・110.0 Culture to the Rescue
次の英文を読んで設問に答えなさい。
Culture to the Rescue
In the final phase of World War II, the U.S. Office of War Information invited Ruth Benedict,* a social anthropologist at New York’s Columbia University, to write a cultural analysis of Japan. This was not purely an academic exercise but an attempt to understand an unknown enemy and seek answers to the life and death questions: Would the Japanese accept defeat easily or fight to the last man? How would Japan react to the U.S. occupation?
In 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture was published. Although she had never set foot in Japan, Benedict produced her picture of the “Japanese character” through various means: historical studies of political, economic, religious and cultural beliefs, interviews with Japanese-Americans, and analyses of movies and propaganda films. The book soon became a must-read for generations of Japan scholars, and is still praised for her deeper insights, especially for (1)her broad cultural perspective on Japan.
That kind of broad perspective is again needed today when experts try to insist on Japan’s decline. They point to a series of defects. Japan’s export-oriented economy has taken a serious beating ― with government debt and a declining population making an early rebound difficult. In the first quarter of 2009, the economy contracted by as much as 3.3 percent, the worst showing since World War II. Meanwhile the population is aging, the rise of unemployment and crime is remarkable, and younger generations find it hard to have hope. Last year, the O.E.C.D. published a report on the slow pace of reforms in Japan’s education system.
Nevertheless, (2)strengths persist: Japan remains unparalleled for the quality of its service, its excellent public transport, advanced technology, safe streets, and cleanliness. The work ethic, ingenuity, and craftsmanship of its people and the depth and range of their culture is impressive, as is the beauty and diversity of the land. Japan’s citizens enjoy universal health care. And with a 99 percent literacy rate, it has as good a starting point as any for educational reform.
In fact, it is in the cultural realm that the country is at its most dynamic. The country has 14 UNESCO world heritage sites, and more than 1,000 artifacts and properties ― castles, temples, shrines, modern buildings, and objects of art ― designated as national treasures. As early as the 1950s, Japan gave recognition to its living national treasures, providing protection for the unique know-how of generations of artists and craftsmen.
Pottery, lacquer-ware, woodcarving, metal-work, paper-making, glass-blowing, fabric-dyeing, basket-weaving, and calligraphy all survive. The martial arts and sumo wrestling remain popular. Although the post-war glory years of Japanese films are long over, traditional performing arts such as Noh (musical drama) and Kabuki (dance-drama) have survived.
There are thousands of festivals ― Matsuri ― across towns and villages throughout the year, allowing what was originally an agricultural society to remain connected to its roots. Seasonal products are celebrated – every locality is proud to have its own brand of rice, sake or plum wine, sweets, noodles, fish, fruit, or fowl. (3)What is impressive is not just that all this survives, but how it is so widely and deeply shared, binding ordinary people to their land.
It is this living culture, this affinity for nature, and this shared tradition that can inform Japan’s economic revival. When my Afghan friends visit to study the lessons of Japan’s reconstruction for Afghanistan today, it is this ability to maintain tradition, alongside advanced technology, that impresses them the most. For example, anyone who has sat in the bullet train, seen neatly cultivated rice fields through the train window, and admired the precision of rail staff in their clean uniforms, realizes that it would be a mistake to judge the decline of Japan so easily. As Benedict herself stated: “The system was singular. It was not Buddhism and it was not Confucianism. It was Japanese ― the strength and the weakness of Japan.”
(Nassrine Azimi, “Culture to the Rescue,” The New York Times (June 14, 2009) より一部改変の上、引用。)
*Ruth Benedict (1887-1948): 米国の著述家・文化人類学者。本文でも言及されているように、著書『菊と刀』において日本文化の価値観の体系を分析した。
問１ ベネディクトはどのようにして、下線部(1)のような見方を確立したのか述べなさい。
問２ 下線部(2)が言及する日本の強みの中で最大のものは何ですか。簡潔に記しなさい。
問３ 下線部(3)を日本語に直しなさい。
問４ 最終パラグラフにおいて、著者は新幹線に乗ることで日本のどんな特質がわかると述べていますか。本文に即して述べなさい。
