The Invention and Reinvention of Japanese Culture

The Invention and Reinvention of "Japanese Culture" Author(s): Tessa Morris-Suzuki Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Asian
Studies, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Aug., 1995), pp. 759-780 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2059450 . Accessed: 21/12/2012 15:34
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The Invention and Reinvention of"JapaneseCulture"

TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI
SPECTER IS HAUNTING EUROPE AND,
thespecter ofCommunism, but ofthatother big C-Culture. At the 1991 Conference oftheInternational of Association Historians ofAsia, Prof. Yu ofPrinceton Ying-Shih University trendin arguedin his keynote addressthatthe most important current historical studieswas the recognition of "cultureas a relatively autonomous force in havelookedat thepast history" (Yu 1991, 21). For too long,he suggested, historians a narrow through windowshapedby the values of the west,and particularly by the all-powerful western as the pursuitof "scientific notionof history truth."To break through thisconstricting frame we needto recognize "thatthehistory ofevery society orpeople deserves to be studiednotonlyas a partofworldhistory but also on account of its intrinsic values" (Yu 1991, 26); we need,in otherwords,to acceptWatanabe Hiroshi'snotionthatevery in its own waylike or regionmaybe " 'particular' society an individual"(quoted in Yu 1991, 23). Yu's rather termsin gentleproposalshave been echoed in much morestrident otherdisciplinary arenas. Harvardpolitical scientistSamuel Huntingtonalso sees culture as central to an understanding ofsociety, and depictsitsgrowing rolein tones a littlereminiscent ofOld Testament prophecy. Writingin Foreign Affairs underthe title"The ClashofCivilizations?" thatthemaincauseofconflict Huntington suggests in the New World Order "will not be primarily economic. ideologicalor primarily The greatdivisions amonghumankind and the dominating sourceofconflict will be cultural"(Huntington1993, 22). The main forces shapingthe future, accordingto will be somesevenoreightmajor"civilizations," Huntington, a term whichhe defines as meaning"thehighest cultural ofpeopleand thebroadest levelofcultural grouping identity people have shortof that whichdistinguishes humansfrom otherspecies" the divisionsand alliancesamong various (Huntington1993, 24). Aftersurveying civilizations-Western, Confucian, Latin Japanese, Islamic,Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, American-he goes on to predictthatthegreatest will challengeto Westernculture come froman alliance between the Confucianand Islamic civilizationsof Asia TessaMorris-Suzuki is a Professor in theDivision ofPacific andAsianHistory, Research School ofPacific andAsianStudies, Australian National University. I amindebted tomycolleagues in theResearch ofPacific andAsianStudies School at the Australian National for onthis University comments paper. Particular thanks areduetoGavan Mark McCormack, Elvin, Anthony Reid,Rosemary Trott, Tamura KeikoandMarkHudson. Theviews expressed in thepaper are,ofcourse, myownalone. TheJournal Studies ofAsian 54, no. 3 (August 1995):759-780. ? 1995 bytheAssociation for AsianStudies, Inc.
indeed, therest oftheworld: not, ofcourse
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(Huntington1993, 25 and 45-48; the list of civilizations also includes"possibly" African). But Huntington's image of the future is not simplythe productof a paranoia inducedby theUnited States'declininginfluence in worldaffairs. Wider and deeper areclearly at workhere, forces for Huntington's similar map oftheworldis remarkably to thatproposedby some of the morecontroversial recent writings on "civilization in Japan.The mostoutstanding theory" theworkoftheeconomic exampleis perhaps historian KawakatsuHeita, who, like Ying-ShihYu, is attempting to createa new, forthe studyof society.Kawakatsu'sapproachinvolves non-Eurocentric framework in whichclass struggle rewriting theMarxistversion of history was the main source of social change.Accordingto Kawakatsu'snew versionof history, it is not classes and classconflicts thatarethedriving force ofhistory. he says,"I takeminzoku Instead, and struggle [ethnicgroups]as the basic units,and believethatit is communication betweenethnicgroupswhichcause changein culturaland materialsystems [bunka and whichthuschangesociety. Ethnicgroupsarehuman bussanfukug6tail which groups possess a common culture" (Kawakatsu1993, 285-86). it seems, hasoutgrown itsnicest Culture, and mostpersuasive definition, proposed by David Kaplan and RobertManners:"a class of phenomenaconceptualized by in order to deal withthequestions aretrying anthropologists to answer" they (Kaplan and Manners 1972, 3). It has, indeed, become too important to be left to the or even to the poststructuralists. The new visibility anthropologists, of cultureas a topic of debate in history, politics; and otherdisciplinescan, I think,be readily understood. In the past three decades, the grand edifices of eighteenth- and social thought havecomeunderattackfrom nineteenth-century The manydirections. of Marxismas an intellectual authority systemhas crumbledfromwithin,and the challenges of feminismand ecological thought have eroded the foundationsof traditionalliberalism. Emphasis on the distinct cultural traditionsof differing societiestakes this challengeone step further a centralclaim of by confronting theirclaimto universal relevance. In their nineteenth-century positivist philosophies, on culture, writers likeYu and Kawakatsu emphasis define western postenlightenment thoughtas the productof a particular societyand era, and open up the possibility thatthe traditions ofothersocieties maycontainthe seeds of new theories to fillthe gap leftby the withering of old certainties. On the other hand, interestin cultureseems also paradoxically to reflect a trend.The increasing of scienceand technology contrasting penetration (themselves profoundly shaped by eighteenthand nineteenth-century European thought) is transforming society throughout the world, but particularly in the rapidly Asiancountries. industrializing in transport Developments and communications, and theincreasingly ofcapitalandpeople,threaten rapidflow to undermine conventionally acceptedimages of "nationalculture"in these countries. The desireto defineand mobilizeculturaltradition to theseinternal is, I think,at least as much a response uncertainties as it is to the worldwide of social theory and ideology. fluidity In Japan,the dilemmasof "internationalization" and of the country's growing have made the questionof cultureparticularly powerin worldaffairs salient.Later sections of thispaperwill consider some of thevarying waysin whichcontemporary writers are approaching Japanese this issue of culture.In orderto make senseof the of"culture" as a keyissuein historical reemergence debateit is, however, particularly to understand the conceptitselfin its historical important context, and to discover the manylayers of meaning,implicitas well as explicit,whichit has accreted in its long and not alwayshonorable career.A comprehensive analysisof the usage of the
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(culture)inJapancould ofcoursefillvolumes.This paperwill focusmore termbunka of the conceptby examining to bringout some of the paradoxes narrowly on trying particularly its evolutionin the workof a fewJapanesescholarswho have reflected foranalysis. deeplyon the meaningof "culture"as a framework
The Originsof "Culture"

The use of the word bunkaas in the phraseNihonbunka(Japaneseculture)is It does notbeginto makemuchinroadintopopularconsciousness modern. really very of the us, forthe appearance until about the 1920s. Maybe this should not surprise Other senseis also veryrecent. Englishword "culture"in the same anthropological "culture" had already century, meaningsof the word are older. In the fifteenth as in "agri-culture"; by the senseof"cultivation," acquiredthe modestand restricted so that intothespiritual thephysical it was expanding from sphere, sixteenth century and intellectual of human manners "culture"mightnow also mean the refinement that century to earlynineteenth attainments. But it was onlyin the late eighteenth came to be applied (in the worksofJohanCristophAdelung the German"Kultur" and Gustav Klemm) to the whole complex of beliefsand customsof particular thisuse intoEnglish, and not untilthe 1870s thatEdwardTylorimported societies, Culture entitled Primitive (Kroeberand Kluckhohn1963, 11, in a book significantly 44-46, 62-63; Gamstand Norbeck1976, 32-33). and twentieth centuries, Some of the notionswhich would, in the nineteenth a long time. have,ofcourse,beenaroundfor to theword"culture" attachthemselves is an "customs"or "manners" The idea thatdifferent groupsofpeople havedifferent betweenthe customsof one. Herodotusspokeof the differences old and widespread enoughto admitthatBarbarian butwas broad-minded and theGreeks, theBarbarians be superior period could sometimes (Baldry1965, 21). Fromthe Hellenistic customs we even have a record of an Arab camel driver complaining of employment ... [and] do not knowhow to behavelike because"I am a Barbarian discrimination in the ofEuropeannationalism a Greek"(Walbank 1981, 115). With theemergence theseideas were rearranged into the popular and eighteenth seventeenth centuries, notion of "national character," which attributed personality traits such as and diligence tovarious European peoples(Yoshino1992, haughtiness, capriciousness, was takenup by writers 54-56). In Meiji Japan,the conceptof "nationalcharacter" as being (amongstother theJapanese like Haga Yaichi (1867-1927), who described in temperament fondof nature, and humorous realistic, practical, things)patriotic, in tracing, with it a new interest also brought (Haga 1977). The riseof nationalism and artisticheritageof particular ethnic the intellectual and celebrating defining, groups. of theanthropological term"culture," that evolution It was the modern though, the vision of a coherent and creating would weave thesevariouselementstogether, to have enormous influence on social whole: a visionwhichcontinues inner-directed thought in the last decade of the twentieth century. This anthropological at a certain stage as "thecivilization ofa people (particularly ofculture interpretation first of development)" appears in the OxfordEnglish Dictionaryin 1933, but for remained uncomfortably hovering decadestheEnglishuse of"culture" unstable, many and the newernotionof the oldernotionof "mentaland moralcultivation" between society." of a particular and beliefs "thepractices
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This adolescent awkwardness is obvious,forexample,to anyonewho readsT. S. Eliot's NotesTowardstheDefinition of Culture,published in 1948. The title is misleading: the book tellsus a greatdeal about Eliot's viewson religion, education, politics,the British Council,and manyotherthings.The one thingit does notdo is definition of culture.In some places Eliot stresses providea coherent and consistent thatcultureis "a wayof life"including"all the characteristic activities and interests of August,a cup final, of a people: DerbyDay, Henley Regatta,Cowes, the twelfth the dog races,thepin table,the dartboard,Wensleydale cheese,boiled cabbage cut in vinegar, beetroot and themusic into sections, nineteenth-century gothicchurches is much more of Elgar" (Eliot 1948, 31 and 41). In otherplaces, Eliot's definition value-laden: "culture maybe described simplyas thatwhichmakeslifeworthliving. otherpeoples and othergenerations in saying,when they And it is what justifies and theinfluence theremains ofan extinct thatit was worth contemplate civilization, forthatcivilization to haveexisted"(Eliot 1948, 27; emphasis in the original). while It is this interpretive tensionwhichallows Eliot to depicta Britain,assailedby the twinhorrors ofmasseducation and religious decline, poisedon thebrinkofa cultural theHenleyRegatta, and thecup final will all alikebe churned voidwhere Christianity, into formless chaos. Like the Englishword "culture," theJapanesebunkais burdenedby the karma Its origins thecharacter ofprevious incarnations. where go backto theChineseclassics, combinations bunkaand bunmei (used in modernJapaneseto mean "culture"and "civilization," context. respectively) appearin a particular and restricted Theyarepart ofa conceptual whoseother side is represented dichotomy bythecharacter bu,meaning In thiscontext, bunka and bunmei and improvement of "military." implytheordering thanby or scholarly society by the use ofbun(the written word,learning rule)rather theuse ofbu(the sword)(Suzuki 1981, 40-43). Both bunka wereadopted and bunmei in Japanese but were not widelyused in general as titlesforthe reignof emperors, when the famousphrasebunmei kaika discourseuntil afterthe Meiji Restoration, as "civilizationand enlightenment") was coined by Japan's (generallytranslated westernizers to describe their forthetransformation ofJapanese entire project society. This historical flavor whichcreptinto the context helps to explaina particular of Japaneseuse of the word bunmei (civilization). In Europe,therewas a divergence approachesto the distinctionbetween "culture" and "civilization."Scholarslike Wilhelmvon Humboldtappearto havedefined "culture"as thecontrol ofnature by scienceand technology, and "civilization" as theimprovement ofhumancustoms and manners;conversely, Mommsen and, later, Tonnies, AlfredWeber, and others identified"culture" with the intangibleworld of social values and ideals, and "civilization"with the tangible achievements of human science and technology (Kroeberand Kluckhohn1963, 25-30; Braudel1994, 5-6). It was thissecondusage which became dominantin Japan, and remainsso to the presentday. Thus, a discussion of the wordbunmei publishedin the early1980s beginsby tellingus that "nowadays Japanese people can no longerlive in isolationfrom 'civilization.' We rely on buses and trainsto get to work,elevators to take us to our offices, the telephone forcommunication and dealingswith othercompanies,computers forcalculation, the television photocopiers to reproduce documents, fornewsand entertainment.... All ofour dailylifeis carried out withthe help of these'toolsofcivilization' tbunmei noriki}"(Suzuki 1981, 33). This passageseemsto me to reada littleoddlyin English, wherethe unconscious to the word "civilization" imageswhichcling moststrongly are (I suspect)of Roman ruinsrather thanof telephones and photocopiers. The wordbunka grewfrom thesameroot-stock as bunmei, but itseventual destiny
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was very different. It was first extensively used by earlyMeiji westernizers like Nishi Amane,but its context suggests thatit was at thisstagea mereabbreviation ofbunmei kaika, "civilization and enlightenment." In other words, it referredto the achievements which flowedfromthe Europeanscientific and industrial revolutions (Suzuki 1981, 49-56). Therewere,it is true, a fewexceptions to thiscommonusage. The veryearliest case I have encountered of bunka used in a context whichseemsto refer to culturalpeculiarities, occurs(interestingly enough) in a discussionof the customs in 1854 (Takakura1972, 325). This was, however, oftheAinu written very much the exception to the rule. Until at least the mid-Taishoperiod,the common usage of the wordbunkais betterillustrated by the local government report which, discussingthe problemsof urbanization, observedthat "it is a factcommonto all thatwith the advanceof culture,the part of the populationemployedin countries agriculture should decline and that employedin commerceand industry should increase" (Kanagawa Prefecture 1966, 54).
in Interwar Bunkashugi Japan

As ImmanuelWallerstein has pointedout, the notionof culturehas two quite distinctaspects,whose compression into a single word is the source of endless confusion. On the one hand,culturerefers to a horizontal divisionwithinparticular societiesbetween"that which is 'superstructural' as opposed to that which is the 'base' " (Wallerstein 1990, 32). In this sense culture is something which is in society from suchelements as technology and economy. On theother distinguished hand,however, culture also refers to a vertical divisionwhichseparates humanity into distinctgroups,such as those sharingFrenchculture,or Germanculture,or, say, Chineseculture. In Japan,themetamorphosis an emblemofwesternization to a key ofbunka from ofJapanese in interpretation was linkedto a shift from conceptin theories uniqueness the first meaningof cultureto the second.Fromthe FirstWorld War to the early in culturemanifested 1930s, a new interest itself both in popularconsciousness and in academicdebates.Public recognition ofsocial ofculture as an important indicator in 1930 of the Asahi Cultural was symbolizedby the establishment development Awards(AsahiBunkaSho),and, sevenyears cultural awards later,of the state-funded At a (BunkaKunsho), whichhonoredleadingJapanesescholars, and artists. writers, more popular level, the identification of culturewith the "higherstrata"of social existencegave rise to the curious phenomenonof the bunkajuAtaku or Cultural Residence,which symbolizeda shiftfromthe Meiji equation of civilizationwith industrial to an equationofsocialadvancewiththenewconsumption production patterns oftheexpanding was a suburban middleclasses.The CulturalResidence family house, of whichwas embellished withunfamiliar the exterior materials like wood shingles, cement,or stucco.Its guest roomhad wallpaperon the walls (veryprobablyhung withreproductions ofFrench or linoleumon thefloor, western paintings), carpet style It was, in electriclighting,and, as likelyas not, a piano in one corner. furniture, short,the most tangiblesymbolof the popularequation of culturewith the novel fortackingthe word and the foreign. The same equationwas evidentin the fashion bunka ontothenameofanynewfangled commercial whichone wishedto sell product to a gulliblepublic (as in thecase oftheelectrically or "cultural driven bunka sempuAki fan")(Ogi 1986, 78-79).
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In theworldoftheintelligentsia, theconception ofculture as a "superstructural" phenomenon was expressedthrougha growinginterestin the history of art and architecture, and through heateddebateson thesocial roleofliterature and thevisual arts.This "bunkashugi" ("culturalism") can, as Harootunian has suggested, be linked ofconsumer in theearly bothto theexpansion interwar and to a reaction society years, againsttheMeiji identification withbunmei (material civilization, scientific rationality, and industrial progress) (Harootunian1974, 15). But, while bunkashugi in its early its emphasison the privaterather thanthe public stageshad a cosmopolitan flavor, than scienceflowedsmoothly and on aesthetics rather into a new and moreovertly streamof thoughtwhich emergedfromthe late 1920s onwards.A key nationalist of the values of "modernity" elementin this intellectual trendwas a questioning as in western expressed scientific, social, and political thought.Influenced by Japan's isolation from thecommunity ofindustrialized nations and its growing expansionism in Asia, as well as by the social dislocation which had accompanied Japan's industrialization, a prominent groupofthinkers beganto look within Japanitself for modes of thoughtand action whichwould help to resolvethe social and spiritual in this quest-among themMiki Kiyoshi The key figures dilemmasof modernity. and Watsuji Tetsuro-belonged to the Kyoto School,whichderivedits inspiration fromthe work of eminentphilosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) (Najita and Harootunian1988, 734-49). Nishida's famousphilosophical system, workedout in the late 1920s onwards, his mature worksfrom soughtto go beyondthe limitations of Europeanneo-Kantianthoughtby drawingon ideas derivedin large part from Japanese Buddhism(Nishida 1965a; Nishida 1965b; Suzuki 1977). had Fromhereit was a relatively shortstep to the view that "Eastern"thought in "Western"modernity special power to solve the problemsof dualism inherent Culture (Nishida 1965c, 85-87). In The Problem of Japanese (Nihonbunkano mondai), to apply his philosophical his death,Nishida attempted publishedfiveyearsbefore an analysis a specifically modeofconsciousness. theories to defining Japanese Through world [kankyo or of historyas a creativeinterplayof subject and surrounding "thatwhichis made" and "thatwhichmakes,"Nishida outlineda "environment"], between formof Japaneseconsciousness particular emergingfromthe relationship which Japanese people and the territorial space whichtheyoccupied:a consciousness tended was profoundly "vertical"(or chronological) and in which "subjectivity" At thecoreofthisconsciousness to be dispersed into"environment." stood constantly the transcendent the abstract locus unitingthe contradictions figure of the emperor, now whichcontains of selfhood-"the eternal past and future" (Nishida 1966, 340). ofJapanintotheunreflective Though Nishida arguedagainstthe transformation his emphasis on theuniversal ofJapanese "subject"ofa dramaofimperialism, destiny with echoesof less subtle forms of 1940s culturein a new worldorderreverberates theseedsofa new mode of This visionofJapanese culture as possessing nationalism. to the widerworld-also cognition-one whichJapanhad a duty to communicate a powerful influence overa wide-ranging and intellectuals exerted group of writers the outbreak of the PacificWar, debatedJapan'srole as a pioneerin the who, after processof "transcending modernity" (kindai no chdkoku) (Najita and Harootunian 1988, 758-68).
of Bunka Yanagita Kunio and the Redefinition

Nishida was just one of manywriters who, in the late 1930s to early 1940s, turnedtheirattention to "the problemofJapaneseculture"(Nihon Bunka Kyokai
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is perhapsbest faced,however, which thesewriters struggles 1939). The analytical YanagitaKunio (1875-1962). ethnographer illustrated by theexampleofthefamous framework passedthrough Yanagita'sintellectual Duringthecourseofhis longcareer, several importantstages of development. In his very firstforaysinto folklore War) Yanagitaseemsto havetaken (publishedaroundthetimeoftheRusso-Japanese and to have seen the a relatively simple approachto the unityofJapanesesociety, on as symptoms of "backwardness." As he embarked ofoutlying regions peculiarities ofYanagita's A recent reappraisal hisattitude changed. however, systematic fieldwork, not only workby Fukuta Ajio points out that the productsof this earlyfieldwork forexample, in rural of social forms the diversity Japan-the difference, emphasized and of theplains,and between varioustypesof betweenthepeople of the mountains as havingits own each of theseforms also tendedto present village structure-they distincthistorical lineage (Fukuta 1992, 139-48, 154-56; see especiallyYanagita appearsin culture"rarely theseearlystages,the term"Japanese 1963a). Throughout the focusof his study In the 1930s and early1940s, however, Yanagita's writings. underwent a furthersignificantshift. The search for integratingframeworks and at the same time the displacedthe emphasison local peculiarities, increasingly center culture"(Nihonbunka)made an appearance stage. expression "Japanese in Yanagita'sthought needsto be seen in the context both This metamorphosis and of changingideas about of growingconcern about the natureof "Japaneseness" the meaning of "culture." From about the 1890s onwards,many intellectuals, a framework with the problemof creating includingYanagita,had been struggling As the politicalscientist ofJapanese Kang Sang-Jung forthe understanding society. wereinescapably shaped to define socialidentity haspointedout,theseefforts Japanese of "the West" as rational,progressive, self-definition scientific, by a preexisting individualistic, and meritocratic(Kang and Murai 1993). In the face of this of reactions were monumental and dauntingvisionof "the West," a limitednumber was to of the philosopher Miyake Setsurei, by the writings possible. One, typified to the West: a yinwhosehollowsfitted define Japanas oppositebut complementary it mightlack thematerial wealth ThusJapan, although thecurves ofthewestern yang. possessed spiritual of the west (and although it had its own social deficiencies), of the white races"(Miyake 1977, qualitieswhich could "make up forthe failings 16). the An alternative was to argue that althoughsurfacecustomsmight differ, to "national in fact character" were equivalent underlying qualities of the Japanese Yanagita argued by was most articulately perhaps thoseof the west. This approach theeducationalist and diplomatNitobe Inazo, bestknownfor Kunio's closeassociate, of Bushid6 his Englishlanguagestudy (the Way oftheSamurai).In Nitobe'swriting, the Samurai,with his emphasison benevolence, truthfulness, honor,and courtesy, all a and itself is not so much an esoteric is Bushid6 philosophy above gentleman, loyalty, as a mildly exoticizedversionof the Britishpublic school ethos. Indeed, Nitobe himselflikens the Way of the Samuraito the moral code of Tom Brown,whose ambitionwas to "leave behindhim the name of a fellowwho neverbullied a little boy or turnedhis back on a big one" (Nitobe 1936, 8). The notionof equivalence in a remarkable comes out still more strongly by Nitobe in the late paper written of China and the influence of the West on 1920s. Here, comparingthe influence Japan's history,Nitobe argued in essence that Japan had been superficially of China,and that"the liberating "orientalized" powerof Western by the influence Japanwhose true energetic thought"was servingonly to releasethe real,dynamic, (Nitobe 1931, 20nature had beenobscured bytheweightof"Celestialdidacticism"
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21). In this thesis we can hear echoes of an important early twentieth-century historiographical debate,in which the rediscovery ofJapan'sveryearlyhistory was used (as Stefan Tanaka has pointedout) to tracenon-Chinese culture rootstoJapanese and thusto distinguish a moreclearly defined a wider"t6yo"(theOrient) "Japan" from (Tanaka 1993, 153-87). The problems of dealingwith "Japaneseness" werecompounded of by problems terminology. Was the defining characteristic of Japaneseness to be looked for in in ethical systemslike Bushido, or (as Nishida "national character" (kokuminsei), in distinctive Kitarohad suggested) perceptions ofreality? The solutiondevisedmore or less simultaneously was to adopt of his contemporaries by Yanagita and a number thenotion"Japanese all thatwas culture"as a broadframework whichcould embrace in custom,ethos, mythology, and materialtechnology. This solution, distinctive somecareful redefinition however, required ofterms. Thus Yanagitawas led,likeT. S. a definition Eliot, to composehis own notestowards the definition of bunka: which, Yanagita suggested,did not have to coincide with European uses of the word basis for "culture,"but should providesufficient conceptualunityto createa firm debateswithin Japan(Yanagita 1964a, 194-95). Yanagita's contribution to the debate was a careful exposition of the idea that was notjusttheforeign and novel,nordid it justmeantheold and traditional; culture it referred rather, to a "complex"(fukug6tai), "the existing stateof harmony of many elements, bothold and new,"woventogether bysociety like themany-colored threads ofsilk brocade(Yanagita 1964a, 191-, 199-200; Yanagita 1964b, 212). ForYanagita, then,Japaneseculturewas something dynamicand adaptive.Each age had its own culture-Kamakuraculture, and Momoyama culture, and,byextension, Meiji culture Showa culture-which blended old and new, importedand indigenousin its own like particular way. But in spite of thisconceptualflexibility, Yanagita'sdefinition, T. S. Eliot's,remained awkwardly suspended between whatis and whatshould be.This conflict between and prescription becomesclearly where description evident Yanagita turns his attention to a subjectparticularly close to his heart, thequestionofregional differences. Yanagita, of course,was moreaware than most of the variedtraditions which existedin different partsofJapan,and ofthefactthatregional society could often be exclusive He was also acutelyconsciousof the gap between and hostileto outsiders. the relatively westernized society of the big citiesand the poorer, more"traditional" ofvillageJapan.His discussion society of thesedifferences, however, concludeswith some revealing comments. After a detaileddescription of the local partisanship and rivalries whichpermeate he goes on to argue thatattachment Japanese society, to a sense of "local culture"is a barrier whichprevents citydwellersfrom developinga proper desireto "improve theirtownforthe sake of the nation."This worrying lack of social cohesionhas a simplecause. It arisesbecausepeople are led astray by "the delusionthat it is acceptablefora variety of different culturesto existin the same nation at the same time" (Yanagita 1964a, 199). "Culture," in short,mustbe it in anyother becausedefining something national, waywould erodesocialharmony; so the definition of actual social beliefsand slips quietlyfrombeing a description to being a description practicesin all theirdynamiccomplexity, of thebeliefs and whichmustbe created: a utopian goal symbolized, forYanagita, by the practices traditional festival in which all social divisiondissolvesin the ecstasyof (matsuri) communalcelebration (Yanagita 1964a, 201-2) The shifting focusofYanagita'sthought can be relatedto the changing fortunes both of his own career and ofJapanitself. At one level,Yanagita was responding to
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culture"in intellectual in "Japanese the crisisof war and to the upsurgeof interest positionwithin by his own particular he was perhapsinfluenced circles.At another, those circles.By the late 1930s, Yanagita had become an eminentscholarwhose ofJapan's theethnography weresoughton a wide rangeofissues,including comments expandingempire.His articlesbegan to appear in colonial journalssuch as Chosen (The TaiwanesePeople), contexts minzoku (The Korean People) and Taiwan minzoku of entire nations anthropology on the comparative which encouragedreflections (Suzuki 1973). of the local into the national,besides,was made easierby the The integration whichhad occuredsince the perspective in Yanagita'smethodological gradualshifts end of the 1920s. On the one hand (possiblyinspiredby the methodsof Bronislaw approachto studyingthe Malinowski),he had begun to apply a more systematic (Kawada 1993,117-25). By 1935 his early, of local communities internal structure methodology had been replacedby a well-defined techniques rather eclecticresearch materialinto threegroups: "outer formsof life" which categorizedethnographic (seikatsugaikei, i.e., the visible realm of material culture, such as festivals); i.e., language and oral traditions);and "explanations of life" (seikatsukaisetsu, of life" (seikatsu ishiki,the inner beliefswhich give meaning to "consciousness the constituted oflife"which,he believed, Of these,it was "consciousness existence). through was to penetrate themainaim ofethnography "essentials" ofsocialexistence: the surfacephenomenaof materialculture and language in order to reach and thoseessentials (Yanagita 1964c, 336-37) understand thediverse between relationship On theother hand,Yanagita'sviewofthestructural forms ofJapaneserurallife had also changed.Ratherthan seeing distincttypesof to emphasize past, he began increasingly as havingtheirown particular community stages of a single processof historical as different theirchronological relationship of"backwardness" as symptoms Thus hisearly viewoflocalpeculiarities development. theories, way.In his linguistic but in a morecomplexand systematic was reinstated, ofwordsfrom thesurvival Yanagitaexplored thelate 1920s onwards, developedfrom or island communities (Yanagita of Japanesein isolated mountainous older forms led to a much wider 1963b; Yanagita 1964d, 316-17). This linguisticresearch Okinawa,the regions-and particularly so thatremote ofhis theories, reconstruction In Okinawa, socialforms. ofvanished ofall-came to be seenas a storehouse remotest and landholdingsystemswere all religiousbelief and rituals,familystructures, as you but seem to becomemuch nearer from conditions, different present "entirely source" new could be seenas an "untapped think backintothepast"so thattheregion rather ofJapan(Yanagita 1964d, 317). Thus local differences, thehistory for studying as different than being the products of distinct local histories,were redefined is This interpretation evolutionary pointsalong the single line of nationalhistory. the evolutionary particularlyinterestingbecause Yanagita explicitly rejected like Malinowksiapplied to the studyof whichwestern anthropologists perspective ofearlier themas survivals stagesofhuman identifying societies, foreign "primitive" that to be seems separatenations The implication history (Kawada 1993, 128-29). withinwhich historical of evolution, their own trajectory or ethnicgroupspossessed than or "ancient" however, others; be more "primitive" somepartsof society might lined could not be another and up into of one wereindependent nationaltrajectories linear of human development. a single system material and between and center thebondsbetween periphery Having established a to in the immediate present years, postwar was ready, and spiritual Yanagita life, cultural pictureofJapanin whichthe nationwas seen as unitedarounda distinctive
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core. In response to the social chaos which followed he returned Japan'ssurrender, withincreasing to thesymbol emphasis ofthefestival as thelocusofcultural identity. In 1946, he wrote In these circumstances it is particularly necessary to become aware ofwhatit means to forman ethnicallyhomogeneousnation. . . . Until now we have not ofseeing considered . .. howmany ways things andways offeeling we havewhich, are peculiar to theJapanese. The bondbetween forbetter or worse, family and arealsomany ancestral spirits isamong these things, butthere inexpressible covenants between the gods and the peopleof the villagewhichhavebeen handed down from wecanthink ofas existing themedium thepast, andwhich unchanged through oftheyearly celebration offestivals. (Yanagita 1963c,284)
of Cultureas Organism: The Anthropology IshidaEiichiro

It was leftto Yanagita'sdisciplesand successors, however, to pursuethisanalysis of the culturalsystem For the generation of scholars to its logical conclusion. which succeeded Yanagita, the term bunka had lost much of its raw newness. The ethnographers and anthropologists of the immediatepostwarperiod were familiar ofculture. withEuropean and American debateson theconcept Manyofthem, indeed, at theheightofJapan'sempire had studiedoverseas, and somehad beguntheir careers had unprecedented building, in that briefperiod when Japaneseanthropologists East and Southeast Asia (as well as partsof to do fieldwork opportunities throughout the South Pacific).Culture,to these scholars, and acceptedtool of was a familiar of bunkaas a national-level and as a analysis.Yanagita's definition phenomenon mixtureof old and new-the definition which had seemed so novel in the early 1940s-was now takenforgranted. was Ishida Eiichiro(1903-1968), the pioneering Typicalof thisnew generation on images of Japanese anthropologist whose workwas to exertprofound influence culture to thepresent day.Ishidahad studiedin Viennain thelate 1930s, and during the Pacific War had conducted workin Sakhalin, ethnographic China,and Mongolia a briefflirtation with Marxism,he emergedas a (Yamaguchi 1979, 71-80). After critic in a short fierce ofdialectical whichhe described, but controversial materialism, article,as havingdegenerated fromscienceinto steriledogma (Ishida, "Hihantaki in Yamaguchi 1979, 119-24). In place of Marxism, seishinno tame ni," reprinted cultural came to form the intellectual basis ofIshida'smature anthropology writings. What is particularly about Ishida'sworkis the way in:whichit used fascinating worldview ideas deeplyrootedin theEuropeannineteenth-to-early-twentieth century on whichto build a theory ofJapanese as thefoundation Ishida'sthoughts uniqueness. on the modernmeaningof culturebegin with a quotation fromEdward Tylor's Primitive Culture, where,underthe heading "the Science of Culture,"the object of wholewhichincludes is defined as "thatcomplex study knowledge, belief, art,morals, and habitsacquiredby man as a member of law, custom,and any othercapabilities society"(Tylor 1871, 1; quoted in Ishida 1977a, 234; Ishida 1977b, 29). The of the factthatculturalanthropology was born in an quotationis an apt reminder age when science (particularly Newtonian physics) was king, and when the respectability of any new disciplinedependedlargely on its abilityto dressitselfin
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was also a child ofthe Darwinian The scienceofculture the costumeof the scientist. forthat essence were searching age: in pursuingculture,the earlyanthropologists therefore restore which could animals, and other humanbeingsfrom whichseparated of Species. by The Origin removed humans so rudely apes and line between the firm was culturalanthropology from western whichIshida inherited The worldview was basic level At the most three levels. in into were divided one whichphenomena above thiscame the and the chemist; world,the realmof thephysicist the inorganic and at thehighest ornatural historian; ofthebiologist ofstudy world, thefield organic the worldof humanculturewhich and most complexlevel lay the "superorganic," (Ishida 1977b). This vision of things of the anthropologist was the special concern thewritings from derived(like mostofIshida'sconceptofculture) was mostdirectly Ishida's in partthrough Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960), whosework, oftheU.S. scholar in contemporary ofculture popularnotions has playeda keyrolein shaping influence, Japan(see, forexample,Kroeber1952a). of Yanagita Kunio, and had moved Kroeberwas an almostexactcontemporary work(in Kroeber'scase on in a somewhat similarway fromdetailedethnographic ofculture (Steward about the nature nativeAmerican societies)to widerspeculations between history, science, concern ofhis workwas therelationship 1973). A recurring and anthropology.All human thought, according to Kroeber, required some of analysis:the historical of two forms (whichdealt with unique and combination and regularities and the scientific (whichdealt with constant changingphenomena) element withthe scientific one disciplineto another, variedfrom laws). The mixture with the inorganic world,and the historical in disciplinesconcerned being stronger element being strongerin disciplines which dealt with the superorganic. He slow to and the othersocial scienceshad been rather though,thathistory suggested, and that this was a gap which side of theirpersonalities, develop the scientific in Steward1973, 94-101; Kroeber reprinted could help to fill(Kroeber anthropology 1952b). Paradoxicallyforsomeone oftendescribed as a "historical anthropologist," was nevermoreobviousthanwhen he was the scientific Kroeber'simpulsetowards ofcultural between the "hardsciences"and themethods pointingout thedifferences in tonesof apologyor betweenthe two is described Everydivergence anthropology. a science in developing at leastregret: has so farproved"unimpressive" anthropology as simple and basic of culture;thereis "no greatgroundforhoping that anything withinits fieldof and periodiclaws will everbe discovered" as ... the gravitational followed by the though,are generally study(Kroeber1952b, 77). These comments, still has time to redeemitself:"one must not thatanthropology reflection cheering of yearsago thereseemed little prospectthat any discovery go too far.Only forty as the Mendelianlaws would be and fundamental so regularly repetitive something made on the organiclevel.... It is just conceivablethat enoughhard preliminary science properthat,when somewhatgreater work has been done in sociocultural easily"(Kroeber step maybe takenrather insightcomesalong,a decisiveorganizing 1952b, 77). It was indeed fromgeneticsand fromthe biological sciencesgenerallythat might not aspire to the elegant Anthropology Kroeberdrew particularcomfort. ofscience theelement ofphysics, but it could and shouldaim to strengthen simplicity where the model of biology(or "naturalhistory"), in culturalresearch by following laws of was firmly and particular groundedin orderly the studyof the irregular of procedure" withall In fact, he argued,culturalstudieshad "an identity behavior. levels-palaeontology on sub-cultural thatflourish historical sciences the"admittedly
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(Kroeberand Kluckhohn 1963, and phylogenicbiology,geology and astronomy" 314). Thus the small cultures of "primitivepeople" could be "accuratelyand (Kroeber analyzedmuchas a biologistdissectsa wormor a crayfish" dispassionately 1952b, 76) forscientific methodhaveon theidea ofculture? What impactdid thisyearning First,it meantthatthe analysisof culturewas a searchfororderand pattern."The wroteKroeberand Kluckhohn(1963, studyof cultureis the studyof regularities," this by using the exampleof the school bell which 330). Ishida Eiichiroillustrates rings at the end of a lesson. Each event-each ringingof the bell-has its own is the single, instantly important but what is culturally characteristics, particular and whichevokes timethebell rings, every messagewhichis understood identifiable fromthe students(Ishida 1977b, 39). The studyof response the same predictable confusion, withinapparent patterns in short, the abilityto perceive requires culture, whichthreaten the messybits of humanbehavior from thesepatterns and to extract notion too,by RuthBenedict's influenced, edges.Here Ishidawas partly to blurtheir comments to makeabout he was also to haveharsh ofculture," although of "patterns and theSword(Ishida 1974, 125her famousanalysisofJapan,The Chrysanthemum 26). force a scienceofculture for thesingleunifying also meanta search The search for criticized ofobservable Ishida repeatedly the regularity patterns. whichunderpinned like James Frazer-and, indeed, Yanagita Kunio-who had been ethnographers contentto amass huge quantitiesof data on mythand ritual,and thento organize the"Afterword" a giantjigsawpuzzle (see,for example, themas thoughconstructing of material was not enough.The in Ishida 1956, 288-89). This eclecticassembling aim should be to discoverthat elusiveessencewhichpulled each patterntogether. would prove therewas littlehope thatthis force And if,as Kroeberhad suggested, it mightat least proveto be of gravity, as the force quite as simpleand predictable the organicworld.For the most whichgoverned like the naturalforces something this "inneressence"of each culturewith its part Kroeberseems to have identified of values (Kroeberand Kluckhohn1963, 338-40). In some of his last basic system writings,however,he sketched an almost mystical notion of "cultural style," resemblingthe unique shape which evolutionendows on each species of living (Kroeber1957). organism attracted Ishida Eiichiro.In a passagewhichis particularly This organicimagery almost entirelylifted fromKroeber's Styleand Civilization,Ishida explains the and material a culture's myths, language, between religious practices, interrelationship In a bird,theparts-wings, head, technology byusingtheanalogyofa birdin flight. and function in such a way as to provideperfect legs, eyes,tail-are all integrated not random integrated: balance. So, too, "human culturesseem to be organically Kroeber1957, structures" ofpartsbut unified collections (Ishida 1977b, 57; compare and ultimately form is genetics, evolution, 77-78). What givesthebirditsparticular group)with an whatendowseach society (or minzoku-ethnic the force of lifeitself; than Kroeberin cultureis less clear,but Ishida goes further integrated organically ofthecultural at thecenter ofsomekindoflifeforce pattern. theexistence implying thatculture, as a productof humanbeings, reflected Where Kroeberintermittently Ishida consistently emphasizedthe coordination, was never perfectly integrated, existenceof culture.And where the core of Kroeber's and independent totality, "culturalstyle" remained(in his own words) "misty,"Ishida was inspiredby the a sort of Leo Frobenius'more explicitnotionofpaideuma, Germananthropologist wrote)"is not made by people, but only communalculturalspiritwhich(Frobenius
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'lives withinpeople' " or "possessespeople" (Frobenius1953, 56; see also Kroeber 1957, 80; Ishida 1977b, 58). Ishida quoted extensively from Frobenius, particularly picking out the passages where he referredto culture as possessing its own "subjectivity": existing and evolving alongside, but independent the inorganic from, and organicworldsas a separate "thirdrealm"(Ishida 1977b, 66-67). We havecome a long wayherefrom theidea ofculture as imported or novelties, even fromthe idea of cultureas the everyday way of life of a society.Under the influence of anthropology, "culture"by the late 1950s was becomingsomething altogether more portentous. Now the study of culturedid not simply mean an examination ofall thoseelements, old and new,whichYanagita had seenas forming the "brocade"of nationallife;it also meantan effort to grasptheelusiveforce which wove the threads together. And the factthatthisforce was immeasurable, invisible, and intangibledid not mean that it was not real: accordingto Ishida, "just as thephenomenon oflifeby using theabstract notion'life,'so biologists conceptualize anthropologists distinguish culturefromthe inorganicworld and the non-human or type organicworldby using the concept'culture'.. . cultureitselfis not pattern or valuesor ethos,it is above all thatparticular whichis revealed objective reality itself in theconsciousness, lifeofthepeoplewho makeup a particular behavior and material society" (Ishida 1977a, 240; emphasisadded). The visionofethniccultures as livingthings, imbuedwithan elusivebut potent thatJapanimported animus,was therefore not a Japanese invention, but something and adaptedin muchthesamewaythatit imported and adaptedmodernization theory and Keynsianeconomics. The originality of Ishida'sworkdid not lie in his cultural theorizing,but in his application of existing theoryto comparativestudies of in the Pacificrim,and to analyzingthe cultureof Japan itself.Ishida's mythology search fortheorganizing whichunderlay principle Japanese culture was an unfinished one. In one ofhis lastworks, Nihon ron bunka Culture: (publishedin EnglishasJapanese A Study of Origins and Characteristics), he called formore thorough examination of Japanese folklore, so thatthe material collectedcould be used for"discovering what a people's culture, underlies and how to graspthis in a scholarly way and analyzeit thatCopernican structurally" (Ishida 1974, 119). ForIshida,as forKroeber, "decisive organizing step"whichwouldrevealtheinnernature ofculture remained to be taken. Ishida's comments,though,suggest that he identified the unifying principleof Japaneseculturewith rice-basedagriculture, which (he claimed) had produceda sense of group loyalty, powerful ethical responsibility, and attachment to nature. a culture Europeansociety, by contrast, was based on pastoralism, whichhad created where "human life is sustainedby ruthlesspower,intenseself-assertion, and the ofcustomswhichsupport rigidity these"(Ishida 1974, 136). The point at issue hereis not the value or otherwise of Ishida's characterization ofJapanese of his underlying (and European)culture, but the widespread acceptance conceptof an organically integrated "culture"as an appropriate way of analyzing Japanese This turning of theanthropological society. inwards to examine microscope one'sown society is something whichhas struck scholars as odd oreven manywestern U.S. and European morbid. slightly havenotoriously anthropologists tendedto ignore theirown societies (one ofthe fewexceptions to thegeneralrulebeing Kroeber, who applied his ideas ofcultureto the studyofwestern Europeand the U.S. as well as to the moreconventional ofanthropological In Japan,on thecontrary, targets research). it seems almost to be taken forgrantedthat anthropologists will have something to sayabout theJapanese significant culture.This is partly, no doubt,a reflection of the natureof anthropology itself.As a discipline throughwhich European and
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American scientists dissected the restof theworld,it seemsto havelefttheJapanese anthropologist withtheuncomfortable senseofbeingat onceresearcher and laboratory specimen.But the introspective fascination with "Japanese culture"is also, I think, an ironicresult oftheenormously rapidprocess ofchangewhichhas transformed every aspectof theJapanese lifestyle-housing, clothes,transport, working habits,leisure, language-over thepast hundred years. In themidstofsuchendlessinnovation there is something veryattractive about the notionof an unchanging culturalessence,a still center, whichcan reassure you that you are still who you alwaysthoughtyou were. The organic image of culture is therefore appealing (as Yanagita's writings a wayofcounteracting suggest)becauseit offers fears ofsocialdisintegration, and also because (as the work of Kroeber and Ishida shows) it providesa coherentand respectably "scientific" wayofanalyzing it is problematic society. By thesame token, both in terms of ideologyand of methodology: it imposesa particular ideologically, utopianvisionof integration and harmony on the proteanand fluidforms of social it subjectsthose same formsto a biological model of existence;methodologically, is open to seriousquestion. interpretation whoseappropriateness
Bunkain Contemporary Discourse

Both Yanagita (in his lateryears)and Ishida wereconcerned with defining the common characteristics of the Japanesematerialand spiritualworld, but neither appears to have seriously questioned the claims of European and American anthropological theory to universal relevance. it strange Neither, considered therefore, to use ideas derivedfrom or Frobenius Malinowski, as a basis forexploring Kroeber, Japaneseuniqueness,any more than Malinowskihimself would have considered it to use Europeanand American strange as a basisfor thespiritual theory life exploring of TrobriandIslanders.But forthe present of culturaltheorists, generation who do question the universal academic discourse,the problemof the validityof western of "culture"is a muchmorepressing one. genealogy The dilemmasof the late twentieth havegivena new prominence century to the workofa "neo-Kyoto School,"who,like their1930s predecessors, areconcerned with a search for philosophies and social forms thatwill transcend thelimitsofmodernity. The recent ofthephilosopher writings and cultural theorist UeyamaShumpeiprovide a case in point. Ueyama argues that modernindustrial based on the civilization, principles of "science"and "freedom," has producedgreatbenefits forhumanity, but has also producednegative social and spiritual consequences: "poisons"to whichit is to seek an antidote.The originsboth of the positiveand of the negative necessary aspectsof industrial civilizationlie in the culturalheritageof the West, and it is therefore to look foran antidote necessary to thepoisonsofmodern society elsewhere, in a society whichparticipates in modern industrial civilization and yetwhosecultural originslie elsewhere: the womb ofChinesecivilization, "Japanwas bornfrom which was very different from theold civilizations in whichwestern civilization has itsroots. So fromthe point of view of creatingan antidoteforthe new civilization, Japan has theadvantage perhaps ofbeingin a promising situation" (Ueyama 1990, 23-24). The natureboth of the "poisons" and of the "antidote"is implied rather than delineatedin Ueyama'swritings. explicitly A central issue in his work,forexample, is the loss ofspirituality. Ueyamadrawsinspiration from theideas ofDostoevski and
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of of Nishida Kitaro,both of whom sought "antidotes"in the religioustraditions thatthesolutionto thedilemmas thoughhe is at pains to stress theirown countries, intothereligious thana simpleretreat looking,rather mustbe forward ofmodernity of Japanese systemsof the past (Ueyama 1990, 250-64). Ueyama's construction haspassed he argues, future. Japan, of the somehintsofhisvision also contains history borrowing a wave of The first was foreign borrowing. two majorphases of through fromChina, which began at the time when Japan enteredthe era of "primary the from the secondwas a wave ofborrowing society); (i.e., agricultural civilization" society). industrial civilization" (i.e., "secondary West, whichbeganas Japanentered and it was only was initiallyquite indiscriminate, In the first phase, borrowing in the Edo period (1603-1867), culminating a long periodof absorption, through theveneer ofimported beganto shinethrough ofJapan (kosei) thatthe"individuality" though, Japanhas yet In themodern eraof "secondary civilization," Chineseculture. from the West and "establishits borrowing the stageof indiscriminate to transcend individuality" (Ueyama 1990, 238). The implication seems to be that the thepoisons ofan antidote for and thedevelopment establishment ofthatindividuality will go hand in hand. And wheredoes the sourceof thatindividuality of modernity lie? According to Ueyama: "It is intimatelyrelated to the fact that Japanese withthe emperor system civilization was borntogether [tennosei I and has developed It seemsto me thatthe individuality withthe emperor system. to thisday together connected" of the emperorsystemare inseparably of Japan and the individuality (Ueyama 1990, 233). on which these speculationsabout Japanese The whole theoretical structure which is formed aroundthe notionof culture precisely civilization depend,however, with all its striving after organicmodelsof society.Ueyama we have just explored, with a lengthy discussionof the terms of Japanesehistory begins his examination of culture in the courseof whichhe adoptsa definition "culture"and "civilization," and particularly by the workof Kroeber's social anthropology, by American inspired of the visible "patterns collaborator, Clyde Kluckhohn.Cultureconsistsnot merely of the material products of behavior to a [sociall group,"and not merely particular and feeling" but also of the invisible"ways of thinking createdby that behavior, the "innerworkings" (Ueyama 1990: 42-43). of social existence which constitute fromPhilip Bagby,Vere (borrowing Ueyama thengoes on to define"civilization" Gordon Childe, and others) as culture which has exceeded a certain level of a social difference acrosstwo dimensions: classifies Ueyama therefore development. "western from which(for "Chinesecivilization" example)separates spatialdimension, civilization,"and a temporaldimension,which (for example) separates"primary Withinspatially civilization." from civilization" "secondary (industrial) (agricultural) are assumedto be certain "regularities" stylistic civilizations there enduring defined which survivethe change fromone temporalstage of civilizationto another.But the most a few examples of these eternal regularities, although Ueyama offers culturalrole of the Japaneseemperor and debatablebeing the defining important which elementsof any way of distinguishing system,he providesno systematic and whichare products of a distinct are products "civilization" of spatialdifference In other words, the centralproblem of the stage of development. chronological betweenthe category"western"and the category"modern"is never relationship that how Ueyamacan be confident The readeris leftwondering addressed. seriously of his philosophy-the verycategoriesof cultureand the theoretical foundations civilizationon which his argumentsrest-are not tainted by the "poisons" of whether one cannothelp wondering More specifically, whichhe deplores. modernity
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one of the mostimportant "poisons"is not an implicitethnocentrism which,rather thanbeingtackledat theroots, has justbeentransferred from one locationto another. These questionsare important ones,becausethe motifs whichrecur in Ueyama's wide rangeofother recent and popularwritings. workareechoedin a rather scholarly At one extreme are the books of Irie Takanori,who sees the values of Edo Japanas solutions to theevilsofmodern and who therefore calls for containing "rationalism," a the formation of a new world orderof whichJapan will be the "ruler"(chisha): processwhichhe terms"the Edonisationof the world" (sekaino Edoka)(Irie 1990; and scholarly 1992). A muchmoremainstream approachis represented by the work of Kawakatsu Heita, whose culture-based view of world history was noted at the of thispaper.Kawakatsuis deeplyinfluenced beginning by UeyamaShumpei'sview he disagrees detailsofhis interpretation ofhistory, withcertain although (Kawakatsu of cultureseemsquite different 1991, 22-25). At first sight,Kawakatsu'sdefinition a muchmoreovertly from thoseofYanagita,Ishida,orUeyama,becausehe starts from For Kawakatsu,the difference materialist standpoint. between"ethnicgroups" or "races"(minzoku) is defined bytheir use ofa distinctive "complex ofmaterial products" nofukug6tai), whichgives rise to distinctive social and spiritualforms, the (bussan Ratherthanemphasizing the defining role "culturalcomplex"(bunkateki fukug6tai). Kawakatsuseemsto see themalmost of the cultural valuesor worldviews, therefore, as an appendage to the materialobjects which constitute the real locus of ethnic identity (Kawakatsu1993, 283-86). In practice,however,Kawakatsu's analysisof cultural identityproves more complicated and ambiguous than his simple definitionsuggests. Kawakatsu in the courseof history, that"material as recognizes complexes" maychangegreatly in in when rice was introduced the or when happened Japan farming Yayoi period, cottontextiles becamewidelyused in theseventeenth century. Nevertheless, through all thischangesome constant form ofethnicidentity remains bundledup withinthe "material to Kawakatsu)as difficult forone ethnic complex,"so thatit is (according group to assimilateanotheras for one individual to take on another'sidentity (Kawakatsu 1993, 295). Thus twentieth-century Japan, despite massive material an immutable change,retains "Japaneseness" (wa), whichis capable of transforming them(Kawakatsu1991, 246-47; Kawakatsu1993, imported objectsevenas it absorbs ethnicidentity 295). This desireto see an enduring withinrapidly changing patterns forces intoa search inner ofconsumption Kawakatsu for characteristics whichmaintain the cohesionand distinctiveness of the "materialcomplex." In places he adopts a reminiscent of Nishida Kitaro's metaphysics, and speaks of the human vocabulary of the objectswhich it consumes(Kawakatsu 1991, subject takingon the identity he associates thecharacteristics 205). Elsewhere ofJapaneseness withtheall-important notionof "structured co-existence" which he borrowsfromthe Kyoto (sumiwake), school naturalist Imanishi Kinji. Sumiwake, the abilityof different species to live side by side, occupying different nichesin the ecosystem, harmoniously represents Kawakatsu's ideal of interethnic relations. Rather than interminglingthrough each ethnicgroup should remainwithinits own "ecological niche," a migration, patternof behaviorwhich Kawakatsusees as exemplified by the so-called "closed of At a stillmoreexaltedlevel, Edo country" policy Japan(Kawakatsu1991, 247-5 0). culture embodies the "sumiwake of the a world wheretolerance has Japanese gods": allowed manyreligions to existside by side, each performing in its own role social life(Kawakatsu1991, 259-60). Thus in theend we seemto havereturned to a model of culturewhichis not purelydetermined by material consumption, but wherethe
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coherence ofa particular "ethnic"pattern ofconsumption dependson an impliedcore of immutable worldviews and value systems. Attempts to extract from"Japanese culture"a solutionto the problemscreated by the modern western worldview seem thereforeto rest on a fundamental contradiction. The notionof "the West" as a coherent entityis itselfprofoundly "western" (in the sensein whichUeyama,Kawakatsu, and others use theword).The dualismbetween"West" and "East" emerged from a worldview whichwas integrally relatedto the structure of nineteenth-century Europeanthought,and the idea of enduring, integrated ethnic"cultures" (as we haveseen)grewfrom attempts to apply the modelsof classicalwestern scienceto the studyof societies.Analyseswhichtry to use thecategory "Japanese culture" as a meansofescapingthegraspofthemodern western worldview seem therefore to be destined(like Monkeyin the legend)to find themselves, after manyspeculations and struggles, still trappedwithinthe extended hand ofa self-defined "western modernity." In a sense,thesenewefforts to transcend modernity are justpartofan intellectual tradition whichhas continued unbroken from the prewar periodto the present day. Theydrawnotonlyon early postwar concepts ofculture like thoseofIshida Eiichiro, but also on constructions of "Japanese such as thoseproposedby the civilization," prominent anthropologist Umesao Tadao in the 1950s. (A particularly important influence is Umesao's "ecologicalview of civilization"; see Umesao 1989.) The late 1980s and early 1990s seem, however,to have provided a particularlyfertile environment forthe growthand multiplication of theories on Japanesecultureand its role in the global transcendence of modernity. Severalwidelysold works, besides those of Ueyama, Kawakatsu,and Irie, have addressedthe same theme. (See, for example,Ito 1990 and Hamaguchi 1993.) Interestingly, this trendcoincideswith otherphenomena reminiscent of the late 1920s and early1930s: a shift in the focus ofpublic consciousness from to consumption, forexample, and a marked production of certain areasof intellectual life(mostnotably What is depoliticization literature). fromthe prewarperiod,however, verydifferent is the factthat the searchforan essentialized "Japanese culture"is now just part of a much widerrangeof debates in themodern aboutthemeaning ofculture world.A suresignofthecontested nature ofculture, ofworksreexamining and reassessing the indeed,is therecent outpouring ideas of Yanagita Kunio (Murai 1992; Iwamoto1990; Aminoet al. 1992). The challengeto established notionsofJapaneseculturecomes in manyforms. One approachis represented Aoki Tamotsu, who does not by the anthropologist discard organic visions of Japanese culture as such, but ratherquestions their usefulness to contemporary society. Japaneseculturehas had, accordingto Aoki, a certaincoherenceand consistency, so that (for example) the process of cultural in Japanesehistory can be likened to the way in which a soft-bodied borrowing molluskcreepsintoborrowed shells:theoutercovering but theinnerbeing changes, staysthe same (Aoki 1988, 136). But Aoki goes on to suggestthatthe preservation of thisculturalessencehas becomea millstone aroundthe neck ofJapanesesociety, to adapt to a moreinternational hampering Japan'sefforts age. He therefore proposes an "escapefrom whichAustralia's is suggested for culture," policyofmulticulturalism as a possiblemodel(Aoki 1988, 53-62). Others, meanwhile, are more radical in their challenge to the historical ofJapanas a culturally here construction nation.A key contribution homogeneous comesfrom theworkof the historian AminoYoshihiko,who reemphasizes both the within diverse ethnicoriginsof theJapanese and the forgotten of lifestyles diversity theJapanese archipelago (Amino 1992). The simplified imageofJapanas a nationof
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ricefarmers, has,he suggests, obscured thegreatrangeofmaterial and socialpatterns ofexistence whichnot onlydistinguished one regionofJapanfrom another but also distinguished the fishing the mountain community, community, and theurbancraft community from thericefarming village(Amino 1993). Amino'sapproach, therefore, confronts the centralplace given by Ishida Eiichiroand othersto the rice-farming villageas thedefining locus of"Japaneseness." Indeed,Aminoinsiststhatthetaskof the historianis not to search for "the origins of the Japanesepeople," but to "thoroughly dismantle the'ethnic consciousness' oftheJapanese" (Aminoet al. 1994, 94). It is in a similarspiritthat anthropologist Fukuta Ajio returns to Yanagita Kunio's earlyfieldwork, with its emphasison diversehistorical lineages,as a source of inspiration forcontemporary ethnography (Fukuta 1992). Ultimately, this "dismantling of ethnic consciousness" must involve a confrontation withtheconceptofculture itself. A growing concern withtheproblem ofculture is evident in a number ofrecent Japanese publications, butperhaps nowhere moresharply thanin NishikawaNagao's studyKokkyo nokoekata (literally, "How to Cross Frontiers"), which takes as its point of departurea discussion of Said's Orientalism. Nishikawa has much praise forSaid's work,but observesthat a basic weaknessof the book is the author'sfailure to addressthe conceptual of difficulties theword"culture." Said onlybeginsto questiontheuse of"culture" as an organizing framework in his concludingparagraphs.By implicitlyaccepting this concept, Nishikawaargues,Said has lefthimself no escape routefrom no means orientalism, of proposing a coherent alternative to the worldview whichhe criticizes (Nishikawa 1992, 83-92). Nishikawa therefore embarkson his own criticalanalysisof the concepts"culture"and "civilization." His most important conclusionis that the notionof "nationalculture"is an ideologicalconstruct which,both in Europeand in Japan,emergedwith the riseof the modernnation state and helped to servethe demands of the state forsocial In fact,Nishikawaargues,the culturewhichexistswithinany country integration. is both dynamicand diverse:"withinJapan thereare manycultures, but Japanese culturedoes not exist"(Nishikawa 1992, 226). Culture,therefore, may be analyzed at manydifferent levels,but the most meaningful level is not the group but the individual:"cultureis ultimately a matter of values. In the end, it is the individual who decideson values.It is 'I myselfwho not onlydecidesmyown place in a single but can also chooseto abandonone cultureand selectanother" culture, (Nishikawa 1992, 233). Nishikawa'sapproachis in manywaysa persuasive one. Lookingat problems of I cannothelp feeling history, though, thatthe biggestdifficulty is to understand the the paradoxes, constraints, and the conflicts whichinfluence the individual'schoice of values. In a senseit may be most important to challengethe conventional vision ofculture, notbyquestioning thelevelat whichit is applied(whether ethnic, national, or individual)but by questioning regional, its insistence on "culture"as a coherently structured whole.Even at the level of the individual, humanidentity is surely not a simple,single thingconstructed to a singlegroup or value system, onlyin relation but something whichhas manydimensions linkingeach individualto gender,age, family, occupational groups,and ethnos.These dimensions of identity, besides,do not seem to stackneatlyinsideone another like Russiandolls, but (evenin the most to overlapand jostleagainstone another, integrated societies) so thatthesenseofself is createdand recreated out of a constant to draw the manydimensions struggle of in actionsofeveryday life.As a result, identity together culture a rather is (to borrow unattractive word fromLaclau and Mouffe)"unsutured": insteadof being a neatly
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sewn-upwhole,it is an alwaysincomplete effort to pull together the jagged edges of conflicting definitions of identity (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Barrett 1991, ch. 4). In otherwords,what we inherit fromthe past is surelynot a single,coherent system (be it "capitalism," "western civilization," or "Japanese culture")withits own trajectory builtin. What we inherit is a massofcomplexand often conflicting systems out of which we make the future. The jigsaw pieces of human sentiments, ritual, myth, and technology whichcharacterize a particular society do notseemto be firmly anchored to a single innercore of meaning,but suspendedbetweenseveralpossible systems of meaning.What is interesting, then,is how varioussystems of meaning (Foucault's"regimes oftruth") cometo be widelyacceptedin certain phasesofhistory, and how therefore certain facets ofhumanidentity come to be emphasized and others But what is also interesting suppressed. is the factthatno "regimeof truth"is ever absolute:none is ever comprehensive enough to deal with all the facetsof human so subregimes existence, not just amongst alwayssurvive, dissident groupsin society but also within the minds of individualswho, on the surface, subscribeto the dominant regime(as, forexample,religion, and superstition astrology, survived and in western flourished Europealongsidetheriseofmodern and evensometimes science, in themindofthemodern and as ethnicmyths scientist; and ethnichatreds survived in theCommunist and flourished states ofEastern thatis passed Europe).The heritage on to the future is therefore not a whollysystematized one, but a massofconflicting partsout ofwhichthe nextgeneration its own future, creates and so on. To return to our starting like Yu and Kawakatsuare surely point,theorists right to raise questionsabout conventional views of history, positivist and to single out cultureas a centralissue in the contemporary historicaldebate. Any meaningful of conventional rethinking historical categories, must surelybegin with however, critical on theconceptofculture reflection itself. This paper,in tracing theevolution of ideas about "Japanese culture"within has triedto teaseout problems Japanitself, and contradictions inherent in thedefinition ofnational and to see whatlight culture, thesecast on debatesabout culturein contemporary Japan.Its aim has been to set the notionof an organically integrated "culture"in its historical as an idea context, climateof the midtwentieth shaped by the social and intellectual and to century, indicatesome of the limitations of thisnotionas a basis fortranscending positivism or ethnocentrism. In thelastparagraphs I havesuggested a fewthoughts aboutfuture forthe analysis ofculture. directions As I wrotethe concluding a smallplane was circling above myhouse in section, Australian suburbiatrailinga bannerwhich read "Macedonia forthe Macedonians alone." In an age wheninternational can be causedbytherivalclaimsofnations crises to the two-thousand-year-old symbolsof Alexanderthe Great, it is obvious that popular images of national culturecan have very real political significance. The outcome of contemporary debates on Japaneseculturewill exertboth directand indirectinfluences on the way in which the Japanesegovernment perceivesand its view ofJapan'sidentity and rolein worldaffairs. expresses (UeyamaShumpei,for is amongst otherthingsan advisor to theJapanese Environmental example, Agency's research It is particularly group on Civilizationand the Environment). important, that the rethinking therefore, of cultureshould indeed (as Nishikawaputs it) be a which crosses frontiers. to debates withinJapan, process By listeningcarefully to themand linkingthemto debatesin other contributing we can partsoftheworld, help to extendthe boundsofa debatewhoseimplications go farbeyond Japanitself.
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The Invention and Reinvention of "Japanese Culture" Author(s): Tessa Morris-Suzuki Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Asian

The Invention and Reinvention of"JapaneseCulture"

indeed, therest oftheworld: not, ofcourse

The Originsof "Culture"

in Interwar Bunkashugi Japan

of Bunka Yanagita Kunio and the Redefinition

of Cultureas Organism: The Anthropology IshidaEiichiro

Bunkain Contemporary Discourse

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