菊与刀(中文导读英文版)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：(美)本尼迪克特（Benedict, R.）

出版社：清华大学出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

菊与刀(中文导读英文版)试读：

前言

鲁思·本尼迪克特（Ruth Benedict，1887—1948），美国著名文化人类学家、诗人。

本尼迪克特1909年毕业于瓦萨尔学院，获文学学士学位；1919年进入哥伦比亚大学，攻读文化人类学，1923年获博士学位，之后留校任教。她于1927年开始研究印第安部落文化，1934年出版了《文化的类型》一书。1940年，她出版了《种族：科学与政治》一书，该书对种族歧视进行了批判。第二次世界大战期间，她先后对罗马尼亚、荷兰、德国、泰国、日本等国民族性格进行研究。1946年，出版了关于日本民族性格研究的经典之作《菊与刀》。她的其他著作还有《科契提印第安人的故事》、《祖尼印第安人的神话学》等。《菊与刀》是本尼迪克特的代表作，是她在第二次世界大战后受命于美国政府完成的对日本社会及民族性格的研究报告，旨在为美国管理战败后的日本提供参考。本尼迪克特根据文化类型理论，运用文化人类学的方法，调查了战时在美国的日本人，同时也查阅了大量有关日本的文学、艺术、学术作品，完成了报告。《菊与刀》是美国改造日本、分析日本的指导书，书中的观点极大地影响了战后的美国对日政策，并且也取得了预期的效果。本书在命名时，作者是以“菊”和“刀”来象征日本人的矛盾性格：“菊”是日本皇家徽标，“刀”是武士道的象征，这二者体现了日本文化的双重性——如爱美而黩武，尚礼而好斗，喜新而顽固，服从而不驯等等。作者在书中还分析了日本社会等级制度及“安分守己”的习俗，说明了日本未成年教育和成人教养的不连续性是形成双重性格的原因，把这种文化概括为“耻感文化”。《菊与刀》于1946年正式出版，1948年出版日文版。该书一经出版便在美国、日本引起了强烈反响。

出版六十多年来，《菊与刀》先后被译成世界上二十多种语言，已成为人们了解日本和日本人的最佳读本。基于这个原因，我们决定编译该作品，并采用中文导读英文版的形式出版。在中文导读中，我们尽力使其贴近原作的精髓，也尽可能保留原作的叙述主线。我们希望能够编出为当代中国读者所喜爱的经典读本。读者在阅读英文文本之前，可以先阅读中文导读内容，这样有利于了解故事背景，从而加快阅读速度。我们相信，该经典著作的引进对加强当代中国读者，特别是青少年读者的科学素养和人文修养是非常有帮助的。

本书主要内容由王勋编译，赣南师范学院图书馆的刘尚毅教授负责全书的修改定稿工作。参加本书故事素材搜集整理及编译工作的还有纪飞、郑佳、刘乃亚、赵雪、熊金玉、李丽秀、熊红华、王婷婷、孟宪行、胡国平、李晓红、贡东兴、陈楠、邵舒丽、冯洁、王业伟、徐鑫、王晓旭、周丽萍、熊建国、徐平国、肖洁、王小红等。限于我们的科学、人文素养和英语水平，书中难免会有不当之处，衷心希望读者朋友批评指正。第一章　任务：日本研究/Chapter 1 Assignment：Japan导读

美国在和日本的全面战争中发现日本这个民族非常特别，我们需要弄清楚日本人的行为习惯，从而找到对抗日本的办法。

自日本打开国门以来，对于日本人的描述都是别的人类研究中所不曾有过的，日本人在个性、社会生活、文化传统各个方面所表现出的都是矛盾的两个方面，“但是”这样的词语在研究中常常见到。日本人所崇尚和喜爱的菊花和刀并存正是这种矛盾性的体现。

这一点对于我们的研究很重要，我们不可忽略这个矛盾。由此而产生的对于在战争中如何对抗日本人和日本在战争结束之后的走向等一系列问题的思考和判断将会产生不同的后果。

我是在1944年6月接到研究日本的任务的。此前日本并不承认自己的军事失利，但是6月以后整个反法西斯战争形势发生了逆转，这时我们就需要对我们的敌人有更多的了解，关于日本人的民族思维和行为方式，以及造成这些特点的原因，是需要我们首先了解的。

然而我的任务是在战争中进行的，有利的条件是我可以通过战争和日本军队的军事表现来了解日本的民族性格特点，但不利的条件是因为正处于战争期间，所以我没办法进行日本本土的实地考察。对居住在美国的日本人进行调查

面对这些困难，首先我可以利用目前居住在美国的日本人，对他们的生活经历进行调查，以寻求我需要的答案；其次我还要查阅关于日本民族的书籍，这方面的资料比较多，因为日本人比较喜欢把自己的一些事情写出来。

在阅读这些书的时候，我对于那些无法从表面了解的事情最为关心。我也会和日本人一起讨论以日本为背景的电影，我发现他们的确与我对于影片的理解非常不同，而且对于日本的一些特有习惯，日本人内部的态度也是迥然有别的。

我们对于日本的研究既不能只囿于前人的成果，又要善于利用前人对于日本及其亚洲邻国的研究成果，从中寻找线索，要注重日本与其他相邻国家的比较研究，这个研究很有意义。

人类学家的研究需要适应自身文化与研究对象文化之间的差异，那些民族的社会习俗是无法单凭想象构造出来的。我们研究日本也要掌握这种差异性，不能对那些细小的但是具有整体性的习惯视而不见，这些独特之处对于研究民族性格具有更重要的意义。

我们要找到研究日本人琐碎生活的方法，去探寻那些看似奇怪的生活习惯得以存在的一般社会条件。处于一个社会中的人们，在各个方面的行为却具有一种系统上的联系，因为他们看待整个世界的价值体系中有一些基本的要素，这些要素导致各个领域行为的和谐。

本书并非专门讨论日本的宗教、政治、经济等情况，而是要考察日本人在日常生活的一些固有观念，从而讨论日本民族特性形成的原因。

我们现在仍然对于不同的民族特性存在一些偏见，我们要去深入了解对方的行为习惯。我们不能仅仅依靠这个民族自身的描述来了解，还要借助于第三者的观察和研究。

要做好这项工作，首先应承认和尊重不同民族的差异，而不能简单地追求不同民族的共同性和单一性，要建立一个可以兼容并包、求同存异的世界。事实上，一个民族的存在与其时代、标准和心态息息相关。从事这项研究工作，更需要一种宽容的精神和心态，不能把自己的原则强加于所有的民族，否则比较文化研究就难以发展起来。现在有很多人，比如美国人，只希望别人遵守自己的原则，却不愿意去深入了解对方与自己的差异，这是于事无补的。

本书所讨论的就是日本民族自身所固有的习惯和社会行为，在某些条件下发生的行为是得到日本人的认可而且是可预期的，我们不需要去进行大范围的抽样统计，对于这样的观念的认同，只要任意选取一个日本人都可以得到证实。

日本人靠这种固有的习惯和行为来组织自己的生活，需要对这种模式进行深入的阐释，才能让美国人明白，因为美国人的视角有所不同。美国人研究社会，并不会去关心一种社会模式或者文化模式存在的基础。美国人把这些研究工作都建立在统计数据的基础上，在美国投票决定是正常的方式。

美国人可以用投票或者统计的方式来决定一件事情，是因为美国人存在共同的固有的习惯或行为模式；而要了解日本人，就要对日本人固有的观念进行系统研究，在此基础上进行的统计才有可参考的价值。尤其要了解国民的国家观念，这个民族对于政府的传统认识有更重要的意义。

任何民族都会形成自己独特的传统认识，而日本人的这种认识与我们的差别很大，探讨日本人的传统观念以及在这种观念下的解决问题的模式是值的。HE JAPANESE were the most alien enemy the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle. In no other war with a major foe Thad it been necessary to take into account such exceedingly different habits of acting and thinking.Like Czarist Russia before us in 1905，we were fighting a nation fully armed and trained which did not belong to the Western cultural tradition.Conventions of war which Western nations had come to accept as facts of human nature obviously did not exist for the Japanese.It made the war in the Pacific more than a series of landings on island beaches，more than an unsurpassed problem of logistics.It made it a major problem in the nature of the enemy.We had to understand their behavior in order to cope with it.

The difficulties were great. During the past seventy-five years since Japan's closed doors were opened，the Japanese have been described in the most fantastic series of‘but also's'ever used for any nation of the world.When a serious observer is writing about peoples other than the Japanese and says they are unprecedentedly polite，he is not likely to add，‘But also insolent and overbearing.'When he says people of some nation are incomparably rigid in their behavior，he does not add，‘But also they adapt themselves readily to extreme innovations.'When he says a people are submissive，hedoes not explain too that they are not easily amenable to control from above.When he says they are loyal and generous，he does not declare，‘But also treacherous and spiteful.’When he says they are genuinely brave，he does not expatiate on their timidity.When he says they act out of concern for others’opinions，he does not then go on to tell that they have a truly terrifying conscience.When he describes robot-like discipline in their Army，he does not continue by describing the way the soldiers in that Army take the bit in their own teeth even to the point of insubordination.

When he describes a people who devote themselves with passion to Western learning，he does not also enlarge on their fervid conservatism.When he writes a book on a nation with a popular cult of aestheticism which gives high honor to actors and to artists and lavishes art upon the cultivation of chrysanthemums，that book does not ordinarily have to be supplemented by another which is devoted to the cult of the sword and the top prestige of the warrior.

All these contradictions，however，are the warp and woof of books on Japan. They are true.Both the sword and the chrysanthemum are a part of the picture.The Japanese are，to the highest degree，both aggressive and unaggressive，both militaristio and aesthetic，both insolent and polite，rigid and adaptable，submissive and resentful of being pushed around，loyal and treacherous，brave and timid，conservative and hospitable to new ways.They are terribly concerned about what other people will thinkof their behavior，and they are also overcome by guilt when other people know nothing of their misstep.Their soldiers are disciplined to the hilt but are also insubordinate.

When it became so important for America to understand Japan，these contradictions and many others equally blatant could not be waved aside. Crises were facing us in quick succession.What would the Japanese do？Was capitulation possible without invasion？Should we bomb the Emperor's palace？What could we expect of Japanese prisoners of war？What should we say in our propaganda to Japanese troops and to the Japanese homeland which could save the lives of Americans and lessen Japanese determination to fight to the last man？There were violent disagreements among those who knew the Japanese best.When peace came，were the Japanese a people who would require perpetual martial law to keep them in order？Would our army have to prepare to fight desperate bitter-enders in every mountain fastness of Japan？Would there have to be a revolution in Japan after the order of the French Revolulion or the Russian Revolution before international peace was possible？Who would lead it？Was the alternative the eradication of the Japanese？It made a great deal of difference what our judgments were.

In June，1944，I was assigned to the study of Japan. I was asked to use all the techniques I could as a cultural anthropologist to spell out what the Japanese were like.During that early summer our greatoffensive against Japan had just begun to show itself in its true magnitude.People in the United States were still saying that the war with Japan would last three years，perhaps ten years，more.In Japan they talked of its lasting one hundred years.Americans，they said，had had local victories，but New Guinea and the Solomons were thousands of miles away from their home islands.Their official communiqués had hardly admitted naval defeats and the Japanese people still regarded themselves as victors.

In June，however，the situation began to change. The second front was opened in Europe and the military priority which the High Command had for two years and a half given to the European theater paid off.The end of the war against Germany was in sight.And in the Pacific our forces landed on Saipan，a great operation forecasting eventual Japanese defeat.From then on our soldiers were to face the Japanese army at constantly closer quarters.And we knew well，from the fighting in New Guinea，on Guadalcanal，in Burma，on Attu and Tarawa and Biak，that we were pitted against a formidable foe.

In June，1944，therefore，it was important to answer a multitude of questions about our enemy，Japan. Whether the issue was military or diplomatic，whether it was raised by questions of high policy or of leaflets to be dropped behind the Japanese front lines，every insight was important.In the all-out war Japan was fighting we had to know，not just the aims and motives of those in power inTokyo，not just the long history of Japan，not just economic and military statistics；we bad to know what their government could count on from the people.We had to try to understand Japanese habits of thought and emotion and the patterns into which these habits fell.We had to know the sanctions behind these actions and opinions.We had to put aside for the moment the premises on which we act as Americans and to keep ourselves as far as possible from leaping to the easy conclusion that what we would do in a given situation was what they would do.

My assignment was difficult. America and Japan were at war and it is easy in wartime to condemn wholesale，but far harder to try to see how your enemy looks at life through his own eyes.Yet it had to be done.The question was how the Japanese would behave，not how we would behave if we were in their place.I had to try to use Japanese behavior in war as an asset in understanding them，not as a liability.I had to look at the way they conducted the war itself and see it not for the moment as a rnilltaiy problem but as a cultural problem.In warfare as well as in peace，the Japanese acted in character.What special indications of their way of life and thinking did they give in the way they handled warfare？Their leaders'ways of whipping up war spirit，of reassuring the bewildered，of utilizing their soldiers in the field—all these things showed what they themselves regarded as the strengths on which they could capitalize.I had to follow the details of the war to see how the Japaneserevealed themselves in it step by step.

The fact that our two nations were at war inevitably meant，however，a serious disadvantage. It meant that I had to forego the most important technique of the cultural anthropologist：a field trip.I could not go to Japan and live in their homes and watch the strains and stresses of daily life，see with my own eyes which were crucial and which were not.I could not watch them in the complicated business of arriving at a decision.I could not see their children being brought up.The one anthropologist's field study of a Japanese village，John Embree's Suye Mura，was invaluable，but many of the questions about Japan with which we were faced in 1944 were not raised when that study was written.

As a cultural anthropologist，in spite of these major difficulties，I had confidence in certain techniques and postulates which could be used. At least I did not have to forego the anthropologist's great reliance upon face-to-face contact with the people he is studying.There were plenty of Japanese in this countiy who had been reared in Japan and I could ask them about the concrete facts of their own experiences，find out how they judged them，fill in from their descriptions many gaps in our knowledge which as an anthropologist I believed were essential in understanding any culture.Other social scientists who were studying Japan were using libraries，analyzing past events or statistics，following developments in the written or spoken word of Japanese propaganda.I hadconfidence that many of these answers they sought were embedded in the rules and values of Japanese culture and could be found more satisfactorily by exploring that culture with people who had really lived it.

This did not mean that I did not read and that I was not constantly indebted to Westerners who had lived in Japan. The vast literature on the Japanese and the great number of good Occidental observers who have lived in Japan gave me an advantage which no anthropologist has when he goes to the Amazon headwaters or the New Guinea highlands to study a non-literate tribe.Having no written language such tribes have committed no self-revelations to paper.Comments by Westerners are few and superficiaL Nobody knows their past history.The field worker must discover without any help from previous students the way their economic life works，how stratified their society is，what is uppermost in their religious life.In studying Japan，I was the heir of many students.Descriptions of small details of life were tucked away in antiquarian papers.Men and women from Europe and America had set down their vivid experiences，and the Japanese themselves had written really extraordinary self-revelations.Unlike many Oriental people they have a great impulse to write themselves out.They wrote about the trivia of their lives as well as about their programs of world expansion.They were amazingly frank.Of course they did not present the whole picture.No people does.A Japanese who writesabout Japan passes over really crucial things which are as familiar to him and as invisible as the air he breathes.So do Americans when they write about America.But just the same the Japanese loved seif-revelation.

I read this literature as Darwin says he read when he was working out his theories on the origin of species，noting what I had not the means to understand. What would I need to know to understand the juxtaposition of ideas in a speech in the Diet？What could lie back of their violent condemnation of some act that seemed venial and their easy acceptance of one that seemed outrageous？I read，asking the ever-present question：What is‘wrong with this picture'？What would I need to know to understand it？

I went to movies，too，which had been written and produced in Japan—propaganda movies，historical movies，movies of contemporary life in Tokyo and in the farm villages. I went over them afterward with Japanese who had seen some of these same movies in Japan and who in any case saw the hero and the heroine and the villain as Japanese see them，not as I saw them.When I was at sea，it was clear that they were not.The plots，the motivations were not as I saw them，but they made sense in terms of the way the movie was constructed.As with the novels，there was much more difference than met the eye between what they meant to me and what they meant to the Japanese-reared.Some of these Japanesewere quick to come to the defense of Japanese conventions and some hated everything Japanese.It is hard to say from which group I learned most.In the intimate picture they gave of how one regulates one's life in Japan they agreed，whether they accepted it gladly or rejected it with bitterness.

In so far as the anthropologist goes for his material and his insights directly to the people of the culture he is studying，he is doing what all the ablest Western observers have done who have lived in Japan. If this were all an anthropologist had to offer，be could not hope to add to the valuable studies which foreign residents have made of the Japanese.The cultural anthropologist，however，has certain qualifications as a result of his training which appeared to make it worth his while to try to add his own contribution in a field rich in students and observers.

The anthropologist knows many cultures of Asia and the Pacific. There are many social arrangements and habits of life in Japan which have close parallels even in the primitive tribes of the Pacific islands.Some of these parallels are in Malaysia，some in New Guinea，some in Polynesia.It is interesting，of course，to speculate on whether these show some ancient migrations or contacts，but this problem of possible historical relationship was not the reason why knowledge of these cultural similarities was valuable to me.It was rather that I knew in these simpler cultures how these institutions worked and could get clues to Japanese lifefrom the likeness or the difference I found.I knew，too，something about Siam and Burma and China on the mainland of Asia，and I could therefore compare Japan with other nations which are a part of its great cultural heritage.Anthropologists had shown over and over in their studies of primitive people how valuable such cultural comparisons can be.A tribe may share ninety per cent of its formal observances with its neighbors and yet it may have revamped them to fit a way of life and a set of values which it does not share with any surrounding peoples.In the process it may have had to reject some fundamental arrangements which，however small in proportion to the whole，turn its future course of development in a unique direction.Nothing is more helpful to an anthropologist than to study contrasts he finds between peoples who on the whole share many traits.

Anthropologists also have had to accustom themselves to maximum differences between their own culture and another and their techniques have to be sharpened for this particular problem. They know from experience that there are great differences in the situations which men in different cultures have to meet and in the way in which different tribes and nations define the meanings of these situations.In some Arctic village or tropical desert they were faced with tribal arrangements of kinship responsibility or financial exchange which in their moments of most unleashed imagination they could not have invented.They have had to investigate，not onlythe details of kinship or exchange，but what the consequences of these arrangements were in the tribe's behavior and how each generation was conditioned from childhood to carry on as their ancestors had done before them.

This professional concern with differences and their conditioning and their consequences could well be used in the study of Japan. No one is unaware of the deep-rooted cultural differences between the United States and Japan.We have even a folklore about the Japanese which says that whatever we do they do the opposite.Such a conviction of difference is dangerous only if a student rests content with saying simply that these differences are so fantastic that it is impossible to understand such people.The anthropologist has good proof in his experience that even bizarre behavior does not prevent one's understanding it.More than any other social scientist he has professionally used differences as an asset rather than a liability.There is nothing that has made him pay such sharp attention to institutions and peoples as the fact that they were phenomenally strange.There was nothing he could take for granted in his tribe's way of living and it made him look not just at a few selected facts，but at everything.In studies of Western nations one who is untrained in studies of comparative cultures overlooks whole areas of behavior.He takes so much for granted that he does not explore the range of trivial habits in daily living and all those accepted verdicts on homely matters，which，thrown large on thenational screen，have more to do with that nation's future than treaties signed by diplomats.

The anthropologist has had to develop techniques for studying the commonplace because those things that are commonplaces in the tribe he was studying were so different from their counterparts in his own home country. When he tried to understand the extreme maliciousness of some tribe or the extreme timidity of another，when he tried to plot out the way they would act and feel in a given situation，he found he had to draw heavily on observations and details that are not often noted about civilized nations.He had good reason to believe they were essential and he knew the kind of research that would unearth them.

It was worth trying in the case of Japan. For it is only when one has noted the intensely human commonplaces of any people's existence that one appreciates at its full importance the anthropologist's premise that human behavior in any primitive tribe or in any nation in the forefront of civilization is learned in daily living.No matter how bizarre his act or his opinion，the way a man feels and thinks has some relation to his experience.The more baffled I was at some bit of behavior，the more I therefore assumed that there existed somewhere in Japanese life some ordinary conditioning of such strangeness.If the search took me into trivial details of daily intercourse，so much the better.That was where people learned.

As a cultural anthropologist also I started from the premise that the most isolated bits of behavior have some systematic relation to each other. I took seriously the way hundreds of details fall into over-all patterns.A human society must make for itself some design for living.It approves certain ways of meeting situations，certain ways of sizing them up.People in that society regard these solutions as foundations of the universe.They integrate them，no matter what the difficulties.Men who have accepted a system of values by which to live cannot without courting inefficiency and chaos keep for long a fenced-off portion of their lives where they think and behave according to a contrary set of values.They try to bring about more conformity.They provide themselves with some common rationale and some common motivations.Some degree of consistency is necessary or the whole scheme falls to pieces.

Economic behavior，family arrangements，religious rites and political objectives therefore become geared into one another. Changes in one area may occur more rapidly than in others and subject these other areas to great stress，but the stress itself arises from the need for consistency.In preliterate societies committed to the pursuit of power over others，the will to power is expressed in their religious practices no less than in their economic transactions and in their relations with other tribes.In civilized nations which have old written scriptures，the Church necessarily retains the phrases of past centuries，as tribes without written language do not，but it abdicates authority in those fields which would interfere with increasing public approval of economic and political power.The words remain but the meaning is altered.Religious dogmas，economic practices and politics do not stay dammed up in neat separate little ponds but they overflow their supposed boundaries and their waters mingle inextricably one with the other.Because this is always true，the more a student has seemingly scattered his investigation among facts of economics and sex and religion and the care of the baby，the better he can follow what is happening in the society he studies.He can draw up his hypotheses and get his data in any area of life with profit.

He can learn to see the demands any nation makes，whether they are phrased in political，economic，or moral terms，as expressions of habits and ways of thinking which are learned in their social experience.This volume therefore is not a book specifically about Japanese religion or economic life or politics or the family.It examines Japanese assumptions about the conduct of life.It describes these assumptions as they have manifested themselves whatever the activity in hand.It is about what makes Japan a nation of Japanese.

One of the handicaps of the twentieth century is that we still have the vaguest and most biased notions，not only of what makes Japan a nation of Japanese，but of what makes the United States a nation of Americans，France a nation of Frenchmen，and Russia a nation of Russians. Lacking this knowledge，each countrymisunderstands the other.We fear irreconcilable differences when the trouble is only between Tweedledum and Tweedledee，and we talk about common purposes when one nation by virtue of its whole experience and system of values has in mind a quite different course of action from the one we meant.We do not give ourselves a chance to find out what their habits and values are.If we did，we might discover that a course of action is not necessarily vicious because it is not the one we know.

It is not possible to depend entirely upon what each nation says of its own habits of thought and action. Writers in every nation have tried to give an account of themselves.But it is not easy.The lenses through which any nation looks at life are not the ones another nation uses.It is hard to be conscious of the eyes through which one looks.Any country takes them for granted，and the tricks of focusing and of perspective which give to any people its national view of life seem to that people the god-given arrangement of the landscape.In any matter of spectacles，we do not expect the man who wears them to know the formula for the lenses，and neither can we expect nations to analyze their own outlook upon the world.When we want to know about spectacles，we train an oculist and expect him to be able to write out the formula for any lenses we bring him.Some day no doubt we shall recognize that it is the job of the social scientist to do this for the nations of the contemporary world.

The job requires both a certain tough-mindedness and a certain generosity. It requires a tough-mindedness which people of good will have sometimes condemned.These protagonists of One World have staked their hopes on convincing people of every corner of the earth that all the differences between East and West，black and white，Christian and Mohammedan，are superficial and that all mankind is really like-minded.This view is sometimes called the brotherhood of man.I do not know why believing in the brotherhood of man should mean that one cannot say that the Japanese have their own version of the conduct of life and that Americans have theirs.It sometimes seems as if the tender-minded could not base a doctrine of good will upon anything less than a world of peoples each of which is a print from the same negative.But to demand such uniformity as a condition of respecting another nation is as neurotic as to demand it of one's wife or one's children.

The tough-minded are content that differences should exist.They respect differences.Their goal is a world made safe for differences，where the United States may be American to the hilt without threatening the peace of the world，and France may be France，and Japan may be Japan on the same conditions.To forbid the ripening of any of these attitudes toward life by outside interference seems wanton to any student who is not himself convinced that differences need be a Damocles'sword hanging over the world.Nor need he fear that by taking such a position he is helping to freeze the worldinto the status quo.Encouraging cultural differences would not mean a static world.England did not lose her Englishness because an Age of Elizabeth was followed by an Age of Queen Anne and a Victorian Era.It was just because the English were so much themselves that different standards and different national moods could assert themselves in different generations.

Systematic study of national differences requires a certain generosity as well as tough-mindedness. The study of comparative religions has flourished only when men were secure enough in their own convictions to be unusually generous.They might be Jesuits or Arabic savants or unbelievers，but they could not be zealots.The study of comparative cultures too cannot flourish when men are so defensive about their own way of life that it appears to them to be by definition the sole solution in the world.Such men will never know the added love of their own culture which comes from a knowledge of other ways of life.They cut themselves off from a pleasant and enriching experience.Being so defensive，they have no alternative but to demand that other nations adopt their own particular solutions.As Americans they urge our favorite tenets on all nations.And other nations can no more adopt our ways of life on demand than we could learn to do our calculations in units of 12's instead of 10's，or stand on one foot in repose like certain East African natives.

This book，then，is about habits that are expected and taken forgranted in Japan. It is about those situations when any Japanese can count on courtesy and those situations when he cannot，about when he feels shame，when he feels embarrassment，what he requires of himself.The ideal authority for any statement in this book would be the proverbial man in the street.It would be anybody.That does not mean that this anybody would in his own person have been placed in each particular circumstance.It does mean that anybody would recognize that that was how it was under those conditions.The goal of such a study as this is to describe deeply entrenched attitudes of thought and behavior.Even when it falls short，this was nevertheless the ideal.

In such a study one quickly reaches the point where the testimony of great numbers of additional informants provides no further validation. Who bows to whom and when，for instance，needs no statistical study of all Japan；the approved and customary circumstances can be reported by almost any one and after a few confirmations it is not necessary to get the same information from a million Japanese.

The student who is trying to uncover the assumptions upon which Japan builds its way of life has a far harder task than statistical validation. The great demand upon him is to report how these accepted practices and judgments become the lenses through which the Japanese see existence.He has to state the way in which their assumptions affect the focus and perspective in which theyview life.He has to try to make this intelligible to Americans who see existence in very different focus.In this task of analysis the court of authority is not necessarily Tanaka San，the Japanese‘anybody.'For Tanaka San does not make his assumptions explicit，and interpretations written for Americans will undoubtedly seem to him unduly labored.

American studies of societies have not often been planned to study the premises on which civilized cultures are built. Most studies assume that these premises are self-evident.Sociologists and psychologists are preoccupied with the‘scatter'of opinion and behavior，and the stock technique is statistical.They subject to statistical analysis masses of census material，great numbers of answers to questionnaires or to interviewers'questions，psychological measurements and the like，and attempt to derive the independence or interdependence of certain factors.In the field of public opinion，the valuable technique of polling the country by using a scientifically selected sample of the population has been highly perfected in the United States.It is possible to discover how many people support or oppose a certain candidate for public office or a certain policy.Supporters and opponents can be classified as rural or urban，low income or high income，Republicans or Democrats.In a country with universal suffrage，where laws are actually drafted and enacted by the people's representatives，such findings have practical importance.

Americans can poll Americans and understand the findings，but they can do this because of a prior step which is so obvious that no one mentions it：they know and take for granted the conduct of life in the United States. The results of polling tell more about what we already know.In trying to understand another country，systematic qualitative study of the habits and assumptions of its people is essential before a poll can serve to good advantage.By careful sampling，a poll can discover how many people are for or against government.But what does that tell us about them unless we know what their notions are about the State？Only so can we know what the factions are disputing about，in the streets or in the Diet.A nation's assumptions about government are of much more general and permanent importance than figures of party strength.In the United States，the Government，to both Republicans and Democrats，is almost a necessary evil and it limits individual freedom；Government employment，too，except perhaps in wartime，does not give a man the standing he gets from an equivalent job in private enterprise.This version of the State is a far cry from the Japanese version，and even from that of many European nations.What we need to know first of all is just what their version is.Their view is embodied in their folkways，in their comments on successful men，in their myth of their national history，in their speeches on national holidays；and it can be studied in these indirect manifestations.But it requires systematic study.

The basic assumptions which any nation makes about living，the solutions it has sanctioned，can be studied with as much attention and as much detail as we give to finding out what proportion of a population will vote yes and no in an election. Japan was a country whose fundamental assumptions were well worth exploring.Certainly I found that once I had seen where my Occidental assumptions did not fit into their view of life and had got some idea of the categories and symbols they used，many contradictions Westerners are accustomed to see in Japanese behavior were no longer contradictions.I began to see how it was that the Japanese themselves saw certain violent swings of behavior as integral parts of a system consistent within itself.I can try to show why.As I worked with them，they began to use strange phrases and ideas which turned out to have great implications and to be full of age-long emotion.Virtue and vice as the Occident understands them had undergone a sea-change.The system was singular.It was not Buddhism and it was not Confucianism.It was Japanese—the strength and the weakness of Japan.第二章　战争中的日本人/Chapter 2 The Japanese in the War导读

每个国家和民族都有独特的主流的战争观。西方人在关于战争的基本认识上是一致的，然而日本人的战争观与西方人不同，我们不关心这些战争观对军事的影响，但是却可以用来分析日本人的民族心理和社会文化性格。

首先日本人和美国人对于这场战争的认识和态度是不一样的。美国认为这是以德、意、日为主的轴心国对于周边国家和整个世界的侵略战争，侵犯了他人的生存权利和自由，违背了全世界应该遵循的最基本的国际准则；但是日本人却认为这场战争意在解决混乱的国际秩序，建立新的等级秩序，使每个国家都处于这个等级中适当的位置。尽管被日本侵略的周边国家并不认可日本的观点，但日本人的这一信仰却不可动摇。

其次对于战争胜利的基础的认识日本人也不同于美国人。日本人并不在乎美国人所看重的军事装备和物资，而是反复强调精神动力的重要性。日本人认为精神一定会战胜物质，不论胜负这个信念不会改变，这种观点得到了广泛的接受。虽然日本也有庞大的军事开支，但日本人并不关心自身的军备物资——那只是一种精神的表现。日本的军人视死如归

强调精神的决定作用是日本从事军事生产的前提，而这个信念在军事训练中化成了口号被流传，于是导致了自杀式飞机这样的证明精神战胜物质的极端事件。日本人甚至在日常生产生活中也强调精神对物质的决定作用。

战时日本的广播报道了一个飞行尉官用精神支撑自己已经死去的肉体向上级汇报的事件，这让我们难以置信，日本人对此却坚信不疑。我们可能会鄙视日本人的这种行为，但我们必须深入了解日本人的信仰，只有这样才能明白日本人战败时的言论，日本人的反省也都是在精神受挫的基础之上进行的。

日本人宣扬精神的崇高，为了不让日本军队的士气和人民的精神被削弱，对于战争中出现的任何情况，日本的统治者都会告诉国民这是有准备的。日本人不认为自己遭受的打击是被动的挨打，而是主动创造的机会。实际上美国人也有类似的说法。美国人是因为挨了打才会反击，做好了应对挑战的准备，而这种未曾预料的挑战则是日本人的威胁。日本人还十分重视民族精神在外人面前的表现，这也是民族文化一种体现。

日本人的这种精神面貌，与天皇统治有密切关系。一些美国的分析家认为天皇自古以来在日本只是傀儡般的存在，现在宣扬天皇至上是武断的说法，只要瓦解了天皇的权威，整个日本也就随之崩溃了。但是第一线的观察结果提供了相反意见的佐证，任何对天皇的蔑视和挑战都会刺痛日本人民的神经，激发出他们的斗志。

日本战俘的身上也能反映出这个问题。首先他们只承认自己被俘是因为身体原因，而不是精神和信念的问题；其次他们会把这场战争说成是对天皇意志的效忠。而反对战争的日本人则把和平的理想也归于天皇，认为侵略和军国主义的罪魁祸首是军部。不同于德国战俘，日本人不会将天皇与侵略联系在一起，认为天皇不必为战争负责，而且在战败之后也不会说天皇的坏话。

军国主义者正是利用日本人对天皇的忠心发起了战争，日本人只听命于天皇，天皇只需下令投降，所有的日本人就会全部放下武器。

与天皇不同，日本人对于政府和军部的批评却有很多。战俘对军队的指挥官有好坏的评判，而国内的媒体也对政府多有批评，1944年，东京某报纸就有关于批判政府限制言论自由的相关报道。日本人对于天皇和天皇之外的人或者团体的不同态度让我们感到奇怪。实际上天皇所获得这种崇高地位也是最近的事情，日本人为何会如此听命于天皇，这个问题需要我们思考。

我们还可以通过日本人对战力消耗的态度来研究日本的民族文化。对于美国海军麦盖银将军因救援被损毁的美国军舰并撤出台湾海峡而被授勋的报道，日本人充满了质疑。日本人对美国部队的防护措施嗤之以鼻，但其军队自身的医疗配备也并不充足。日本人蔑视物质，日本的军人视死如归，将死亡看成精神的胜利，战死则是伟大的英雄。由此导致日本人对于伤员病号不予救助的态度让我们十分吃惊，而他们对待战俘的态度更加残暴。

日本人最为极端的表现便是宁死不降，被俘或者投降比死去还要痛苦，因此一场战役结束后，日军阵亡人数远远大于俘虏人数。日本人还认为俘虏美国士兵就是对美国人的羞辱，但美国人的表现却好像不知羞耻，于是日本人制定了很多规则，并采取了很多残暴的行为。

其实日军不愿投降是因为觉得敌人会在俘虏他们之后虐待和羞辱他们，而日本人在被俘后采取同归于尽的办法，也让我们提高了警惕，日军投降的人数也就减少了。

日军异于西方军队的地方还在于战俘会与敌人合作，而且似乎能够产生完全的转变，这种我们不可想象的行为背后的生活方式和思维方式需要我们给予关注。N EVERY cultural tradition there are orthodoxies of war and certain of these are shared in all Western nations，no matter what the Ispecific differences. There are certain clarion calls to all-out war effort，certain forms of reassurance in case of local defeats，certain regularities in the proportion of fatalities to surrenders，and certain rules of behavior for prisoners of war which are predictable in wars between Western nations just because they have a great shared cultural tradition which covers even warfare.

All the ways in which the Japanese departed from Western conventions of war were data on their view of life and on their convictions of the whole duty of man. For the purposes of a systematic study of Japanese culture and behavior it did not matter whether or not their deviations from our orthodoxies were crucial in a military sense；any of them might be important because they raised questions about the character of the Japanese to which we needed answers.

The very premises which Japan used to justify her war were the opposite of America's. She defined the international situation differently.America laid the war to the aggressions of the Axis.Japan，Italy，and Germany had unrighteously offended against international peace by their acts of conquest.Whether the Axis had seized power in Manchukuo or in Ethiopia or in Poland，it proved that they had embarked on an evil course of oppressing weak peoples.They had sinned against an international code of‘live and let live'or at least of‘open doors'for free enterprise.Japan saw the cause of the war in another light.There was anarchy in the world as long as every nation had absolute sovereignty；it was necessary for her to fight to establish a hierarchy—under Japan，of course，since she alone represented a nation truly hierarchal from top to bottom and hence understood the necessity of taking‘one's proper place.'Japan，having attained unification and peace in her homeland，having put down banditry and built up roads and electric power and steel industries，having，according to her official figures，educated 99.5 per cent of her rising generation in her public schools，should，according to Japanese premises of hierarchy，raise her backward younger brother China.Being of the same race as Greater East Asia，she should eliminate the United States，and after her Britain and Russia，from that part of the world and‘take her proper place.’All nations were to be one world，fixed in an international hierarchy.In the next chapter we shall examine what this high value placed on hierarchy meant in Japanese culture.

It was an appropriate fantasy for Japan to create.Unfortunately for her the countries she occupied did not see it in the same light.Nevertheless not even defeat hasdrawn from her moral repudiation of her Greater East Asia ideals，and even her prisoners of war who were least jingoistic rarely went so far as to arraign the purposes of Japan on the continent and in the Southwest Pacific.For a long，long time Japan will necessarily keep some of her inbred attitudes and one of the most important of these is her faith and confidence in hierarchy.It is alien to equality-loving Americans but it is nevertheless necessary for us to understand what Japan meant by hierarchy and what advantages she has learned to connect with it.

Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. She would win，she cried，a victory of spirit over matter.America was big，her armaments were superior，but what did that matter？All this，they said，had been foreseen and discounted.‘If we had been afraid of mathematical figures，'the Japanese read in their great newspaper，the Mainichi Shimbun，‘the war would not have started.The enemy's great resources were not created by this war.'

Even when she was winning，her civilian statesmen，her High Command，and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments；it was a pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit. When we were winning they repeated over and over that in such a contest material power must necessarily fail.This dogma became，no doubt，a convenient alibi about the time of the defeats at Saipan and Iwo Jima，but it was not manufactured asan alibi for defeats.It was a clarion call during all the months of Japanese victories，and it had been an accepted slogan long before Pearl Harbor.In the nineteen-thirties General Amid，fanatical militarist and one-time Minister of War，wrote in a pamphlet addressed‘To the whole Japanese Race'that‘the true mission'of Japan was‘to spread and glorify the Imperial way to the end of the Four Seas.Inadequacy of strength is not our worry.Why should we worry about that which is material？'

Of course，like any other nation preparing for war，they did worry. All through the nineteen-thirties the proportion of their national income which was devoted to armament grew astronomically.By the time of their attack on Pearl Harbor very nearly half the entire national income was going to military and naval purposes，and of the total expenditures of the government only 17 per cent were available for financing anything having to do with civilian administration.The difference between Japan and Western nations was not that Japan was careless about material armament.But ships and guns were just the outward show of the undying Japanese Spirit.They were symbols much as the sword of the samurai had been the symbol of his virtue.

Japan was as completely consistent in playing up nonmaterial resources as the United States was in its commitment to bigness. Japan had to campaign for all-out production just as the United States did，but her campaigns were based on her own premises.Thespirit，she said，was all and was everlasting；material things were necessary，of course，but they were subordinate and fell by the way.‘There are limits to material resources，'the Japanese radio would cry：‘it stands to reason that material things cannot last a thousand years.'And this reliance on spirit was taken literally in the routine of war；their war catechisms used the slogan—and it was a traditional one，not made to order for this war—‘To match our training against their numbers and our flesh against their steel'Their war manuals began with the bold-type line，‘Read this and the war is won.'Their pilots who flew their midget planes in a suicidal crash into our warships were an endless text for the superiority of the spiritual over the material.They named them the Kamikaze Corps，for the kamikaze was the divine wind which had saved Japan from Genghis Khan's invasion in the thirteenth century by scattering and overturning his transports.

Even in civilian situations Japanese authorities took literally the dominance of spirit over material circumstances. Were people fatigued by twelve-hour work in the factories and all-night bombings？‘The heavier our bodies，the higher our will，our spirit，rises above them.'‘The wearier we are，the more splendid the training.'Were people cold in the bomb shelters in winter？On the radio the Dai Nippon Physical Culture Society prescribed body-warming calisthenics which would not only be a substitute for heating facilities and bedding，but，better still，would substitute forfood no longer available to keep up people's normal strength.‘Of course some may say that with the present food shortages we cannot think of doing calisthenics.No！The more shortage of food there is，the more we must raise our physical strength by other means.'That is，we must increase our physical strength by expending still more of it.The American's view of bodily energy which always reckons how much strength he has to use by whether he had eight or five hours of sleep last night，whether he has eaten his regular meals，whether he has been cold，is here confronted with a calculus that does not rely on storing up energy.That would be materialistic.

Japanese broadcasts went even farther during the war. In battle，spirit surmounted even the physical fact of death.One broadcast described a hero-pilot and the miracle of his conquest of death：

After the air battles were over，the Japanese planes returned to their base in small formations of three or four. A Captain was in one of the first planes to return.After alighting from his plane，he stood on the ground and gazed into the sky through binoculars.As his men returned，he counted.He looked rather pale，but he was quite steady.After the last plane returned he made out a report and proceeded to Headquarters.At Headquarters he made his report to the Commanding Officer.As soon as he had finished his report，however，he suddenly dropped to the ground.The officers on the spot rushed to give assistance but alas！he was dead.On examining his body it was found that it was already cold，and he had a bulletwound in his chest，which had proved fatal.It is impossible for the body of a newly-dead person to be cold.Nevertheless the body of the dead captain was as cold as ice，The Captain must have been dead long before，and it was his spirit that made the report.Such a miraculous fact must have been achieved by the strict sense of responsibility that the dead Captain possessed.

To Americans，of course，this is an outrageous yarn but educated Japanese did not laugh at this broadcast. They felt sure it would not be taken as a tall tale by listeners in Japan.First they pointed out that the broadcaster had truthfully said that the captain's feat was‘a miraculous fact.'But why not？The soul could be trained；obviously the captain was a past-master of self-discipline，if all Japan knew that‘a composed spirit could last a thousand years，'could it not last a few hours in the body of an air-force captain who had made‘responsibility'the central law of his whole life？The Japanese believed that technical disciplines could be used to enable a man to make his spirit supreme.The captain had learned and profited.

As Americans we can completely discount these Japanese excesses as the alibis of a poor nation or the childishness of a deluded one. If we did，however，we would be，by that much，the less able to deal with them in war or in peace.Their tenets have been bred into the Japanese by certain taboos and refusals，by certain methods of training and discipline，and these tenets are notmere isolated oddities.Only if Americans have recognized them can we realize what they are saying when，in defeat，they acknowledge that spirit was not enough and that defending positions‘with bamboo spears'was a fantasy.It is still more important that we be able to appreciate their acknowledgment that their spirit was insufficient and that it was matched in battle and in the factory by the spirit of the American people.As they said after their defeat：during the war they had‘engaged in subjectivity.'

Japanese ways of saying all kinds of things during the war，not only about the necessity of hierarchy and the supremacy of spirit，were revealing to a student of comparative cultures. They talked constantly about security and morale being only a matter of being forewarned.No matter what the catastrophe，whether it was civilian bombing or defeat at Saipan or their failure to defend the Philippines，the Japanese line to their people was that this was foreknown and that there was therefore nothing to worry about.The radio went to great lengths，obviously counting on the reassurance it gave to the Japanese people to be told that they were living still in a thoroughly known world.‘The American occupation of Kiska brings Japan within the radius of American bombers.But we were well aware of this contingency and have made the necessary preparations.'‘The enemy doubtless will make an offensive against us by combined land，sea and air operations，but this has been taken account of by us in our plans.'Prisoners of war，even those whohoped for Japan's early defeat in a hopeless war，were sure that bombing would not weaken Japanese on the home front‘because they were forewarned.'When Americans began bombing Japanese cities，the vice-president of the Aviation Manufacturer's Association broadcast：‘Enemy planes finally have come over our very heads.However，we who are engaged in the aircraft production industry and who had always expected this to happen had made complete preparations to cope with this.Therefore，there is nothing to worry about.’Only granted all was foreknown，all was fully planned，could the Japanese go on to make the claim so necessary to them that everything had been actively willed by themselves alone；nobody had put anything over on them.‘We should not think that we have been passively attacked but that we have actively pulled the enemy toward us.’‘Enemy，come if you wish.

Instead of saying，“Finally what was to come has come，”we will say rather，“That which we were waiting for has come.We are glad it has come.”‘The Navy Minister quoted in the Diet the teachings of the great warrior of the eighteen-seventies，Takamori Saigo，‘There are two kinds of opportunities：one which we chance upon，the other which we create.In time of great difficulty，one must not fail to create his opportunity.’And General Yamashito，when American troops marched into Manila，‘remarked with a broad smile，’the radio said，‘that now the enemy is in our bosom……，‘The rapid fall of Manila，shortly after the enemy landings in Lingayen Bay，was only possibleas a result of General Yamashito’s tactics and in accordance with his plans.General Yamashito’s operations are now making continuous progress.’In other words，nothing succeeds like defeat.

Americans went as far in the opposite direction as the Japanese in theirs. Americans threw themselves into the war effort because this fight had been forced upon us.We had been attacked，therefore let the enemy beware.No spokesman，planning how he could reassure the rank and file of Americans，said of Pearl Harbor or of Bataan，‘These were fully taken account of by us in our plans.'Our officials said instead，‘The enemy asked for it.We will show them what we can do.'Americans gear all their living to a constantly challenging world—and are prepared to accept the challenge.Japanese reassurances are based rather on a way of life that is planned and charted beforehand and where the greatest threat comes from the unforeseen.

Another constant theme in Japanese conduct of the war was also revealing about Japanese life. They continually spoke of how‘the eyes of the world were upon them.'Therefore they must show to the full the spirit of Japan.Americans landed on Guadalcanal，and Japanese orders to troops were that now they were under direct observation‘by the world'and should show what they were made of.Japanese seamen were warned that in case they were torpedoed and the order given to abandon ship，they should man the lifeboats withthe utmost decorum or‘the world will laugh at you.The Americans will take movies of you and show them in New York.'It mattered what account they gave of themselves to the world.And their concern with this point also was a concern deeply imbedded in Japanese culture.

The most famous question about Japanese attitudes concerned His Imperial Majesty，the Emperor. What was the hold of the Emperor on his subjects？Some American authorities pointed out that through all Japan's seven feudal centuries the Emperor was a shadowy figurehead.Every man's immediate loyalty was due to his lord，the daimyo，and，beyond that，to the military Generalissimo，the Shogun.Fealty to the Emperor was hardly an issue.He was kept secluded in an isolated court whose ceremonies and activities were rigorously circumscribed by the Shogun's regulations.It was treason even for a great feudal lord to pay his respects to the Emperor，and for the people of Japan he hardly existed.Japan could only be understood by its history，these American analysts insisted；how could an Emperor who had been brought out from obscurity within the memory of still living people be the real rallying point of a conservative nation like Japan？The Japanese publicists who again and again reiterated the undying hold of the Emperor upon his subjects were over-protesting，they said，and their insistence only proved the weakness of their case.There was no reason，therefore，that American policy during the war should draw on kid gloves indealing with the Emperor.There was every reason rather why we should direct our strongest attacks against this evil Fuehrer concept that Japan had recently concocted.It was the very heart of its modern nationalistic Shinto religion and if we undermined and challenged the sanctity of the Emperor，the whole structure of enemy Japan would fall in ruins.

Many capable Americans who knew Japan and who saw the reports from the front lines and from Japanese sources were of the opposite persuasion. Those who had lived in Japan well knew that nothing stung the Japanese people to bitterness and whipped up their morale like any depreciatory word against the Emperor or any outright attack on him.They did not believe that in attacking the Emperor we would in the eyes of the Japanese be attacking militarism.They had seen that reverence for the Emperor had been equally strong in those years after the First World War when‘de-mok-ra-sie'was the great watchword and militarism was so discredited that army men prudently changed to mufti before they went out on the streets of Tokyo.The reverence of the Japanese for their Imperial chief could not be compared，these old Japanese residents insisted，with Heil-Hitler veneration which was a barometer of the fortunes of the Nazi party and bound up with all the evils of a fascist program.

Certainly the testimony of Japanese prisoners of war bore them out. Unlike Western soldiers，these prisoners had not beeninstructed about what to say and what to keep silent about when captured and their responses on all subjects were strikingly unregimented.This failure to indoctrinate was of course due to Japan's no-surrender policy.It was not remedied until the last months of the war，and even then only in certain armies or local units.The prisoners'testimony was worth paying attention to for they represented a cross-section of opinion in the Japanese Army.They were not troops whose low morale had caused them to surrender—and who might therefore be atypical.All but a few were wounded and unconscious soldiers unable to resist when captured.

Japanese prisoners of war who were out-and-out bitterenders imputed their extreme militarism to the Emperor and were‘carrying out his will，'‘setting his mind at rest，'‘dying at the Emperor's command.'‘The Emperor led the people into war and it was my duty to obey.'But those who rejected this present war and future Japanese plans of conquest just as regularly ascribed their peaceful persuasions to the Emperor. He was all things to all men.The warweary spoke of him as‘his peace-loving Majesty；’they insisted that he‘had always been liberal and against the war.’‘He had been deceived by Tojo.’‘During the Manchurian Incident he showed that he was against the military.’‘The war was started without the Emperor’s knowledge or permission.The Emperor does not like war and would not have permitted his people to be dragged into it The Emperor does not know how badly treated his soldiers are.’These were not statements like those of German prisoners of war who，however much they complained that Hitler had been betrayed by his generals or his high command，nevertheless ascribed war and the preparations for war to Hitler as supreme inciter.The Japanese prisoner of war was quite explicit that the reverence given the Imperial Household was separable from militarism and aggressive war policies.

The Emperor was to them，however，inseparable from Japan.‘A Japan without the Emperor is not Japan.'‘Japan without the Emperor cannot be imagined.'‘The Japanese Emperor is the symbol of the Japanese people，the center of their religious lives. He is a super-religious object.'Nor would he be blamed for the defeat if Japan lost the war.‘The people did not consider the Emperor responsible for the war.'‘In the event of defeat the Cabinet and the military leaders would take the blame，not the Emperor.'‘Even if Japan lost the war ten out of ten Japanese would still revere the Emperor.’

All this unanimity in reckoning the Emperor above criticism appeared phoney to Americans who are accustomed to exempt no human man from skeptical scrutiny and criticism. But there was no question that it was the voice of Japan even in defeat.Those most experienced in interrogating the prisoners gave it as their verdict that it was unnecessary to enter on each interview sheet：‘Refuses to speak against the Emperor'；all prisoners refused，even those whoco-operated with the Allies and broadcast for us to the Japanese troops.Out of all the collected interviews of prisoners of war，only three were even mildly anti-Emperor and only one went so far as to say：‘It would be a mistake to leave the Emperor on the throne.'A second said the Emperor was‘a feeble-minded person，nothing more than a puppet.'And the third got no farther than supposing that the Emperor might abdicate in favor of his son and that if the monarchy were abolished young Japanese women would hope to get a freedom they envied in the women of America.

Japanese commanders，therefore，were playing on an all but unanimous Japanese veneration when they distributed cigarettes to the troops‘from the Emperor，'or led them on his birthday in bowing three times to the east and shouting‘Banzai'；when they chanted with all their troops morning and evening，‘even though the unit was subjected to day and night bombardment，'the‘sacred words'the Emperor himself had given to the armed forces in the Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors while‘the sound of chanting echoed through the forest.'The militarists used the appeal of loyalty to the Emperor in every possible way. They called on their men to‘fulfill the wishes of His Imperial Majesty，’to‘dispel all the anxieties of your Emperor，’to‘demonstrate your respect for His Imperial benevolence，’to‘die for the Emperor.’But this obedience to his will could cut both ways.As many prisoners said，the Japanese‘will fight unhesitatingly，even with nothing more thanbamboo poles，if the Emperor so decrees.They would stop just as quickly if he so decreed’；‘Japan would throw down arms tomorrow if the Emperor should issue such an order’；‘Even the Kwantung Anny in Manchuria’—most militant and jingoistic—‘would lay down their arms；’‘only his words can make the Japanese people accept a defeat and be reconciled to live for reconstruction.’

This unconditional and unrestricted loyalty to the Emperor was conspicuously at odds with criticisms of all other persons and groups. Whether in Japanese newspapers and magazines or in war prisoners'testimony，there was criticism of the government and of military leaders.Prisoners of war were free with their denunciation of their local commanders，especially those who had not shared the dangers and hardships of their soldiers.They were especially critical of those who had evacuated by plane and left their troops behind to fight it out.Usually they praised some officers and bitterly criticized others；there was no sign that they lacked the will to discriminate the good from the bad in things Japanese.

Even in the home islands newspapers and magazines criticized‘the government.'They called for more leadership and greater co-ordination of effort and noted that they were not getting from the government what was necessary.They even criticized the restrictions on freedom of speech.A report on a panel of editors，former members of the Diet，and directors of Japan's totalitarian party，the Imperial Rule Assistance Association，printed in a Tokyopaper in July，1944，is a good example.One speaker said：‘I think there are various ways to arouse the Japanese people but the most important one is freedom of speech.In these few years，the people have not been able to say frankly what they think.They have been afraid that they might be blamed if they spoke certain matters.They hesitated，and tried to patch up the surface，so the public mind has really become timid.We can never develop the total power of the people in this way.'

Another speaker expanded the same theme：‘I have held symposiums almost every night with the people of the electoral districts and asked them about many things，but they were all afraid to speak.Freedom of speech has been denied.This is certainly not a proper way to stimulate their will to fight.The people are so badly restricted by the so-called Special Penal Law of War Time and the National Security Law that they have become as timid as the people in the feudalistic period.Therefore the fighting power which could have been developed remains undeveloped now.'

Even during the war，therefore，the Japanese criticized the government，the High Command，and their immediate superiors. They did not unquestioningly acknowledge the virtues of the whole hierarchy.But the Emperor was exempt.How could this be when his primacy was so recent？What quirk of Japanese character made it possible that he should so attain a sacrosanct position？Were Japanese prisoners of war right in claiming that just as the peoplewould fight to the death‘with bamboo spears'as long as he so ordered，they would peaceably accept defeat and occupation if that was his command？Was this nonsense meant to mislead us？Or was it，possibly，the truth？

All these crucial questions about Japanese behavior in the war，from their anti-materialistic bias to their attitudes toward the Emperor concerned the homeland Japan as well as the fighting fronts. There were other attitudes which had to do more specifically with the Japanese Army.One of these concerned the expendability of their fighting forces.The Japanese radio put well the contrast with the American attitudes when it described with shocked incredulity the Navy's decoration of Admiral George S.McCain，commander of a task force off Formosa.

The official reason for the decoration was not that Commander John S. McCain was able to put the Japanese to flight，though we don't see why not since that is what the Nimitz communiqué claimed……Well，the reason given for Admiral McCain’s decoration was that he was able successfully to rescue two damaged American warships and escort them safely to their home base.What makes this bit of information important is not that it is a fiction but that it is the truth……So we are not questioning the veracity of Admiral McCain’s rescuing two ships，but the point we want you to see is the curious fact that the rescuing of damaged ships merits decoration in the United States.

Americans thrill to all rescue，all aid to those pressed to the wall. A valiant deed is all the more a hero's act if it saves the‘damaged.'Japanese valor repudiates such salvaging.Even the safety devices installed in our B-29's and fighter planes raised their cry of‘Cowardice.'The press and the radio returned to the theme over and over again.There was virtue only in accepting life and death risks；precautions were unworthy.This attitude found expression also in the case of the wounded and of malarial patients.Such soldiers were damaged goods and the medical services provided were utterly inadequate even for reasonable effectiveness of the fighting force.As time went on，supply difficulties of all kinds aggravated this lack of medical care，but that was not the whole story.Japanese scorn of materialism played a part in it；her soldiers were taught that death itself was a victory of the spirit and our kind of care of the sick was an interference with heroism—like safety devices in bombing planes.Nor are the Japanese used to such reliance on physicians and surgeons in civilian life as Americans are.Preoccupation with mercy toward the damaged rather than with other welfare measures is especially high in the United States，and is often commented on even by visitors from some European countries in peacetime.It is certainly alien to the Japanese.

At all events，during the war the Japanese army had no trained rescue teams to remove the wounded under fire and to give first aid；it had no medical system of front line，behind-the-lines and distantrecuperative hospitals.Its attention to medical supplies was lamentable.In certain emergencies the hospitalized were simply killed.Especially in New Guinea and the Philippines，the Japanese often had to retreat from a position where there was a hospital There was no routine of evacuating the sick and wounded while there was still opportunity；only when the‘planned withdrawal'of the battalion was actually taking place or the enemy was occupying was anything done.Then，the medical officer in charge often shot the inmates of the hospital before he left or they killed themselves with band grenades.

If this attitude of the Japanese toward damaged goods was fundamental in their treatment of their own countrymen，it was equally important in their treatment of American prisoners of war. According to our standards the Japanese were guilty of atrocities to their own men as well as to their prisoners.The former chief medical officer of the Philippines，Colonel Harold W.Glattly，said after his three years'internment as a prisoner of war on Formosa that‘the American prisoners got better medical treatment than the Japanese soldiers.Allied medical officers in the prison camps were able to take care of their men while the Japanese didn't have any doctors.For a while the only medical personnel they had for their own men was a corporal and later on a sergeant.'He saw a Japanese medical officer only once or twice a year.

The furthest extreme to which this Japanese theory ofexpendability could be pushed was their no-surrender policy. Any Occidental army which has done its best and finds itself facing hopeless odds surrenders to the enemy.They still regard themselves as honorable soldiers and by international agreement their names are sent back to their countries so that their families may know that they are alive.They are not disgraced either as soldiers or as citizens or in their own families.But the Japanese defined the situation differently.Honor was bound up with fighting to the death.In a hopeless situation a Japanese soldier should kill himself with his last hand grenade or charge weaponless against the enemy in a mass suicide attack.But he should not surrender.Even if he were taken prisoner when he was wounded and unconscious，he‘could not hold up his head in Japan'again；he was disgraced；he was‘dead'to his former life.

There were Army orders to this effect，of course，but there was apparently no need of special official indoctrination at the front. The Army lived up to the code to such an extent that in the North Burma campaign the proportion of the captured to the dead was 142 to 17，166.That was a ratio of 1：120.And of the 142 in the prison camps，all except a small minority were wounded or unconscious when taken；only a very few had‘surrendered'singly or in groups of two or three.In the armies of Occidental nations it is almost a truism that troops cannot stand the death of one fourth to one-third of their strength without giving up；surrenders run about 4：1.Whenfor the first time in Hollandia，however，any appreciable number of Japanese troops surrendered，the proportion was 1：5 and that was a tremendous advance over the 1：120 of North Burma.

To the Japanese therefore Americans who had become prisoners of war were disgraced by the mere fact of surrender. They were‘damaged goods'even when wounds or malaria or dysentery had not also put them outside the category of‘complete men.'Many Americans have described how dangerous a thing American laughter was in the prison camps and how it stung their warders.In Japanese eyes they had suffered ignominy and it was bitter to them that the Americans did not know it.Many of the orders which American prisoners had to obey，too，were those which had also been required of their Japanese keepers by their own Japanese officers；the forced marches and the close-packed transshipments were commonplaces to them.Americans tell，too，of how rigorously sentries required that the prisoners should cover up evasions of rules；the great crime was to evade openly.In camps where the prisoners worked off-bounds on roads or installations during the day the rule that no food be brought back with them from the countryside was sometimes a dead letter—if the fruit and vegetables were covered up.If they could be seen，it was a flagrant offense which meant that the Americans had flouted the sentry's authority.

Open challenging of authority was terribly punished even if it were mere‘answering back.'Japanese rules are very strict against aman's answering back even in civilian life and their own army practices penalized it heavily.It is no exoneration of the atrocities and wanton cruelties that did occur in the prison camps to distinguish between these and those acts which were the consequences of cultural habituations.

Especially in the earlier stages of the conflict the shame of capture was reinforced by a very real belief among the Japanese that the enemy tortured and killed any prisoners. One rumor of tanks that had been driven across the bodies of those captured on Guadalcanal spread through almost all areas.Some Japanese who tried to give themselves up，too，were regarded with so much suspicion by our troops that they were killed as a precaution，and this suspicion was often justified.A Japanese for whom there was nothing left but death was often proud that he could take an enemy with him when he died；he might do it even after he was captured.Having determined，as one of them put it，‘to be burned on the altar of victory，it would be a disgrace to die with no heroic deed achieved.'Such possibilities put our Army on its guard and diminished the number of surrenders.

The shame of surrender was burned deeply into the consciousness of the Japanese. They accepted as a matter of course a behavior which was alien to our conventions of warfare.And ours was just as alien to them.They spoke with shocked disparagement of American prisoners of war who asked to have their namesreported to their government so that their families would know they were alive.The rank and file，at least，were quite unprepared for the surrender of American troops at Bataan for they had assumed that they would fight it out the Japanese way.And they could not accept the fact that Americans had no shame in being prisoners of war.

The most melodramatic difference in behavior between Western soldiers and the Japanese was undoubtedly the cooperation the latter gave to the Allied forces as prisoners of war. They knew no rules of life which applied in this new situation；they were dishonored and their life as Japanese was ended.Only in the last months of the war did more than a handful imagine any return to their homeland，no matter how the war ended.Some men asked to be killed，‘but if your customs do not permit this，I will be a model prisoner.'They were better than model prisoners.Old Army hands and long-time extreme nationalists located ammunition dumps，carefully explained the disposition of Japanese forces，wrote our propaganda and flew with our bombing pilots to guide them to military targets.It was as if they had turned over a new page；what was written on the new page was the opposite of what was written on the old，but they spoke the lines with the same faithfulness.

This is of course not a description of all prisoners of war. Some few were irreconcilable.And in any case certain favorable conditions had to be set up before such behavior was possible.American Army commanders were very understandably hesitant toaccept Japanese assistance at face value and there were camps where no attempt was made to use any services they might have given.In camps where this was done，however，the original suspicion had to be withdrawn and more and more dependence was placed on the good faith of the Japanese prisoners.

Americans had not expected this right-about-face from prisoners of war. It was not according to our code.But the Japanese behaved as if，having put everything they had into one line of conduct and failed at it，they naturally took up a different line.Was it a way of acting which we could count on in post-war days or was it behavior peculiar to soldiers who had been individually captured？Like the other peculiarities of Japanese behavior which obtruded themselves upon us during the war，it raised questions about the whole way of life to which they were conditioned，the way their institutions functioned and the habits of thought and action they had learned.第三章　各就其位/Chapter 3 Taking One’s Proper Station导读

等级制度是日本人的基本社会制度，所以日本人一直都在强调“各就其位”。在国际关系问题上，日本人也是这样的立场，与德、意的联盟正是为了恢复国际社会原有的等级关系。这与美国倡导平等的基本原则是完全相悖的。

美国人从《独立宣言》开始就确立了平等的核心价值观念，当时西方人并不了解这些。一个法国记者托克维西报道了美国人的新世界，对平等的理念大加赞赏。时至今日，平等仍然是我们生活方式的基础。

我们已经把平等这一基本理念告诉日军，但日本人已经完全习惯于等级制的思维习惯，我们只有深入把握这种思维方式，才能了解日本的下一步动向。

尽管日本人身处西化运动之中，但是不同社会地位之间的人们还是存在着各种差异，这些差异体现在各种语言、行为习惯上，如敬语、鞠躬等。日本人的地位差别，不仅仅是阶级差别，还包括性别、年龄、家庭等等方面，而且不同的场合会有不同的表现。

在等级制控制之下的家庭中就会提倡孝道，这实际上来源于中国，但又不同于中国。中国人实行宗族管理制度，同姓的人即是一个宗族，孝道适用于一个大的家族，而被派去管理这些宗族所在区域的官员并不去参与家族事务。而日本人则大不相同，因为日本人的姓只有贵族和武士才能使用，并没有宗族，所以日本人只忠于该地区的封建主。祭祖的事情只是家庭内部的事情，不会在公开场合发生。日本人一直都在强调“各就其位”

日本的孝道只适用于家庭内部，父亲之于子女、兄长之于兄弟、丈夫之于妻子，前者地位更高，在日本就具有更大的特权和责任。这些人成为一家之长时可以召开家庭会议，对于婚姻之类的大事进行决断，这个决定不一定被欣然接受，但是所有的人都会为了家族更高的价值而服从，这并不是服从于某一个人的权威。

日本人将这种在家庭中学到的等级制的行为习惯运用到了社会经济政治各个领域中。不管实际上日本人之间的支配关系如何，表面都要遵守长尊幼卑的等级关系。日本人既会反对暴政，也会无条件地对家族服从和表示尊敬，我们要从经济政治等方面全面了解日本人的等级制观念。

日本人从中国学习先进文化，但等级制并非来自中国。中国朝代更迭不断，而日本的天皇则是至高无上的，没有发生过改变。日本的[1]国家权力争夺发生在封建主和家臣之间，自源赖朝取得国家权力之后，在日本确立了将军的幕府统治，而天皇仅仅是一个傀儡。德川家[2]康的家族则成为日本最后一个将军家族。

德川幕府时期，日本国内仍有很多拥有自主权的封建主，只是对这些封建主采取了一定的限制措施。在封建主下，日本社会被分为四个等级，即士、农、工、商。四等之下的则是贱民，贱民在这个国家没有任何地位，商人在日本的封建社会中也仅仅高于贱民，德川幕府闭关锁国，严重制约着商人的发展。

而日本的第一等级武士可以佩刀，依赖于其所效忠的领主，但是俸禄并不多。武士也会从事一些艺术活动，但不参与生产，德川幕府用法律维护了武士的等级地位。

日本农民的优势在于其拥有土地，但同时也承担着沉重的赋税，因此日本农民为了生存不得不控制家庭人口的规模。不过在苛捐杂税的重压下，农民暴动和反抗是难免的。尽管农民的反抗诉求也可以得到有利自身的判决，但其带头人仍然难以免除反抗等级制的惩罚。

德川幕府还注重控制封建主之间的关系，对他们的联姻、财政都有严格的制约，当然将军的这些统治都是以天皇的名义进行的，天皇没有实权，但依然处于等级制的顶端，作为神圣的象征，并不参与具体的行政事务。

日本人在等级制之下所有的行为细节都受到了严格的限制和规定，任何人都必须遵循这个社会的准则。不过日本的等级制也存在变通的地方，那就是低等级的商人可以通过买地或者入赘武士家族跻身更高的等级。也正是由于日本的不同阶级之间可以通婚，所以中产阶层没有向欧洲那样发展起来，而是与武士阶层联合。

这时整个日本社会陷入了商人的债务危机之中，但此时革命的口号仍然没有得到接受，改革似乎并不可能，不过50年后日本的迅速崛起已经说明，日本人已经选择了这一新的道路。

NY ATTEMPT to understand the Japanese must begin with their

version of what it means to‘take one's proper station.'Their A

reliance upon order and hierarchy and our faith in freedom and equality are poles apart and it is hard for us to give hierarchy its just due as a possible social mechanism. Japan's confidence in hierarchy is basic in her whole notion of man's relation to his fellow man and of man's relation to the State and it is only by describing some of their national institutions like the family，the State，religious and economic life that it is possible for us to understand their view of life.

The Japanese have seen the whole problem of international relations in terms of their version of hierarchy just as they have seen their internal problems in the same light. For the last decade they have pictured themselves as attaining the apex of that pyramid，and now that this position belongs instead to the Western Nations，their view of hierarchy just as certainly underlies their acceptance of the present dispensation.Their international documents have constantly stated the weight they attach to it.The preamble to the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy which Japan signed in 1940 reads：‘The Governments of Japan，Germany and Italy consider it as the condition precedent to any lasting peace that all nations of the world be given each its proper station……'and the Imperial Rescript given on the signing of the Pact said the same thing again：

To enhance our great righteousness in all the earth and to make of the world one household is the great injunction bequeathed by our Imperial Ancestors and we lay this to heart day and night. In the stupendous crisis now confronting the world it appears that war and confusion will be endlessly aggravated and mankind suffer incalculable disasters.We fervently hope that disturbances will cease and peace be restored as soon as possible……We are therefore deeply gratified that this pact has been concluded between the Three Powers.

The task of enabling each nation to find its proper place and all individuals to live in peace and security is of the greatest magnitude. It is unparalleled in history.This goal is still far distant……

On the very day of the attack on Pearl Harbor，too，the Japanese envoys handed to Secretary of State Cordell Hull a most explicit statement on this point：

It is the immutable policy of the Japanese Government……to enable each nation to find its proper place in the world……The Japanese Government cannot tolerate the perpetuation of the present situation since it runs directly counter to Japan's fundamental policy to enable each nation to enjoy its proper station in the world.

This Japanese memorandum was in response to Secretary Hull's a few days previous which had invoked American principles just as basic and honored in the United States as hierarchy is inJapan. Secretary Hull enumerated four：inviolability of sovereignty and of territorial integrity；nonintervention in other nations'internal affairs；reliance on international co-operation and conciliation；and the principle of equality.These are all major points in the American faith in equal and inviolable rights and are the principles on which we believe daily life should be based no less than international relations.Equality is the highest，most moral American basis for hopes for a better world.It means to us freedom from tyranny，from interference，and from unwanted impositions.It means equality before the law and the right to better one's condition in life.It is the basis for the rights of man as they are organized in the world we know.We uphold the virtue of equality even when we violate it and we fight hierarchy with a righteous indignation.

It has been so ever since America was a nation at all. Jefferson wrote it into the Declaration of Independence，and the Bill of Rights incorporated in the Constitution is based on it.These formal phrases of the public documents of a new nation were important just because they reflected a way of life that was taking shape in the daily living of men and women on this continent，a way of life that was strange to Europeans.One of the great documents of international reporting is the volume a young Frenchman，Alexis de Tocqueville，wrote on this subject of equality after he had visited the United States in the early eighteen-thirties.He was an intelligent and sympathetic observer who was able to see much good in thisalien world of America.For it was alien.The young de Tocqueville had been bred in the aristocratic society of France which within the memory of still active and influential men had first been jolted and shocked by the French Revolution and then by the new and drastic laws of Napoleon.He was generous in his appreciation of a strange new order of life in America but he saw it through the eyes of a French aristocrat and his book was a report to the Old World on things to come.The United States，he believed，was an advance post of developments which would take place，though with differences，in Europe also.

He reported therefore at length on this new world. Here people really considered themselves the equals of others.Their social intercourse was on a new and easy footing.They fell into conversation as man to man.Americans did not care about the little attentions of a hierarchal etiquette；they did not demand them as their due nor offer them to others.They liked to say they owed nothing to any man.There was no family here in the old aristocratic or Roman sense，and the social hierarchy which had dominated the Old World was gone.These Americans trusted equality as they trusted nothing else；even liberty，he said，they often in practice let fly out of the window while they looked the other way.But they lived equality.

It is invigorating for Americans to see their forebears through the eyes of this stranger，writing about our way of life more than acentury ago. There have been many changes in our country but the main outlines have not altered.We recognize，as we read，that America in 1830 was already America as we know it.There have been，and there still are，those in this country who，like Alexander Hamilton in Jefferson's day，are in favor of a more aristocratic ordering of society.But even the Hamiltons recognize that our way of life in this country is not aristocratic.

When we stated to Japan therefore just before Pearl Harbor the high moral bases on which the United States based her policy in the Pacific we were voicing our most trusted principles. Every step in the direction in which we pointed would according to our convictions improve a still imperfect world.The Japanese，too，when they put their trust in‘proper station'were turning to the rule of life which had been ingrained in them by their own social experience.Inequality has been for centuries the rule of their organized life at just those points where it is most predictable and most accepted.Behavior that recognizes hierarchy is as natural to them as breathing.It is not，however，a simple Occidental authoritarianism.Both those who exercise control and those who are under others'control act in conformity to a tradition which is unlike our own，and now that the Japanese have accepted the high hierarchal place of American authority in their country it is even more necessary for us to get the clearest possible idea of their conventions.Only so can we picture to ourselves the way in whichthey are likely to act in their present situation.

Japan for all its recent Westernization is still an aristocratic society. Every greeting，every contact must indicate the kind and degree of social distance between men.Every time a man says to another‘Eat'or‘Sit down'he uses different words if he is addressing someone familiarly or is speaking to an inferior or to a superior.There is a different‘you'that must be used in each case and the verbs have different stems.The Japanese have，in other words，what is called a‘respect language，'as many other peoples do in the Pacific，and they accompany it with proper bows and kneelings.All such behavior is governed by meticulous rules and conventions；it is not merely necessary to know to whom one bows but it is necessary to know how much one bows.A bow that is right and proper to one host would be resented as an insult by another who stood in a slightly different relationship to the bower.And bows range all the way from kneeling with forehead lowered to the hands placed flat upon the floor，to the mere inclination of head and shoulders.One must learn，and learn early，how to suit the obeisance to each particular case.

It is not merely class differences which must be constantly recognized by appropriate behavior，though these are important. Sex and age，family ties and previous dealings between two persons all enter into the necessary calculations.Even between the same two persons different degrees of respect will be called for on differentoccasions：a civilian may be on familiar terms with another and not bow to him at all，but when he wears a military uniform his friend in civilian clothes bows to him.Observance of hierarchy is an art which requires the balancing of innumerable factors，some of which in any particular case may cancel each other out and some of which may be additive.

There are of course persons between whom there is relatively little ceremony. In the United States these people are one's own family circle.We shed even the slight formalities of our etiquette when we come home to the bosom of our family.In Japan it is precisely in the family where respect rules are learned and meticulously observed.While the mother still carries the baby strapped to her back she will push his head down with her hand，and his first lessons as a toddler are to observe respect behavior to his father or older brother.The wife bows to her husband，the child bows to his father，younger brothers bow to elder brothers，the sister bows to all her brothers of whatever age.It is no empty gesture.It means that the one who bows acknowledges the right of the other to have his way in things he might well prefer to manage himself，and the one who receives the bow acknowledges in his turn certain responsibilities incumbent upon his station.Hierarchy based on sex and generation and primogeniture are part and parcel of family life.

Filial piety is，of course，a high ethical law which Japan shares with China，and Chinese formulations of it were early adopted inJapan along with Chinese Buddhism，Confucian ethics and secular Chinese culture in the sixth and seventh centuries A. D.The character of filial piety，however，was inevitably modified to suit the different structure of the family in Japan.In China，even today，one owes loyalty to one's vast extended clan.It may number tens of thousands of people over whom it has jurisdiction and from whom it receives support.Conditions differ in different parts of that vast country but in large parts of China all people in any village are members of the same clan.Among all of China's 450，000，000 inhabitants there are only 470 surnames and all people with the same surname count themselves in some degree clan-brothers.

Over a whole area all people may be exclusively of one clan and，in addition，families living in far-away cities are their clan fellows.In populous areas like Kwangtung all the clan members unite in keeping up great clan-halls and on stated days they venerate as many as a thousand ancestral tablets of dead clan members stem ming from a common forebear.Each clan owns property，lands and temples and has clan funds which are used to pay for the education of any promising clan son.It keeps track of dispersed members and publishes elaborate genealogies which are brought up to date every decade or so to show the names of those who have a right to share in its privileges.It has ancestral laws which might even forbid them to surrender family criminals to the State if the clan was not in agreement with the authorities.In Imperial times these greatcommunities of semi-autonomous clans were governed in the name of the larger State as casually as possible by easygoing mandarinates headed by rotating State appointees who were foreigners in the area.

All this was different in Japan. Until the middle of the nineteenth century onlynoble families and warrior（samurai）families were allowed to use surnames.Surnames were fundamental in the Chinese clan system and without these，or some equivalent，clan organization cannot develop.One of these equivalents in some tribes is keeping a genealogy.But in Japan only the upper classes kept genealogies and even in these they kept the record，as Daughters of the American Revolution do in the United States，backward in time from the present living person，not downward in time to include every contemporary who stemmed from an original ancestor.It is a very different matter.Besides，Japan was a feudal country.Loyalty was due，not to a great group of relatives，but to a feudal lord.He was resident overlord，and the contrast with the temporary bureaucratic mandarins of China，who were always strangers in their districts，could not have been greater.What was important in Japan was that one was of the fief of Satsuma or the fief of Hizen.A man's ties wefe to his fief.

Another way of institutionalizing clans is through the worship of remote ancestors or of clan gods at shrines or holy places. This would have been possible for the Japanese‘common people'evenwithout surnames and genealogies.But in Japan there is no cult of veneration of remote ancestors and at the shrines where‘common people'worship all villagers join together without having to prove their common ancestry.They are called the‘children'of their shrine-god，but they are‘children'because they live in his territory.Such village worshipers are of course related to each other as villagers in any part of the world are after generations of fixed residence but they are not a tight clan group descended from a common ancestor.

The reverence due to ancestors is paid at a quite different shrine in the family living room where only six or seven recent dead are honored. Among all classes in Japan obeisance is done daily before this shrine and food set out for parents and grandparents and close relatives remembered in the flesh，who are represented in the shrine by little miniature gravestones.Even in the cemetery the markers on the graves of great-grandparents are no longer relettered and the identity even of the third ancestral generation sinks rapidly into oblivion.Family ties in Japan are whittled down almost to Occidental proportions and the French family is perhaps the nearest equivalent.‘Filial piety'in Japan，therefore，is a matter within a limited face-to-face family. It means taking one's proper station according to generation，sex，and age within a group which includes hardly more than one's father and father's father，their brothers and theirdescendants.Even in important houses，where larger groups may be included，the family splits up into separate lines and younger sons establish branch families.Within this narrow face-to-face group the rules that regulate‘proper station'are meticulous.There is strict subservience to elders until they elect to go into formal retirement（inkyo）.Even today a father of grown sons，if his own father has not retired，puts through no transaction without having it approved by the old grandfather.Parents make and break their children’s marriages even when the children are thirty and forty years old.The father as male head of the household is served first at meals，goes first to the family bath，and receives with a nod the deep bows of his family.There is a popular riddle in Japan which might be translated into our conundrum form：‘Why is a son who wants to offer advice to his parents like a Buddhist priest who wants to have hair on the top of his head？’（Buddhist priests had a tonsure.）The answer is，‘However much he wants to do it，he can’t.’

Proper station means not only differences of generation but differences of age. When the Japanese want to express utter confusion，they say that something is‘neither elder brother nor younger brother.'It is like our saying that something is neither fish nor fowl，for to the Japanese a man should keep his character as elder brother as drastically as a fish should stay in water.The eldest son is the heir.Travelers speak of‘that air of responsibility which the eldest son so early acquires in Japan.'The eldest son shares to ahigh degree in the prerogatives of the father.In the old days his younger brother would have been inevitably dependent upon him in time；nowadays，especially in towns and villages，it is he who will stay at home in the old rut while his younger brothers will perhaps press forward and get more education and a better income.But old habits of hierarchy are strong.

Even in political commentary today the traditional prerogatives of elder brothers are vividly stated in discussions of Greater East Asia policy. In the spring of 1942 a Lieutenant Colonel，speaking for the War Office，said on the subject of the Co-prosperity Sphere：‘Japan is their elder brother and they are Japan's younger brothers.This fact must be brought home to the inhabitants of the occupied territories.Too much consideration shown for the inhabitants might engender in their minds the tendency to presume on Japan's kindness with pernicious effects on Japanese rule.'The elder brother，in other words，decides what is good for his younger brother and should not show‘too much consideration'in enforcing it.

Whatever one's age，one's position in the hierarchy depends on whether one is male or female. The Japanese woman walks behind her husband and has a lower status.Even women who on occasions when they wear American clothes walk alongside and precede him through a door，again fall to the rear when they have donned their kimonos.The Japanese daughter of the family must get along as best she can while the presents，the attentions，and the money foreducation go to her brothers.Even when higher schools were established for young women the prescribed courses were heavily loaded with instruction in etiquette and bodily movement.Serious intellectual training was not on a par with boys'，and one principal of such a school，advocating for his upper middle class students some instruction in European languages，based his recommendation on the desirability of their being able to put their husband's books back in the bookcase right side up after they had dusted them.

Nevertheless，the Japanese women have great freedom as compared to most other Asiatic countries and this is not just a phase of Westernization. There never was female foot binding as in the Chinese upper classes，and Indian women today exclaim over Japanese women going in and out of shops，up and down the streets and never secreting themselves.Japanese wives do the family shopping and carry the family purse.If money fails，it is they who must select something from the household and carry it to the pawnshop.A woman runs her servants，has great say in her children's marriages，and when she is a mother-in-law commonly runs her household realm with as firm a hand as if she had never been，for half her life，a nodding violet.

The prerogatives of generation，sex，and age in Japan are great. But those who exercise these privileges act as trustees rather than as arbitrary autocrats.The father or the elder brother is responsible for the household，whether its members are living，dead，or yet unborn.He must make weighty decisions and see that they are carried out.He does not，however，have unconditional authority.He is expected to act responsibly for the honor of the house.He recalls to his son and younger brother the legacy of the family，both in material and in spiritual things，and he challenges them to be worthy.Even if he is a peasant he invokes noblesse oblige to the family forebears，and if he belongs to more exalted classes the weight of responsibility to the house becomes heavier and heavier.The claims of the family come before the claims of the individual.

In any affair of importance the head of a family of any standing calls a family council at which the matter is debated. For a conference on a betrothal，for instance，members of the family may come from distant parts of Japan.The process of coming to a decision involves all the imponderables of personality.A younger brother or a wife may sway the verdict.The master of the house saddles himself with great difficulties if he acts without regard for group opinion.Decisions，of course，may be desperately unwelcome to the individual whose fate is being settled.His elders，however，who have themselves submitted in their lifetimes to decisions of family councils，are impregnable in demanding of their juniors what they have bowed to in their day.The sanction behind their demand is very different from that which，both in law and in custom，gives the Prussian father arbitrary rights over his wife and children.What is demanded is not for this reason less exacting in Japan，but theeffects are different.The Japanese do not learn in their home life to value arbitrary authority，and the habit of submitting to it easily is not fostered.Submission to the will of the family is demanded in the name of a supreme value in.which，however onerous its requirements，all of them have a stake.It is demanded in the name of a common loyalty.

Every Japanese learns the habit of hierarchy first in the bosom of his family and what he learns there he applies in wider fields of economic life and of government. He learns that a person gives all deference to those who outrank him in assigned‘proper place，'no matter whether or not they are the really dominant persons in the group.Even a husband who is dominated by his wife，or an elder brother who is dominated by a younger brother，receives no less formal deference.Formal boundaries between prerogatives are not broken down just because some other person is operating behind the scenes.The façade is not changed to suit the facts of dominance.It remains inviolable.There is even a certain tactical advantage in operating without the trappings of formal status；one is in that case less vulnerable.

The Japanese learn，too，in their family experience that the greatest weight that can be given to a decision comes from the family conviction that it maintains the family honor.The decision is not a decree enforced by an iron fist at the whim of a tyrant who happens to be head of the family.He is more nearly a trustee of a material and spiritual estate which is important to themall and which demands of them all that they subordinate their personal wills to its requirements.The Japanese repudiate the use of the mailed fist，but they do not for that reason subordinate themselves any the less to the demands of the family，nor do they for that reason give to those with assigned status any less extreme deference.Hierarchy in the family is maintained even though the family elders have little opportunity to be strong-armed autocrats.

Such a bald statement of hierarchy in the Japanese family does not，when Americans read it with their different standards of interpersonal behavior，do justice to the acceptance of strong and sanctioned emotional ties in Japanese families. There is very considerable solidarity in the household and how they achieve it is one of the subjects of this book.Meanwhile it is important in trying to understand their demand for hierarchy in the wider fields of government and economic life to recognize how thoroughly the habit is learned in the bosom of the family.

The hierarchal arrangements of Japanese life have been as drastic in relations between the classes as they have been in the family. In all her national history Japan has been a strong class and caste society，and a nation which has a centuries-long habit of caste arrangements has certain strengths and certain weaknesses which are of the utmost importance.In Japan caste has been the rule of life through all her recorded history and even back in the seventh centuly A.D.she was already adapting the ways of life sheborrowed from casteless China to suit her own hierarchal culture.In that era of the seventh and eighth centuries，the Japanese Emperor and his court set themselves the task of enriching Japan with the customs of the high civilization that had greeted the amazed eyes of their envoys in the great kingdom of China.They went about it with incomparable energy.Before that time Japan had not even had a written language；in the seventh century she took the ideographs of China and used them to write her own totally different language.She had had a religion which named forty thousand gods who presided over mountains and villages and gave people good fortune—a folk religion which with all its subsequent changes has survived as modern Shinto.In the seventh century，Japan adopted Buddhism wholesale from China as a religion‘excellent for protecting the State.'She had had no great permanent architecture，either public or private；the Emperors built a new capital city，Nara，on the model of a Chinese capital，and great ornate Buddhist temples and vast Buddhist monasteries were erected in Japan after the Chinese pattern.The Emperors introduced titles and ranks and laws their envoys reported to them from China.It is difficult to find anywhere in the history of the world any other such successfully planned importation of civilization by a sovereign nation.

Japan，however，from the very first，failed to reproduce China's casteless social organization. The official titles Japan adopted were in China given to administrators who had passed the Stateexaminations，but in Japan they were given to hereditary nobles and feudal lords.They became part of the caste arrangements of Japan.Japan was laid out in a great number of semi-sovereign fiefs whose lords were constantly jealous of each other's powers，and the social arrangements that mattered were those that had to do with the prerogatives of lords and vassals and retainers.No matter how assiduously Japan imported civilization from China she could not adopt ways of life which put in the place of her hierarchy anything like China's administrative bureaucracy or her system of extended clans which united people from the most different walks of life into one great clan.Nor did Japan adopt the Chinese idea of a secular Emperor.The Japanese name for the Imperial House is‘Those who dwell above the clouds'and only persons of this family can be Emperor.Japan has never had a change of dynasty，as China so often had.The Emperor was inviolable and his person was sacred.The Japanese Emperors and their courts who introduced Chinese culture in Japan no doubt could not even imagine what the Chinese arrangements were in these matters and did not guess what changes they were making.

In spite of all Japan's cultural importations from China，therefore，this new civilization only paved the way for centuries of conflict as to which of these hereditary lords and vassals was in control of the country. Before the eighth century had ended the noble Fujiwara family had seized dominance and had thrust theEmperor into the background.When，as time went on，the Fujiwaras'dominance was disputed by feudal lords and the whole country plunged into civil war，one of these，the famous Yoritomo Minamoto，vanquished all rivals and became actual ruler of the country under an old military title，the Shogun，which in full means literally‘Barbarian-subduing Generalissimo.'This title，as was usual in Japan，Yoritomo made hereditary in the Minamoto family for as long as his descendants could hold the other feudal lords in check.The Emperor became an impotent figure.His chief importance was that the Shogun still depended upon him for his ritual investiture.He had no civil power.The actual power was held by a military camp，as it was called，which tried to hold its dominance by armed force over unruly fiefs.Each feudal lord，the daimyo，had his armed retainers，the samurai，whose swords were at his disposal，and they were always ready in periods of disorder to dispute the‘proper place'of a rival fief or of the ruling Shogun.

In the sixteenth century civil war had become endemic. After decades of disorder the great Ieyasu won out over all rivals and in 1603 became the first Shogun of the House of Tokugawa.The Shogunate remained in Ieyasu's line for two centuries and a half and was ended only in 1868 when the‘dual rule'of Emperor and Shogun was abolished at the beginning of the modern period.In many ways this long Tokugawa Era is one of the most remarkable in history.It maintained an armed peace in Japan up to the very lastgeneration before it ended and it put into effect a centralized administration that admirably served the Tokugawas'purposes.

Ieyasu was faced with a most difficult problem and he did not choose an easy solution. The lords of some of the strongest fiefs had been against him in the civil war and had bowed to him only after a final disastrous defeat.These were the so-called Outside Lords.These lords he left in control of their fiefs and of their samurai，and indeed of all the feudal lords of Japan they continued to have the greatest autonomy in their domains.Nevertheless，he excluded them from the honor of being his vassals and from all important functions.These important positions were reserved for the Inside Lords，Ieyasu's supporters in the civil war.To maintain this difficult regime the Tokugawas relied upon a strategy of keeping the feudal lords，the daimyos，from accumulating power and of preventing any possible combination among them which might threaten the Shogun's control Not only did the Tokugawas not abolish the feudal scheme；for the purpose of maintaining peace in Japan and dominance of the House of Tokugawa，they attempted to strengthen it and make it more rigid.

Japanese feudal society was elaborately stratified and each man's status was fixed by inheritance. The Tokugawas solidified this system and regulated the details of each caste's daily behavior.Every family head had to post on his doorway his class position and the required facts about his hereditary status.The clothes he couldwear，the foods he could buy，and the kind of house he could legally live in were regulated according to this inherited rank.Below the Imperial Family and the court nobles，there were four Japanese castes ranked in hierarchal order：the warriors（samurai），the farmers，the artisans，and the merchants.Below these，again，were the outcasts.The most numerous and famous of these outcasts were the Eta，workers in tabooed trades.They were scavengers，buriers of the executed，skinners of dead animals and tanners of hides.They were Japan's untouchables，or，more exactly，their uncountables，for even the mileage of roads through their villages went uncounted as if the land and the inhabitants of the area did not exist at all.They were desperately poor，and，though guaranteed the exercise of their trades，they were outside the formal structure.

The merchants ranked just above the outcasts. However strange this seems to Americans，it was highly realistic in a feudal society.A merchant class is always disruptive of feudalism.As business men become respected and prosperous，feudalism decays.When the Tokugawas，by the most drastic laws any nation has ever enforced，decreed the isolation of Japan in the seventeenth century，they cut the ground from under the feet of the merchants.Japan had had an overseas trade all up and down the coast of China and Korea and a class of traders had been inevitably developing.The Tokugawas stopped all this by making it an offense worthy of capital punishment to build or operate any boat larger than a certain size.The small boats allowed could not cross to the continent or carry loads of trade goods.Domestic trade was severely restricted，too，by customs barriers which were set up on the borders of each fief with strict rules against letting goods in or out.Other laws were directed toward emphasizing the merchants'low social position.Sumptuary laws regulated the clothes they could wear，the umbrellas they could carry，the amount they could spend for a wedding or a funeral.They could not live in a samurai district.They had no legal protection against the swords of the samurai，the privileged warriors.The Tokugawa policy of keeping the merchants in inferior stations failed of course in a money economy，and Japan at that period was run on a money economy.But it was attempted.

The two classes which are appropriate to a stable feudalism，the warriors and the farmers，the Tokugawa regime froze into rigid forms. During the civil wars that were finally ended by Ieyasu，the great war-lord，Hideyoshi，had already completed，by his famous‘sword hunt，'the separation of these two classes.He had disarmed the peasants and given to the samurai the sole right to wear swords.The warriors could no longer be farmers nor artisans nor merchants.Not even the lowest of them could any longer legally be a producer；he was a member of a parasitic class which drew its annual rice stipend from taxes levied upon the peasants.The daimyo handled this rice and distributed to each samurai retainer his allotted income.There was no question about where the samurai had to look forsupport；he was wholly dependent upon his lord.In earlier eras of Japanese history strong ties between the feudal chief and his warriors had been forged in almost ceaseless war between the fiefs；in the Tokugawa era of peace the ties became economic.For the warrior-retainer，unlike his European counterpart，was not a sub-seigneur owning his own land and serfs nor was he a soldier of fortune.He was a pensioner on a set stipend which had been fixed for his family line at the beginning of the Tokugawa Era.It was not large.Japanese scholars have estimated that the average stipend of all samurai was about what farmers were earning and that was certainly bare subsistence.Nothing could be more to the family's disadvantage than division of this stipend among heirs and in consequence the samurai limited their families.Nothing could be more galling to them than prestige dependent on wealth and display，so they laid great stress in their code on the superior virtues of frugality.

A great gulf separated the samurai from the other three classes：the farmers，the artisans and the merchants. These last three were‘common people.'The samurai were not.The swords the samurai wore as their prerogative and sign of caste were not mere decorations.They had the right to use them on the common people.They had traditionally done so before Tokugawa times and the laws of Ieyasu merely sanctioned old customs when they decreed：‘Common people who behave unbecomingly to the samurai or whodo

试读结束[说明：试读内容隐藏了图片]

下载完整电子书