Chap. 1: The Invention of Identity
'Self' and 'Other' in Pre-war Japan

 

 

Background:

Questions for reflection:

1. What makes a person American?

2. Who can become an American?

3. Why is it important that we differentiate between nationalities?

4. Are white and black Americans the same? What about Amish or Native Americans?

 

 

 

 

Key point: to know who is an American we also need to know who isn't:

Self versus Other

 

 

 

Review of Definition of Nation and State:

Geographic Principles

3 Confusing and Overlapping terms

 

George Demko's Definition

State has:

1. Government and Political System

2. Organized economy policed by Government

Hence Stability and Security based on Rules

 

 

Nation has:

1. Defined Territory

2. Stationary Population with common

Hence Place and People

 

 

 

 

Meiji task:

  • Homogeneity
  • Community
  • Continuity

From "Expell the Barbarians" to

"RICH COUNTRY, STRONG MILITARY!"



Admiral Perry

Take a Heterogeneous Population and provide it with a sense of Homogeneity and Community

Create an unbroken sense of Continuity based on the Restoration of the emperor

"In erecting a set of new symbolic boundaries around Japan, the language, imagery, and iconography of nationalism suggested that the nation was the modern manifestation of the primordial community of which the citizenry has always been a part" [Yasuda, 1992, 63]

Selective revival of the past

"...re-cast the meaning of 'Japaneseness' in powerful images with enduring purity and homogeneity of the nation, the family, and the Japanese way of life"  [Weiner, 1997, 2]

 

 

 

 

Foundation of Meiji Rule

Nation >>> Extended Family, Consanguine Community

Emperor >>> Semi-Divine Head of the people (minzoku no oosa)

Way of life >>> sanctified in heaven

 

Membership -- Who Belongs?

Contains both Racial (birth) and Cultural Criteria

..."high degree of equivalence between cultural and 'racial' categories ...culture is regarded as a manifestation of a primordial or innate [genetic] essence..." [Weiner, 1997, 4]

 "Throughout the final decades of the nineteenth century in particular, attempts to establish criteria for what constituted 'Japaneseness' occupied the energy and resources of statesman, bureaucrats and unofficial publicists alike." [Weiner, 1997, 4]

Need a strong Japanese identity to confront the threat from the West

Resulting vocabulary/relationships

Kazoku Kokka -- Family State

Minzoku -- Ethnicity, People, Nation

Jinshu -- Race

Nation = Race

Blood = Culture

Japan = modern manifestation of Primordial Community

 

Resulting hypotheses

Nation: Projected Extended Family of the Emperor

Therefore -- There is a biological basis for the Japanese Nation

Japanese "Differentness" related to genes; Exemplified by Culture

Aside: One might say not only are Japanese different in using the left brain vs. right brain for language, but the have to be different. Does this suggests that Japanese in other cultures should maintain this difference?

 

 

Where did these Ideas come from?

"Scientific" Racism -- as presented by Europeans was fertile ground

Civilized = Self

Uncivilized = Other

Use race to determine who could be assigned to which category

 

Excluded Others

Presumes opposite also exists

Uncivilized others

Others exist outside Japan

Asia

Elsewhere

Others exist inside Japan

Ainu

Burakumin

Application of Social Darwinism to "easily definable" Inferior Peoples (Races)

Inferior stocks

 

Colonial Order

Borrowing from the Europeans, see "natives" as lesser and in need of civilization

Some hope for other Asian races, if they are exposed to Japanese modern work habits and martial spirit

 

Asian Order -- Two tiered and contradictory

Conflict of White and Asian races predicted

Thus Japanese part of the "yellow" race

Yet Japan is different within Asia (superior) -- nation and race combined

Japanese always superior to other Asians regardless of their position at home