Talk:Nihonjinron

Some observations (aka, Trim II: The Sequel)

Hoo, baby. Here's where we are [1] so, this thing needs some work. There's been a heavy reliance on essentially a couple of the "Japanology bashing" works essentially criticizing this literary genre. Obviously that's not a very balanced article. It was a bit of an attack page before, almost denying the existence of Japanese civilization or that it would have any unique aspects. Obviously, that's not appropriate for the encyclopedia; I am guessing that a balanced description of this literary genre and its works would consider the possibility that Japanese literary civilization has some notable and unique aspects. Anyway, I'm still working on it, but I was actually planning on taking a wikibreak for at least until New Year's Day probably. Who knows if I'll stick to that. Any interested watchers or stalkers of my contributions, are welcome to take a hacksaw and a hatchet and start grinding away at this little nugget anytime they feel inclined, if they so wish. Andre🚐 08:16, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

To be clear it seems also quite possible that someone with a close COI has been editing this. Andre🚐 09:30, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

As in self-citing, favoring a political party, or more in the WP:ADVOCACY direction? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

No political party per se that I can determine but a heavy emphasis on a particular set and aspect of sourcing. COI might not be what it is, just a fringey POV. Andre🚐 18:22, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

small revert

I replaced this by the previous version:

Dale (1986), Harumi Befu (1987), and Kosaku Yoshino (1992) view nihonjinron critically, identifying it as a tool to encourage social and political conformity. Dale, for example, characterizes nihonjinron as constituting Japan as "a culturally and socially homogeneous racial entity, whose essence is virtually unchanged from prehistoric times down to the present day... they are conspicuously nationalistic." Dale was criticized for his work, including the charge of intellectual dishonesty by Robert C. Marshall, who maintained that Japan is truly unique. William Kelly stated Dale's work was a gross oversimplification, though he appreciated its broad grounding in classical and European studies, but criticizes its primary rhetorical strategy being "derision;" it is described as a work of Japanology (i.e. Japanese studies) "bashing."

First, it is misleading to replace a 3-part summary by just an abbreviated version of the first part. Second, this is not an article on Dale's book, so while it is fair to report criticism of the thesis of Dale that is quoted, it is off-topic to report criticisms of theses of Dale that are not quoted. Kelly's review is almost entirely positive, but this fact is rendered invisible. Kelly reviews three works at once and the word "bashing" appears only in the title, while the word "derision" appears only in the introduction in reference to all three works, and definitely not regarding "primary rhetorical strategy". The phrase "gross oversimplification" does appear in relation to Dale, but as criticism of a particular aspect of Dale's work, not of the work as a whole. Furthermore, Kelly does not "appreciate [the] grounding [of the work] in classical and European studies" but only notes that Dale has training in those areas. Marshall's review, in contrast, is strongly negative, but as before one should try to identify a criticism of the thesis that is presented and not just pull out two words from the first sentence. Finally, I'm not sure that the article of Shepherd is published, so I quoted directly from the book. Zero^talk 07:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

That is all very reasonable and I am good with all of that.

Here is a fuller quote, btw, from Kelly. What the three books under review have in common is a close scrutiny of the claims of Nihonjinron. Like their subject, they are alternately pedantic and polemical. They find little to praise but their judgments are ambivalently couched in fear and derision, concerned about its ideological implications and caustic about its intellectual pr and from Marshall, which is whom the "rhetorical strategy of derision" should be attributed to: ng. More than any other aspect of Dale's representation of nihonjinron, his rhetorical strategy, derision, reveals the arbitrary grounds for his repudiation of nihonjinron. Derision intimidates through the assumption of the privilege of self- evidence, "what everybody who is anybody knows." If earlier citations have not made clear that Dale's primary tool is contumely, not reason, one last example will probably not be sufficie I want to add that Kelly's review, while he praises it as having good value because it's an overview, he really didn't like it. He writes Dale is long on implication and short on demonstration. In it is a gross oversimplification to insinuate so much of contemporary social scienceinto the Nihonjinron rubric. Polemic, even in Dale's adept hands, often borders on parody, and he (unwittingly, I believe) indulges the Orientalist conceit that only the Western observer is capable of careful thinking and accurate understanding. There are genuine alternatives to na- tional narcissism and and pseudo-science in Japan, and these three books point all the more to the need for a broader study of this field of debate, in which the searchfor Japaneseness is but one of the positions. Hope that explains a little more how I am interpreting differently from you, but reasonable minds can differ. I think the "Japanology Bashing" article almost reads a critique of the Wikipedia entry, so I think the critique is valuable.

Here's more Kelly since you mentioned the part of his training and grounding and appreciating that about the work, which I think he does. Dale's rapier-like exposure of the Nihonjinron pretensions of Japanese harmony and homogeneity. To be sure, his judgment is no more charitable: "conceptual coun-terfeiting" (p. 17), "ideological mendacities" (p. 140), and "Oedipal shadow-boxing (p. 184) are but a few of his more colorful descriptions of the work of some of Japan's leading scholars. Yet, perhaps because he is an outsider (apparently trained in classics and European literature), he retains a sense of proportion and of humor that we specialists-and certainly the other au-thors here-often lose. Compare, for instance, Dale's treatment of Kumon (pp. 220-221) with Miller's. Despite being an outsider, he displays an impressive command of the Japanese lan-guage and literature requisite for his ambitious critique. It is the broadest of the three studies and the most useful for anthropologists generally. He's basically saying it's the best of a bunch of polemical, Japanology-bashing studies, but we can't base a Wikipedia entry primarily around that, I would think. The review should be weighed more than the work itself in this article. I would appreciate if you would run the exercise for yourself and determine whether you think what is there is OK now, when you have free time. I'm not in a rush. Andre🚐 08:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC) [condensed old timestamps]