The Enigma of Japanese Power

The Enigma of Japanese Power

In it's "fighting spirit", it's compulsory togetherness, its consciousness of rank within the company and more especially its proprietary treatment of the employee as a 'family' member, in a way that hinders his development as an independent individual, 'salaryman life' is clearly reminiscent of the military tradition. Indeed, most walks of Japanese life are hihgly regimented. It is ironic that the only country in the world whose constitution deprives it of the right to wage war, whose official spokesmen seriously suggest that it can teach the world to love peace and which formally decries the use of military power, whenever and wherever and no matter by whom it is resorted to, should so often remind one of a military organisation. The flocks of high-school pupils dressed in black uniforms cut like those of Prussia at the turn of the century are just surface. The emphasis on collective exercise; the drills continued for their own sake far beyond the point where skill ceases to improve; the social approval given to ganbaru (not giving up, sticking with something beyond reason); the sentimental emphasis on the 'purity' of single-mided youthful exertions; the spartan discipline in judo, karate, kendo and aikido training: all these represent a militarised approach to social order. The virtues of self-control and endurance that the Japanese are taught to hold in highest regard, along with loyalty, are among the most important that soldiers much cultivate.

This is not suprising, when one considers that Japan was ruled by soldiers during much of its history. For many centuries the military provided the chief model for proper conduct. The Tokugawa shogunate was a warriro regime maintaining something akin to martial law. In time, it evolved into a bureacratic government with parallels to the Soviet Union after Stalin, complete with ideology and a privelaged ruling class. But its ideals of social discipline remained those of the barracks and the battlefield.

Outside the cities of Tokugawa Japan, life seems to have afforded few consistent pleasures for the common people. Most of the house codes of the fuedal domain were oppressive. None the less, there existed a Confuscianist-derived ideal of benevolance as befitting anyone with power over others. Although no superior was bound by it, widely praised historical examples of benevolent power-holders provided a certain incentive for daimyos and samurai to be lenient when they could afford to be. It was understood, too, that benevolent government favoured peasant productivity, the economic basis of the political system.

After the Meiji Restoration, the posture of leniency was give a clear political purpose. Most major figures in the Meiji oligarchy accepted the necessity for the occasional accomodation of the public's wishes. Flexible and pragmatic in its policies, the Meiji directive elite was adept at easing repression when it suited its purpose in presenting the 'paternalistic side' of 'paternalistic authoritarianism'.

The Meiji oligarchy, and subsequent governments too, understood that whenever possible the power of propoganda should substitute for direct repression. The bureaucrats preffered not to carry out frontal attacks on organisations that were, or could become, sources of political challenge. Instead, they emasculated them, typically by presenting them with 'guidance' and official help. Thus the earlier part of the twentieth century saw the hurried organisation of societies for the betterment of discontented workers and other obviously disadvantaged groups. In the 1920s the Naimusho bureaucrats entrusted wtih labour policy promoted factory legislation and workers' health insurance that somewhat mitigated the effects of exploitation by business corporations. Along with this 'benevolance' of course, went the suppression of 'dangerous thoughts', but even here, as we shall see, there was much leniency.

Those who today may apply naked power in the name of the state, the police and publci prosecutors (the most noticeable reminders, along with the tax collectors, that something like a state exists), have turned the habit of leniency into a kind of second nature. But a condition is attached: the recipient must in turn acknowledge the goodness of the established social order; political heterodoxy elicts tough measures.

From: "The Enigma of Japanese Power" by Karel van Wolferen. pgs. 181-183.

Re-reading it in anticipation of heading off to Japan. One of the best books I've ever read on Japan, "the system", and mechanisms underlying its social order. 5:59 pm