Japanese Key Words and Core Cultural Values

Abstract

Abstract In his combative book The myth of Japanese uniqueness, Dale (1986) argues that there is nothing “particularly unique” about Japanese culture, and he attacks the long tradition of nihonjiron, that is, discussions attempting “to define the specificity of Japanese identity.” Some of the figures cited by Dale in this connection are indeed striking (“According to the Nomura survey, in the roughly 30 years from 1946 to 1978, approximately 700 titles were published on the theme of Japanese identity, a remarkable 25% of which were issued in the peak three year period from 1976to 1978” [15]). I would agree that there is nothing “particularly” unique about Japanese culture, for every culture is unique. For this very reason, however, I cannot agree with the claim that Japanese uniqueness is a myth. It is true, of course, that to study a culture in its uniqueness we need an appropriate methodology. It is also true that “unique systems are intelligible only in reference to wider, general propositions” (33), and that “the unique can only be conceptualized if it has an element of recurrency” (34). But this is not a reason NOT to study Japanese culture in its uniqueness, or to try to “locate Japan uniquely in a universal map” (Lebra 1976:xiv). The fact that “logically, all societies might be placed uniquely on a universal map” (Dale 1986:33) makes the project of studying Japan in this perspective all the more interesting; and the necessary “recurrent elements” are provided by universal human concepts, lexicalized in all the languages of the world.