The uncertainty of the self: Japan at century's end

World Policy Journal, Summer, 1999 by Masaru Tamamoto

Whether for a foreigner or a native, a knowledge of the rituals and ceremonies that constitute daily life in Japan is the prerequisite for acceptance into society. Such knowledge is acquired only through a long and constant process of socialization, for the rituals and ceremonies of Japanese society point up the complexity and constant flux of relations between individuals.

There is a certain efficiency in societies that emphasize the how over the why, which allows people with conflicting motives to work together. But there are drawbacks. Japanese society at century's end displays an exaggerated dependence on procedural technique as a societal norm. This has diminished the value of honor and morality in public life. Pervasive corruption in politics is manifest; there is neither shame nor guilt among politicians, only the search for technical leeway to prolong their political lives. This amorality extends to how the country deals with the international world. When Korea raised the issue of Koreans forced to serve as "comfort women" for Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, the Japanese government carefully considered which agency, preferably a nongovernmental one, should dispense monetary compensation. In this way, the question of accountability was avoided to the extent possible. Korea raised the issue as a moral problem, Oe pointed out, but Japan reduced it to a technical problem.(16) In other words, a reliance on technique leads to moral ambiguity.

No Room for Dissent

Societies that discourage the expression of individual conscience have little room for dissent. Societies unaccustomed to dissent witness little debate. In these societies, there can be no tradition of exile. Japanese society is imbued with all of these characteristics and has tended to place a high premium on conformity, consensus, and community. For communal men without a strong sense of personal creed, there is no identity outside of community.

Banishment from communal life was considered severe punishment in traditional Japan; exile was the fate of criminals. "Oe is a foreigner!" - this has become the battle cry of Oe's critics, who abhor what they see as his submissiveness toward the West. They argue that his writing is incomprehensible, that he is merely using Japanese words to compose foreign language prose; that his political creed of democracy and pacifism is foreign, for these were imposed upon Japan by a foreign conqueror after the defeat in war; that few Japanese had read him before the Nobel Prize, and it took this foreign recognition for him to be discovered in Japan. What is notable about the furor surrounding Oe's Nobel Prize was the real intellectual debate that ensued.

But the act of branding one's enemy a foreigner, with its echoes of the act of banishment from Japanese community, no longer seems to be as effective a weapon as it was not so long ago. Japanese societal norms are changing; values and lifestyles are becoming increasingly diverse; and from this diversity the freedom to express personal creeds is becoming more common. Dissent and debate are beginning to eat away at the traditional Japanese norms of consensus and conformity. The celebration of Oe's award points to the evolution of a new Japanese identity, and in the process the force of the meaning of banishment from the community that is Japan has been weakened. If communalism has been a source of Japanese ambiguity, dissent and debate are antidotes. A Japan in which morality and honor acquire heightened value may be in the making.