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positions 4:2 0 1996 by Duke University Press positions 4:2 Fall 1996 ence remains poorly known outside Japan. Second, this lack of awareness derives not only from more or less predictable factors (eg., the so-called language barrierâ and the disinclination of the West to take seriously the theoretical claims made by non-Western peoples concerning the institutions of the modern world). It derives also, and to a considerable degree, from the defining intellectual condition of Japanâs road to modernity: a resolute faith in the essential noncomparability of Japanâs experience (âonly Japan- or the Japanese -could have done thisâ). Third, the salient feature of this noncomparability is the conviction that Japan can receive and adapt strong impulses from âsuperiorâ cultures without sacrificing something called the ânational essence.â T h e national essence is not to be identified with cultural receptivity alone, yet at the same time, it is not compromised thereby. This triple paradox, I believe, has structured Japanese social scientific thinking in ways that have impeded a sense of comparability-let alone identitybetween the modern experience of Japan and that of other peoples. As a consequence, the critical capacity that assuredly did develop in Japanese social science has suffered a
positions asia critique – Duke University Press
Published: Sep 1, 1996
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