The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

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First of all, Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword does a decent job of a difficult task which is to conduct an ethnographical study of a culture and country that one has never lived in. I found the book to be engaging and well-written, if at times slightly protractive and repetitive. I admired the dearth in judgmental statements, and how in her preamble, Benedict emphasized the importance of looking at something with an open-mind or generosity that will allow for better understanding.

Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.

When someone does something for you, even if it is with good intentions, it is important to return the favor in Japanese society. Also, according to the Japanese dictionary, 義理(giri) means “the right course of things, the right way to follow as a person. And, to be obligated or to serve or reward others in a position or as a matter of morality.”

The reason why Japanese people behave modestly with these values is because they were taught in the home at that time. During childhood, children are raised freely, but as they grow a little older and become more sensible, they are taught the rules of the world and trained to follow them. If they don’t follow these rules, even their family will be cold to you. In the past, the family had patriarchal and the power of the father was absolute, and the rules of the world were strictly taught. Nowadays, families have changed and couples work together to raise their children, and although they teach general rules, manners, and etiquette, they do not raise their children as harshly as they did in this era. Summary and my impression Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this chapter or parts of it. b) the author is from the victorious country (Who was it who said that history is written by the victors?) Unfortunately, I have never been exposed to people from other countries except for traveling and English conversation schools, so I can’t really feel it. TrainingRobert Harry Lowie, The German People: A Social Portrait to 1914 (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945); John F. Embree, The Japanese Nation: A Social Survey (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945

The first half of the book was not very interesting because of the difficult expressions, so I summarized my impressions of the second half. 義理(giri): Fulfill your duty. Japan is a culture of “shame,” established not by absolute ethical standards (a culture of “guilt” that relies on conscience), but by relative standards. Ridicule in public and the “shame” of being watched are the roots of Japanese virtue. They do not want to be embarrassed, so they act the exemplary code of conduct. Knowing shame is the best in ethics in Japan. Having read it and feeling a slight hesitancy about it I will begin properly with respect and honour. It is a solid achievement. Benedict was a US anthropologist pottering about when she received a commission in 1944 from the government to write a study of the Japanese with a view to whether they would surrender, and if militarily defeated, if they would fight on, or rebel, or just generally cause a nuisance, and more generally to help get under the Japanese skin which might help an occupation to progress smoothly. Starting from scratch with no knowledge of Japanese she laboured on and the book was published in 1946, so I guess it represents twelve to eighteen months of contentious and solid work. Which is an achievement. The work consisted of reading the secondary literature on Japan, noting things she didn't understand, interviewing Japanese Americans, taking them with her to watch Japanese films and asking them to explain why the plots seemed so strange, reading novels, school books and memoirs - from one of these she cities the daughter of a samurai family who allowed in a missionary school a patch of garden to grow what ever she likes, experiences wild joy at planting potatoes while all her school-fellows plant flowers. Still...this one gets a good rating from me. I rate it not for its objectivity, but for its relative accuracy. Benedict wrote with what materials she had and could obtain, and the result was not so bad. She did claim in the first chapter that Japan is a country of contradictions - "different". That claim alone gives the reader fair warning that she could be wrong in some of her interpretations (and that she could also be right). And this tone resonates in the whole book. She keeps repeating the word "different" that Japan appears quite exotic, even alien, in some parts (just try to grasp "giri"...getting out of Shinjuku Station when you get lost in it seems an easier task). There are a variety of situations in which Japanese people have to fulfill one’s duty, such as in the relationship of master and servant, in family, and in helping each other in the community during weddings and funerals. A mother-in-law teaches her daughter-in-law the etiquette of the house, and the whole village comes together to welcome a daughter-in-law from another village. If you do not fulfill these duties, you will be treated coldly by others.The same characteristic of Japanese society was also written in “Kuki no nyumon”. It says that Japanese people read the situation around them and speak or act in a way that does not disrupt the situation. Pay attention to your surroundings. In a 2002 symposium at The Library of Congress in the United States, Shinji Yamashita, of the department of anthropology at the University of Tokyo, added that there has been so much change since World War II in Japan that Benedict would not recognize the nation she described in 1946. [13] She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. She entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1919, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her Ph.D and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship, and Marvin Opler were among her students and colleagues.