The Men in My Country

16

ne night in class with the Japanese businessmen, I write the words GUILT and SHAME in big block letters on the blackboard of our messy little classroom in an attempt — a feeble one, I admit in retrospect — to raise the level of discourse for once. Maybe I’m just tired of hearing all the talk about sex. Or maybe I’m trying to impress someone who sometimes shows up and sometimes doesn’t. Tonight he has shown up, Nozaki has, and I am trying to explain what the anthropologist Ruth Benedict said in her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword about the distinction between shame-based cultures and guilt-based cultures so I can ask the businessmen what they think. Benedict writes: A society that inculcates absolute standards of morality and relies on men’s developing a conscience is a guilt culture by definition, but a man in such a society may, as in the United States, suffer in addition from shame when he accuses himself of gaucheries which are in no way sins. He may be exceedingly chagrined about not dressing appropriately for the occasion or about a slip of the tongue. In a culture where shame is a major sanction, people are chagrined about acts which we expect people to feel guilty about. This chagrin can be very intense and it cannot be relieved, as guilt can be, by confession and atonement. A man who has sinned can get relief by unburdening himself. This device of confession is used in our secular therapy and by many religious groups which have otherwise little in common. We know it brings relief. Where shame is a major sanction, a man does not experience relief when he makes his fault public even to his confessor. So long as his bad O ................................................................................ 57 behavior does not “get out into the world” he need not be troubled and confession appears to him merely a way of courting trouble. Shame cultures therefore do not provide for confessions, even to the gods. They have ceremonies for good luck rather than for expiation. I don’t quote Benedict verbatim. I don’t use words like expiation or chagrin. What I do is try to boil down the concept by writing two lists on the blackboard, one with America and guilt and Judeo-Christian and private sin on it, the other with Japan and shame and Buddhism and Shintoism and public honor. All this in an effort to pose questions: About what do you feel shame? About what do you feel guilt? And what do you think about the distinction between the two? The Japanese businessmen struggle to understand. They are trying, they are, bless their hearts, and a wave of tenderness comes over me as I see them attempt to make sense of these complicated words on the blackboard and I am wondering now if I have summarized Benedict right and I am also wondering why I’m so interested in the distinction myself, which now seems too subtle to worry much about, and I’m also feeling guilty because look at all the trouble I have caused. Or is it shame I am feeling right now? The businessmen consult with one another, the higher-level students translating from English to Japanese for the beginners. Everyone consults their dictionaries, looking up “private” and “sin” and “public” and “honor” and instead of feeling proud of the fact that there’s some serious language work that’s getting done instead of the free-for-all of jokes that’s usual here, I begin to redden in embarrassment . Because they try and try, but finally it’s clear; it’s no use. The lesson is a flop. Miss Marilyn, Mr. Kata said. We rather — sex—talk! And I see that this lesson was a bad idea, that its substance has escaped us all. All but one. One remains attentive. One nods his head again and again. He is more talkative on this night than ever before. He likes the philosophical nature of this lesson, likes the attempt to talk about something profound. He smiles frequently. Says yes, this is true. Guilt or shame. This is the difference between America and Japan. This is the crux: the difference between inward sin and outward failure. He 58 takes the discussion further. Suggests that the paradigm, though useful , isn’t set. He doesn’t use those words, of course. Crux...