The Society for Japanese Studies

Is Japan an Ie Society, and Ie Society a Civilization? Author(s): Takie Sugiyama Lebra Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter, 1985), pp. 57-64 Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132228 . Accessed: 12/03/2012 08:05
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TAKIE SUGIYAMA LEBRA

Is Japanan Ie Society,andIe Societya Civilization?

In academic convention, scholarshiptends to be synonymous with specialization. It is safer as a matterof strategyfor a scholarto stay within a on a global subject small professionalniche thanto venturegeneralizations covering an arrayof specializedfields andtherebybe exposed to the expert scrutinyof specialists. This does not mean we can do without generalists. On the contrary,generalizationis necessaryin proportion to specialization of knowledge. Most of us shy away from atto counterthe fragmentation tempting a broad generalizationbecause this requiresunusual theoretical rigor and/or encyclopedicerudition.It was with a mixtureof astonishment and admiration,therefore,that I opened the voluminousbook authoredby Murakami, Kumon, and Sat6, Bunmei to shite no ie-shakai, to find the kind of ambitiousstrivingfor global generalization which we are inhibited from attempting.Murakami's much shorterversion underpresentreview, on which the following commentconcentrates,goes even furtherin the direction of generalizationin that its brevityprecludesthe extent of elaboration on details affordedin the original volume. The article attemptsto interpretJapanesesociety as one type of civilization, comparablewith otherworldcivilizations, in relationto the whole spectrum of its internal and external environments.Murakamibrings together the ecological, geographical,economic, technological, and cultural conditions that give rise to one patternof society or another,and determine the course of social change. Japanis placed not only in its neighborhood but against the world map. Not only the spatial spreadbut the temporal coverage, from prehistoricto historic, is of enormousmagnitude. Taking a multilinearevolutionistpoint of view, Murakamitraces the emergence of a varietyof social types subsequentto the "agricultural revolution." One matureform among these is the category of "historicalciviGratefullyacknowledgedis the helpful suggestionmade by ProfessorRobertJ. Smith on the draft. Needless to say, all the biases and errorsthatappearin this essay are entirelymine.
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lizations," representedby Greece, Rome, India, and China, whose rise is and noattributedto the "encounter"between sedentaryagriculturalists global in drop of a sudden is a product in turn which pastoralists madic temperature.What is common across these civilizations is a dual social and substratum, structurecomposed of the kinship-based"particularistic" as articulatedby religion, philosophy, the "universalistic" suprastratum and law, and implementedby the imperialor state machinery.Japanand Germanic Europe took anotherroute of evolution, Murakamicontends, and generated"secondarycivilizations."These two societies are similarin that they came under the influence of a dominant"mother" civilization (Chinese and Roman, respectively)and yet "fortunately"resisted a total assimilation. They lack the dual structureof the historical civilizations of power. Still, and, instead, have as theirmainfeaturethe decentralization dissimilaritiesbetween Japanand Europemust be noted, Murakamicontinues. Japanis identifiedas an ie society whereasEuropeis equatedwith feudalism. analysisof ie society is his associaAn innovativeaspectof the author's tion of ie with the concept of "cycle." He boldly statesthatthe " ie cycle" began with the rise of warriorsin the easternregion (Thgoku), gradually replaced the previous cycle identifiedas the " uji cycle" which had originatedin the Yayoiperiod, flourishedin the westernregionwith the Kinai as its center, and taperedoff into the medievalera. It is throughthe ie cycle, according to Murakami, that Japan evolved into a unique civilization, whereas the uji sharedmuch in common with other clan societies in the world. With five hundredyears of overlap(the elevenththroughsixteenth brokendown into centuries, p. 314) betweenthe two cycles, each is further the "proto-" and "meta-" stages, which accountfor four majorsubtypes of Japanesesociety: "proto-uji," "meta-uji," "proto-ie," and "meta-ie." seemed to promisea historically This approach(or this "periodicization") social on organization,and my expectarelevant generalization Japanese I had personally been dilemma for the tion was to find a breakthrough invariances of for structural of dilemma the exploring struggling with, its historical of full while cognizance taking social organization Japanese fluctuation. Whetherthe above promise would be fulfilled or not depends largely upon the construct of ie organization. Murakamiderives his construct as agro-militarygroups which from the earliest "proto-ie" characterized chieftains in Thgoku. emerged under the leadershipof warrior-developer Each of these groups was organizedinto a triple-layerhierarchy:1) ichizoku and ienoko (kinsmen of the s5ry5 who was the leader); 2) kenin characterwas (officers); 3) shoji (lowest subordinates).Its organizational determinedby the double priorityof militaryefficiency on the one hand

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on the other,both requiringintense groupcoproductivity and agricultural involvedlaborintensivenessandthe conoperation.Its wet rice agriculture structionand maintenanceof irrigationsystems. offers a fourBased on this historicalexample as a model, Murakami (following FrancisHsu's fold analyticalconstructof ie: 1) "kin-tract-ship" coinage in his iemoto analysis) referringto the social organizationwhose membersare recruitedfrom non-kin(unlike the kin-baseduji) and yet are 2) "stem lintied togetherby a kin-likebond of cohesion andpermanence; as earity" in which the succession of headshipin a directline is mandatory or more specifically a symbol of the groupgoal; 3) "functionalhierarchy," hi"homo-functionalhierarchy"which, in contrastto the "non-functional hierarchy"characteristic erarchy"of the uji and to the "hetero-functional of the Hindu caste system or the Europeanestate hierarchy,organizes all the functionally differentiatedstratain terms of a commonly sharedgoal; 4) the "autonomy"of each ie unit which is accompaniedby the vertical, not horizontal, divisions of society as a whole. This construct is employed in tracingthe vicissitudes of the political and Muromachiperiods are organizationsas the ie cycle. The Kamakura characterizedas those of proto-ie federation,the period of Sengoku as the meta-ie period, and the Tokugawaperiod as meta-ie federation. Since the constructis derivedfromthe Thgokumodel of the eleventhcentury,the later periods representgreateror lesser degrees of deviationfrom this construct, a point to be taken up later. This is an interestingand instructiveproposition,but I must confess to logic or acceptinghis arguhaving some difficultyin following the author's ment. The main trouble seems to stem from the ambiguous and elusive natureof the ie construct,which I attributeto the bipolarityof each of its four components. Both kin-tractand stem linearityimply the importance of kinship or descent whetherreal or simulated,but at the same time the irrelevanceof consanguinityanddescentrules is stronglyemphasizedas an involvesa pyrahierarchy essentialfeatureof the ie organization. Functional midal structure by definition,while its mainpropertyis said to lie in homogeneity, commonality,and upwardmobilityenjoyedby all membersof an ie. The meaning of autonomyis clearer,but then the boundaryof an ie as an autonomousunit is subject to expansion and contraction,making the of the differentiation criterionof autonomyas elusive. In fact, Murakami's proto-ie from the meta-ie, and both of these from "mini-ie," is indicative of boundaryfluctuationin which one ie swallows anotheror a lower-order one (e.g., shogunate). ie (e.g., a g6kenin's ie) defects from a higher-order Murakami's effort to illustratethe ie with historicalexamples does not necessarily help reduce our confusion, since his referenceto the ie model often arbitrarily selects one attributehere and anotherattributethere. Nei-

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ther is the proto/metadistinctionclearlyspelled out except in termsof relative size or, perhaps, the degree of organizationalcomplexity and integration. Why does the Sengoku daimyo, one might wonder, constitute a meta-ie? Is it because this period climaxes at its end when Nobunagaand Hideyoshi nearly succeeded in encompassingthe whole nationundertheir we mightbe tempted respective ie? In reactionto our cognitive frustration, to mobilize the meaning of ie as used by ordinaryJapanese, only to be discouraged by Murakamifrom doing so on the groundsthat the above constructis the observer'sanalyticalconcept, farfroman emic conceptlike the "household." It would be unfair, however,to say thatthe authormade no attemptto and reduce the ambiguityof ie. Whathe prefers to mean by ie is narrower more consistentthansuggestedso far. He stresses, as componentsof the ie principle, achievement,upwardmobility,competition,functionalcohesion and efficiency, and basic egalitarianism,and plays down ascription, kinship, inequality,and statusfreeze. Thusconceived, the ie oddly remindsus considering of a modernenterprise.Murakami's choice is understandable, feudalismand historicalcivithat the ie is definedin contrastto European lizations, but above all, to the uji. Whateveris sharedwith these, in other words, must be minimized, and whateveris "unique" to the ie must be exaggerated.Consanguinity,for example, mustbe ruledout of the ie princriterionfor uji organization. ciple simply because it is the most important definitionof ie I shall call the "secondarymodel," while the This narrower previousfour-foldconstructwith its ambiguitywill be designatedthe "primary model," the formerbeing a subset of the latter. Given the secondary model, it is no coincidence that the optimal ie groups in Thgokusince the samuraiwere found among the agro-military developerlords, to survive and createa new orderunderthe frontiersettlement condition, had to mobilize all the energy, capabilities,and efficiency of their followers throughloyalty regardlessof their birth and kin affiliation. The secondary model is best suited where economic and sociopolitical conditionsare fluid, hazardous,anduncertain.No wonderthatthe ie model, after the initial period of the ie cycle, is most closely approximated by the Sengoku daimyo and his followers who thrivedin anarchy. andMuromachi,which witThe periods in between, thatis, the Kamakura nessed a greater central control, representmore deviations from the ie model thanconformityto it. The Tokugawa systemof bakufuand han is an and"petrified"the vitality extremeversionof deviationin thatit entrenched status. of ie into a rigid hierarchyof hereditary A third historicalexample which conformsto the ie model, or what I have called the secondarymodel, comes from the modernera, namely, the so-called "Japanesemanagementsystem" which, in existence since the

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in light of Japan's economic success. For 1920s, is now being reappraised Murakamithere is almost a one-to-one correspondence between the ie and corporate management, although an arbitraryselection of attributes is made here again. This example is instructivein providinga clue to why Murakamistresses the achievement/mobility/efficiency/vitality complex of the ie: he is concernednot merelywith Japan's pastbut wantsto presentthe ie model as a still viable alternativefor modernorganizationsin today's Japanand perhapselsewhere. It is even possible thatthe whole thesis originated in his interestin contemporary managementand was then projected back to the pre-feudalperiod. The secondarymodel indeedreflectsan essentialaspectof Japanesesociety, I agree. Most dramatically,it is exemplified by the ascendancy of warlordsof humbleorigin, particularly by Hideyoshias cited in the article. I believe, however,thatthe achievement/mobility complex forms one half, at best, of the Japaneseie or society. The importance of ascribedstatus, or the distinction between noble origin (kishu) and humble origin cannot be overlooked in my opinion in consideringeitherthe ie or Japanesepolitical history. The Minamoto,whetheras an uji or ie, claimedroyalancestry,and we know this kishuidentityplayedno small partin its success in establishing itself as the shogunalhouse. The H6j6, on the otherhand, too deficient in its pedigree to take over the shogunate, remained shikken, and the shogunal position was later recaptured"legitimately" by the Ashikaga, who claimed descent from the Minamoto. Even the Tokugawa, the last shogunal house, was compelled to attacha Minamotoorigin to its name, however dubious the groundsfor its assertion. Nor should consanguineal continuity,though loosely defined, be dismissed as insignificant.The high frequencyof son-adoptionshould not mislead us into believing that the recruitmentfield for adoptionwas boundless. It was not uncommonto establish a well-boundedlineage consisting of the main house and some of its branchhouses, as typified by the Tokugawa,to form a gene pool so as to ensure continuity of the "blood" (or "seed") for the main house. And it would be absurdto attemptto explain the survivalof the ImperialHouse without referenceto the special ancestryand continuous"genetic" line of the dynasty which served as the sources of legitimacy. I am arguingthat the ascription/rigidity/inequality complex should be taken as the other, equally important half of the ie system. This is particularly true, I further suggest, with regardto politically higher and larger units of ie such as the daimiate, shogunate,high court nobility, and Imperial House, while lower-orderunits like peasant or merchanthouseholds may have been more flexible. By includingthis complex, we can augment the capacity, I believe, of the ie model as a conceptualtool for understanding some of the political phenomenathathave recurred in Japanesehistory.

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Let me bring out two such phenomena.One involves the questionof legitimacy. Why was it necessary for a powerfulwarlordto submitto a remote court noble, a daimyoto the shogun, andthe shogunto the Imperialcourt, explains this as of power?Murakami to obtain license for or authorization ruler in controllinghis a sign of weakness on the part of the lower-order followers. Why, then, did this weak rulerexpect to strengthenhis power and extractcompliancefromhis followersby legitimizingthatpowerin the name of the higher-orderand yet even weaker figure of authority?There must have been a culturalpropensityto accept authorityvested with tradition and ascribedprestige. To my mind, the abovepracticeof legitimation complex of cannotbe explainedby the achievement/mobility/homogeneity ie alone. Again, my reactionmay be takenas unfair,since the legitimationissue articleas partof the ie itself. In fact there is not dealt with in Murakami's are indicationsthat, for Murakami,this tendencyto look up to the older, ascribedauthoritywas a legacy of the uji cycle or Kinai traditionand thus is an anomaly in the ie cycle. The emperorand courtnobles, for instance, appearin this articleto have been too deeply woundup with the uji cycle to fit the ie model. Whetherfor this reasonor not, they do not play an important part in this article with a few exceptions like EmperorGo-Daigo. (What is needed at this juncture is informationon the natureof uji, but unfortunatelythe article does not enlighten us on this subject except to claim that the uji was a strictly kinshipunit. It would be critical, in comparing the uji with the ie, to know the relationshipbetween an uji and groups of workers, generallyknownas be, underuji control.) My suggestion is that the legitimationissue must be handledwithin the normal pale of ie, if the ie model is to serve as a powerfulanalyticaltool. The practiceof honoringan ascriptivelyhigherorderof authorityas a source of legitimacy involves anotherrecurrentpolitical phenomenonin or powerinto "nominal"and "acJapan,namely, the division of authority seems to take tual" which parallel "ascribed"and "achieved."Murakami complex inherentto the this division as proof of the achievement/mobility ie. My question echoes the previous one: Why did the achieved, actual leader botherto pay lip service to the ascribed,nominalleader, instead of removing him once and for all? I thinkthe dual leadershipis a faithfulreflection of the duality of the ie itself. If historicalcivilizations had a dual structure,so to my mind did the ie society, thoughof anotherkind. The foregoingdiscussionbringsus backto whatwas called the primary model of ie. After all, the ambiguityof this model may be a replicaof the ambiguityof the ie itself. It should be clear from the above commentthat reducing this ambiguityto the secondarymodel is no solution. Rather, I would like to suggest that a new model be built upon the premise that the

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orientational duality-the achievement/mobility/homogeneity/efficiency complex plus the ascription/rigidity/inequality/traditionalism complexconstitutesthe crux of the ie organization. The primarymodel comes closer to this, but does not capitalizeon the duality as essential and thus appearsambiguousand elusive. A few more comments are in order.Fromthe initial promise of Murakami's article to interpretJapanas an ie society, and to propose the ie society as a patternof civilization, we might well expect to be convinced of the potency of ie as an organizational principle.We are, instead, impressed time and again with historical instances revealingthe limited capacity of the ie for sociopolitical integration.An ie-basedpolity appearsdestined to disintegrate, and the history of the ie cycle seems more like a concatenation of mini-cycles of organizational failuresthanof successes. The ie was exposed to external threats, particularlyof strongly-bondedindependent groups of peers, such as s6son, ikki, and akuth, or non-agrarianforces such as those representedby merchants. More importantly,the ie was underminedinternally by the ie principle itself. The ie organizationis effective only for a relativelysmall group, best exemplifiedby the Thgoku warrior-developercorps, but is inept at embracing a large jurisdiction. Hence as long as the ie model was adheredto, every attemptat national unification was bound to fail. This weakness of ie is inherentin Murakami's construct. One of the four componentsof the construct,we should recall, is autonomy,which entails the difficultyof unitingtwo or more ie. The vertical division or decentralization of power, it should be furtherrecalled, is a majorelement of ie society. Japanwas not trulyuniteduntil the Meiji period when it came under overwhelmingWesterninfluence. The unificationof Japanas a nation-stateis a product,Murakami seems to say, of the encounterof the ie society and the Westerncivilization, just as the Ritsurydsystem of prefeudalJapanwas an outcomeof confluencebetween the uji society and Chinese civilization. The above proposition, taken by itself, makes sense. Placed in the overall context of Murakami's article, however,it leaves us with a sense of incongruity.If the ie was so vulnerableexternallyand internally,so incapable of national unification, short of a culturaltransfusionfrom "alien" civilizations, is it still properto identify Japanas an ie society? Is it not incongruous, moreover, to designate the ie society a "civilization"?The inadequacy of ie as a unifier is in fact mirroredin an odd mismatch between the ie concept and the historicalaccount. Many partsof the history presentedby Murakami have little to do with the ie itself, eitherignoring it entirelyor denying its significance.Mentionedare more instancesof deviation from the ie model thanconformityto it. This is disappointingto those of us who anticipatedeither a historical illustrationof the ie model or,

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conversely, a conceptual generalizationof Japanesehistory under the ie model. In sum, there seem to be only two options. If the Japan/ie society/civilization equation is to stand intact, the ie constructshould be expanded to account for much more of Japanesehistory than the present one is capable of doing. If the present ie model is to be retained,the ie should be consigned to a modest position as only one of many componentsof Japanese society. Finally, I want to raise a questionon the empiricalside of the article. but a Murakamidid not, I understand,aim at a historicaldocumentation hypotheticalgeneralizationinvolving speculationsby necessity. Neverthetoo thin, given the many strongasless, I find the empiricalsubstantiation for sertions made. Citationsof sources are necessary,I think, particularly those statementswhich referto the psychologicaldispositionsof actors, as illustratedby the following quotations(emphasismine):
"the equal land allotmentsystem (handen-sei)was put into practice with admirableenthusiasm"(p. 296) were equallyproud of theirindeveloper-lords] "all of them [Togoku-type dependent'kingdoms' irrespectiveof theirsize" (p. 300) Bakufu at"Clearly, Yoritomoand the other organizersof the Kamakura temptedto take advantageof the proto-ieprincipledeeply ingrainedin the samurai'smindsin the Thgokuregion." (p. 315)

Murakami's article, a challengingbeginningwhich will stimulateevery student of Japanese society, gave me an opportunityto reconsider the ie concept more systematicallythan before. I hope my reactions will be taken as encouragementfor him to continueand furtherdevelop this ambitious project.
UNIVERSITY OFHAWAII