The Japanese Mentality

Abstract

WHAT IS A NATIONAL MENTALITY, and how deep does it go? There is such a thing as a national mentality that characterizes 'tthe classes-that is, the upper classes. It differs widely from nation to nation. The Junker mentality differs widely from the English aristocratic mentality and still more widely from the captain-of-industry mentality. The Samurai mentality differs widely from the West Point mentality. But how about the mentality of Hans and Fritz, of Vincente, Pablo, Hashimura, Chen Chi, Bill Bucklin, humble peasants or farmers, laborers, artisans? Why, their mentality is surprisingly alike, and surprisingly like the mentality of persons of similar station in ancient Greece and Rome. What does this mentality of the masses consist in? Ninetenths of it is concerned with the private affair of managing and feeding a family. One may recall Figaro's declaration, that to bring in and lay out his few sous of income required more effort, more thought, more ingenuity than had been employed during a hundred years in managing the finances of the great realm of Spain. Such is the lot of the people of the lowest, and broadest stratum, except in a very limited area of Western civilization. In the remaining tenth of the mentality there is room for religious ideas, superstitions, and the wisdom of life expressed in proverbs and fables. These vary somewhat from nation to nation, but since their content has been sifted through the facts of similar needs, the variation is by no means so great as one might imagine. There is greater variation in attitudes toward authority, running all the way from devoted submission to festering revolt, the latter most apparent where great