Book Review: Understanding the Japanese Mind
| Published date | 01 June 1955 |
| Date | 01 June 1955 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205501000225 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REVIEWS
153
retained
its
accustomed
privileged position.
Thus Professor
Fairbank
concluded
from
his
study
of
the
century
of
unequal
treaties
in
the
context
of
China's
institutional
history
that
the
theory
of
imperialism
is
not
the
only
avenue
of
approach
to
her
modern
foreign
relations.
As
additional
collections
of
Chinese
documents
are
trans-
lated
through the
unflagging
zeal
of
scholars
like
Fairbank
the
Westerners
will be
equipped more
adequately
to
analyse
the
forces
operating
in
modern
China
and
to
shape more successfully
their
future
policies.
Ottawa
C.
CECIL
LINGARD
UNDERSTANDING
THE
JAPANESE
MIND.
By
James
Clark
Maloney.
1954.
(New
York:
Philosophical
Library.
xix,
252pp.
$3.50)
This
is
an
interesting
and
useful
book
but
it
is
misnamed.
It
might
better
have
been
called
an
attempt
to
understand
the
Japanese
and
their
psychoanalysis
by
an
American
Psycho-
analyst.
At
first
glance
the
book
seems
to
be
well
documented
by
nearly
three
hundred references,
but
on
closer
examination
it
can
be
seen
that
many
of
these
references have
been selected
to
substantiate
the
thesis
that
Japanese
psychoanalysis
differs
considerably
from
Western
Psychoanalysis
and
is
determined
by
Japanese
culture.
However,
some
understanding
of
the
Japanese
mind emerges
as
a
kind
of
by-product
of
the
author's
attempt
to
demonstrate
the
effect
of Japanese
culture
on
Japanese
psychoanalysis.
Some
examples
of
this
should
be
mentioned.
Japanese
rigidity
or
resistance
to
change is
stated
as
follows
"Modern
Japan
is
ancient
Japan
attired
in
borrowed
clothing."
Child
training
in
Japan
is
designed
to
produce
submissiveness,
filial
respect
and
national
duty.
The
Japanese
show
a
tendency
to
copying
detail
whether
they
understand
it
or
not.
The
con-
cluding
sentence
of
the
book
is
a
fairly
good
example
of
high
sounding
words
which
express
very
little
meaning
but
do
reveal
clearly
the
bias
of
the author.
Concluding
a discussion
of
Japanese
psychoanalysis
the
sentence
reads
as
follows:
"All
this
sounds
very
good
and
even
to
some
extent
convincing,
but
it
must
not
be
forgotten
that
the
adaptation
of
the
Freudian
psychoanalysis
to
fit
the
prerequisites
of
the cardinal
principles
of
the
national entity
of
Japan
is
a
super
abstraction
that
extends
be-
yond
the tangible limits
of
reality."
University
of
Toronto
KARL
S.
BERNHARDT
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