The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Ruth Benedict

Description

This book is a profound and comprehensive presentation of Japanese daily manners and customs, a study and history of human thought discussing Japan's conduct of World War ll. Author Ruth Benedict revealed the intricate views of the Japanese & more with political, religious and economic issues as well as sexual conduct, Geisha, prostitution, and marriage in their daily lives. A classic of cultural anthropology.

Sujets

• Customs
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social Science
• Traditions

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644430
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
by Ruth Benedict

First published in 1946
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword



Patterns of Japanese Culture





by RUTH BENEDICT

Acknowledgements
Japanese men and women who had been born or educatedin Japan and who were living in the United States duringthe war years were placed in a most difficult position. Theywere distrusted by many Americans. I take special pleasure,therefore, in testifying to their help and kindness during thetime when I was gathering the material for this book. Mythanks are due them in very special measure. I am especiallygrateful to my wartime colleague, Robert Hashima.Born in this country, brought up in Japan, he chose to returnto the United States in 1941. He was interned in a WarRelocation Camp, and I met him when he came to Washingtonto work in the war agencies of the United States.
My thanks are also due to the Office of War Information,which gave me the assignment on which I report in thisbook, and especially to Professor George E. Taylor, DeputyDirector for the Far East, and to Commander AlexanderH. Leighton, MC-USNR, who headed the Foreign MoraleAnalysis Division.
I wish to thank also those who have read this book inwhole or in part: Commander Leighton, Professor ClydeKluckhohn and Dr. Nathan Leites, all of whom were in theOffice of War Information during the time I was workingon Japan and who assisted in many ways; Professor ConradArensberg, Dr. Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson andE. H. Norman. I am grateful to all of them for suggestionsand help.
Ruth Benedict
The author wishes to thank the publishers who have givenher permission to quote from their publications: D. Appleton-CenturyCompany, Inc., for permission to quote from Behind the Face of Japan , by Upton Close; Edward Arnoldand Company for permission to quote from Japanese Buddhism ,by Sir Charles Eliot; The John Day Company, Inc.,for permission to quote from My Narrow Isle , by SumieMishima; J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., for permission toquote from Life and Thought of Japan , by YoshisaburoOkakura; Doubleday and Company for permission toquote from A Daughter of the Samurai , by Etsu InagakiSugimoto; Penguin Books, Inc., and the Infantry Journal for permission to quote from an article by Colonel HaroldDoud in How the Jap Army Fights ; Jarrolds Publishers(London), Ltd., for permission to quote from True Face ofJapan , by K. Nohara; The Macmillan Company for permissionto quote from Buddhist Sects of Japan , by E. OberlinSteinilber, and from Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation ,by Lafcadio Hearn; Rinehart and Company, Inc., for permissionto quote from Japanese Nation , by John F. Embree;and The University of Chicago Press for permissionto quote from Suye Mura , by John F. Embree.

1
Assignment: Japan
The Japanese were the most alien enemy the United Stateshad ever fought in an all-out struggle. In no other war witha major foe had it been necessary to take into account suchexceedingly different habits of acting and thinking. LikeCzarist Russia before us in 1905, we were fighting a nationfully armed and trained which did not belong to the Westerncultural tradition. Conventions of war which Western nationshad come to accept as facts of human nature obviouslydid not exist for the Japanese. It made the war in thePacific more than a series of landings on island beaches,more than an unsurpassed problem of logistics. It made it amajor problem in the nature of the enemy. We had to understandtheir behavior in order to cope with it.
The difficulties were great. During the past seventy-fiveyears since Japan’s closed doors were opened, the Japanesehave been described in the most fantastic series of ‘butalso’s’ ever used for any nation of the world. When a seriousobserver is writing about peoples other than the Japaneseand says they are unprecedentedly polite, he is notlikely to add, ‘But also insolent and overbearing.’ Whenhe says people of some nation are incomparably rigid in their behavior, he does not add, ‘But also they adapt themselvesreadily to extreme innovations.’ When he says a peopleare submissive, he does not explain too that they are noteasily amenable to control from above. When he says theyare loyal and generous, he does not declare, ‘But alsotreacherous and spiteful.’ When he says they are genuinelybrave, he does not expatiate on their timidity. When he saysthey act out of concern for others’ opinions, he does notthen go on to tell that they have a truly terrifying conscience.When he describes robot-like discipline in theirArmy, he does not continue by describing the way the soldiersin that Army take the bit in their own teeth even to thepoint of insubordination. When he describes a people whodevote themselves with passion to Western learning, he doesnot also enlarge on their fervid conservatism. When hewrites a book on a nation with a popular cult of aestheticismwhich gives high honor to actors and to artists and lavishes artupon the cultivation of chrysanthemums, that book doesnot ordinarily have to be supplemented by another which isdevoted to the cult of the sword and the top prestige of thewarrior.
All these contradictions, however, are the warp and woofof books on Japan. They are true. Both the sword and thechrysanthemum are a part of the picture. The Japanese are,to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, bothmilitaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigidand adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushedaround, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservativeand hospitable to new ways. They are terribly concernedabout what other people will think of their behavior, and they are also overcome by guilt when other people knownothing of their misstep. Their soldiers are disciplined tothe hilt but are also insubordinate.
When it became so important for America to understandJapan, these contradictions and many others equally blatantcould not be waved aside. Crises were facing us inquick succession. What would the Japanese do? Was capitulationpossible without invasion? Should we bomb theEmperor’s palace? What could we expect of Japanese prisonersof war? What should we say in our propaganda toJapanese troops and to the Japanese homeland which couldsave the lives of Americans and lessen Japanese determinationto fight to the last man? There were violent disagreementsamong those who knew the Japanese best. Whenpeace came, were the Japanese a people who would requireperpetual martial law to keep them in order? Would ourarmy have to prepare to fight desperate bitter-enders inevery mountain fastness of Japan? Would there have to bea revolution in Japan after the order of the French Revolutionor the Russian Revolution before international peacewas possible? Who would lead it? Was the alternative theeradication of the Japanese? It made a great deal of differencewhat our judgments were.
In June, 1944, I was assigned to the study of Japan. I wasasked to use all the techniques I could as a cultural anthropologistto spell out what the Japanese were like. Duringthat early summer our great offensive against Japan hadjust begun to show itself in its true magnitude. People inthe United States were still saying that the war with Japanwould 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 theSolomons were thousands of miles away from their homeislands. Their official communiqués had hardly admittednaval defeats and the Japanese people still regarded themselvesas victors.
In June, however, the situation began to change. Thesecond front was opened in Europe and the military prioritywhich the High Command had for two years and a halfgiven to the European theater paid off. The end of the waragainst Germany was in sight. And in the Pacific our forceslanded on Saipan, a great operation forecasting eventualJapanese defeat. From then on our soldiers were to facethe Japanese army at constantly closer quarters. And weknew well, from the fighting in New Guinea, on Guadalcanal,in Burma, on Attu and Tarawa and Biak, that wewere pitted against a formidable foe.
In June, 1944, therefore, it was important to answer amultitude of questions about our enemy, Japan. Whetherthe issue was military or diplomatic, whether it was raisedby questions of high policy or of leaflets to be dropped behindthe Japanese front lines, every insight was important.In the all-out war Japan was fighting we had to know, notjust the aims and motives of those in power in Tokyo, notjust the long history of Japan, not just economic and militarystatistics; we had to know what their government couldcount on from the people. We had to try to understandJapanese habits of thought and emotion and the patternsinto which these habits fell. We had to know the sanctionsbehind these actions and opinions. We had to put aside for the moment the premises on which we act as Americans andto keep ourselves as far as possible from leaping to the easyconclusion that what we would do in a given situation waswhat they would do.
My assignment was difficult. America and Japan were atwar and it is easy in wartime to condemn wholesale, but farharder to try to see how your enemy looks at life throughhis own eyes. Yet i