The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 9 | Number 1 | Article ID 3310 | Mar 01, 2010

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The 'Illusion' of Homogeneous Japan and National Character:Discourse as a Tool to Transcend the 'Myth' vs. 'Reality'Binary　　単民族日本という"幻影”と国民性——神話対現実の二項対立を超える手立てとしての言説

Chris Burgess

The ‘Illusion’ of Homogeneous Japanand National Character: Discourseas a Tool to Transcend the ‘Myth’ vs.‘Reality’ Binary1

Chris Burgess

One feature of contemporary writings on Japanis the framing of a ‘false’ homogeneous Japan‘myth’ against the ‘reality’ of a mixed ormulticultural Japan. One problem with thisapproach is that it ignores the fact that thesepositions represent (largely) indigenousdiscourses which, at different points in Japan’shistory, have had – and, in the case of theformer in particular, continue to have – a keyrole in structuring both national identity andsocial reality for many Japanese. This paperuses the notion of discourse, together withassociated theories such as invented tradition,imagined communities, and the social stock ofknowledge, to re-evaluate the myth vs. realitybinary. A number of concrete examples arepresented – both historical and contemporary –to illustrate how those discourses whichresonate with popular lived experience cansuccessfully take root in the popular psycheand become part of the Japanese world-view.The argument is that rather than dismissingsuch popular assumptions, perceptions, andbeliefs as ‘illusory’, it would be more useful toclosely examine their role in constructing andmaintaining social reality and public policy inJapan.

[M]ost national groups could beshown to be the variegatedoffspring of a number of peoples.Indeed they can. But it is not whatis, but what people believe is thath a s b e h a v i o r a lconsequences…(Connor 1994: 75)

Introduction

In January 2009, a second edition of MichaelWeiner’s popular Japan’s Minorities: TheIllusion of Homogeneity, was published (Weiner2009). Although twelve years had passed sincethe original, in a largely unchanged Editor’sIntroduction Weiner continues to refer to ‘thedominant paradigm of homogeneity’, ‘a masternarrative/myth of racial and culturalhomogeneity’ as justification for the presentvolume. It is unlikely Weiner is referring to theacademic discourse on Japan. Since Mouer andSugimoto (1986) wrote about – anddeconstructed – what they called the ‘GreatTradition’ of homogeneous Japan, which theysaw as the dominant model or image ofJapanese society at that time, a veritablem o u n t a i n o f s c h o l a r l y w o r k s o nmulticultural/transcultural/multi-ethnic Japanand its minorities has appeared.2 Rather,Weiner seems to be referring to the popularand political discourse on national identity thatJapanese society ‘remains wedded to’. This isclear from his (2004a) three volume editedcollection entitled Race, Ethnicity andMigration in Modern Japan. There, he (2004b:

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2-4) slams Japanese ‘pundits, politicians, andnewsmagazines’ for reaffirming ‘commonsenseunderstandings of Japan as a homogeneous andmono-cultural polity’ and for trying to‘compress differences into a single set ofnational traits’.

The problem is that the modern nation-state,whether Japan or anywhere else, relies for itsvery existence on the construction of acoherent set of national traits, traits that allowcountr ies to func t ion as ‘ imag inedcommunities’. Certainly, there are manypossible types of imagined community, and notall stress ethnic or cultural homogeneity.Nevertheless, as Gluck (1990: 1) has described,each country weaves a national ‘mythistory’, amyth of common descent which forms a potentmix of stories and history “in which the mythsare as important as the history and both arecontinually reworked.” Importantly, these‘invented traditions’ are never completelyinvented; rather, they almost always need toresonate with the inherited experiences andmemories of ordinary people if they are to beaccepted and internalised (Notehelfer 1999:436). This paper attempts to challenge the useof ‘myth’ in the pejorative sense of having nobasis in fact and instead shows how, over time,various discourses have contributed to theconstruction of a Japanese world view, a viewthat is not ‘false’ or ‘illusory’, but rooted ineveryday lived social reality and which holdssignificance and meaning for many Japanese.

The paper begins by revisiting Nihonjinron,writings on Japanese identity that have beenaccused of being the prime purveyor of national‘myths’. Then, terms such as discourse andideology are defined and explored. Since anational culture is itself a discourse, thefollowing section examines nationalism andnational character, particularly the notions ofinvented tradition and imagined communities.The central part of the paper focuses on thekey ‘myth’ vs. ‘reality’ binary and asks whetherit makes sense to dismiss these dominant and

pervasive images as ‘invented’ or ‘false’,separate from the ‘real’ Japanese culture.Finally, a number of concrete examples arepresented which illustrate the role of discoursein constructing and maintaining social realityand public policy in Japan.

Nihonjinron3

Nihonjinron is an extremely diverse genre ofwriting discussing Japanese (cultural)uniqueness. If defined broadly as “a discussionon national identity” (Dale 1986: 119), many ofits major themes can be traced back to theTokugawa period, although these only reallybegin to take hold during the period of nation-building following the Meiji Restoration(Kawamura 1980: 44; Pyle 1969: 53-55).Defined narrowly, however, Nihonjinron is apost-war product (Oguma 1995),4 one shorn ofthe imperialistic symbolism found in pre-wardiscussions (Befu 2001: 140). This post-warreconstruction of Nihonjinron reflected not onlythe need to recover a sense of identity andpride amongst the Japanese after the loss ofempire and the experience of occupation butalso the increased visibility of the ‘Other’,particularly resident Koreans. The centralpremise of post-war Nihonjinron writings, mostof which were published in the 1970s and1980s, is that the Japanese are a homogeneouspeople (tan'itsu minzoku) who constitute aracially unified nation (tan'itsu minzoku kokka)(Mouer and Sugimoto 1986: 406).

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Whether defined broadly or narrowly,Nihonjinron has a number of key features.First, it attempts to portray a holistic picture ofJapan, particularly through generalisationsabout national character, although this ‘wholepicture’ (zentaishō) changes over time inresponse to Japan’s relations with the outsideworld (Aoki 1990: 23). Second, as a discussionon national identity, Nihonjinron is not uniqueto Japan, but rather a species of culturalnationalism which is found everywhere (Befu2001: 14; Yoshino 1992: chapters 3, 4,10).5 Third, Nihonjinron represents a (largely,but not exclusively) genuinely indigenous bodyof writing which has much in common withthose nationalisms adopted by other regions orstates previously dominated by the West as ameans of reclaiming their own identities(Clammer 2000: 205; Moeran 1989: 183-4;Sugimoto 1999: 90-91). As Sugimoto (1999: 94)notes, Nihonjinron can form a balance or‘corrective’ against a posit ion whichemphasises differences within society andminimises differences between societies,resulting in insensitivity to Eurocentric ando t h e r f o r m s o f ‘ e x t e r n a l ’ c u l t u r a limperialism.6 Fourth, Nihonjinron is a hugelypopular consumer item (taishūshōhizai), one

that has been so widely disseminated,embodied, internalised, and regurgitated byordinary Japanese that it has contributed to thecreation of a particular worldview (Goodman1992: 5). One study found that over eightypercent of respondents were interested in thegenre and had read about it in newspapers,estimating that at least one-quarter of theJapanese population have read one or morebooks in this category (Befu and Manabe 1990:125, 126). Perhaps the most widely read isRuth Benedict’s Chrysanthemum and theSword which has sold around 2.3 million copiesin Japanese (Ryang 2005a: 29, chapter 2).7

Unfortunately, the influence of Nihonjinron onconstructing social reality in Japan has oftenbeen overlooked by scholars more interested intrampling the 'bleeding corpse' (Gill 2001: 577)of a genre of writing that has come to representsomething of a straw-man par excellence. AsReader (2003: 111) suggests, the centralproblem is that critics, perhaps “beguiled bythe self-defining rhetoric of uniqueness thatpervades nihinjinron”, have come to see suchdiscourses as 'unique' to Japan while, at thesame time, underestimating the particularitiesof Japanese culture. In fact, as the followingsections illustrate, the opposite is in fact true:Nihonjinron, in the narrow sense of a discourseon national identity, is not unique but thehistorical materials it draws on and the nationalculture it helps to (re)create are.

Amaterasu, the sun goddess emergingfrom a cave to bring light to the universe

Discourse and Ideology

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Although typically referred to as a ‘discourse’,Nihonjinron (at least in the broad definition)appears to lack the unity or internal coherenceto qualify as a single system of knowledge. Hall(1992a: 291) defines a discourse as follows:

A d i s c o u r s e i s a g r o u p o fstatements which provide alanguage for talking about – i.e. away of representing – a particularkind of knowledge about a topic.When statements about a topic aremade within a particular discourse,the discourse makes it possible toconstruct the topic in a certainway. It also limits the other ways inw h i c h t h e t o p i c c a n b econstructed.

Within Nihonjinron, there exist a number ofdiscourses about Japaneseness, each of whichtake a different but internally unified andcoherent perspective on the issue. Thesediscourses may overlap, reinforce, or contradicteach other, but together they limit what we areable to say or even think about the topic.Oguma (2002: 15) identifies two key currents –discourses – of the Japanese nation:

One was the mixed nation theorywhich argued that the Japanesenation consisted of a mixturebetween a conquering people anda previous aboriginal people andothers, while the second was thehomogeneous nation theory, whichargued that the Japanese nationhad lived in Japan since timeimmemorial and that their lineageh a d b e e n h a n d e d d o w n t ocontemporary 'Japanese'. It is noexaggeration to say that thetheories of the origin of theJapanese nation from time to todayhave scarcely moved a step beyond

a number of variations on thisframework. As was the case then,so today the two cur ren t ssometimes oppose and sometimessupport one another, and havereflected the international status ofJapan and the state of Japanesenationalism in each of the majorperiods from the 1880s to thepresent

Today, we may highlight the existence of athird discourse, that of ‘multicultural Japan’which stresses tolerance and cultural autonomyas epitomised by the slogan tabunka kyōseishakai (multicultural co-existing society)(Burgess 2004).8 It is important to distinguishbetween this discourse and the mixed nationtheory of imperial Japan outlined by Ogumaabove. Askew (2001: 113) observes that theassimilatory mixed nation theory actuallyprovided the justification “for a wholesaleassault on local traditions and customs” in thepre-war period. Ryang (2005b: 92) notes howJapan’s imperial subjects, while ostensiblyequal to their Japanese counterparts, weremarked as gai’chi (literally, ‘outlanders’) in thehousehold registry, a fact which worked toexclude them from attaining equal civil status.As Askew (2001: 114) concludes, those locatedon the periphery of Japan were frequently“defined as Japanese in terms of obligations,but as non-Japanese in terms of rights.”

Together, such discourses comprise Japanesepeople’s ‘common-sense’ or ‘everydayknowledge’, their ‘taken-for-granted’ image ofnational character. They reflect and determinesocial reality or what a people know about theirworld. Importantly, discourses are neither‘true’ nor ‘false’; rather, historically, “effects oftruth are produced within discourse”, with thedominant discourse defining the ‘truth’ of thesituation at any particular moment (Foucault1980: 118). As Hall (1992a, 292: 293) pointsout, statements are rarely ever simply ‘true’ or

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‘false’ and the language we use distorts theprocess further; moreover, because people acton discourse, descriptions – definitions ofreality – can become ‘true’: they have a self-fulfilling potency. Discourses are not onlydescriptive but prescriptive, providing a modelor ‘identity kit’ (Gee 1989: 6, 7) for people interms of how they say they (ought to) act andoften how they do in fact act.9 This is as true ofthe multicultural Japan discourse as thehomogenous Japan discourse.1 0 “[A]nydescription that gains recognition will bedestined to form part of the thing it describes”,writes Neiburg (1998: 72) quoting Bourdieu,“…[w]e are dealing here not simply withnotions and discourses but also with objectsand practices.”

Some writers prefer the term ideology todiscourse (e.g. Befu 1987). The main problemwith this is that ‘ideology’ carries certainnuances that can hinder our understanding ofhow these systems of knowledge work. Mostproblematic in the context of this paper is theassoc i a t i on o f i deo l ogy w i th f a l s econsciousness, specifically the traditionaldistinction between true (‘scientific’)statements and false (‘ideological’) statements(Hall 1992a: 292-3). But, as Ryang (2005a: 45,60) points out, ideology is better seen not as‘false consciousness’ – not as somethingseparate from a ‘genuine’ Japanese culture –but rather as a real system of thought whichcreates its own reality.

A further problem with using the term ideologyis that it gives the impression of manipulationand control from above. For example, Gluck(1985: 6-9) gives an excellent summary ofideology as theory, but focuses solely on therole of the elite or the establishment in theinculcation of nationalist ideologies during thelate Meiji period. Garon’s (1997) study of‘social management’ during the twentieth-century appears to avoid a purely top-downperspective, but in the end his ‘middle-classgroups’ simply cooperate and collaborate with

the state. Finally, while McVeigh (2000), in hisdiscussion of ideology and education, does lookat individual resistance, it is resistance to“oppressive state” and corporate ideologies.Certainly, much of the literature attackingNihonjinron paints a picture of dominant stateactors and other ruling elites systematizing anddiffusing ideas and ideals to a generalpopulation in order to enhance their owninterests.11 In actual fact, in the post-war periodat least, the state has played a minimal role inthe dissemination of Nihonjinron discourses(Befu 2001: 140). As Goodman (2002: 6-7)argues, it would be a mistake, especially giventhe education level in Japan, to suggest that thestate can unilaterally impose policy on apassive population. Aoki (1990: 45) makes asimilar point, noting that Nihonjinron writings,which are often published in popular keimoshōpaperback form and contain hypotheses onJapanese society, are popular precisely becausethey are attractive, even tempting, to theaverage consumer.12 Thus, in contrast to theterm ideology, with all its Marxist ‘top-down’associations, the notion of discourse is explicitin acknowledging the agency of individuals tochoose (within certain parameters) to identifypartly, wholly, or not at all with the variousdiscursive positions “to which they aresummoned” (Hall 1996: 14).13 In terms ofunderstanding nationalism, of whichNihonjinron is but one example, the point isthat nations, although constructed essentiallyfrom above, “cannot be understood unless alsoanalysed from below, that is in terms of theassumptions, hopes, needs, longings, andinterests of ordinary people” (Hobsbawm 1992:10).

Nationalism, National Identity, andNational Character

One notable – and rather ironic – feature ofmuch that has been written about Nihonjinronis the underlying assumption that ‘ideological’processes at work in Japan are unique to thatcountry. For example, Henshall (1999: xix, 177)

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argues that Japan is more normative then most(Western) societ ies , not ing that for‘Westerners ’ the country seems an“unappealing normative social context, onefilled with prescriptive rules of conduct andform, one that discourages differences.”Similarly, Garon (1997: xiv, 234, 237) contraststhe American ideal that government shouldnot/could not mold the values of citizens with aJapan characterised by practices of socialmanagement and regulation which “seemforeign to Americans.” The problem here, asBerger and Luckmann (1966: 13, 27, 37) pointout, is that we take our every-day reality andknowledge as common-sense and very much forgranted, so much so that it takes a significanteffort to doubt that which is ‘self-evident’ in ourown society. It is only when an individual –such as a foreigner – does not participate inthis knowledge that they are able to see thediscursive processes at work. Thus, while theWesterner looking at Japan may see “apowerful pattern of governance in which thestate has historically intervened to shape howordinary Japanese thought and behaved”(Garon 1997: xiv), they are unlikely to see thesame processes at work in their home society.14

The tendency to see the discursive processes atwork in Japan as unique has, somewhatironically, gone hand in hand with a shift awayfrom holistic Nihonjinron views of Japan thatemphasise differences between (and minimisedifferences within) societies to a view of Japanthat emphasises variation within (andminimises different between) societies.Certainly, the acknowledgement of diversityand social variation in Japan is an importantdevelopment. But, as Henshall (1999: x) pointsout, by claiming that Japanese society is reallyno different from any other society we lurch tothe other extreme:

recent works during the late 1980sand 1990s have over-reactedagainst this holistic simplification

and exaggeration [characteristic ofNihonjinron] by an excessive focuson diversity and conflict. They havealso tended to water down theparticularity of Japan by overlystressing elements of universality,in their cause of proving that Japanis really nothing special

Smith (1989: 715) goes further back in time,tracing the attack and rejection of the conceptof national culture to the Chrysanthemum andthe Sword which “offered an analysis soexclusively cultural that a corrective reactionwas inevitable.” Like Henshall, Smith (1989:716) argues that the move to jettison the‘troublesome’ concept of culture has gone toofar, precluding any possibility of historicalcontinuity and avoiding the common-sensenotion that a country’s culture shapes itssystems and institutions.

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The problem is how to reconcile uneasetowards a Nihonjinron style holistic account ofJapan with the recognition that Japanesesociety is (and its members are) in many waysdifferent to (those in) other societies. Ryang(2005a: 45) sees discourse as offering a way ofout of this ‘national character’ dilemma:

In a way, the persistence ofdiscourse indeed preservesnational character as a realsubs tance , no mat ter howideological such a substance maybe. Discourse, as it were, bothreflects and constitutes the reality.Just as no nation is free fromnationalism, national myth, andself-righteous raison d’etre, thediscourse of national character is

inevitably fed back to the everydaylife of individuals in a given nation.In this sense, we must treatn a t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r a s a nideological discursive formation –real it may be, but perhaps notentirely true…As long as weattribute a reality to ideology –ideology not as false consciousnessbut as a real system of thought –and insofar as there is a broadmilieu of production, reception,and exchange o f ideas anddiscourses about ‘who we are andwhat makes us such and such anationality’, national character,understood as an ideologicaldiscursive field in which scholarsand lay-people al ike widelyparticipate – that is, an historicalproduct of the national-statesystem – does exist.

Ryang, like Hall (1992b: 292), recognises that anational culture is a discourse. In this sense,the Nihonjinron literature reflects a processcommon to all nation-states, namely:

the use of history in order toconstruct and legitimate a sense ofa commonly shared culture…thereis not much difference between themanner in which the nationalidentity is constructed in Japan andhow it is constructed in othernation-states…What, of course, isunique is the material each candraw on to construct its sense ofnational identity’ (Goodman 2005:69)

When seen as a form of cultural nationalism –as a form of (national) culture (Smith 1991: 71)– the reason for Nihonjinron being holistic innature becomes clear. Thus, when Hata and

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Smith (1983) criticise Nakane for painting a‘utopian’ portrait of Japan, they are missing thepoint. As Benedict Anderson (1983) has pointedout, nations are ‘imagined communities’ whichbecame possible on a mass scale only relativelyrecently when individuals living in a regioncame to be able to construct a collective andunified image of themselves through theprinted word. These ‘imagined communities“are established through the telling of commonstories, the formation of communal myths, theshared sense of participating in the same dailynarrative of life” (Keen 2007, 80). In otherwords, without ‘national character’ – that is,some sense of a common culture, sharedvalues, and similar traits – the modern nation-state could not exist. And while nationalismdoes not necessar i ly entai l cul turalhomogenisation, it does demand a single publicculture with autonomy, unity, and identity(Smith 1991: 73: 146; 1995: 151). As a form ofnationalism that constructs a coherent sense ofnational identity, the fact that the Nihonjinronliterature typically paints a picture of Japan asahistorical, uniform, harmonious, andmonolithic should be entirely unsurprising.

Invention, Myth, and Reality

National character, in the sense of an imaginedcommunity, is sometimes referred to as ‘myth’.However, Anderson (1983: 6) takes pains todebunk what he calls the ‘falsity/genuineness’dichotomy.15 As seen above, Anderson arguesthat a nation is socially constructed andultimately imagined by the people who perceivethemselves to be part of that group. Yet, thisnotion of ‘imagined communities’ is notsupposed to suggest that such cultural unitsare not real; rather, despite never having met,it emphases that members possess a deepmental image of their communion. That thenation is a ‘form of narrative’ makes the idea ofnation more, not less, powerful, “[a]n ideawhose cultural compulsion l ies in theimpossible unity of the nation as symbolicforce” (Bhabha 1990:2).

Books and newspapers – and, more recently,electronic media – create, maintain, andreinforce these discourses or narratives,creating what Appadurai (1996: 8) calls‘communities of sentiment’, groups that begint o “ i m a g i n e a n d f e e l t h i n g stogether.”16 Importantly, these mental imagesare more than mere internal perceptions: asBerger and Luckmann (1966: 13, 27, 37) argue,subjective meanings become objective facts,i.e. form the building blocks that composesocial reality:

The man [sic] in the street inhabitsa world that is ‘real’ to him…andhe knows…that th i s wor ldp o s s e s s e s s u c h a n d s u c hcharacteristics…It is precisely this‘knowledge’ that constitutes thefabric of meanings, without whichno society could exist…Common-sense knowledge is the knowledgeI share with others in the normalself-evident routines of everydaylife. The reality of everyday life istaken for granted as reality.

For Berger and Luckmann, participation inwhat they call the ‘social stock of knowledge’permits the location of individuals in societyand individuals take quite different realities forgranted between one society and another.There will be multiple realities (versions ofknowledge) circulating both inside and outsidea society at any one time, some dominant,others not. Perhaps more significantly,participation in the social stock of knowledge isbased not on citizenship but on membership ofa society. In other words, in a discursiveframework terms like ‘Japanese’ refer not tonationality but to individuals who have beenbrought up or at least lived for some time inJapan who have internalised (i.e. becomeliterate in) the relevant discourses.17

As Goodman wrote above, nations draw on

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different material for the images, narratives,and stories used in the construction of nationalidentity. Hobsbawm (1983) describes thisprocess of social construction as the ‘inventionof tradition’, arguing that many culturalpractices, customs, and values which werethought to be old are actually of quite recentorigin. The ‘invention of tradition’, whichHobsbawm points out is more likely at times ofrapid social change, is useful in understandingmodernisation, the increasing importance ofsocial cohesion, and the emergence of themodern nation-state. One of the maindrawbacks with Hobsbawm’s model, however,is his sharp distinction between (fixed)‘tradition’ mobilised by elites and (variable)‘custom’ created by ordinary people (Vlastos1998: 4, 5). This makes little sense from adiscursive point of view which stresses howidentities are constructed interactively, indialogue, a process of ‘push and pull’ betweenexterna l d i scourses and ind iv idua lsubjectivities. The use of ‘invention’ is alsopotentially misleading as it again suggests theexistence of some kind of false/genuinedichotomy. “To say that all tradition isinvented”, writes Ivy (1995: 21), “is still to relyupon a choice between invention andauthenticity, between fiction and reality,between discourse and history.” Notehelfer(1999: 433, 437), in a review of Hobsbawm,also highlights the pitfalls of a term like‘invention’, stressing the importance ofrecognising that ‘tradition’ is created not inisolation by elites but rather in collaborationwith ‘ordinary people’:

While it is possible to conceive ofcontemporary Japanese inventing atradition based on rice, or riceproduction, and even sake… it ishard to imagine that an inventedtradition could be constructed for"ketchup" or "french fries" withinthe modern Japanese context…Inthe language of this book, what

one needs is at least some elementof linkage ("genealogies") to thepast…. [H]istory…could never be apure invention. It had to deal withevidence that was often deeplyrooted in the lives and experiencesof people. This is precisely whereinvented traditions run intoresistance. Pure invention ashistory simply cannot work.

In the context of nationalism, Notehelfer’sposition has much in common with ‘historicists’like Anthony Smith. Yoshino (1998) contrasts‘historicists’ – those who see the nation ashav ing deep roo ts in h i s tory – w i th‘modernists’, like Hobsbawm, who see thenation as an exclusively modern phenomenon.Smith acknowledges that we may not find‘nations' as such in pre-modern epochs.However, he (1995: 57) does identify a numberof looser collective cultural units which he calls‘ethnies’: “named units of population withcommon ancestry myths and historicalmemories, elements of shared culture, somelink with a historic territory and some measureof solidarity, at least among their elites.” Smith(1991: 26-27, 45-46) sees Japan as a goodexample of an ethnie or ethnic nation andYoshino (1998: 151-2) concurs, noting theexistence in pre-modern Japan of a sense ofJapanese identity based on a perception ofcultural distinctiveness, albeit one restricted byclass and geographical area.18 What this meansin the case of Japan is that the Meiji elites hada lot of material to utilise – material whichcame from both above and below – in theprocess of reconstructing a fragmented ethniccommunity into a cohesive modern state (Smith1991: 105). In examining the way ethnic formsand content shape individual experience, Smith(1986 15, 16) lays special emphasis on the‘vital’ role of myths and symbols which, farfrom being ‘false’ or ‘illusory’, generate anemotional attachment real enough for members“to fight and die for” (Anderson 1983: 7).

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Evidence

Historically, nation-building ‘myths’ needed tobe believable and imaginable – embedded inmemory and experience – if they were tosuccessfully take root. Gluck (1985: epilogue)contrasts the success of late Meiji ideology, “aprocess in which suasion outweighed coercion”,with the coercive ideological formulations ofthe twenties and thirties which, because theyseemed to be at odds with lived experience,required increasing ‘artifice and force’ tomaintain. It is also probable that discourses aremore likely to be successfully adopted if theypossess a certain prestige or status, as is thecase of norms associated with a powerful classor elite in that society, even though the ways ofthat group may be “of another world entirely”(Befu 1971: 50). For example, in Japan, one ofthe main processes through which modernJapanese identity came to be accepted as socialreality was known as ‘samuraisation’. Throughthis process, characteristics such as loyalty,perseverance, and diligence said to be held bya small (but elite) segment of the population –the samurai – were gradually extended throughpropaganda, education, and regulation to coverthe whole of the population:

Japan's modernization coincidedwith the samuraization process –the spread of the ideology of theruling warrior class. Throughintroduction of the warriorideology in a modified form in theC i v i l C o d e a n d t h r o u g hincorporation of this ideology in amodif ied form in the schoolcurr icu la , the pres t ige fu lwarrior…customs began tosupplant the local peasantforms...the values and institutionsof the warrior caste permeated thecommon people (Befu 1971: 50,52).

Of course, it was no coincidence that the traitsassociated with the samurai highlighted loyaltyand obedience; in other words, samuraisationimposed a model of behavior – a discourse – onpeasants and workers that, in the name ofnational unity, made control and coercioneasier . This somet imes had terr ib leconsequences, as with the compulsory masssuicides (shūdan jiketsu) of 1945, somethingthat earlier would have been expected only ofsamurai.

In similar vein, Kinzley (1991, xiv) describesthe ‘myth-making’ process that saw theemergence of a Japanese style industrialideology, one which “resonated with broadlyaccepted moral ideas and was couched intraditional moral language”. Thus, whenFujitani (1993: 79, 84) expresses astonishmentthat commoners took up emperor and Shintomyths that were “completely alien” to themajority, he is missing the point: these‘inventions’ were workable “precisely becausethey were seen to have been part of the fabricof Japanese life in the past and could thus be soagain” (Kinzley 1991: xv, xvi). These historicalexamples illustrate how myth and realityinteract, with myth used as the basis for policyand policy creating myth.

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Yamato-takeru, mythical warrior whoappeared in the Kojiki and Nihongi

One ‘myth’ which has had a significant impacton public policy in modern times is the ‘myth’of homogeneity discussed earlier. Even thosewho deride this discourse as ‘illusory’acknowledge its influence on postwar Japan;Ishi (2005: 271) describes it as “a masternarrative that has not changed drastically eventoday.” Of course, ‘homogeneity’ can meandifferent things; however, when the Japaneseare referred to as a tan’ itsu minzoku(homogenous people) living in a tan’itsuminzoku kokka, the meaning is typically onenation, one race, and one language/culture.Much like the leaves of a clover, the threeelements are portrayed as part of a whole(Burgess 1997: 99). The key term is minzokuwhich, like a modern day equivalent of Smith’sethnies, encompasses more than just race orethnicity. Morris-Suzuki (1998: 32, 87) definesit as the Japanese version of the German Volk,a term combining cultural and genetic aspectswhich emphasises the organic unity of theJapanese people/nation as a community “bound

together by ties of language or tradition.” Overthe years there have been a great manystatements by the Japanese political elitereferring to the Japanese as a tan’itsu minzoku:

Table 1: Tan’itsu Minzoku (HomogeneousPeople) Statements by the Political Elite in

Japan

Notes: Statements gathered from variousmedia sources. Translations are the author’s.

Although such remarks typically come in forheavy criticism from (mostly) non-Japanesejournalists and academics, it is significant tonote that they generally spark little controversyin the domestic sphere. For example, thenPrime Minister Nakasone’s 1986 remarks thatJapan’s high standard of education was due toits racial homogeneity went largely unnoticedlocally; the Japanese press only picked up thestory after it had started making waves in theAmerican media (Burgess 2007a). In contrast,DPJ leader (and now Prime Minister)Hatoyama’s April 2009 statement that ‘theJapanese archipelago is not only for theJapanese’ generated a ‘firestorm’ on internetbulletin boards in the form of over 60,000,mostly negative, comments (Sankei Shimbun2009).

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The point is that ruling elites in Table 1 drewon a conventional popular discourse whichv i e w s J a p a n a s ( r e l a t i v e l y )homogeneous.19 Hatoyama’s remarks, on theother hand, violated conventional wisdom.Public surveys and opinion polls provide someevidence that ‘homogeneous Japan’ is indeedthe dominant discourse amongst the averageJapanese. For example, the 2003 InternationalSocial Survey Programme (ISSP) on nationalidentity – the second survey of its kindfollowing the initial 1995 survey – contained anumber of questions which shed light onJapanese attitudes concerning homogeneityand ethnic identification.

Table 2: How Important is the JapaneseLanguage, Feeling Japanese, and Having

Japanese Ancestry for being trulyJapanese?

Source: (GESIS 1995: II-16, 19; 2003: II-23, 24,29, 30, 31, 32)

Notes: Percentages do not add up to 100because ‘can’t choose’ and ‘refuse’ are omittedfrom the table. Figures in square brackets showthe percentage from the 1995 survey (althoughthe ancestry question did not appear in theprevious survey). Figures in round brackets arethe average for all countries in the survey. I amindebted to Nagayoshi (forthcoming) forbringing my attention to the ISSP and for hintson data analysis.

Table 2 suggests that language, feelingJapanese, and ancestry are considered keyaspects of being Japanese; however, whereaslanguage and country identification are

considered important both inside and outsideJapan, more importance is attached to ancestry(blood) in Japan, with 42.1% considering this avery important component of being Japanese,compared wi th an average o f 33 .4%internationally. With regard to change overtime, while the importance of feeling Japaneseshowed little change, in the more recent surveymore importance was attached to being able tospeak Japanese. If Table 2 reveals somethingabout Japanese attitudes towards linguistic andracial homogeneity, Table 3 suggests thatcultural homogeneity is of equal or greaterimportance to the Japanese, although asignificant minority disagree strongly with themajority position:

Table 3: It is Impossible for People who donot Share Japan’s Customs and Traditions

to become fully Japanese

Source: (GESIS 1995: II-42; 2003: II-89, 90)

As discussed earlier, Japanese attitudestowards homogeneity are inextricably tied tothe concept of minzoku, a term which meansmuch more than race or ethnicity. One of thefew ISSP questions to directly address thisconcept (Table 4) showed that almost 95% ofJapanese feel close or very close to theirminzoku, more or less unchanged from 1995, afinding which suggests that homogeneity canonly be understood in Japan in terms of acollective or holistic representation rather thanindividual elements such as language orculture.

Table 4: How Close do you Feel to yourMinzoku?

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Source: (GESIS 1995: II-80; 2003: II-149, 150)

Notes: This question was not asked innineteen/ten countries in the 2003/1995

surveys respectively.

The strong sense of identification with ahomogeneous group results in an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’mentality which manifests itself in resistance tomigration and migrant settlement. Forexample, 88.9% of Japanese (up from 85.1% in1995) thought ‘it is better for society if groupsmaintain their distinct customs and traditions’as opposed to 11.1% who thought it ‘better ifgroups adapt and blend into the larger society’(1995: II-44; 2003: II-93, 94).20 Tables 5 and 6reveal attitudes towards legal and illegalimmigrants respectively:

Table 5: Do you think the Number ofImmigrants to Japan nowadays should

be…?

Source: (GESIS 1995: II-49; 2003: II-105, 106)

Table 6: Japan Should Take StrongerMeasures to Exclude Illegal Immigrants

Source: (GESIS 1995: II-85; 2003: II-128, 129)

As Tables 5 and 6 show, Japanese attitudes aremore negative than global attitudes towards

migration.21 And just as attitudes towardsmigration in Europe, America, and Australiahave hardened in recent years (Burgess 2007c:53-55), so have those in Japan. The ISSPfindings are supported by domestic polls. Forexample, a 2000 Cabinet Office Survey (2000)revealed that less than one in ten Japanesehave opportunities to speak or interact withforeigners; over 40% say they hardly ever hadthe chance to even see foreigners. UnitedNations data backs this up: figures show thatJapan is one of the few industrialised countriesnot to have experienced the tremendous inflowof international migrants characteristic of otherdeveloped countries (Burgess 2007b: table 1).This is not to say that minorities22 do not exist;rather, as Gill (2001: 575) points out, theirrelative smallness is central. Thus, the ‘myth’ ofhomogeneity persists because it both resonateswith and seems true to people and can beverified statistically. In turn, this discourse –the perceptions that form the ‘truth’ of thetopic at any one time – serves to limit the kindof political solutions actually possible, in thiscase the continuation of what Pak (1998:140-42) cal ls Japan’s ‘no (unski l led)immigration’ policy.

Connected to the homogeneous Japan discourseis one which sees rising migration and foreigncrime as a threat to public security. In the mostrecent ISSP survey, 71.7% of Japaneserespondents agreed or strongly agreed with thestatement that ‘immigrants increase crimerates’, up from 65.3% in 1995 (GESIS 1995:II-45; 2003: II-95, 96). Domestic polls showsimilar results: in a recent Cabinet Officesurvey (2006), 84.3% thought public safety hadworsened over the past ten years, with thelargest number (55.1%) putting this down to “arise in crimes by foreigners visiting Japan.” Inrecent years, this ‘foreign crime’ (gaikokujinhanzai) discourse has become so widelypromulgated by the media that it has come todrive policy, specifically the targeting offoreigners by the police (Hamai and Ellis 2006).The resulting increase in arrests can be used as

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‘proof’ that non-Japanese are more likely tocommit crime: in this way, the image, to someextent, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy thatinfluences and reinforces actual policy. Theinteresting thing about the gaikokujin hanzaidiscourse is that a detailed content analysis ofthe data relating to foreign crime actuallyshows many of the statements to be empiricallyfalse (Shipper 2005; Yamamoto 2004)23 As aresult , despite stat ist ical tr icks andsensationalist reporting, there are signs thatthe discourse is losing the ‘believability’necessary for it to be accepted as ‘truth’.24

Conclusion: From a Sociology of Error to aSociology of Truth

Connor (1994: 75), whose quote opened thispaper, asks why scholars have been so slow “todiscover what the masses have felt and whatpolitical leaders have recognized.” For Connor,a key factor has been the tendency to ignorethe fundamental distinction between fact andperceptions of fact. This tendency can beclearly seen in Japanese studies, as epitomisedin the work of Weiner and many others whoseek to challenge the ‘popular’, ‘common-sense’, or ‘conventional’ view of Japan ashomogenous and contrast this ‘myth’ with the‘reality’ of multicultural Japan. In the process,notions of national character and culture havebeen given short shrift , dismissed asemblematic of a Nihonjinron responsible fordisseminating the ‘illusion’ of a homogeneousJapan. What is striking in all of this is the (oftenpatronising) way popular representations tendto be dismissed as ‘false’, ‘inaccurate’, or‘illusory’, even while acknowledging that theyconstitute a widespread assumption that manyJapanese believe form a key part of theexperience of being Japanese (for one moreexample of this, see Martinez 2005: 186). Thisis not to say that most scholars of Japan areunaware of the pitfalls of simplisticallydichotomising Japanese society into somethingillusory/homogenous versus somethingreal/heterogeneous. But many do forget the

central truth that the nation that is Japan – orany other nation for that matter – is adiscourse, an imaginative construct heldtogether by ‘myth’ and ‘tradition’. Also easilyforgotten is that bureaucrats and policy makersoften act on these deep-seated beliefs, withvery concrete results.

The notions of myth and discourse, beingconcerned with collective meaning-making,would appear to be an ideal tool for thesociologist; however, as Wasson (2007: 3137)notes, few have risen to the challenge ofstudying such processes. Two individuals whodid rise to the challenge, albeit employingdifferent terminology, were Berger andLuckmann. Writing forty years ago, they (1966:22) outlined an approach they called the‘sociology of knowledge’, one they forecastwould become “an important aid in the quest ofany correct understanding of human events.”The key questions for this sociology ofknowledge was to ask what passes forknowledge in society and how these realities(and not others) have come to be taken forgranted. Although a little late, this paper hasattempted to breathe new life into Berger andLuckmann’s proposal by providing apreliminary framework for a sociology ofknowledge for 21st century Japanese society.Specifically, the hope is that future researchwill concern itself less with ‘myth’ versus‘reality’ binaries – the ‘validity’ or ‘invalidity’ ofknowledge as Berger and Luckamann (1966:15, 24) put it – and instead produce more in-depth and detailed case-studies which illustratethe role of discourse in the construction ofsocial and political reality in contemporaryJapan.

What are the practical implications of thearguments presented here for researchers?Specifically, what forms might future researchtake? Certainly, as the ISSP data hasillustrated, questionnaire and survey data canbe a valuable source of information on whatordinary people (say they) think and believe.

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Statistics too, such as numbers of non-Japanesein Japan (Burgess 2008: Table 2), can be usefulin building a picture of everyday livedexperience. Moreover, given the importance of‘print capitalism’ in the construction of an‘imagined community’, an analysis of popularbooks, magazines, comics, and newspapers canprovide a discursive snapshot of social realityat a particular moment in time (see, forexample, the analysis of minority-relatedthemes and keywords in daily newspapers inJapan in Burgess (2008: Table 1)). Perhapsmore importantly, we need to take into accounthow the electronic media – ‘electroniccapitalism’ – has, in recent years, transformedeveryday discourse by offering ‘new resourcesfor the construction of imagined selves andimagined worlds’ (Appadurai 1996: 3). Indeed,the need to consider the role of the media inJapan is particularly acute given the country’shigh literacy rates, unrivalled print circulationand consumption, and rapid adoption of newmedia, across all ages.25 Advertising is anotherarea which, in recent years particularly, hasbecome highly influential in reinforcing culturalstereotypes (Moeran 1996: 108). Finally,Connor (1994: 76) recommends analysingspeeches of national leaders (c.f. Table 1)together with pamphlets and programmes ofpolitical and other organizations to gaininsights into the ‘emotional and psychologicaldimensions’ of nationalism.

Chris Burgess took his PhD at MonashUniversity, Melbourne. Since April 2004, hehas been a full-time lecturer at Tsuda JukuUniversity (Tsuda College), Tokyo, where heteaches Japanese Studies and AustralianStudies. His research focuses on migration andidentity in Japan and includes papers oninternational marriage and 'newcomer children'in Yamagata Prefecture.

Recommended citation: Chris Burgess, "The‘Illusion’ of Homogeneous Japan and National

Character: Discourse as a Tool to Transcendthe ‘Myth’ vs. ‘Reality’ Binary," The Asia-PacificJournal, 9-1-10, March 1, 2010.

Notes

1 The author would like to thank the JapaneseStudies Centre, Monash University, for help inthe preparation of this manuscript. I would alsolike to thank Judith Snodgrass for her mostuseful feedback.

2 See (Burgess 2007b) for a list of some of these‘multicultural’ texts.

3 For a more detailed overview of Nihonjinron,see Burgess (2004).

4 Although Oguma’s central argument seems tobe that the homogeneous nation theory was apostwar phenomenon, elsewhere he (1995:31-32) states that this tan’itsu minzokuron wasone of two ideologies that had been aroundsince the 1880s. The other was the mixednation theory (kongō minzokuron).

5 Most countries have cultural models orsystems of ideas about what it means (and,even more importantly, what it does not mean)to be a national. The House Un-AmericanActivities Committee (HUAC), which was activeuntil 1975, is probably the most obviousexample. A more recent example is the use ofterms like 'un-American' or 'un-Australian' todescribe anti-globalisation or anti-warprotestors. Interestingly, such phrases (phraseswhich suggest a firm image of nationalcharacter) appear much less common incontemporary Japan, although in the earlytwentieth century terms such as han-nihonjinand hikokumin were reportedly used towardscitizens who did not express sufficient patrioticfervor (Morris-Suzuki 1998: 105).

6 Although there has been a flood of writingsattacking the Nihonjinron genre, few of thosewriters pause to reflect on the ‘precariousnessof their position’ (Spivak 1988: 271) or of the

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continued presence of Orientalism in theWestern tradition of Japanese Studies (Minear1980; Susser 1998).

7 Other examples include Nakane’s Tate Shakaiand Doi’s Amae no Kōzō, both of which figurein the Japan Foundations list of the 100 mostinfluential books for understanding Japan. (link(http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/current/20080903100Books.html)).

8 A fourth discourse, which I tentatively call‘individual Japan’, can perhaps also beidentified. This is epitomised by popular figuressuch as Koizumi and Horiemon, as well asFujiwara’s (2005) runaway bestseller Kokka noHinkaku (Style of a Nation). Advertised on thecover as ‘epoch-making’ (kakkiteki) Nihonron,Kokka no Hinkaku emphases, bushido-style, theimportance of individual (rather than group)feeling or spirit (jyōcho), This shows thatNihonjinron, though necessarily holistic, doesnot necessarily have to paint Japan as acollective and group-oriented society.

9 See (Befu 2001: 78-80) on Nihonjinron as aprescriptive model. Area studies itself isdiscursive, offering a particular worldview thatis both holistic and prescriptive: “area studiespromoted descriptions”, writes (Harootunian2000: 46), “masking prescriptions.”

10 For example, Graburn et al (2008: 1) make itclear that 'new Japan' in the title of their bookis prescriptive as well as descriptive. For moreanalysis on this point see Burgess (2007b:footnote 16; 2008: footnote 2).

11 For examples, see Weiner (1997: inside frontcover), Yoshino (1992), and Dale (1986).Goodman (1992: 12) notes that this ‘top-down’stance is “closely aligned to the Marxistconcept of ‘false consciousness’ – the inabilityto recognise what is in their own best interests– of the majority of society.”

12 Aoki mentions a number of times thatBenedict’s ideas are simply hypotheses (katei).

This is echoed by Goodman (1992: 5) who notesthat the theses published by anthropologists intheir attempt to explore the way Japanese seetheir world can lead to the creation of aparticular worldview. Presumably this is onlypossible if they capture the imagination of theiraudience or ‘strike a chord’.

13 For Goodman (1992: 12; 2005: 67), the overlymechanistic connection drawn in the anti-Nihonjinron literature between disseminationof ‘ideology’ and its acceptance disregardsordinary people’s ability to accept or ignorediscourse. As Hall’s quote makes clear, peopleare subject to the pull of a variety of discoursesincluding class, age, gender, region, andethnicity. Although this paper focuses ondiscourses of national identity because they areargued to be ‘fundamental’ (see footnote 16),this does not mean that everybody in Japanbehaves and lives the same way; on thecontrary, individual agency is central to anyunderstanding of the discursive process.

14 Note also van Wolferen’s (1989: 8) commentthat truth in Japan is ‘socially constituted’.Herman and Chomsky’s (1994: xi) argumentthat the subtle propaganda system operating inthe ‘democratic’ US is far more effective inputting over a patriotic agenda than one withofficial censorship highlights the naivety of aposition which portrays Japan as the more‘normative’ and socially managed society.

15 Clifford (1986: 6), in his discussion ofethnographic ‘fictions’, makes a similar point:“the word as commonly used in recent textualtheory has lost its connotation of falsehood, ofsomething merely opposed to truth.”

16 The communities need not necessarily benational ones. Groups within a nation may alsoform ‘communities of sentiment’. Moreover, asAppadurai points out, there are increasingnumbers of transnational communities whichoperate beyond the boundaries of the nation, apoint also made by Anderson (1998) in his

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discussion of long-distance nationalism. Here,however, I limit the discussion to nationalcommunities because, as Smith (1991: 143)argues convincingly, national identity remainsthe most 'fundamental' identity.

17 This addresses Ryang’s (2005a: 199-200)criticism of what she calls the ‘nationalizationof Japanese culture’ , “the privi legedassumption that equates Japanese culture withJapanese nation.”

18 Of course, even if we accept the existence ofpre-modern looser cultural collectivities(‘ethnies’), these would not necessarily result ina stronger sense of national identity. Ethnicidentity, despite often having a longer history,is no more solid or natural than nationalidentity: both forms of identity can befabricated, altered, and manipulated (Vervoorn2006: 43). Indeed, one could equally argue thatit is those nations with a weak historicalfootprint and heterogeneous populations (likeAmerica) that found/find it necessary to employmore explicit forms of nationalism. Thequestion is why texts such as, say, Obama’sJanuary 2009 inaugural speech or his wife’s‘One Nation’ speech, do not elicit the sameform of scrutiny as similar pronouncements byJapanese politicians (on the question of unequalscrutiny, albeit in a different context, see Cave(2002)).

19 I say ‘relatively’ because few, if any, actuallybelieve that Japan is completely homogeneous.For example, Aso later clarified his remarkssaying that he had meant that Japan wasrelatively homogeneous. However, suchqualifications are generally ignored by anti-Nihonjinron writers who stress only “strenuousgovernment and nationalist led attempts toargue that Japan is a totally homogeneousculture”(Clammer 2001: 146).

20 Of course, this could be interpreted assupport for multiculturalism; however, as I(2004) have argued elsewhere, the Japanese

brand of multiculturalism is exclusionary andessentialising rather than accepting ofdifference. As evidence for this, Nagayoshi(forthcoming) demonstrates a strongcorrelation between ethno-nationalistic feelingsand endorsement of ‘multiculturalism’; sheargues that Japanese people regard their ownbrand of multiculturalism not as conflictingwith but rather as strengthening homogeneity.She concludes that since many Japanese areindifferent to multiculturalism it is unlikely tospread.

21 Critics who argue for the ‘inevitability’ ofincreased migration based on demographic andother factors fail to understand that policy isoften discursively driven: elite predispositionsand public perceptions play an important rolein the political decision-making process (Itoh1998). The result is frequently, to the outsider,policy that appears irrational or even contraryto the national interest.

22 On the definition of the term ‘minority’, seeBurgess (2008).

23 To take one example, despite the fact thatone of the key statements in the foreign crimediscourse is that rising numbers of illegals hasmade Japan less safe, government estimates onnumbers of i l legal migrants – mostlyoverstayers – have fallen significantly in recentyears (Burgess 2008: table 2).

24 Of course, the fact that few Japanese havecontact with foreigners means that the issuefor most is beyond their personal experience.Nevertheless, the gaikokujin hanzai discoursedoes appear to be losing its appeal, while a newdiscourse, that of kōrei(sha)hanzai (elderlycrime), is gaining popularity. For example, asearch of Japanese sources in the Factivadatabase for 2008 produced 94 hits for theformer and 42 hits for the latter, a dramaticchange from 2003 when the number of hitswere 453 and 2 respectively.

25 Surveys (e.g. telecomasia.net 2007) have

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shown that older Japanese spend as much timeonline as the young, with blogging reportedlyincreasingly popular among housewives. Infact, according to a 2006 survey, despite thefact that Japanese is only spoke by 1.8% of theworld’s population, Japanese was the mostcommon language used in blog posts (37%),eclipsing English (36%) (Daily Yomiuri 2008).

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