Now I would like to deal with the individual personality in this sort of society—how it is delimited, how it reaches out to others. The vertical society has had a major impact on the "self" of the Japanese people.
A few years ago, I visited the Tohoku region. I was taken around by a friend, a cheerful, energetic young man who talked pleasantly about his own work, the history of the region, and many other subjects. Though it was one of the warmest days in summer, both of us enjoyed ourselves tremendously for over two hours. Then we visited his place of work. At lunch, arranged for me through the kindness of his supervisor, I was surprised to see his attitude change dramatically. He utterly lost his previous cheerfulness and energy, and his spirit seemed to be drained. Everything about my young host—and his co-workers, I might add—became formal and stiff in the presence of the supervisor, even the way he opened his mouth and chewed his food. The restrained attitude of all these young men was due in part to the formality of the occasion, to the fact that their superior had gone to the trouble of arranging lunch for a visitor and had invited them to join in. But it was also due to an ethical rule of Japanese society. In a group, each member is expected to minimize his individual presence and be as self-effacing as possible. Acting as if one were afraid of one's supervisor is a manifestation of the group convention of absolute self-effacement.
This is not a special feature of the Tohoku region, but is true throughout Japan. Within any organization, the role assigned to a person by the group always takes precedence over his personal desires. The individual self, its motives and attitudes, should therefore be suppressed. For this reason, some people say that it is impossible for them to express themselves in a group setting; others, in response to the same situation, insist that what is important is how one expresses oneself. It all comes down to the kind of work philosophy one adopts. The young man who guided me around the Tohoku region had selected the former approach, and as a result, when he entered the group his personality was suppressed. For all practical purposes, it was dissolved.
Social groups in Japan also demand an extreme degree of loyalty and uniformity. In the rigid order of the rank-conscious society, defined by the seniority system, people are compelled to put on their masks and, from within the confines of "humility" and "politeness," demonstrate their abilities as inconspicuously as possible. The success of modern "Japanese management," so widely admired in the world today, lies in forming groups for production and making these groups the object of loyalty and service. The relation between employer and employee is no different from that between feudal lord and subject, and lifetime employment is based on the feudal idea that no man should serve two lords.
The seniority system, which rewards people not simply for ability or effort but chiefly for length of stay, seems to have satisfied the superficial need for equality of Japanese workers. Thus Japanese management has been able to secure and retain the loyal service of its workers in a way that is envied by the West. Also, by giving workers the security of lifetime employment and the benefits that accrue more or less automatically through the seniority system, Japanese industry has been able to pacify the unions and work out a cooperative relationship with them.
This lord-subject relationship is unlike the contractual relationship between employer and employee in the West. It is based on the feudal concept of on—a blessing or favor handed down, not only by an invisible being, but also by a social or political superior. On carries with it the obligation on the part of the recipient to return something for that blessing or favor. In the West a contract can be fulfilled by the equalizing of wages and labor. But the social obligation incurred by on can never be completely repaid. On is, in other words, the spirit that impelled feudal subjects to defend the castle of their lord to the last man; and this spirit, in modified form, lives on in the modern samurai worker, making the company he devotes himself to tremendously competitive in the marketplace. On is the psychological shaft-to-wheel relationship between management and labor. The vertical society still operates in Tokugawa style.
Two Supervisors
At dawn on February 26, 1936, the young officers of the infantry grounded the snow-covered Prime Minister's residence, and shook the Japanese to the core with their bloody coup d’état. A memorial recording of parts of that incident was released by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Association) and was televised nationwide on February 26, 1979, on a program called "The Secret Record of the 2/26 Incident." The voices of those who participated in the coup d’état 43 years earlier were so alive that audiences felt as if they were really involved. The segment that struck me the most was a telephone conversation between a Sergeant Uemura and his previous commanding officer, Lieutenant Tamhashi. In the conversation Takahashi urged Uemura, who had joined the rebel party, to abandon the rebel cause. Even though the appeal came from his former commanding officer, Uemura appeared unmoved. In response to Takahashi's plea, "You have a pistol, don't you? Kill your commanding officer and come back to us," Uemura replied, "It's too late now." Takahashi argued, "Any soldier who takes up arms against the Emperor is not a Japanese soldier. You don't have any duty to obey the rebels' orders." Still Uemura showed no indication of compliance. Finally, Takahashi asked, "Don't you value your life?" To which Uemura replied, "No, I don't."
Anyone familiar with the prewar Japanese army would realize immediately that Takahashi's appeal could have little effect. The prewar army had an established hierarchy, perhaps the strictest in the world, which required absolute obedience to the orders of the commanding officer. Thus Uemura and the other rebel soldiers were constrained to follow their present commanders, not their previous ones. There was no escape from the dictum. Even when the Emperor ordered the rebels to return to the main force, the soldiers could not move. They had been educated only to follow orders. Rebel or desert—they were caught between the Emperor's order and the strict iron rule of the army. It was not a matter of personal choice—so firm and thorough was their indoctrination that they could not even consider switching loyalties. The commanding officer's orders were their sole standard for action. The question of right or wrong never entered the picture.
In the end, the rebel forces did obey the Emperor's order, and the responsible officers were arrested. The lower officers and soldiers returned to their original force. Following that, Uemura was expelled from the army and stripped of his rank. In all-this, even up to the loss of his military rank, Sergeant Uemura always followed his superior's orders, the implicit orders of the Japanese Imperial Army. In all his actions, no "self" was discernible at all; in fact, it was self-effacement. Still, service to the rebel forces was not recognized as loyal service to the army, so he lost his rank and military status. Did Uemura resent this refusal to recognize that he "was only following orders"? Probably not. More likely, he chalked it up to fate and resigned himself to his miserable luck. I should make it clear here, however, that such an army no longer exists in Japan.
Now let me describe an incident which demonstrates the exact opposite attitude to "following orders." It took place among the American occupation forces in Japan after World War II. Just beyond the turning point of the Fukuoka International Marathon Course, in northern Kyushu Island, there are traces of the old Hakata Naval Air Base. A bit further on, in Saitozaki, an Air Force squadron in charge of the Shikanoshima Radar Site was stationed. (At present both the radar and the base are, of course, gone.) One day, officers at the base discovered that some very important military equipment was missing. Presuming it was a theft from outside the base, the commanding officer ordered the commissioned officers and soldiers to search all the houses in Saitozaki, which then had roughly 2,000 families. The officers and soldiers were rather excited by the event and poured down on the village, rummaging through every house for the missing equipment with a fine-tooth comb. It was clear from their attitude that they were as interested in what made up a Japanese house as they were in finding the missing equipment. This was clearly not a case of "absolute obedience to orders."