Reflections on Research

Barnett Pearce, August 4, 2004

Arthur Koestler once wrote a book comparing his experiences in Japan (which he did not like) and India (which he did). I forget the title, but his characterization of living in Japan was this always having the sense of having done something wrong but not knowing what it is! That was my experience as well, IN PART; the other part was of highly aesthetic, cultured, and warm people, quick to laugh and solid in communal support -- IF you found your way into the system. [Koestler, Arthur (1960). The Lotus and the Robot. London: Hutchinson]
Edward Hall wrote a series of books on intercultural communication, in which he contrasted "high context" and "low context" cultures. Japan was the prime example of a high context culture, in which people are supposed to "fit in" to the situations and roles that are already established; in a low context culture, "individualism" is prized. [Hall, E.T. (1977). Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday]
And others have made useful distinctions among "shame-based" and "guilt-based" cultures. [Some references: Dodds, Eric Robertson (1951). The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benedict, Ruth (1946). The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Christopher, Robert C. (1983). The Japanese Mind: The Goliath Explained. Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle. Erikson, Erik H. (1950). Childhood and Society. New York, NY: Norton.]
I'm sure you know more about these things than I, but it seems to me that "humiliation" might well take a different course in a shame than in a guilt based culture; and in a high context and a low context culture; as well as (and this was some of our discussion with Mike) when humiliation is low-intensity, prolonged and individual rather than high-intensity, episodic, and collective.

Please see also:
W. Barnett Pearce
Toward Communicative Virtuosity: A Meditation on Modernity and Other Forms of Communication
Santa Barbara, CA: School of Human and Organization Development, Fielding Graduate University. Paper presented to the seminar "Modernity as a Communication Process (Is Modernity "on time?")," April 15, 2005, Department of Communications and Social and Political Theories, Russian State University for Humanities Moscow, Russia 103012