Values and Their Transmission
In Japan's traditional internal social structure, as it evolved, great emphasis was placed upon respect for hierarchy and a delicate balancing of reciprocal social obligations. Benedict says that "Japan's confidence in hierarchy is basic in her whole notion of man's relation to his fellow man and of man's relation to the state" (47). Christopher says that "Japanese always retain a keen awareness of who owes deference to whom" (147). They "are dominated by a sense of responsibility to the various groups to which they belong" (51). This is formalized in a complex set of detailed rules of behavior and customs, which are inculcated during childhood and reinforced throughout life. Self-discipline is encouraged, "individual self-assertion . . . is rigorously discouraged" (Christopher 53). One is expected to take "one's proper station, according to generation, sex and age" (Benedict 51).
Morality in Japanese terms "depends upon recognition of one's place in the grea
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