8. The Group and the Individual: what is the difference?

The human race is made up of individuals, but each is born and for the most part lives his life in a group context. Various societies differ greatly in the relative emphasis placed on the individual and the group. Certainly no difference is more significant between Japanese and Americans, or Westerners in general, than the greater Japanese tendency to emphasize the group at the expense of the individual.

The Japanese are much more likely than Westerners to operate in groups or at least to see themselves as operating in this way. Whereas Westerners may at least put on a show of independence and individuality, most Japanese will be quite content to conform in dress, conduct, style of life, and even thought to the norms of their group. Maintaining "face," originally a Chinese term but one of universal applicability, is much on Japanese minds, but it is face before the other members of the group that most concerns them.

The balance between group and individual is in flux (постоянное изменение) in Japan as elsewhere, and there are signs of con’vergence (сходимость) in this regard between Japan and the West. Modern technology clearly produced conditions in which more individuals could win economic and other forms of independence from their families or other groupings than in earlier ages.

The Meiji leaders were the first to recognize the necessity of putting more emphasis on the individual and rapidly got rid of strict class barriers and the whole feudal system, making of the citizenry individual taxpayers and candidates for universal education and military service. Individual rights were written into the 1889 constitution, even though they were strictly limited by the provisions of law; industrialization bit by bit produced greater individual economic freedom as in the West; and the 1947 constitution brought a great number of clearly defined and unrestricted individual rights, which the courts have rigorously enforced since then. Thus the balance between the group and the individual has shifted greatly in Japan during the past century.

Once these differences were clearly embodied (воплощённый) in the family, though this is no longer the case. The premodern Japanese family, known as the ie, might include subordinate branch families under the authority of the main family and other members who were distant kin or not related at all. It also gave absolute authority over the individual members to the father or else the family council. This sort of family was to be found particularly among the more prominent members of the feudal warrior class, rich merchants, and certain peasant groups.

The modern Japanese family is in structure not very different from the American nuclear family, though with a strong survival of the stem family system. Parental authority is stronger, and family ties on the whole are closer.

The differences from the West come out more clearly in extra family groupings: villages, companies.

Whereas the American tends to see himself as an individual possessing a specific skill—a salesman, accountant, truck driver, or steamfitter— and is ready to sell this skill to the highest bidder, the Japanese is much more likely to see himself as a permanent member of a business establishment—a Mitsui Trading or Mitsubishi Heavy Industry man—what­ever his specific function may be.

Schools, particularly at the college level, are another important area in which individuals find group identification. Very few students attend more than a single university, and throughout life individuals identify themselves and are identified by others on the basis of the university they attended.

Groups of every other sort abound throughout Japanese society and usually play a larger role and offer more of a sense of individual self-identification than do corresponding groups in the United States.

Naturally, large groups are often subdivided into smaller ones. The work team or office group is an important social as well as operational subunit within a factory or business. There is a particular solidarity among persons of the same age in villages, business firms, and the bureaucracy. Political parties and ministerial bureaucracies often are divided into sharply contending factions. Student life in universities centers on "circles" or interest groups, whether these be for various organized sports, hobbies such as photography, more academic concerns such as the English Speaking Society, or political action groups. Students for the most part develop the bulk of their social contacts within the one such group they choose to join. In society as a whole, artistic and intellectual life tends to break up into small, exclusive, club like groupings, which support their own publications and do not mingle much with one another.