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Freedom in a Global Context: What Japanese Individuality and American Groupism Tell Us

By Brian J. McVeigh

January 26, 2022

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This “institutionalized individuality/individualism” is neither particularly American, Western, Asian, Japanese, etc., but operates at the worldwide level.

Japan and America seem like opposites, the former a place where the individual is suppressed and the group extolled, while in the United States the individual is lauded and groupism frowned upon. But viewed in global context they are not that far apart. An in-depth examination of both societies reveals how whether formulated as individuality or individualism, the focus on the individual as a source of vast untapped resources requiring expression and exploration is built around the “project of the individual.” The individual is the “modern source of all meaning and action” rather than the needs and expectations of corporate groups and national societies. The “perspective of the individual, in one form or another, is increasingly celebrated.”[1] This “institutionalized individuality/individualism” is neither particularly American, Western, Asian, Japanese, etc., but operates at the worldwide level.

 

How Sociopsychological Changes Led to an Individual-centric World

The forces of interiorization dug the groundwork for individualism and new definitions of the person that, by the 1800s, crystallized into what we call modernity.

How did the individual become the “primordial or grounding element of all social structures”?[2] A long-term historical perspective reveals how as societies grew in complexity since the early modern period, people began to view individuals as containing an inner mental stuff that was just as significant as obligatory roles, imposed norms, inherited position, and social status. In other words, we began to assign greater value to what might be called the psychic innards of the person. “Psychological interiorization” is the consequence or we might say the other side of the coin of social exteriorization; as political, economic, and technological complexity increased, our mental machinery needed to be scaled up. Interiorization encouraged people to reconceptualize personhood in the political and economic domains. What was “inside” the self became inherently valuable and thus was born the idea of self-ownership as exemplified in the writings of John Locke (1632‒1704). In other words, one should keep not just what one produces but one should also freely “own” one’s opinions uncensored by political authorities. The individual’s interior space not only requires expression but is also filled with personalized wishes. The forces of interiorization dug the groundwork for individualism and new definitions of the person that, by the 1800s, crystallized into what we call modernity. These definitions include the voting citizen premised on the belief in the inherently autonomous self with inalienable rights; the participatory citizen-soldier mobilized by national states; the consuming citizen as property-accumulating worker; the “subject” as a container of unconscious impulses/cognitive representations that has been the focus of psychoanalysis/research psychology; and “character” as the highly self-introspectable protagonist of the novel.

 

The Ingredients of Individuality and Individualism

Let’s start with some basic definitions and distinguish three concepts. The first is the individual which obviously is found in all societies (kojin in Japanese). The second is individuality or what is unique or special about a person (kosei in Japanese). The third concept is individualism, an Anglo-American political economic philosophy that takes the individual as the basic unit of society (kojin-shugi in Japanese). While it is easy to associate individualism with Anglo-American thought, arguably it is more accurate to see it as a product of modernizing forces. Certain societies arrived at modernity earlier by recognizing how unleashing and exploiting a person’s capacities benefited society. And a distinction should be made between political and economic individualism. While the assumption is that they go together, they can follow different trajectories within the same society. For example, in the 1980s the Chinese Communist Party began to unshackle the productive powers of its individual workers. But China’s citizens remain politically oppressed.

In their healthier manifestations both individualism and individuality can be distilled down into different ingredients. The first is self-individuation, which describes highlighting and prioritizing one’s personal traits. People then come to appear unique when compared to those of others and set against the backdrop of larger collectivities. The need to distinguish ourselves from others is something that is either encouraged or discouraged by place and period. Self-individuation promotes not just personal but also the common good since it underscores an individual’s special talents that can be used to benefit others. Discovering one’s assets not only aids oneself but it is also a boon to society in general who can benefit from one’s own strengths.

Fostering individual agency leads to a sense of control over one’s destiny. This is the third ingredient.

The second ingredient is self-authorization. This concerns to whom or to what we attribute control of our behavior. This locus of control is key to how we conceptualize our superior‒subordinate relations and the social structures in which we are embedded. It is the “who” of agency. Ordinarily we believe that one’s inner self, rather than supernatural entities as in times past or political ideologies in the present-day, governs our immediate behavior. Very much related to self-authorization is self-autonomy, i.e., fostering individual agency leads to a sense of control over one’s destiny. This is the third ingredient. A person is regarded as an intention-instilled being; accountability and responsibility are attributed to an inner, highly individualized “I” rather than ethnic-racial collectivities, ideological groupings, charismatic but cultish leaders, or religious hierarchies.

 

The Individual in Japan

Japan is a land of myths. But not just of the religious and folkloric kind. It is a place where embellished narratives about history, politics, identity, and Japan’s role on the global stage are kept firmly in place by powerful elite institutions. Japan is often perceived as “exotic,” an “orientalist wonderland”; for many it is somehow special and culturally “unique” compared to other places. It is also considered by many to be a “small” and ethnically homogenous society. Other commonly heard myths about Japan is that it lacks a military (i.e., it only has a “defense force”), is predominantly middle-class, has a superb education system, and is a place where change is slow and incremental. All of these views are misperceptions or at least are in need of heavy qualification.

One myth in particular deserves attention: The Japanese lack individuality. This ideological nugget is bound up with other fictions, e.g., the group is always given priority over the individual so that conflict, dissent, and tension are minimized and harmony privileged since offending egotism is subtracted from social dynamics that routinely unsettle other societies. When I began studying Japan in the 1980s researchers talked confidently about the “group model.” Somewhat later, even when few academics took it seriously, one still had to devote space in academic publications to why the group model needed to be challenged and mention the individualistic qualities of the Japanese.

All societies, of course, spin fanciful, self-serving tales about themselves, but some are more talented than others at collective storytelling. It always struck me how while living in Japan I would meet visiting American scholars who, suspicious and skeptical of their own politico-economic institutions back home, were easily taken in by the “official” accounts of Japan. These tales were concocted by political and economic leaders, disseminated through the educational system, absorbed by the populace, exported overseas, and then imported back into Japan by unsuspecting Japan-watchers and scholars.

Many Japanese educators, concerned with how collectivism stifles creativity and expressions of independence, advocate kosei in schools.

For some, Japanese individualism carries negative connotations of selfishness, irresponsibility, and immaturity. While certain Japanese criticize individualism as a decidedly foreign import and believe it undermines Japan’s groupism, individuality is very much alive and encouraged. Indeed, many Japanese educators, concerned with how collectivism stifles creativity and expressions of independence, advocate kosei in schools. And despite a wariness towards individualism among certain Japanese thinkers, Japan is a stable democracy with a tradition of political rights and strong protections for the individual acquisition of private property.

Despite a genuine interest in kosei among the average Japanese, arguably it has been pressed into service by advertisers, marketers, and profit-hungry corporations. A cynic might claim that the educatio-economic system harnesses the animal spirts of individuality for the agenda of economic nationalism; this is hard to deny. But it is also difficult to dismiss the colorful and irrepressible expression of individualistic qualities among the Japanese. In Japan, all the talk about group life (shūdan seikatsu), group consciousness (shūdan ishiki) and harmony (wa) seems to indicate a predilection for conformity, regulation, and standardization. But such a conclusion is superficial. Here the common use of another Japanese word designating individuality should be mentioned: jibun-rashisa, which might literally be translated as “self-likeness.” Self-expression is especially evident in the everyday world of consumption or in how consumers alter, supplement, and convert goods and fashion to personal preferences; think of the global impact of Japanese pop culture. Such subversion illustrates an adaptable, abounding, and resolute—indeed, at times stubborn—individuality.

 

The Group in America

If individuality is central to Japanese conceptions of the person, groupism plays a prominent role in American life. Consider the rallying cries of “team player,” “teamwork” and “team spirit,” whether on the sports field or in boardrooms. Or the propensity of many Americans to hyphenate their identities in order to signal their affiliation with an ethnocultural group, e.g., Irish-American, Italian-American, Chinese-American, African-American, etc. Indeed, the fact that the American government categorizes its citizens (e.g., census) using outdated nineteenth-century classifications, despite supposedly being a beacon for civic rather than racial and ethnic politics, illustrates well American-style groupism, as does the media’s predilection to promiscuously racialize news items. And the unhealthy polarization of American politics into Democrat-versus-Republican, left-versus-right, vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated, indicates dogmatic groupism, not enlightened individual decision-makers.

While it is easy to delineate the historical trajectory of politico-economic individualism, it is more challenging to describe how it has taken deep roots in the cultural life of a nation, especially when weeds rather than flowers sprout. In the United States we are familiar with the sins of twisted individualism: selfishness, egotism, self-centeredness. Misguided and misunderstood individualism also promotes being highly opinionated since “my view” must possess special significance by virtue of the inherent value of the individual. But the habit of holding unchallenged opinions leads to the illness of “opinioneitis.” If being opinionated makes one blinkered and narrow-minded, the symptoms of opinioneitis are ugly bigotry, cruel intolerance, and dangerous dogma. It’s what happens when an individual—spoon-fed heavy doses of excessive self-esteem, spoiled by helicopter parenting, misinformed by the media, misled by the government, and coddled by an educational system that puts more stock in feelings than facts—ends up being unable to empathize. One’s belief becomes the truth, one’s subjective judgment, objective reality.

 

The Future?

This brings us back to the difference between economic and political freedom.

For better or for worse, the individual is the core element, the sovereign source of public life, whether political, economic, or cultural, as well as the source of problems in these areas; thus the modern emphasis on “therapeutic measures” for society’s ills. And due to the spreading roots of a consumerist capitalism nourished by a self-centric culture, every desire and demand must be instantly gratified. Driving individuation is interiorization, whose ideological spawn is not going away. So the question is how should societies respond politically, economically, and culturally to the individual-is-king as we rush headlong into an uncertain future that expands the inner landscapes of the individual? It seems commonsensical to begin with an attempt to balance the needs of the commonweal with those of the individual. But an obvious and more pressing problem is how politicians, policymakers, the average citizen, and (unsurprisingly) corporations confuse satisfying base consumerist desires with hard-won sacred political rights. This brings us back to the difference between economic and political freedom. I remember the excitement when China opened up after the Cultural Revolution and how Euro-Americans (“Westerners”) assumed that as its vast market expanded so would the political choices of the Chinese people. While certainly the satisfaction of material needs and wants has a stabilizing effect, it is no substitute for the self-autonomy, self-dignity, and self-respectability that can only come about through the attentive cultivation and robust protection of individual political liberties.
 

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[1] Meyer, J. W. (2004). World Society, the Welfare State, and the Life Course: An Institutional Perspective SocialWorld—Working Paper No. 8. Available at http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/soz/Forschung/Projekte/socialworld/pdf/working%20paper%208.pdf

[2] Frank, D. J., Meyer, J. W., & Miyahara, D. (1995). The Individualist Polity and the Prevalence of Professionalized Psychology: A Cross-National Study. American Sociological Review, 60(3), 360–377.
 
 

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