Some Doubts About the Scientific Value of Benedict's Book(<SPECIAL NUMBER>The Problems Raised by The Chrysanthemum and the Sword)

Abstract

What makes the reviewer sceptical of the scientific value of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword consists not in the misunderstandings found in the data themselves which the author has used, but in the inadequate treatment of these data. The auther arrives at over-generalized conclusions on the basis of partial data, and very often makes judgements about the character of the Japanese people in general from such propaganda as the no-surrender principle or the superiority of spiritual to physical power, which were believed only by a small part of militarists for a definite time, or which these militarists made use of for their struggle within the country. Of course, there is another question, which Ruth Benedict has not fully taken into consideration, of why the Japanese people so meekly suc-cumbed to the dictatorship of a militarist clique. It is in this question that we should seek a key to the patterns of Japanese culture. The Japanese can perceive very clearly what elements in their culture are new and functional and what are antiquated and non-funtional, whereas to most foreigners these cultural elements appear to co-exist side by side with equal functional significance. Therefore it strikes the Japanese as queer that Benedict accepts certain nolonger-influential thoughts or customs of the past as characteristic of the present-day Japanese culture. For example, the reviewer's own experience for the past half-century contradicts both in social and family life what the author has called "the Japan's confidence in hierarchy".