
I OI
S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN
Japanand when it developed there it went, as is well known, into a
distinctive restorative direction focused around the concept of loyalty.
Conclusion
The ideal-typical distinction between the symbolic codes of bound-
ary construction and their corresponding logic of inclusion and exclu-
sion was applied to two historical cases of national identity: Germany
and Japan. Not surprisingly neither the German nor the Japanese
national identity represent one of these ideal types in a pure and
undiluted way. Instead, they can be described as special combinations of
primordial, civic and cultural codes. German national identity started as
a cultural project carried by different groups of intellectuals and the
educational bourgeoisie. Later on a strong primordial element was
added. The incompatibility between both codes was alleviated by
'primordializing' culture: the missionary expansion of German culture
was replaced by a defensive anti industrial idea of primordial culture
based on Blut und Boden. Civic codes were not very prominent in the
construction of German national culture.
In contrast to this, the Japanese identity was always based on strong
primordial boundaries which were combined with an emphasis on civic
conventions in the Confucian tradition. The idea of sacrednessnot
unimportant for Japanese identitywas nativized and particularized
and clearly confined to particular places, objects and persons and above
all to the country as such without giving way to missionary expansion
based on a transcendental orientation. This lack of a transcendental
reference certainly contributed to the Japanese difficulties in publicly
confessing the crimes of their recent history. In contrast to Germany,
which could feel guilty for the Holocaust and reject the period of
Nazism by referring to universal morality and the transcendental roots
of culture, the primordially coded Japanese identity fostered the feeling
of humiliation more than guilt. Thus, a comparison of collective identity
between Germany and Japan hints at different conceptions of the
relationship between the profane world and the transcendental and
sacred realmagain a field the boundaries and contours of which have
been marked by Weber and Durkheim.
102