The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic

5. Self in Cosmology and Aesthetics

Thus far we have viewed self on a micro level. This last chapter expands the self onto a cosmological dimension. Cosmology provides a symbolic representation of self on the one hand, and a cultural guide for self-orientation on the other. In contrast to the social self, which is characterized by binding contingency, the cosmological self has a greater affinity with the logic (or nonlogic) of unbinding or random contingency, while the inner self is situated somewhere in between. Because all three of these layers of self—social, inner, and cosmological—follow contingency logic to at least some degree, together they compensate for possible excesses and, in a sense, merge into one, if only in coalition against opposition logic. In what follows, for purposes of comparison I turn to, on the one hand, biblical Judaism as a monotheistic religion driven by the logic of asymmetric opposition and, on the other, the Japanese polytheistic (or pantheistic or animistic) complex of Shintò and Buddhism, characterized by unbinding contingency logic. I extend the discussion to some aspects of aesthetics as well, as a further illustration of contingency logic. It will be noted, both cosmologically and aesthetically, that Japanese view the passage of time or universal ephemerality as something ultimate. Paradoxically, this is evidenced in a cultural striving for timelessness or permanence. Cosmological Opposition and Contingency Cross-culturally, the cosmological self is more variable than the social self. The reason, I believe, is that cosmology is more deeply internalized in an individual’s unconscious. The social self, in contrast, through exposure to the external world in day-to-day interaction and communication with a great variety of others, is sensitized to feed5 Self in Cosmology and Aesthetics back from others, with a greater chance for self-correction. This is simply my speculation; I am fully aware that this way of thinking runs counter to the common notion that the more general and abstract ideas (like cosmologies) are, the more widely sharable they are, unlike more culturally specific social codes. In cosmology, therefore, I presume that the contrast between contingency and opposition is sharper, and especially that between unbinding (or random) contingency and asymmetric opposition. Asymmetric opposition is well articulated in the monotheistic cosmology of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which claim a common descent from Abraham, whereas unbinding contingency logic characterizes the polytheism of Japanese Shintò and Buddhism, including a mixture of these. NOUMENAL VS. PHENOMENAL, COSMOS VS. CHAOS Figure 6 maps the monotheistic and polytheistic (or animistic) cosmologies in terms of four key variables. The horizontal axis represents the continuum from noumenal to phenomenal, infinite to immediate , transcendental to mundane. The monotheistic cosmology, centering on a single deity, is highly noumenal, and as such stands in sharp opposition to the manifold world of earthly phenomena, which it is expected to dominate. In the modern, mundane Western cosmology, heir to the medieval one, the noumenal resides in the human mind or reason, as is opposed to the phenomenal world of body, sensations, and emotions. In this cosmology—religious and philosophical—the “Word” plays a crucial role, in representing the noumenal and mediating it to the phenomenal. In the Japanese polytheistic cosmology, in contrast, no clear boundary separates the noumenal and phenomenal, ultimate and immediate, transcendental and terrestrial. Instead these “opposites” flow into each other, as illustrated in Figure 6 by inward-pointing arrows. Self, situated in a world of boundlessness, fluidity, and fusion without a fixed center, loses its own boundary; the result is an interfusion between self and non-self, between transcendental self and natural self. In the Japanese cosmology, the two poles of the horizontal axis—noumenal and phenomenal—are pulled together to effect intimacy and permeation. The vertical axis of Figure 6 stands for cosmological order: the continuum from cosmos to chaos. Again, monotheism places cosmos in sharp opposition to chaos, endowing the creator of cosmos, the single God, with the power to unleash or suspend chaos, whereas in the randomly contingent cosmology of polytheism, cosmos and chaos, far from repelling each other, can even be interchangeable. (If we comSELF IN COSMOLOGY AND AESTHETICS 225 pare the cosmological and social dimensions of life, this tolerance of cosmological chaos is contrasted in Japanese society by a relative intolerance of social chaos; in Western society, I believe, the opposite is true. Here, too, then, we see the inner self striking a compensatory balance, this time between cosmological and social self...