A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (90 page)

Confucianism, with its ideals of harmony and order and ‘knowing one’s place’, has played a significant part in shaping Japanese attitudes. It seems a basic part of human nature – at least in the male-dominated historical
world – to be ambitious and competitive and enjoy status. Confucius knew this, and so do the Japanese. Throughout their history they have valued hierarchy and ranking. They are of the view rather that it is enforced equality among unequal beings that is unnatural and a source of unhappiness and frustration. It can dampen ambition and undermine achievement, and it is not helpful to the nation to have weak people treated as the equal of strong people. The Japanese have long recognised inequalities openly, rather than trying to mask them and pretending they do not exist. This was one reason Darwinism appealed so much. At a national level, they are quite happy to take on the rest of the world to prove themselves the fittest, the nation who should top the hierarchy. If they lose out, then they will learn from whichever nation bested them and keep trying till eventually they make Number One – for they feel that that is ‘their place’. Their problem has been in recent times to maintain this competitive spirit without the unwanted trappings of arrogance and ideas of racial supremacy, and without sacrificing the well-being of the population.

Within the nation, however, hierarchical competition could easily promote an unhealthy type of individualism, so competition is waged in safer, more guided ways, particularly in education. Unlike the situation so frequently and so tragically encountered in the western world, those who top the class in school are not put down as ‘nerds’ or elitists – they are genuinely respected. A hard worker is similarly respected. There is almost none of the mentality often found in the west of trying to get away with as little as possible. A shirker is treated with contempt. It is in such terms of winning respect, both by peers and superiors, that the hierarchical competition is usually waged within Japan, and ranking of a type not always detected by westerners is conferred. It is a type of hierarchy that strengthens the group rather than weakens it.

Japan’s main strengths, then, may be summarised as:

•
pragmatism – especially flexibility and an ability to compromise and adapt;

•
a respect for the power of learning, particularly learning the strengths of others;

•
a respect for ambition and achievement, including hard work;

•
a strong sense of nationhood;

•
an appreciation of the strength of the group;

•
a strong resilience;

•
an acceptance of authority;

•
an acceptance of hierarchy and inequality among individuals.

Of course, as indicated earlier, playing to national strengths is not always an easy game. Strengths are often two-edged swords, and at the same time potential weaknesses. Proper balance and fine-tuning are important. For example, national pride can very easily become nationalistic arrogance and chauvinism. Achievement-orientation can become ruthlessness, or a single-mindedness of purpose that can in turn become a narrowness of vision and an inability to know when to stop. Acceptance of authority and of limits on individual rights can lead to totalitarianism. Acceptance of hierarchy can lead to abuse of ‘inferiors’. A readiness to learn can be abused by indoctrination. Learning from others can become a problem when there seem to be no others left to learn from. Pragmatism can lead to a loss of sense of direction, and in a moral sense to an unhealthy tolerance of corruption. Focus on the group can lead to a lack of responsibility at individual level.

Japan has discovered all of these negative potentials at some point or other, particularly during the war and to a lesser extent again in the 1980s and 1990s. It has other weaknesses too, such as a sense of fatalism that can on the one hand suddenly undermine achievement-orientation and a sense of personal responsibility and on the other permit ideas of racial supremacy – provided it is ultimately Japan’s – as somehow ordained by destiny. Its lack of an obvious sense of evil may well have helped its pragmatic approach to life but it has also made it easier for ‘undesirability’ to be judged in other terms than moral. These ‘other terms’ have, at a fairly harmless level, often simply meant breach of the rules, but a deeper level they have at times meant impurity. This has in the past combined with Japan’s high degree of homogeneity to produce a belief that Japanese are pure, while the rest of the world is impure.

Japan has had its problems, certainly, but what nation has not? It is having a particularly problem-plagued time at the moment as it struggles to re-orient itself as a different style of superpower, one that has no other obvious models to learn from – at least not of the traditional type. It would seem clear that it has indeed suffered from at least one of the imbalances mentioned above, namely narrowness of vision, in that it has focused too narrowly since the war on economic expansion. In the present day, many of its traditional strengths may not be appropriate, though some will. A respect for learning, for example, would seem a timeless quality, and pragmatism and flexibility should eventually help in finding new goals and new approaches.

Despite the war and the recent dent in its image as an economic superpower, Japan has earned an indelible place in history for its remarkable
achievements. Vogel may have over-stated the case, but there are still many lessons that the world can learn from this extraordinary nation – from its mistakes, as well as its successes.

The eyes of the world will be on Japan following the catastrophic T
hoku Earthquake of March 2011, a double natural disaster of earthquake and tsunami, further compounded by leakage of radioactive material from damaged reactors – the last being a man-made disaster, though the root cause was the earthquake. The whole event shows that even mighty superpowers can fall prey to a seemingly indifferent Nature, however powerful their economy. With some 20,000 fatalities, damage to literally millions of homes, and whole towns obliterated, it will take a long time to get back to some degree of normalcy.

Japan is not just an economic superpower but also a technological superpower, and no doubt this will help in recovery and rebuilding. But it will take more than money and technology: it will also require great commitment by the people of Japan, and it will require leadership. The latter is a serious problem. One of Japan’s mistakes, in my view, has been to let the government become a merry-go-round of weak political leaders. During the Heisei period, the typical prime minister has stayed in office only around a year or so, and many have been associated with scandals or similar questionable behaviour. The Japanese public deserve better. A superpower needs super leadership, leadership from people they can respect. Therein lies the real challenge for Japan – and indeed, for any aspiring superpower.

N
OTES

Part One: From the Stone Age to Statehood

1
For example, the Tsuchigumo people, or ‘earth spiders’, in Ch. 52 of the
Kojiki
.

2
Philippi 68, p17.

3
These three episodes are from the
Kojiki
, Chs 22, 21, and 79 respectively.

4
See Okamura (92, p50) regarding claims of a million years, Katayama (96, p19) regarding claims of 500,000 years, and Pearson (92, p38) regarding claims of 200,000 years.

5
Pearson 92, p64.

6
See Bowles 83, p34, Pearson 92, p273, and Farris 85, p43 and p47, regarding life expectancy.

7
Pearson 92, p35. For a discussion of the development of the discipline see Barnes 90.

8
15,000-year-old pottery has been found at Shinonouchi in Nagano, and Odai-Yamamoto in Aomori, marking the start-date of the period. Ceramic figurines – as opposed to vessels – of twice this age have been found in eastern Europe.

Opinion is divided as to whether J
mon pottery is a local Japanese invention (for example Kidder 93, p56), or was introduced from the mainland from a source yet to be discovered (for example Aikens and Higuchi 82, p114 and p182).

9
Such is the view of Morimoto Tetsur
, an expert on comparative civilisation. He is opposed by scholars such as Sahara Makoto, former director of the National Museum of Japanese History.

10
Tsukada 86. See also Barnes 93a, pp89–91.

11
The
Japan Times
, 21 August 1997.

12
Higuchi 86, p123. Rice-grains have been found in Ky
sh
dating back to about 1250 BC, but the earliest evidence of actual cultivation is around 1000 BC.