The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic

Takie Sugiyama Lebra, The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005, 303 pp.

In the prologue of The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic, Takie Lebra introduces herself as an ambivalent expatriate, alienated from her home country and struggling to come to terms with its limitations-and yet "irreversibly Japanese" (ix). In her important contributions to anthropology, Takie Lebra has embraced the role of cultural ambassador, presenting japan in ways that encourage Americans to appreciate Japanese commitments to society. In Constraint and Fulfillment, her rich ethnography of middle class women in a small city outside of Tokyo in the mid 1970s, Lebra revealed how the division of labor between men and women brought Japanese housewives unexpected and yet undeniable forms of empowerment and gratification (1984). Her ethnography of self-reconstruction in a Buddhist-based healing cult revealed the importance of "self-accusation" and reflection on one's obligations, drawing a sharp contrast with the self-forgiveness customary of Western countercultural psychotherapies (1974: 357).

The book under review here offers a unifying theoretical framework for understanding these seeming contradictions, highlighting tensions and trade-offs in the relationship between self and society in Japan. Through this frame-work, Lebra is able to show how social pressure and intimacy, propriety and insubordinacy co-exist in Japanese social relations.

Lebra acknowledges her debt to Parsons early in the Prologue. She was trained as a sociologist in the heyday of structural functionalism, and this influence is plainly on display in the formalized view of self that provides the book's architecture. Venn diagrams and charts with circulating arrows populate the book. Students who are new to Japan will appreciate the clarity with which Lebra reveals the abutting worlds of "official" ceremonial appearances and hidden, backroom dealings, and her analysis of how the two are intertwined. In this endeavor, Lebra does not shy away from the very real issues of social fragmentation and corruption that face Japan today. For example, she includes police corruption and domestic violence as examples of the darker side of Japanese paternalism. Her discussion of wedding ceremonies as a form of "self display" includes not only a discussion of traditional ritual but also an example of the bridegroom, recently laid off, who hires an actor to play the "boss'" at his wedding. By developing...