Franz Boas, her teacher and mentor, has been called the father of American anthropology and his teachings and point of view are clearly evident in Benedict's work. Ruth Benedict was affected by the passionate humanism of Boas, her mentor, and continued it in her research and writing. A curious feature of the book is that it is a distorted mirror to the USA, the study is largely a compare and contrast between the USA and Japan, after a while as a third party foreigner, the USA of the 30s and 40s seemed considerably odder and more strange than the Japan which Benedict was describing. Japanese sense of a proper hierarchy and dislike of profiteers who violated this seemed quite natural and proper from a UK perspective. While solemnly Benedict tells us that the Japanese have no concept of evil while Americans in addition to having to be at war with the evil in their natures, are full of resentment against things they have to do like sleeping, eating spinach and getting married. There is a lot of facile criticism of this book -- criticizing her for using the distinction of shame/guilt, for viewing Japanese culture through the lens of kinship structures, and so forth. Forget the critics -- like many such books, she puts them to shame (pun intended). They're what my students would call 'salty'.

Why do we have such a value system in Japan? For Japanese people, Life has peaks in childhoods and middle age, and downs in the rest. Adults love their children, but when children reach a certain age, they encourage to behave in a way that is accepted by the world as adults. Men and women are educated separately to instill in them a sense of their differences and roles. The book began a discussion among Japanese scholars about "shame culture" vs. "guilt culture", which spread beyond academia, and the two terms are now established as ordinary expressions in the country. [10] Benedict is an anthropologist -- though I've read a good amount of anthropology, I had never read Patterns of Culture. And I was somewhat skeptical, remembering the bland cover of Patterns on the old copy my father had when I was a child. But Benedict writes with such depth and intelligence and broad vision that I now see that her reputation is fully deserved. She is brilliant..., and humane. Japan is a culture of “shame,” established not by absolute ethical standards (a culture of “guilt” that relies on conscience), but by relative standards. Ridicule in public and the “shame” of being watched are the roots of Japanese virtue. They do not want to be embarrassed, so they act the exemplary code of conduct. Knowing shame is the best in ethics in Japan.That said the knowledge she draws from other books is quite decent and the section on ON is very interesting and worth a read. Essential reading for anyone interested in Japanese culture, this unsurpassed masterwork opens an intriguing window on Japan. The World War II–era study by the cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict paints an illuminating contrast between the people of Japan and those of the United States. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is a revealing look at how and why our societies differ, making it the perfect introduction to Japanese history and customs. c) the country being analyzed was, in many years of its history, closed to the outside world (Was it James Michener who claimed that Japan had put up one of the most effective iron curtains in the history of mankind?)?

This is the famous contrast between the culture of guilt and the culture of shame. In the West, they have a culture of guilt, where there are absolute ethical standards and behavior is left to the conscience of each individual. Japan is a culture of shame, where the standard of behavior to avoid criticism from others. There is a code of conduct that says you should do it to avoid being criticized by the world, and you act in accordance with it. If this is the case, it means that the culture has a strong sense of sameness and synchronization. The unity of the team or organization may be strong, but the member would be criticized or be treated cold when straying from the unity.Japanese social critic and philosopher Tamotsu Aoki said that the translated book "helped invent a new tradition for postwar Japan." It helped to create a growing interest in "ethnic nationalism" in the country, shown in the publication of hundreds of ethnocentric nihonjinron (treatises on 'Japaneseness') published over the next four decades. Although Benedict was criticized for not discriminating among historical developments in the country in her study, "Japanese cultural critics were especially interested in her attempts to portray the whole or total structure ('zentai kōzō') of Japanese Culture," as Helen Hardacre put it. [9] C. Douglas Lummis has said the entire "nihonjinron" genre stems ultimately from Benedict's book. [10]

When did Japanese people start to have this characteristic? It is not written in “The Chrysanthemum and Sword”. I think that, to begin with, Japan is a closed island nation that is geographically difficult to interfere with from abroad, and since the nation land is mostly mountainous and there are few plains where people can live, the country and each village were isolated without much interference, and there was a foundation of strong ties within communities. Ryang, Sonya, "Chrysanthemum's Strange Life: Ruth Benedict in Postwar Japan", Asian Anthropology 1: 87-116. doi: 10.1080/1683478X.2002.10552522. PMID 17896441. As you probably have guessed the downsides of this book are exactly the same as its positives - it was written at a particular time, for a particular purpose drawing on limited sources, and the end result now is not only seventy years on, historical but also circular. A classic of Japanese cultural studies . . . With considerable sensitivity, she managed both to stress the differences in Japanese society of which American policy makers needed to be aware and to debunk the stereotype of the Japanese as hopelessly rigid and incapable of change.”— The New York Times

l'autrice è antropologa e le sue fonti sono le interviste condotte con i prigionieri di guerra giapponesi sul suolo statunitense, i quali collaborarono attivamente allo studio e si rivelarono preziosi per la comprensione delle dinamiche che motivano il modo di pensare così particolare di questa popolazione

The Japanese people today are much more diverse in their ways of thinking and values than in the era depicted in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”. Especially now, with the spread of social networking services, people are clashing in the internet with each other in a variety of opinions and arguments without worrying about the world. The same characteristic of Japanese society was also written in “Kuki no nyumon”. It says that Japanese people read the situation around them and speak or act in a way that does not disrupt the situation. Pay attention to your surroundings. Because her book is Yum, Yum, absolute Yum. It is a complete guilty pleasure. Reading this book I felt like a dog rolling around in something absolutely disgusting. But I just couldn't stop. Ruth's milkshake brings all the Japonophiles to the yard. According to Margaret Mead, the author's former student and a fellow anthropologist, other Japanese who have read it found it on the whole accurate but somewhat "moralistic". Sections of the book were mentioned favorably in Takeo Doi's book, The Anatomy of Dependence, but he is somewhat critical of her analysis of Japan and the West as respectively shame and guilt cultures, noting that while he is "disposed to side with her," she still "allows value judgements to creep into her ideas." [12]Still...this one gets a good rating from me. I rate it not for its objectivity, but for its relative accuracy. Benedict wrote with what materials she had and could obtain, and the result was not so bad. She did claim in the first chapter that Japan is a country of contradictions - "different". That claim alone gives the reader fair warning that she could be wrong in some of her interpretations (and that she could also be right). And this tone resonates in the whole book. She keeps repeating the word "different" that Japan appears quite exotic, even alien, in some parts (just try to grasp "giri"...getting out of Shinjuku Station when you get lost in it seems an easier task). There are a variety of situations in which Japanese people have to fulfill one’s duty, such as in the relationship of master and servant, in family, and in helping each other in the community during weddings and funerals. A mother-in-law teaches her daughter-in-law the etiquette of the house, and the whole village comes together to welcome a daughter-in-law from another village. If you do not fulfill these duties, you will be treated coldly by others. b) the author is from the victorious country (Who was it who said that history is written by the victors?) d) the author didn't speak the language of the said country. (I did see the movie Lost in Translation. And a lot can get lost in translation sometimes. I should know. Over two decades here in Japan and I still get lost in Shinjuku Station, never mind the biggest hospital in my neighborhood.) The reason why Japanese people behave modestly with these values is because they were taught in the home at that time. During childhood, children are raised freely, but as they grow a little older and become more sensible, they are taught the rules of the world and trained to follow them. If they don’t follow these rules, even their family will be cold to you. In the past, the family had patriarchal and the power of the father was absolute, and the rules of the world were strictly taught. Nowadays, families have changed and couples work together to raise their children, and although they teach general rules, manners, and etiquette, they do not raise their children as harshly as they did in this era. Summary and my impression