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It is difficult to imagine a Japanese vision of the social order
without the influence of Confucianism because prior to the advent of
Chinese influence in the sixth century, Japan did not have a stratified
society.
Confucianism emphasizes harmony among heaven, nature, and human society
achieved through each person's accepting his or her social role and
contributing to the social order by proper behavior. An often quoted
phrase from the Confucian essay "Da Xue" (The Great Learning) explains,
"Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their
families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states
being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy."
This view implies that hierarchy is natural. Relative status
differences define nearly all social interaction. Age or seniority,
gender, educational attainment, and place of employment are common
distinctions that guide interaction. Without some knowledge of the other's
background, age and gender may be an individual's only guidelines. A
Japanese person may prefer not to interact with a stranger, to avoid
potential errors in etiquette. The business cards or calling cards so
frequently exchanged in Japan are valuable tools of social interaction
because they provide enough information about another person to facilitate
normal social exchange. Japan scholar Edwin O. Reischauer noted that
whereas Americans often act to minimize status differences, Japanese find
it awkward, even unbecoming, when a person does not behave in accordance
with status expectations.
The Japanese language is one means of expressing status differences,
and it contributes to the assumption that hierarchy is natural. Verb
endings regularly express relationships of superiority or inferiority.
Japanese has a rich vocabulary of honorific and humble terms that indicate
a person's status or may be manipulated to express what the speaker
desires the relationship to be. Men and women employ somewhat different
speech patterns, with women making greater use of polite forms. Certain
words are identified with masculine speech and others with feminine. For
example, there are a number of ways to say the pronoun "I," depending on
the formality of the occasion, the gender of the speaker, and the relative
status of the speaker and listener. As is appropriate in a culture that
stresses the value of empathy, one person cannot speak without considering
the other.
The term hierarchy implies a ranking of roles and a rigid set of rules,
and Japan has its share of bureaucracy. But the kind of hierarchical sense
that pervades the whole society is of a different sort, which
anthropologist Robert J. Smith calls "diffuse order." For example, in
premodern times, local leaders were given a great deal of autonomy in
exchange for assuming total responsibility for affairs in their
localities. In contemporary Japan also, responsibility is collective and
authority diffuse. The person seeming to be in charge is, in reality,
bound into the web of group interdependence as tightly as those who appear
to be his subordinates. Leadership thus calls not for a forceful
personality and sharp decision-making skills but for sensitivity to the
feelings of others and skills in mediation. Even in the early 1990s,
leaders were expected to assume responsibility for a major problem
occurring in or because of their groups by resigning their posts, although
they may have had no direct involvement in the situation.
Status in Japan is based on specific relationships between individuals,
often relationships of social dependency between those of unequal status.
Giri (duty), the sense of obligation to those to whom one is indebted,
requires deferential behavior and eventually repayment of the favor, which
in turn calls forth future favors. Relations of social dependence thus
continue indefinitely, with their very inequality binding individuals to
each other. Rules of hierarchy are tempered by the relationship itself.
This tempering is known as ninjo (human emotion or compassion). The
potential conflict between giri and ninjo has been a frequent theme in
Japanese drama and literature.
Although young Japanese are less likely to phrase a personal dilemma in
those terms, claiming that the concept of giri was old-fashioned, many
continue to feel stress in doing what they should when it was not what
they want. Social order exists in part because all members of the society
are linked in relationships of social dependency, each involved in giving
and receiving.
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