Re: NYTimes.com Article: Experts Can Help Rebuild a Country

<<As the occupation of Iraq appears more complex by
the day, where are the new Ruth Benedicts,
authoritative voices who will carry weight with both
Iraqis and Americans?>>

Forget the Ruth Benedicts.  What we need are the ibn
Khaldun's, the Abdel-Malek's, the Mohanty's, and the
Ashrawi's - real authoritative voices that can tell us
what to do about, and how to change, the American
corporate machine.

Khaldoun



> > Experts Can Help Rebuild a Country
> >
> > July 19, 2003
> >  By ALEXANDER STILLE
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > When the cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict was
> asked to
> > write a report on Japan in the spring of 1945 for
> the
> > American Office of War Information, she was
> working under
> > difficult conditions. She had never been to Japan
> and had
> > no chance of going there during wartime. She did
> her "field
> > research" among Japanese-Americans living in the
> United
> > States and wrote Report 25, titled "Japanese
> Behavior
> > Patterns," in just three months between May and
> August,
> > shortly before the United States dropped the
> atomic bomb on
> > Hiroshima.
> >
> > Enlarged and published as a book immediately after
> the war,
> > in 1946, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" was an
> instant
> > best seller and went on to become a classic of
> Japanese
> > cultural studies.
> >
> > But most importantly, her government work ended up
> becoming
> > the bible of American troops who undertook the
> occupation
> > of Japan.
> >
> > The choice to rely so heavily on cultural
> anthropologists
> > in the rebuilding of a defeated enemy has
> particular
> > resonance now as the United States struggles to
> rebuild a
> > stable and viable Iraq, a country that, like
> Japan, is seen
> > as both impossibly foreign and forbidding.
> >
> > Indeed, at the end of World War II, Japanese
> militarism was
> > in many ways a far more frightening and
> incomprehensible
> > phenomenon for most Americans than Islamic
> fundamentalism
> > is today. Kamikaze pilots were like today's
> suicide
> > bombers, symbols of a fanatical culture with no
> > appreciation for the individual.
> >
> > Many experts insisted that there were deep,
> unchanging
> > aspects of Japanese culture that made it
> constitutionally
> > unfit for Western-style democracy. Emperor worship
> - the
> > veneration of a human being as a divinity - was
> even more
> > incomprehensible than monotheistic Islam, even of
> the
> > fundamentalist variety. The hierarchical nature of
> Japanese
> > society, many experts concluded, made it uniquely
> unsuited
> > to democratic institutions. In an article in The
> New York
> > Times Magazine in 1941, Nathaniel Peffer called
> > authoritarianism a "principle of nature" for the
> Japanese.
> > "There are those who command," he wrote. "Others
> obey."
> >
> > Perhaps surprisingly, American policy makers,
> facing global
> > responsibilities for the first time, went beyond
> such
> > conventional thinking to understand the cultures
> of the
> > countries they were fighting as well as those they
> might
> > need to occupy during and after the conflict. The
> United
> > States, which did not even have a foreign
> intelligence
> > service before the war, hired numerous professors,
> scholars
> > and intellectuals of varying backgrounds to
> prepare reports
> > to help them understand Germany, including Herbert
> Marcuse,
> > (even though he was a well-known Marxist
> philosopher), the
> > psychologist Erik Erikson, the great German art
> historian
> > Richard Krautheimer and the anthropologist
> Margaret Mead.
> >
> > Benedict, who left Columbia University temporarily
> in June
> > 1943 to work for the Office of War Information's
> foreign
> > morale analysis division, wrote reports on
> cultures as
> > different as Romania and Thailand.
> >
> > With considerable sensitivity, she managed both to
> stress
> > the differences in Japanese society of which
> American
> > policy makers needed to be aware and to debunk the
> > stereotype of the Japanese as hopelessly rigid and
> > incapable of change.
> >
> > Using the tools of anthropology, she pointed out
> that
> > Japan, as a classic example of a society based on
> "honor"
> > and "shame," was actually quite adaptable. If
> anything, she
> > said, "guilt" cultures, like those of the United
> States and
> > most Protestant countries, which believe in an
> absolute
> > standard of good and evil, were in some ways
> harder to
> > change. Shame cultures, by contrast, respond to
> externally
> > imposed standards of honorable or shameful
> behavior: change
> > the standards, she said, and the behavior will
> change.
> >
> > Thus, Benedict argued, it was possible to change
> Japan by
> > working within the norms of its traditional
> culture rather
> > than by trying to destroy it.
> >
> > In another memo Benedict wrote for the government,
> "What
> > Shall Be Done About the Emperor," she countered
> those who
> > argued that the only way to change Japan would be
> to
> > eliminate the institution of the emperor.
> >
> > "Veneration of the Imperial House is a strict
> religious
> > tenet of Japan and, however much it offends
> nations which
> > espouse other tenets, it commands the deep loyalty
> of the
> > Japanese," she wrote. "Every job to be done in
> > rehabilitation will be less difficult according to
> the
> > degree to which it has the sanction of the Emperor
> behind
> > it, and more difficult in proportion to our
> requirements
> > that he be eliminated."
> >
> > Benedict noted that the Japanese were remarkably
> flexible
> > in their use of the imperial system. Emperors were
> removed
> > to suit changing times and the emperor's closest
> aides
> > assassinated in order to effect changes in policy.
> >
> > "We must also recognize that another incumbent
> can, without
> > violence to Japanese practice, be substituted for
> the
> > present Emperor if desired," she wrote. "In
> propaganda we
> > need only to apply the traditional Japanese
> clichés the
> > militarists have `betrayed the Emperor,' they have
> not
> > `eased the mind of the Emperor' - in short, they
> have
> > failed, and in Japan what fails is by definition
> not the
> > will of the Emperor."
> >
> > The symbolic power of the emperor, she said, "is
> not in
> > itself synonymous with conquest and concentration
> camps as
> > the regime of Hitler was in Germany." The duty of
> Japanese
> > subjects toward their emperor, she continued,
> "could be
> > just as consistent with a world at peace as with a
> war-torn
> > world, or it could be sloughed off in time as
> Japan's
> > social objectives change."
> >
> > When the Japanese government, led by Emperor
> Hirohito
> > himself, accepted the norms of democracy and
> renounced
> > militarism, the Japanese people adopted democratic
> and
> > pacific behavior as honorable and virtuous and
> their
> > opposites as shameful.
> >
> > At the heart of Benedict's argument was an idea
> about
> > religions that echoes what some of today's experts
> on the
> > Islamic world have been saying: "Religions change
> their
> > role inevitably with changed conditions, but they
> cannot be
> > changed on demand from outside without the gravest
> > consequences."
> >
> > Perhaps the most impressive measure of Benedict's
> work has
> > been its consistent success in Japan itself, as
> Pauline
> > Kent, an Australian professor of sociology at
> Ryukoku
> > University in Japan, recounts in a 1999 journal
> article in
> > Dialectical Anthropology about Japanese
> perceptions of the
> > book. According to Ms. Kent, Benedict's book has
> sold an
> > astounding 2.3 million copies in Japan since its
> > translation. She notes that a public opinion
> survey in 1987
> > found that over one-third of Japanese had either
> heard of
> > "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" or of Ruth
> Benedict.
> >
> > "Although some have criticized it as offering some
> > over-broad generalizations about Japan, and it has
> been
> > superseded by more up-to-date and scientific
> studies," she
> > wrote, " `Chrysanthemum' gave a fresh, innovative,
> > unprejudiced external reading of Japanese culture
> that
> > revolutionized understanding of Japan not just in
> the West
> > but in Japan itself. Many of its insights are
> still the
> > starting point for many discussions of the inner
> workings
> > of Japanese society."
> >
> > As the occupation of Iraq appears more complex by
> the day,
> > where are the new Ruth Benedicts, authoritative
> voices who
> > will carry weight with both Iraqis and Americans?
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/19/arts/ 
> > 19RUTH.html?ex=1059841843&ei=1&en=7bf294869b40cacf
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> ---
> Karen Nakamura      Assistant Professor of
> Anthropology     Macalester  
> College
> nakamura@macalester.edu        
> http://www.deaflibrary.org/nakamura
> 


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