type:Article

This paper examines, from the perspective of a Japanese researcher, Ruth Benedict's characterization of the culture and behavior patterns of the Japanese as a “shame culture” in her famous The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946). First, I demonstrate that the methodological characteristics of the volume lie in its cultural relativism and comparative perspective. This methodology deconstructs the frameworks on which each culture—in this case Japanese and American—are premised, and by doing so is suggestive of new possibilities for crosscultural understanding. Next, I clarify the way in which Benedict grasped the culture and behavior patterns of the Japanese by analyzing the Japanese sense of ethics as she lays it out in the volume: beginning with chū (fealty to the Emperor) and kō (filial piety), and proceeding through giri (a type of obligation), stoicism (or self-control), sincerity, jichō (self-respect), to haji (shame) and shūyō (self-discipline, mental training). I ascertain that Benedict identified the source of behavior patterns in the concept of “the world” (her translation of seken) and the ideas of social class and order that underlie it, and that, summed up in her phrase “shame culture,” this concept is fundamental to a consistent and coherent understanding of the culture and behavior patterns of the Japanese. Finally, I present a counter argument to those who criticize Benedict for overlooking the autonomous aspect of haji (shame). Indeed, I argue that Benedict should be evaluated more positively for her insight on how haji functions in a way that only appears to be autonomous: she identifies as the primary characteristic of Japanese ethics their tendency toward self-control as a means of avoiding the shame occasioned by committing a breach of what the eyes of “the world” see as an obligation. According to Benedict, “the world” forms a public arena or community for the Japanese that conditions the behavior of the individual. I close this paper with the observation that the accuracy of Benedict's grasp of Japanese culture is demonstrated paradoxically by modern Japanese society, where the breakdown of this sense of community has brought about a state of things where, as the old saying goes, “tabi no haji wa kakisute" (the shame incurred while traveling can be discarded and forgotten).