The more coats of varnish that are laid on the foundation by laborious work throughout the years, the more valuable becomes the lacquer work as a finished product. So it is with a people. It is said of the Russians: ‘Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.’ One might with equal justice say of the Japanese: ‘Scratch a Japanese, scrape off the varnish, and you find a pirate.’ Yet it should not be forgotten that in Japan varnish is a valuable product and an aid to handicraft. There is nothing spurious about it; it is not a daub to cover defects. It is at least as valuable as the substance it adorns.
The contradictions in Japanese male behavior which are so conspicuous to Westerners are made possible by the discontinuity of their upbringing, which leaves in their consciousness, even after all the ‘lacquering’ they undergo, the deep imprint of a time when they were like little gods in their little world, when they were free to gratify even their aggressions, and when all satisfactions seemed possible. Because of this deeply implanted dualism, they can swing as adults from excesses of romantic love to utter submission to the family. They can indulge in pleasure and ease, no matter to what lengths they go in accepting extreme obligations. Their training in circumspection makes them in action an often timid people, but they are brave even to foolhardiness. They can prove themselves remarkably submissive in hierarchal situations and yet not be easily amenable to control from above. In spite of all their politeness, they can retain arrogance. They can accept fanatic discipline in the Army and yet be insubordinate. They can be passionately conservative and yet be attracted by new ways, as they have successively demonstrated in their adoption of Chinese customs and of Western learning.
The dualism in their characters creates tensions to which different Japanese respond in different ways, though each is making his own solution of the same essential problem of reconciling the spontaneity and acceptance he experienced in early childhood with the restraints which promise security in later life. A good many have difficulty in resolving this problem. Some stake everything on ruling their lives like pedants and are deeply fearful of any spontaneous encounter with life. The fear is the greater because spontaneity is no fantasy but something they once experienced. They remain aloof, and, by adhering to the rules they have made their own, feel that they have identified themselves with all that speaks with authority. Some are more dissociated. They are afraid of their own aggressiveness which they dam up in their souls and cover with a bland surface behavior. They often keep their thoughts busy with trivial minutiae in order to stave off awareness of their real feelings. They are mechanical in the performance of a disciplined routine which is fundamentally meaningless to them. Others, who have been more caught by their early childhood, feel a consuming anxiety in the face of all that is demanded of them as adults and try to increase their dependence when it is no longer appropriate. They feel that any failure is an aggression against authority and any striving therefore throws them into great agitation. Unforeseen situations which cannot be handled by rote are frightening to them.
These are characteristic dangers to which the Japanese are exposed when their anxiety about rejection and censure are too much for them. When they are not overpressed, they show in their lives both the capacity for enjoying life and the carefulness not to step on others’ toes which has been bred into them in their upbringing. It is a very considerable achievement. Their early childhood has given them assertiveness. It has not awakened a burdening sense of guilt. The later restraints have been imposed in the name of solidarity with their fellows, and the obligations are reciprocal. There are designated ‘free areas’ where impulse life can still be gratified, no matter how much other people may interfere with their wishes in certain matters. The Japanese have always been famous for the pleasure they get from innocent things: viewing the cherry blossoms, the moon, chrysanthemums, or new fallen snow; keeping insects caged in the house for their ‘song’; writing little verses; making gardens; arranging flowers, and drinking ceremonial tea. These are not activities of a deeply troubled and aggressive people. They do not take their pleasures sadly either. A Japanese rural community, in those happier days before Japan embarked on its disastrous Mission, could be in its leisure time as cheerful and sanguine as any living people. In its hours of work it could be as diligent.
But the Japanese ask a great deal of themselves. To avoid the great threats of ostracism and detraction, they must give up personal gratifications they have learned to savor. They must put these impulses under lock and key in the important affairs of life. The few who violate this pattern run the risk of losing even their respect for themselves. Those who do respect themselves (jicho) chart their course, not between ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ but between ‘expected man’ and ‘unexpected man,’ and sink their own personal demands in the collective ‘expectation.’ These are the good men who ‘know shame (haji)’ and are endlessly circumspect. They are the men who bring honor to their families, their villages, and their nation. The tensions that are thus generated are enormous, and they express themselves in a high level of aspiration which has made Japan a leader in the Orient and a great power in the world. But these tensions are a heavy strain upon the individual. Men must be watchful lest they fail, or lest anyone belittle their performances in a course of action which has cost them so much abnegation. Sometimes people explode in the most aggressive acts. They are roused to these aggressions, not when their principles or their freedom is challenged, as Americans are, but when they detect an insult or a detraction. Then their dangerous selves erupt, against the detractor if that is possible, otherwise against themselves.