in the United States.

10 Indeed, Kasulis's approach allows r o o m for the role of

ideology in shaping selfhood, permitting us t o perceive that many of the dii-
fcrences in kinds of selves lic largely in the rotes o r functions (social, politi-
cal, psychological, exbortatoq, constraining, etc.) ascribed t o the self by the
society in question,
I n the introduction t o her anrhotvgy Jdpanese Sense a f S e y , Nltncy Rosen-
berger points o u t that, until recently, the study of Japanese selfhood has been
severely hampered b y the conceptual aypararus-most conspicucausly, di-
chotomous thinking-with which w e (Americans) have appraached the sub-
ject,
Tlie dieht->tomybeewecn individual and society emerged from Galileo's and
Copernicus's refiguring of the worfd on a matf~ematicaland mechailicaf basis. . . .
A dichou)my of Western ("us") versus non-Western ("them ") became ern-
bedded in the dichottsmy of individual versus society, with the first term supe-
rior in each case. Westerners living in industrial, economically "modern" soci-
ceies idealize tbemsclves as individuals, in control of emotions and social
relations, able to think abstractly by cause-and-effect logic. Westerners often af-
firm tliis ideat by viewing ncsn-Westerners as swayed by emotion, relation and
context-only able to think in the specific case and then only by metaphor. It
follows that Western societies can take the "higlicr" form of democracy because
decision making can be entmsted tts the hands of rational individuals, whereas
non-Western societies require a strong collectiviry for cohesion and control of
people enmeshed in the immediacy of r e j a t i ~ s h i pand superstit;ic)n.ll
From Roscnbcrger's perspcctke, these attitudes continue t o prevail:
This point of view remains with anthropologists, even those studying complex,
industrialized non-Western societies. Wbcthcr anthropologists cliaracterize
Japanese as disciplined and sulsmissive (overcontrolled from withc>ut)or as re-
scnthl and insubordinate (unctcreontroflcd from witliin), we stifi tend to locate
them on the negative side of the individuallsociety Jichottsmy. We often portray
Japanese as the opposite of our idtat selves: as concrete thinkers, parcicularlstic
moralists, situational confc>rmists, unintegrated selves; as intuitive rather than
rational, animistic (undiviJed from their environment), an J unable to separate
body and rnind. The temptation of such general coneIusions coneinually bedcv-
ils Western-trained scholars of Japan.12
Ruth Benedict's pioneering World War II study of Japanese culture and
psyche, The G h r y s n n c h e m ~ mnrzd the Sword, exemplifies the dichotomous
thinking that Rosenberger critiques and suggests h o w difficult it is t o under-
stand the matter using such t-hinkilig:
All tlicse contradictions . . . are trtrc. . . . Tlie Japanese are, to tlic higlicst de-
gree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aestfietic, both
insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being
pushed around, loyal and treacl-reruus, brave and timid, conservative and
hospitabte to new ways. They are terribly concerned about what other people