Ruth Fulton BenedictRezensionen

I read this in the 1970's. It's time to read it again.

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Benedict-Le-Chrysantheme-et-le-sabre/52377

> [Japon]. LE CHRYSANTHÈME ET LE SABRE, par Ruth BENEDICT, Essai traduit de l’américain par Lise Mécréant 360 pages / 10,70 € / ISBN : 978-2-87730-234-0. — « Ce livre traite des habitudes qui paraissent naturelles et que nul ne songerait à remettre en cause au Japon. Il traite des situations où tout Japonais peut compter sur la courtoisie et de celles où il éprouve de l’embarras, de ce qu’il exige de lui-même. » On y parle des règles de hiérarchie, de bienséance, de l’éducation des enfants, de morale sexuelle, de politique économique…
—Catalogue Picquier Poche 2019

A tad dry sometimes, but nonetheless a very interesting read. I had trouble understanding Japanese stories in books and movies, but I think I'll be able to understand them a bit better.

Really good examination of Japanese values and character right after World War 2 ended. Makes it clear why they did not become vindictive.
I have read elsewhere that it has errors in terminology, etc., but it is still one of the best on Japan. It is a classic.

This was a really interesting read, I learned a lot. But I wonder how accurate it is sixty years on?

En junio de 1944, las autoridades estadounidenses desconcertadas ante las dificultades para predecir el comportamiento del enemigo en el Pacífico y necesitadas de un repertorio de soluciones para acelerar la victoria primero e institucionalizar la ocupación después encargaron a Ruth Benedict un estudio de antropología cultural sobre las normas y valores de la sociedad japonesa. Resultado del trabajo llevado a cabo, El Crisantemo y la Espada título que hace referencia a las paradojas del carácter y el estilo de vida japoneses se convirtió prácticamente desde su aparición y hasta el día de hoy en un clásico imprescindible para aproximarse al conocimiento de los complejos patrones de la cultura japonesa, que explican no sólo el militarismo de tiempos pasados, sino también la fabulosa expansión pacífica llevada a cabo por el pueblo japonés desde el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

from cover

A recognized classic of cultural anthropology, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword paints an illuminating contrast between the civilization of Japan and that of the United States. Exploring the poitical, religious, and economic life of Japan from the seventh century through the mid-twentieth, it shows how the ideology of the Japanese has developed and how it is reflected in the daily manners and customs of their life. It traces the main outlines of Japanese society-their systems of practical ethics, their ideas of good and evil, and the structured discipines that enabale them to live according to their code. The eloquent new foreword by Ezra F. Vogel, written especially for this edition, reveals why The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is essential reading for anyone interested in Japan.

Ruth Benedict was professor of anthropology at Columbia University and one of the most eminent anthropologists of the twentieth century.

Contents

Foreword
1 Assignment: Japan
2 The Japanese in the War
3 Taking One's Proper Station
4 The Meiji Reform
5 Debtor to the Ages and the World
6 Repaying One-Ten-Thousandth
7 The Repayment 'Hardest to Bear'
8 Clearing One's Name
9 The Circle of Human Feelings
10 The Dilemma of Virtue
11 Self-Discipline
12 The Child Learn
13 The Japanese Since VJ-Day
Glossary
Index

Es un libro interesante, aunque me costó ponerle puntaje.
Lo mejor es sin duda alguna la descripción de las diversas obligaciones que tiene el japonés: para con el emperador, su familia, su «buen nombre», etc. También se destaca de manera especial el capítulo sobre la educación de los niños.
Lo peor es, bueno, cierto bias, algo de esperar en un ensayo realizado a) sin poner un pie en Japón; y b) comisionado por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos.
Hubo muchas partes que me resultaron algo densas y descoloridas; el capítulo sobre el Zen me resultó particularmente aburrido, y en general terminé este libro porque me lo puse como meta. No termina de ser una lectura entretenida, pero contiene información muy valiosa que, si bien puede intuirse, uno no alcanza a procesar con los pocos datos recogidos tras ver anime o leer a Murakami.

The history part was informative and interesting to some extent, but the explanation of Japanese people's behavior was just too condescending IMO. I'm currently living in Japan, and I don't think much of it is accurate. I daresay the book is heavily outdated.

It got sooo boring at the halfway mark, it was taking me forever to make progress. After putting me sleep for several weeks, I finally decided to quit on this book.

The fact that the version I read had so many typographical errors didn't help one bit.

Read it for the history part only if you want, but there will definitely be better options available.

Gift of Marion Kramer

It's supremely dodgy as anthropology--researched from across the Pacific, the main informant a disgruntled nisei, and ultimately even when it has real insights mistaking a profoundly dislocated, damaged point in Japanese social history for business as usual--but so much of this has been so influential on my life: a myth of Japan that became a myth of another way to be, a way of stepping away from the things my own culture and upbringing took as so obvious as to be invisible. Looking into a mirror to see your soul; self-respect being not holding to a set of personal morals, but behaving appropriately, cleaving to the circumstances--the ultimate in/flexibility--and never letting the strain show; "thank you" as "It cannot be borne, the burden you place on me by putting me in your debt." This all remained latent as long as life was selfish and easy, but as I've tried to be a dad in difficult circumstances and work with my son's mum so carefully and cause no harm, it's come up again and again. I mean this book may only say an indeterminate amount about Japan, but it's the closest thing I've found to a manual for being stronger than you are.½

Benedict is “one of the country’s most highly respected anthropologists,” if you want to believe the back of the book. In this book she describes and compares three different indigenous cultures. The Zuni are a Pueblo culture in New Mexico who reflect the Apollonian values of sobriety, moderation, and a lack of individuality to the extreme. The Kwakiutls of Vancouver Island are complete opposites as they reflect Dionysian values like individual rivalry, ecstasies, and intoxication from a variety of sources. The third culture is the Dobu tribe in Melanesia who are violent, suspicious of everyone outside their biological families, and view life as a personal conflict with nature and other people.

I really wanted to love this book, but I couldn’t. The three chapters about the different cultures were decent, although I would have like them to have been split up into multiple sections by subject to make it easier to digest the information. I also would have liked a bit more information about some of the really different and unusual practices of the cultures. In several cases, I was left with more questions than answers. The three chapters of introduction and two chapters of conclusion, however, were mind-numbingly boring and only seemed to be marginally related to the three cultures that made up the rest of the book. Overall, it was an interesting subject and an interesting approach, but the book could have been written and organized better.

Questo libro della Benedict, una importante antropologa statunitense, uscì dopo la conclusione della seconda guerra mondiale e doveva rappresentare uno strumento per comprendere come governare la difficile transizione dall’occupazione alla liberazione del Giappone. Gli Stati Uniti avevano vinto la guerra, una guerra difficile, il Giappone si era arreso, due bombe atomiche avevano stroncato la resistenza di un popolo che sembrava indomabile, ma era necessario conoscere il nemico per diventarne amico. Gli Stati Uniti hanno grandi responsabilità interne ed hanno commesso a livello internazionale diversi errori, Vietnam su tutto. Ma mai come in occasione della seconda guerra mondiale hanno dimostrato di essere una grande nazione. Il Giappone, piegato e stremato dalla guerra, fu lasciato libero di ricostruirsi e dalle ceneri rinacque come un’araba fenice. Ruth Benedict ha analizzato la cultura giapponese cercando di limitare i pregiudizi verso un Paese da sempre isolato dal resto del mondo. E l’analisi è lucida, accattivante ed incredibilmente attuale. Il senso della vergogna e dell’onore non viene buttato lì, ma viene analizzato con grande acutezza, partendo dall’istruzione, dall’adolescenza, dalla concezione giapponese della famiglia e del rapporto di coppia. Il risultato è un libro da leggere con grande attenzione e che si dimostra, al contempo, estremamente gradevole per la facilità per il lettore di entrare in un universo culturale sicuramente distante.

En junio de 1944, las autoridades estadounidenses -desconcertadas ante las dificultades para predecir el comportamiento del enemigo en el Pacífico y necesitadas de un repertorio de soluciones para acelerar la victoria primero e institucionalizar la ocupación después- encargaron a Ruth Benedict un estudio de antropología cultural sobre las normas y valores de la sociedad japonesa.
Resultado del trabajo llevado a cabo, El crisantemo y la espada -título que hace referencia a las paradojas del carácter y el estilo de vida japoneses- se convirtió prácticamente desde su aparición y hasta el día de hoy en un clásico imprescindible para aproximarse al conocimiento de los complejos patrones de la cultura japonesa, que explican no solo el militarismo de tiempos pasados, sino también la fabulosa expansión pacífica llevada a cabo por el pueblo japonés desde el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

This is an analysis of Japanese culture written during World War II and published just after the war during the occupation of Japan by American forces. Ruth Benedict never traveled to Japan, so her analysis is based on secondary sources, as well as interviews with Japanese and Japanese-Americans. Because of the indirect nature of the research, one should probably take the findings with a grain of salt. However, I still found the book enlightening and believe it will be useful in my travels to Japan and interactions with Japanese people. The main focus is the system of obligations that a typical person in Japan lives under. "On" is an obligation passively incurred; that is, when someone does something for you. Doing someone a nice turn can create an obligation from them to you that the recipient feels burdened to meet. That's something a Westerner should remember before offering a helping hand in Japan. Another form of obligation is "gimu," an obligation to the emperor, your parents, or to your profession. Since the war, the government has emphasized this form of obligation over "giri", which is an obligation to to honor one's name and to clear any insult or failure. Giri was apparently responsible for a lot of bloodshed in samurai times. Also, inability to clear one's name can lead quickly to suicide, and Japan certainly has a reputation for a high suicide rate. Benedict also includes an interesting description of how personal freedom in Japan traditionally decreases with age. A child has almost complete freedom, whereas an adult is extremely confined by the network of obligations he must operate within, and then in old age the network of obligations dissipates to again allow a great deal of freedom.

Benedict's analysis of Japan's behavior following the war is based on these concepts. She also makes predictions about Japanese economic success based on Japanese culture that proved to be true, at least until the real estate bust and deflation that occurred in the 80s and 90s.

A contributing work in the history of anthropological thought. Ruth Benedict, as was Margaret Mead, was a proponent of the "culture and personality" school of anthropological thinking. Here, she compared the Dobus of New Guinea, the Pueblos of New Mexico, Kwakiutls of the Northwest Coast and the Great Plains nations and argued that the values of each are intelligible in terms of its own coherent cultural system and that the individual should be seen within the context of his or her own culture. Basically, it is a treatise advocating cultural relativism.

The book is well written and worth a read if you are interested in the subject and even if you do not find her arguments persuasive 70 years of anthropological research later.½

Un libro sicuramente datato, ma affascinante sia perché alcune cose non sembrano molto cambiate, (vedi ad esempio Metafisica dei tubi della Nothomb) e sia perché sembra davvero un mondo "rovesciato".

"An analysis of our social structure as related to primitive civilizations"

This work has ceased to be particularly accurate or helpful, but Benedict's language still frames a lot of the debates about Japan . Learn about "guilt cultures" vs. "shame cultures" plus bonus chapters on on and giri

psychology