FRIENDSHIP EAST AND WEST

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FRIENDSHIP EAST AND
WEST
Philosophical Perspectives

Edited by Oliver Leaman

I~ ~~o~~!~n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
 First published in 1996
by Curzon Press

Published 2013 by Routledge

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© 1996 Oliver Leaman

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

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invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
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ISBN 13: 978-0-700-70358-6 (hbk)
 Contents

Preface Vll
List of Contributors IX

Introduction
Oliver Leaman
Friendship in Plato's Lysis r 13
Brian Carr
2 Honour, shame, humiliation and modern Japan 32
Peter Edwards
3 Teaching for a fee: pedagogy and friendship in Socrates and
Maimonides 156
Daniel H. Frank
4 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali 164
Lenn E. Goodman
5 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony: The universal and
the particular in Aelred of Rievaulx's De Spiritali Amicitia 192
Julian Haseldine
6 Friendship in Confucian China: Classical and late Ming 215
WhalenLai
7 Secular Friendship and Religious Devotion 251
Oliver Leaman
8 Friendship in Indian Philosophy 263
Indira Mahalingam
9 St Thomas Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of
Friendship 270
Patrick Quinn
Index 281
v
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 Preface

The idea for this collection fIrst arose during a session which I organized
for the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy that met in the
appropriately convivial atmosphere of Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts. Lenn
Goodman and Peter Edwards were the other participants at that session, and
we all thought it would be interesting to present a series of accounts of
friendship which would discuss the notion as it exists in a variety of
cultures. I am grateful to all the contributors to the volume. The main point
of gathering together such a collection of discussions is to add a new
dimension to the study of friendship, some awareness of the richness of the
concept when considered from different cultural perspectives. I hope that
readers will fmd that the resulting effort has provided interesting material
on the topic.

Liverpool
February 1996 Oliver Leaman

VB
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 Contributors

Brian Carr, Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, United

Kingdom.
Peter Edwards, Faculty of Letters, Kanazawa University, Japan.
Daniel H. Frank, Department of Philosophy, University of Kentucky, USA.
Lenn E. Goodman, Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University,
USA.
Julian Haseldine, Department of History, University of Sheffield, UK.
Whalen Lai, Department of Religion, University of California at Davis,
USA.
Oliver Leaman, Philosophy Section, Liverpool John Moores University,
UK.
Indira Mahalingam, Faculty of Law, University of Exeter, UK.
Patrick Quinn, Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Dublin,
Ireland.

ix
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 Introduction
Oliver Leaman

The topic of friendship has become very topical in philosophy recently, and
it is interesting to speculate why this is so. To a certain extent it probably
has something to do with the renewed concern for establishing the
parameters of a virtue ethics, and friendship is obviously a particularly
intriguing feature of such an ethics. In addition, there has been a lot of work
done recently on the nature of personal identity and the self, and friendship
raises a number of important issues in this regard. In the relationship of
friendship the individual is concerned to establish where she ends and
where the friend begins, and how their properties are linked in order for
such a relationship to become possible. These are the ways in which
Aristotle tends to discuss the topic, and they have rightly become the main
areas of debate among contemporary writers.
What is sometimes missing in such a debate is an awareness of the
significance of culture on notions of friendship. That is, the philosophers tend
to concentrate upon a particular cultural form of friendship, that obtaining in
classical Greece and in the West today, and they write about it as though it
comprised the whole notion of friendship. Yet there is more to friendship than
is confined to a particular cultural manifestation of the concept, and it is the
intention of the essays in this collection to point to some of the diverse ways in
which friendship is explicated in different cultures, and so broaden the notion
itself. There is no intention to argue that in this way we can observe aspects of
friendship which are not available to those working from Aristotelian per-
spectives. Indeed, many of the contributions spend much time discussing
Aristotle, and he is clearly a major figure in any grasp of friendship whatever
culture is at issue. Aristotle raised questions that clearly require answers
regardless of the cultural system within which one may be operating. On the
other hand, from the perspective of a particular notion of religious faith, or
from the point of view of a type of society very different from that of Greece
and the West, aspects of the notion of friendship are highlighted which do not
appear to be very important otherwise.
 Friendship East and West

For instance, from a religious point of view there may appear to be

something rather unsatisfactory about friendship as a human virtue. It may
be acceptable as a form of social relationship, but at the same time it would
be important to realise that it came way below other forms of relationship
with God and his representatives. Friendship might then be something of
which we should beware, in case we give it greater scope to playa part in
our lives than we should. On the other hand, from a different point of view
it might well appear that friendship is an ideal form of relationship between
individuals that transcends the ethics of the market which are so prevalent
as aspects of social life, and that only if relationships are developed on the
basis of friendship, or on similar forms of linkage, are we likely to bring
about an acceptable form of praxis. In this sense friendship would not just
be another virtue which exists among others in society, but it would be
paradigmatic of the ways in which we should relate to each other if we are
to realise certain valuable goals.
The sorts of people whom we regard as our friends play an important
part in defining us as social agents. I do not on the whole regard the bus
driver of the bus I sometimes take into town as my friend, and I do not want
to know about his problems, and I should be very surprised were he to tell
me about them. When most people ask other people how they are, they do
not really want to know. Only friends have the right to expect others to be
interested in how they are, and even with friends we may well be careful
before we unburden ourselves completely, since they have limited powers
of empathy despite being friends. The sort of relationship we have with
each other is exhibited partially by the ways in which we mutually reveal
ourselves, and this will clearly be a function of the sort of society in which
we live. In some social groups it is acceptable to expect everyone to be
concerned about the well-being of every member of the group, while in
others this is very far from being the case. Given the domination in many
communities, if one may use that word, of the ethics of the market, the
circle of friends which one may realistically claim grows every smaller,
shrinking perhaps to just a few people, or even only to members of one's
own family, and it is not obvious that one should define one's relationships
here as friendship relationships anyway. The fact that there is such a close
relationship between the notion of friendship and the sort of society in
which we live gives support to the idea that it is always valuable to look at
the variety of societies in which human beings operate together with their
ideas of friendship. We should not assume that it is possible to talk about
one without the other, and in this collection of essays we have emphasised
how the variety of social groupings influences the way in which the notion
of friendship is developed.

2
 Introduction

Some societies which emphasise ritual will make it difficult for relation-
ships of friendship in the Aristotelian sense to develop. On the other hand,
there are doubtless aspects of ritual which are so deeply embedded in much
behaviour that they are far from perspicuous and which alter the flavour of
friendship despite the intentions and beliefs of the agents themselves. This
is probably prevalent in much behaviour in Western societies, where indi-
viduals are hesitant to extend their circle of friends beyond a relatively
small number because they are pessimistic about the possibilities of attain-
ing the sort of relationships with more than a few people which would for
them constitute friendship. The commodification of values which is such a
common feature of contemporary Western culture is not noticed by those
living within it, and yet it constantly overrides what might be natural ways
of trying to reach out to others and thus enrich their lives and those of a
wider circle.
In his early dialogue, Lysis, Plato makes some challenging remarks on
friendship. What is particularly interesting in his treatment is how para-
doxical it appears to be, and how different from the treatment afforded the
concept by Aristotle, presumably from within a similar cultural context.
Indeed, the early account seems to be rather different from that to be found
in Plato's later works. Carr argues that the normal relationship of friendship
is symmetrical and nontransitive, it obtains between persons and it is not
for anything. That is, friends are not means but ends. They provide us with
the opportunity to live fully as human beings and so friendship is a part of
eudaemonia, living well. Aristotle was able to reach a much more accurate
and profound view of friendship through trying to interpret and understand
the very different account tentatively offered by Plato. On the other hand,
Plato manages to point to a range of difficult forms of relationship which
might be called friendship which are not apparently amenable to the sort of
analysis eventually favoured by Aristotle. Although Aristotle clearly has a
far better grasp of what is involved in standard cases of friendship than
Plato, perhaps the latter is unable to fmd a satisfactory 'definition' because
of his insistence on wanting to encapsulate a wide range of what might be
called 'difficult cases'. It is far from implausible, though, to suggest that
Aristotle had the Lysis in mind when he comes to develop his own account
of friendship.
In his analysis of the moral psychology of contemporary Japan, Peter
Edwards discusses the family concepts which comprise shame, humilia-
tion, honour, self-respect, saving face and composure, a network which
defines the parameters within which friendship is definable. He argues that
there is a particular kind of honour code in Japan which bases one's
self-respect directly on the esteem of the group to which one belongs, in a
way which makes that self-respect entirely a function of its relation to the
3
 Friendship East and West

group. Since the basis of the honour code is defensive, it involves the agent
in complex mechanisms of behaviour which have as their aim defence but
which inevitably prove to be unsatisfactory, as one might expect in any
system where self-concept is dependent upon how one is perceived by the
group, there are going to be difficulties in specifying independently of the
group what sort of person one is, especially as there is little that one can do
to influence the decision of the group which is going to respect one's
autonomy as an individual. This may seem to be a very different way of
thinking than that prevalent in the West, and Edwards points to some of the
major differences, but he also shows how similar it is to some aspects of the
history of Western moral psychology, and to some groups in contemporary
Western society.
In his comparison of Socrates and Maimonides, Dan Frank points to
their mutual dislike of teaching in return for a fee, which is compared with
the activities of the prostitute. The appropriate relationship between the
philosopher and the teacher of Torah is that between friends, where what is
given is provided without any expectation of fmancial return and where the
way in which what is given is transmitted is not done instrumentally. Only
if the teacher is working from a position of autonomy can he really display
the dignity appropriate to the subject matter of his enterprise, whether
philosophy or religious law. Their means of support is ideally to be pro-
vided through the help of friends, and should be given freely and not in the
expectation of receiving anything directly in return. One way in which the
friendship model of pedagogy differs in these two cases is that it is easier
to think of Socrates receiving from his students ideas which he could use in
the development of his thought than is the case for Maimonides. It is
important for a relationship which is based upon friendship to recognise the
possibility of mutuality, for what Buber called the 'I-Thou' relationship as
compared with the 'I-It' relationship, and it is far from clear that there is
much scope for either Socrates or Maimonides to get something from their
students in return for their teaching, at least in terms of an intellectual
return. Yet the analogy is a useful one in that it stresses the desire for
philosophy and religion to be transmitted in a manner which is designed to
improve the understanding and lives of the students, and for not other
purpose. Of course, once philosophers did start teaching for payment, they
no longer were concerned to transmit their subject in the way in which one
friend would talk to another, and so the language of philosophy changed
from being interesting and witty to becoming highly academic, technical
and obscure!
Lenn Goodman looks at the ways in which the notion of friendship
which was constructed by Aristotle was further developed by Miskawayh,
al-Ghazali and Maimonides. The philosophical world of medieval Islamic
4
 Introduction

and Jewish culture was dominated by the figure of Aristotle, referred to by

the Muslim philosophers as 'the first master'. All Aristotle's works, and
many writings which were thought to be his but which in fact were not,
were treated as almost canonical, and his views on friendship were not an
exception here. Miskawayh discussed in some detail Aristotle's views on
friendship and showed how they could be made to accord with Islamic
social ethics. In particular, Miskawayh presents an account of friendship
which gives it an important social role, as cementing the conventional
relationships in the state, and he appears to think that it is in this political
rationale that the justification of the institution of friendship lies. Ghazali,
by contrast, regards friends as a way of discovering our own faults, either
through learning from their experience or by listening to their advice. The
main point of friendship is instrumental, and should not have as its main
aim the desire to benefit the friend himself. Rather, acts of friendship are
valid in so far as they are carried out to improve our capacity for generosity,
or to please the deity. Friendship can be a trap in which we come to regard
our relationships with each other as of overriding significance, whereas in
fact we should always be aware that such social arrangements playa rather
minor role in what is of major concern to us, namely, our relationship with
God. Friends are useful as a stage along the sway to the sort of relationship
with God which the mystic, here the Sufi mystic, enjoys, and friendship
may be cultivated provided always that it is appreciated that it is only a step
along the path, not the end of the path.
The twelfth century English Cistercian Aelred of Rievaulx is one of the
most interesting writers on friendship, and Julian Haseldine provides a
detailed account of how he adapted Cicero's approach to friendship to a
specifically Christian context. Cicero argues that public welfare is the end
of friendship and its source is natural virtue, which Aelred transforms into
Christian unity and the approach to God as the purpose of friendship, and
divinely organised nature as its source. But the combination of Ciceronian
and Christian themes is not a totally smooth one, since Aelred has to
explain how we can move from the rather limited nature of friendship to the
universality of divine love. One might expect him to develop a concept of
love as a state of universal harmony in the spiritual world, with friendship
being a subsidiary notion relating only to what is of practical value in this
world, but he turns this relationship the other way around. Friendship is
seen as a survival and indication of the perfected state of humanity, and is
an important aspect in the development of human history towards salvation
and away from the fall. Although in this world friendship appears to be a
limited and particular relationship, it represents something far wider and
more significant, a hint of that ultimate end in which all human beings will
eventually participate.
5
 Friendship East and West

Friendship is certainly a form of love, but it is the only form which

continues eternally, was instituted by God as an aspect of the essence of
humanity, and which will ultimately have salvific force.
The history of Confucian friendship which Whalen Lai recounts is based
on the classical model of particular sages and kings, whose stories provide
much of the material for subsequent discussions within that tradition. The
Confucian account emphasises a variety of human relationships, but not
friendship, and the reason for this lies in the restriction of acceptable deep
relationships to the same group of individuals, in the paradigmatic case, to
the group of scholars. Yet within this group, friendship is highly
significant, and the rules which were established for it are strict and
comprehensive. The development of different modes for people to relate to
each other lead inevitably to diverse conceptions of friendship, and Lai
shows how the infusion of neo-Taoist ideals brought an emotional input to
what had previously been only a relationship based on rites and rituals. In
general, though, it was found to be difficult to specify a notion of friendship
which could transcend family and class distinctions, and the basis of much
of the discussion of friendship in Chinese culture is seen to be wedded to
powerful social links between individuals.
In his account of the views of Miskawayh and Maimonides on friend-
ship, Oliver Leaman looks at the apparent contradiction between
Neoplatonic and Aristotelian theories of human perfectibility. The latter
appears to stress the significance of what might be called 'ordinary' forms
of behaviour - having friends, going to public places, participating in social
activities, while Neoplatonists adhere to the notion of the possibility of our
perfecting ourselves by becoming as like God as possible. Should we
concentrate upon our relationships with others, or should we rather concen-
trate upon coming closer to God? The argument presented here is that social
life is important even from a religious point of view, since it is through
participation in society that the individual can work out who he or she is, and
as a result use that information in order to try to come closer to God.
Perfection and ordinariness are not alternatives for human beings, but
the latter is a necessary condition of achieving the former, albeit certainly
not sufficient. The medieval thinkers discussed had a secure grasp on this
issue, and it reveals a good deal about what our attitude to friendship ought
to be even if we wish to regard the meaning of the world as something
which transcends it.
One of the interesting features of Indian thought is that the notion of
friendship is not much mentioned, and does not come in for the sort of
analysis which is so prevalent within Greek philosophy. Yet friendship is
obviously an important aspect of Indian society both today and in the past,
and we can look at accounts of some of the most important figures in the
6
 Introduction

Bhagavad Gita to see how friends are supposed to behave. Indira

Mahalingam argues that there are marked similarities between the Indian
accounts and that provided by Aristotle. Both are value-orientated and not
consequentialist. Indian accounts share with Aristotle the desire to portray
a perfect relationship, and also the difficulty of knowing precisely how to
classify less perfect forms ofthat relationship.
St Thomas Aquinas is clearly dependent upon Aristotle for his theory of
friendship, yet there is far more to his theory than is in Aristotle. Patrick
Quinn argues that like Aristotle Aquinas values friendship as a para-
digmatically social virtue, but that the latter also insists that it is ultimately
based on the relationship which God has both with human beings and with
himself. We can relate to God as to a friend, and through such a relationship
we are comforted and come to accept the hardships of physical life. God
can even be a friend to himself, and this is possible due to the Trinitarian
nature of God. It is because the personhood of God is diverse that he can
fmd a relationship of mutual love between the parts of himself which need
to express themselves by communicating his perfections completely.
Friendship comes to symbolise transcendence in that it leads us to reach out
to others and come into communion with them, a process which both brings
about order in the form of human life and also preserves the distinctness of
each individual. God himself is a sociable being, and the ways in which his
different parts relate to each other is an indication of how we ought to relate
to each other in the human world.
A number of themes arise in these discussions which do constitute a
fairly concentrated examination of aspects of the family of concepts which
surround friendship. One theme which comes immediately to mind is the
relationship between the ethics of friendship and the importance of an
overriding religious metaphysics. Friendship involves the institution of
moral and social links with individuals who may be part of one's circle
through quite fortuitous circumstances, and who may not even fit in with
one's ideas of the sort of people with whom one would normally associate.
This would not really be possible on an Aristotelian account of friendship,
but it is worth pointing to the limitations in that account. On that account,
what brings people together is their mutual acceptance of some idea of how
their relationship should operate, which is equivalent to a shared notion of
what they find valuable and impressive about each other. It is because they
have something in common, because they are connected as people by what
they share in common, that they can consider themselves as friends, and
they can rationally examine whatever it is which binds them together. Now,
there certainly are many cases of friendship which take such a form. There
are others, though, which are quite different and where there is no shared
idea which the friends can examine and discuss, but here the fascination or
7
 Friendship East and West

interest is directly with the other person himself or herself. It might be

thought that this is more properly called love as opposed to friendship, and
it is certainly characteristic of romantic notions of love that the lovers will
not be able to specify what it is about the loved person which entrances
them, in the sense that that characteristic provides an explanation for the
emotion which arises.
There is room in friendship for romanticism also. It can easily be the case
that friends are not able to specify what it is about each other which makes
them friends, and moreover that there really is nothing which counts as the
explanatory cause in a rational sense. The notion of romanticism is important
here. A painter in the Romantic tradition, Caspar David Friedrich for example,
has in his paintings a hint that the meaning of what confronts the viewer lies
outside the picture itself, and indeed outside the scene which is being repre-
sented. The meaning of the relationship between the viewer and the reality
which is being viewed is ineffable in the sense that there is a sense of mystery
and wonder when confronting a perfectly normal depiction of the world. One
has to go further than the reality which is present to understand the way in
which the artist wishes to portray the nature of reality. Romantic notions of
friendship have the same sort of justification. It can well be the case that it is
not possible for the banal reasons which draw people together to be accepted
as the explanation of friendship at all, although at one level they may be
recognised as playing a part in the setting up ofthe causal process which results
in friendship. There may well be something more, and this extra something can
be a feeling or emotion which is tied in with a particular attitude to the person
who is regarded as a friend.
It is this almost religious attitude to our relationship with each other
which should be acknowledged as an important part of the ways in which
we develop such relationships, and it is not a blank admission that we are
not being rational in such cases. It is perfectly rational to view a landscape,
for example, and to believe that there is a greater meaning in the landscape
that can be represented in the landscape itself. That is why in the paintings
of Friedrich there is often a human being who is looking further than the
scene which is before him or her, and why where there are no people the
scene is depicted in such a way that the attention of the viewer is drawn
outside of the picture for a possible vantage from which its meaning may
be observed. There is nothing nonrational or irrational about this, nor even
is there anything rational about it. It is a representation of a perfectly
feasible attitude to the nature of reality which we are entitled, but not
obliged, to adopt. It may lead to difficulties in expressing clearly what it is
that gives the picture a particular meaning, but that is because it is, partially,
an emotional reaction to a particular scene or event, one which is tied in
with the uniqueness and particularity of what is before one, and so difficult
8
 Introduction

if not impossible to generalise. There clearly are many cases of friendship

where something similar occurs, and it is worth extending that notion to
take account of such examples.
This does not get us any nearer to reconciling friendship with religion,
though, since the particularity of the former appears to get in the way of the
universality of the latter. That is, from the point of view of some religions
it is inappropriate to put much store in the specific relationships which we
may establish with other similar creatures by comparison with the major
relationship which we can enjoy with God. One is reminded there of the
ways in which totalitarian regimes try to impress on their citizens the
necessity to restrict their personal relationships lest these get in the way of
their devotion to the central ethos of the state. Particular political and
religious movements will also try to regulate the nature of friends in
accordance with the principles of the movement, and the freedom for
individuals to carve out for themselves a private realm in which friendships
can flourish will be severely curtailed. It was in opposition to such a
position that the Bloomsbury writers suggested that if presented with the
choice between betraying their country or betraying their friends, they
hoped they would have the strength to do the former. This was not neces-
sarily out of any cynicism concerning the strength of patriotic claims upon
the individual, although this was certainly present, but more due to the
notion that the relationships which we have with each other constitute the
most important part of ourselves, a part which cannot be subsumed under
the demands of the state or society.
One can understand how from the point of view of a Weltanschauung
which claims to define the whole of reality, personal claims to friendship
are dangerous and subversive. Even if the citizen or believer selects friends
with which the state or religion has no objection, there remains the danger
that it is within the circle of those friends that the individual feels 'at home',
as compared with the wider group or religious community. The private is a
breeding ground for ideas and links which can lead to a dissociation with
the public, and so must be restrained in the interests of the public, or of the
religious status of the private individual. Interestingly, the Romantic notion
of friendship is particularly dangerous from the point of view oftotalitarian
conceptions of state and religion, even though it mimics some of the main
characteristics of that which inspires an individual to give her all to a
particular movement or faith. The Romantic notion is uncontrollable, since
there is no generalisable characteristic of people with which it can be easily
identified. This makes it dangerous, and an alternative source of allegiance
which the political movement or religion can well do without.
While we can acknowledge readily the importance of friendship as a
bastion against the domination of our entire lives through the influence of
9
 Friendship East and West

a closed system telling us how we should live those lives, it is as well to see
what can be wrong with what has been called here the Romantic conception
of friendship. It can degenerate into an escape mechanism for retreating
from thought into an existence which is dominated by unconsidered
emotions. The great advantage of the Aristotelian view is that both friends
have to relate themselves to an idea which they have in common, an
objective idea of what is good, and they can use that idea to regulate their
relationship. As we have seen, the Romantic view is far harder to control,
since there is no necessity for both parties to have such an idea in common.
But this does not mean that the Romantic form of friendship is not amen-
able to rational and moral considerations, quite the contrary. It is incumbent
upon the Romantic friend to ask herself questions about the object of her
friendship in order to satisfy herself that the relationship which she is
initiating or continuing fits in with an acceptable form oflife. For example,
one could see how certain sorts of highly unpleasant and dangerous people
could be attractive as friends, and at the same time why one should not
establish such links with them. It is not unlikely that through self-deception
one comes to avoid acknowledging the evil side of those whom one has as
friends, yet there are limits to how far self-deception, or even ignorance,
can excuse a relationship which must of its very nature give succour to
those who should not have it. It would be unreasonable for people to be
expected to undergo a searching analysis of precisely the sorts of people
their friends are, in just the same way that it is unreasonable for us to carry
out this sort of analysis where we ourselves are concerned, but there is a
level of understanding of the people with whom we associate as friends
which we are morally obliged to attain.
The fact that there is such a level of understanding brings out what is
surely an important point which has arisen in many of the contributions to
this volume, namely, that through friendship we find out a lot about
ourselves. One might go further and suggest that through friendship we find
out about ourselves in ways which are not possible otherwise. This suggests
that even from a religious perspective friendship is going to be important,
since it is a mechanism by which we can work out better what sorts of
people we are, and so as a result can align our dispositions more accurately
with the rules of the religion. The especial significance offriendship lies in
the fact that it can be expected to throw up ways of developing self-
awareness which are easily accessible to anyone, however conceptually
sophisticated or otherwise. That is, a problem with requiring the individual
to become relatively self-aware is that it is not obvious how one is to go
about it, given the lack of any generally acceptable law which determines
the workings of our psychological mechanisms, and also given the different
levels of ability to work out why we do things in the ways that we do which
10
 Introduction

apply to different people. Yet everyone might be expected to be able to

establish a series of friendships, and on the basis of those relationships he
can examine a gamut of possible personalities which are related to his own,
and as a result quite easily become aware of how he is like too. It would be
ridiculous to insist that every aspect of such relationships should be
obvious to us, or that we should be aware of the whole set of reasons which
led to the setting up and the maintenance of those relationships. On the
other hand, it would be reasonable to expect every individual to be able to
examine some aspects of those relationships, since a total inability to do so
would mean a blindness to the ways in which we act and a refusal to be able
to reflect on the nature of that action. This surely would be culpable, and its
culpability is nicely captured by the idea which is so firmly put by Aristotle
that in a relationship of friendship both parties adhere to a common ideal of
the good.
What is the significance of ritual in friendship? Some of the accounts
which are presented here emphasise the importance of ritual in particular
cultures, and we might wonder how the form of the ritual affects the
emotional nature of the relationship. It is much easier to perceive ritual
when we are examining cultures which are distinct from our own, and far
harder to understand how ritualised our own rules of friendship are, of
course, but this does not answer the question. It is not unlikely that there are
many situations in which the rules which surround friendship take over, as
it were, and what lies behind such rules is an emptiness which fails to make
contact with us emotionally. On the other hand, ritual is an important form
of social behaviour, and it helps us regulate our behaviour in automatic
ways without the necessity to think all the time about precisely what the
nature of our feelings is. One might even go so far as to be sceptical about
the significance of the private feelings at all, preferring to accept the
evidence of the public behaviour as opposed to what is supposed to lie
behind that behaviour. What is interesting in these sorts of cases is the idea
that it is possible to have such a powerful divorce between the appearance
and the reality that it is no longer possible for public behaviour to make
contact with what ostensibly lies behind it, and this would happen if there
are difficulties in maintaining a form of public friendship and at the same
time having the corresponding emotional life.
This can happen if the circle of friends is drawn too widely, or too
narrowly. The urge to treat a great number of people as friends can exhaust
the capacity of the individual to establish genuine relationships of friend-
ship, relationships which will manage to be based upon genuine reciprocal
affection. On the other hand, trying to restrict one's friends too severely can
leave one with a big emotional investment in only a few individuals,
perhaps as a result only allowing one to explore a relatively small part of
11
 Friendship East and West

one's character. Ritual comes into its own in helping us to avoid these sorts
of problems, because in a highly ritualised society we can have an idea of
the number and kind of friends which it is appropriate for us to have, and
also we can grasp the ways in which we should treat them if they are to be
treated as friends. There are rules which answer these sorts of problems,
and ifthere are such rules, then all that we have to do is to follow them and
work out how our particular experience of people should be brought under
those rules. That is not to suggest that the rules permit us to act un-
thinkingly or automatically in all cases, which would be to restrict our
emotional options too severely, but they allow us to concentrate upon the
sort of relationship which we wish to establish or maintain without forcing
us also to think precisely about how we are going to establish or maintain
it. The rules tell us how to do that.
Of course, on the Romantic notion of friendship any reliance upon
rituals and rules is going to seem to be very unsatisfactory, and we must
leave room for forms of friendship which do not easily fall under general
rubrics. Yet most forms of friendship, like most forms of social life, will fit
in neatly with our social role and will playa part in carving out the character
of that social life. What we have to beware is trying to pigeonhole the
notion of friendship in such a way that we are unable to do justice to its
versatility. Examining a range of cultural expressions of friendship helps us
to become more aware of the variety of meanings which this form of life
can have.

12
 1

Friendship in Plato's Lysis!

Brian Carr

Plato's Lysis is a short dialogue on the nature of friendship, one of the 'early
Socratic' dialogues written before Plato's own ideas had matured into the
Theory of Forms in such 'middle period' dialogues as the Phaedo and the
Republic. 2 Typically of such early dialogues the discussion ends with an
admission of failure, the failure to identify the definitive nature of the
phenomenon under discussion. The work, though short, is a peculiarly
difficult one; one which leaves the reader at first acquaintance with the
feeling that the nature of friendship in ancient Greece - philia, as opposed
to erotic love, eros - is so different from what we now recognise in our own
time as friendship, that little can helpfully be said about it from our present
perspective.
Perhaps, we might feel, the phenomenon is a culturally relative one in a
way in which knowledge, for example, or justice are not. Or more culturally
relative than they are, in any case. The Lysis develops puzzle after puzzle,
moving apparently sometimes over land which looks vaguely familiar from
our perspective and yet at other times over land which is barely recognis-
able as part of the intended topic. We might therefore despair of seeing our
way through the puzzles to a resolution of Socrates' question, What is
friendship?
Yet when we turn to Aristotle's treatment of the topic in the Nico-
machean Ethics,3 we find ourselves more or less back on familiar ground.
Aristotle writes about philia in a way that most of the time makes perfectly
good sense, even though we might not agree with all of his claims. And
Aristotle and Plato could not have been operating with diverse culturally
relative ideas of philia. The original suspicion of a great cultural distance
between Plato and ourselves is replaced with another. Perhaps Plato went
about his enquiry in the wrong way. Perhaps the nature of philia, even
allowing for some misfit between it and our present idea of friendship, even
allowing for an imprecision in the translation of the term as 'friendship', is
after all more or less our familiar one. Socrates may have approached his
13
 Friendship East and West

quarry from a peculiar angle which made it impossible for him to discern
its features clearly.
Before looking directly at Plato's Lysis, I will offer some analysis of my
own of the nature of friendship which picks out what I take to be its central
features. This will involve exploring the semantic features of the expression
'is a friend of' which explain some salient syntactical features of that
expression. I will argue that Socrates' approach to philia diverts his
attention from these semantic features, and militates against a solution to
his puzzles. Aristotle puts them back - more or less - into his account of
philia, and produces therefore a more accurate account. I will end with a
further investigation of these semantic features which stresses a most
important dimension of friendship, that its focal features are intrinsic to that
relationship. Friends are in a very real sense not/or anything, even though
we can expect an awful lot from our friends.

Thesis 1: The relational term 'is a friend of' is symmetrical and

nontransitive
The term 'friend' is of course used in a number of senses, but we need to
concentrate on the central sense which the other senses can be seen to be
extensions or analogical adaptations of. After all, Socrates expresses his
desire to form friendships,4 and he admires that which is naturally blossom-
ing between Lysis and Menexenus. We do have uses such as 'friends in
high places' , which I take to mean those who might influence others on our
behalf, even if they know us hardly or not at all; 'friends' as in politics or
international relations, which are something like those on the same political
side as ourselves; friends as in a 'bring a friend' party, which means little
more than an acquaintance.
The central notion of friendship has a richer texture than these extended
ones, and two quite striking syntactical features possessed by it - and not
necessarily by the extended and analogical notions - are the following.
Firstly, the relation 'is a friend of' is symmetrical. Let a and b be two
people, and F the 'is a friend of relation; then

aFb-bFa
or in other words, if a if a friend of b then b is a friend of a, and vice versa.
Secondly, 'is a friend of' is nontransitive. In the simplest case, let us
introduce a third person c: then

not{aFb & bFc - aFc}

or in other words, it does not follow from a's being a friend of band b's
being a friend of c that a is a friend of c.

14
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

These two syntactical properties of the friendship relation need some

explanation in terms of its semantical properties, which I will begin to
develop in my next thesis.

Thesis 2: Friendship is reciprocal

Under what conditions does the friendship relation become established
between two people? The very minimum condition might be put in terms of
'noticing', by which I mean that the two people concerned recognise each
others' personhood. This involves a host of important emotional, volitional
and cognitive attitudes. When a and b becomes friends they come to
understand each other, to trust, sympathise, forgive, excuse, support and
enjoy each other's existence in a way they could not do with total strangers.
At the heart of these attitudes we might identify the phenomenon of seeing
each other 'in a different light', of taking a more positive attitude to a friend
than to a stranger.
But a friend is more than a distant admirer, a well-wisher. These features
of friendship are mutually shared by the persons involved, so that a and b
both see each other in a different light. They both take this more positive
attitude to each other, and that in the context of the following even more
striking feature of the relation.
Friends are more than distant admirers in the even stronger sense that
this mutuality is mutually recognised. When a and b become friends, then
a and b not only notice each other, but they recognise this fact about
themselves. This is a vitally important feature in friendship which, in more
detail, involves such things as a sharing of trust, a sharing of understanding,
and a sharing of support. It is this mutual recognition which I will try to
explore a little more deeply towards the end of this paper, but I think we
have enough in front of us to begin to make some sense of the syntactical
features of 'is a friend of. I will call this mutuality of recognition, for short,
the 'reciprocity' of friendship.
Reciprocity can explain both the symmetry and the nontransitiveness of
'is a friend of. The relation is symmetrical because friendship involves a
and b in the mutual recognition of each others' personhood. Clearly they
could not see each other as seeing each other in a different light unless the
same were true of each of them. The way in which a friendship relationship
involves this mutual recognition precludes a one-sided friendship. We can
make mistakes, of course, about who our friends are, but that simply shows
that it is not always that easy to understand other people.
The nontransitiveness of friendship is a second consequence of this
reciprocity. Two people engage in the mutual recognition of each others'
personhood without the need of a third party. Mutual trust, understanding
15
 Friendship East and West

and support can flourish independently of the attitudes or indifference of

anyone else, and might indeed flourish in spite of such attitudes or in-
difference. There is not reason, moreover, why a friendship relation
between a and b should exclude another such relation between band c: yet
the reciprocity of friendship is a sufficient explanation of its non-
transitiveness. For a and c might not even know each other.
The symmetry and nontransitiveness of 'is a friend of can, therefore, be
explained in tenns of the reciprocity of friendship. This might in itself be
enough to unravel the puzzles which Socrates is engulfed in, except that there
is one thesis which surfaces fairly often in Socrates' discussion, and which
arguably is the one thesis which Plato is actually offering about friendship.
This is that at the heart of the relation of friendship is some kind of Utility, that
roughly a friend is someone who you find useful in such things as the pleasure
his company provides you and the advantages he brings you.

Thesis 3: Friendship is not a utility relation

If friendship were a utility relation, then neither of the two syntactical
features of symmetry and nontransitiveness would hold of 'is a friend of.
I will argue for this claim in terms of symmetry first, this being the more
straightforward case.
Suppose that a friend is someone you have a use for, you find useful, you
value for what you can get out of him. He, on the other hand, might find you
ofless value. The pleasure you get from his company might not be matched
by his pleasure, and the advantages you might get from him might not be
matched by the advantages you can provide for him. This potential
inequality of utility undermines the manifest symmetry of the term 'is a
friend of'.
It is not too difficult to understand what has gone wrong here. The
symmetry in question was explained above in terms ofthe reciprocity of the
friendship relation, a reciprocity involving a mutually recognised set of
attitudes on the part of both friends. Utility, on the other hand, is rarely
equal between any two people, and when it is - for example between the
rowers in a two-man boat - it clearly need not amount to friendship. More
important, perhaps, is the fact that utility may not be mutually recognised
by those involved in the utility relation, since those you fmd useful may be
unaware of that fact.
I do not want to claim that friends may not be of use to one another. All
I am saying is that utility is the wrong feature to place centrally in an
analysis of friendship, since utility may not be equally manifested in both
partners in the friendship and since the mutual recognition of utility is a
fortiori not a necessary feature of friendship.
16
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

The nontransitiveness of 'is a friend of' is also undermined by equating

friendship with utility. One example of how transitiveness may arise is the
following. Take a, b and c to be persons, and FU to be the relation 'finds
useful for some given purpose'. Now there are certainly some purposes for
which the following syntactical feature holds:

aFUb & bFUc - aFUc

For example, if the purpose is a's increased power or riches, and b finds
c useful in helping to procure this on a's behalf, then a not only has a use
for b but also for c. A 'friend in high places' with another 'friend in even
higher places' transfers his 'friendship' to that other person.
But this just shows that we cannot equate F with FU. For one thing, a
might be totally ignorant of the very existence of c, and c likewise of the
existence of a. For another, even were c aware of the existence and needs
of a, he might pull strings purely to help out b and with no good will
towards a. The transitivity in such cases establishing a link between a and
c only holds because a and c have no mutually recognised personhood, they
lack the reciprocity which underlies and explains the nontransitiveness of
the relation F.
Another, admittedly more complicated (but not, in terms of the Lysis,
irrelevant) way in which transitiveness can come about through interpreting
friendship as a utility notion is this. Let us assume that the terms in the
relation can be things as well as persons, and NF is the relation 'has a need
for'. Then we can easily find examples for which the following holds:

aNFb & bNFc - aNFc

For example, let a = Socrates, b = health, and c = good diet. If Socrates 'has
a need for' health, and health 'has a need for' a good diet, it follows that
Socrates 'has a need for' a good diet. And, of course, the needs can go on: a
good diet 'has a need for' money, so Socrates 'has a need for' money too.
Again, this simply shows that we cannot equate NF with F: that 'having
a need for' someone/something is not the same as having that person/thing
as a friend, or being a friend to that person/thing. Firstly, and obviously,
there can be no reciprocity of the relevant kind between a person and a
thing. And secondly, Socrates may be quite ignorant of the fact that you
cannot have good health without a good diet; so even from the point of view
of Socrates himself, who or what his 'friends' are (if F = NF) could be
totally beyond his ken.
Friendship, then, is not a utility relation. Of course you might find your
friends useful, but that is not at the heart of friendship. After discussing the
Lysis I will try to say what is.

17
 Friendship East and West

The Lysis treats ph ilia as nonsymmetrical and as utility

The characters in the Lysis, apart from Socrates himself, are: Lysis and
Menexenus, two young boys (in their early teens?) who are depicted as
enjoying a natural friendship which Socrates admires and wishes he could
emulate; and Hippothales and Ctessipus, two somewhat older boys (in their
mid teens?) who are also depicted as friends. The dramatic setting of the
dialogue involves an erotic attraction of Hippothales towards Lysis, though
Lysis is unaware of this, and Socrates aims to show Hippothales how to
attract the affection of Lysis by a demonstration of his own philosophical
practice of searching questions.
In ancient Greek there are three words which we may translate as 'love':
ph ilia, eros and agape. It would appear that the terms ph ilia and agape are
near synonyms,S but the difference between ph ilia and eros is quite marked.
(Two other later dialogues by Plato are directly concerned with the topic of
eros - the Phaedrus and the Symposium.) Aside from the Hippothales-
Lysis relationship, which is a case of erotic attraction (eros), the dialogue
gives ample scope in terms of these characters for Socrates to range freely
over the wide scope ofthe termphilia. Philia is indeed much wider in scope
than our 'friendship', since it can cover the relation between a person and
the things (wine, horses, power etc) which he is attached to; it can also
cover the relation between parents and their children, or between teachers
and their students. Translators standardly use the term 'love' for ph ilia
rather than 'friendship' (a man is said to 'love' wine, parents 'love' their
children, and so on, rather than being' friends' to them) in order to avoid an
awkward rendering into English.
We must remember, however, that the express purpose of the dialogue
is to make sense of ph ilia in its application to an example such as the
Lysis-Menexenus friendship. Socrates could have begun to make sense of
that relationship if he had recognised the reciprocity of friendship which I
introduced above, but he singularly fails to do this. The explanation must
lie first of all in the wider scope of the term ph ilia than our term 'friend',
and the fact that Socrates' whole approach to his problem involves a
consideration of other relationships which fall under philia and which in
one way or another singularly lack the features I have indicated as central
to friendship: symmetry, nontransitiveness, reciprocity and non-utility.
Socrates approach takes the following route. The dialogue opens [at 204b]
with Hippothales' erotic attraction towards Lysis, and Socrates' aim to educate
Hippothales in the proper treatment of this object of desire. Next [from 207d]
Socrates engages in a discussion with Lysis on the attitude of his parents
towards him, and this treatment of parental love introduces the theme of a
central connection between ph ilia and utility. Menexenus [at 211 d) joins Lysis

18
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

for the rest of the dialogue, as Socrates launches into the most paradoxical
discussion of two questions: firstly [from 212a], in cases of non-
reciprocated friendship, Who is the friend of whom?, and secondly [from
213e], What kind of people can become friends? Finally, turning [from
216c] to cases of ph ilia ranging over objects Socrates argues, by a transitivity
connection based on utility considerations [at 220a], that 'the good' is the one
real friend, 'that thing in which all those so-called friendships terminate'.6
[204b] Hippothales' erotic love for Lysis is hardly a good way to begin to
approachphilia as friendship, especially since Lysis has so far failed to respond
or even apparently to notice Hippothales. Such erotic love by no means
exhibits the symmetrical logic of friendship. (We are indeed put in mind of
'unrequited love' which by definition fails symmetry.) Equally obviously, the
essential reciprocity of friendship is missing from such a case.
Hippothales' erotic love is however the occasion for Socrates to exhibit
the kind of philia which he has for the boys, which involves a concern for
their intellectual health and is far from erotic. It shares the features of erotic
love, nevertheless, insofar as it, too, fails to exhibit the logical feature of
symmetry and arguably lacks the reciprocity of friendship. The boys are not
concerned for the intellectual health of Socrates any more than students in
general are concerned for their teachers. There is, however, something
close to the reciprocity of friendship in the teacher-student relationship,
insofar as the student is aware of the commitment of the teacher towards
him, and eagerly enters into the activity. Not that all respondents in Plato's
dialogues are equally willing participants - far from it. But the characters
in the Lysis are at least good cases for Socrates' educative concern.
[207d] Socrates' conversation with Lysis about the attitude of his
parents takes a number of quite peculiar turns. It is, of course, meant to
explore the nature of philia as parental love or affection, but at the same
time to serve as a closer approach to the Lysis-Menexenus form of friend-
ship. The most peculiar turn is the introduction of the idea of utility within
the very relationship of parental love.
The emphasis on utility is associated by Socrates with an insistence on
the importance of knowledge, for only when someone possesses knowl-
edge can he be of use to other people:
Whereas, as regards matters of which we have no understanding, not
only will no one trust us to do what we please in them, but everyone,
not just strangers, but even our fathers and mothers and anyone closer
to us than they, will do their best to thwart us ... 7
And Socrates hints at the most paradoxical conclusion that, since Lysis is
still very young and knowledgeable in few things, his parents do not yet
love him:
19
 Friendship East and West

So now, your father doesn't love you, nor yet anyone else love
anyone else, in so far as that other is useless? ... So if you become
wise, my boy, everybody will be a friend to you, everybody will be
close to you, since you'll be useful and good; but if you don't, neither
your father nor your mother nor your close kin nor anyone else at all
will be a friend to you. 8
Apart from this gross distortion of the nature of parental affection, and the
association of friendship with utility, we can see that parental love is in any
case a poor model for friendship of the Lysis-Menexenus kind. For parental
'friendship' once again lacks the symmetrical logic of friendship of that latter
kind. On a proper understanding of its nature, parental affection can only be
from the parents to the child, even if it is (as it sometimes is) mirrored by
affection for the parents on the part of the child. On Socrates' distorted account,
parental affection has its basis in the usefulness of the child to the parents,
which need not even be mirrored by a usefulness of the parents to the child.
[21Ia] One perplexing problem which Socrates raises about philia
cannot sensibly be raised about friendship, properly understood. Socrates
asks this question:
Tell me, when a man loves someone, which is the friend of which? Is
it the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved? Or is
it the one who is loved who is the friend ofthe one who loves?9
The answer is, of course, that in the case of friendship proper they both
'love' each other - for friendship is reciprocal. But Socrates presses the
question in terms ofa 'non-reciprocated' relation of ph ilia:
And is it possible for a man who loves someone actually to be hated
by him? Lovers certainly do sometimes seem to experience some-
thing of that sort with theirboys.lo
If we deny this, argues Socrates, we will have to deny that an object can be
loved, befriended:
So they're not horse-lovers either whom the horses don't love in
return - or quail-lovers, or dog-lovers, wine-lovers, sports-lovers, or
wisdom-lovers, if wisdom doesn't love them in return.11
Yet now we have to decide whether the lover or the loved is the friend,
and neither answer will stand. Taking the fIrst option, that the friend is the
lover, it follows
... that a man is often the friend of what is not his friend, and often
of what is actually his enemy, when he either loves what doesn't love
him, or loves what actually hates him .. P
20
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

and taking the second option, that the friend is the loved, it similarly
follows that
... many men are loved by their enemies and hated by their friends,
and are friends to their enemies and enemies to their friends, if it is
what is loved that is the friend, and not what loves. And yet it's quite
absurd, my dear fellow - or rather, I think, impossible, in fact - to be
an enemy to one's friend and a friend to one's enemy.13
It would be quite absurd, if 'friend' were being used in the sense in which
friendship is reciprocal. It is not absurd when it is allowed to apply to a
non-reciprocated philia.
[213d] What kinds of people can be friends? The question, at least,
brings the issue back to a discussion of philia between people, but the
answer which Socrates ultimately arrives at brings utility once more back
into the centre. Socrates explores the possibilities that friendship exists
between 'like', or between 'unlike'. These expressions are vague enough,
and the vagueness is only increased by his taking as terms in the relations
people he simply refers to as 'good' or 'bad'.
Must like always be friends to like? This cannot be true of the 'bad',
because
... the closer one wicked man gets to another wicked man and the
more he associates with him, the more he becomes hated by him,
because he wrongs him; and it is, of course, impossible for wronger
and wronged to be friends, isn't it?14
Then can it be that the 'good' are the friends of the 'good'? This option
Socrates also rejects, and for the reason that such people could have no use
for each other:
Are two people who are alike friends in so far as they are alike, and
are two such people useful to each other? To put it another way, what
benefit could any two things which were alike hold for each, or what
harm could they do to each other, that they could not do to themselves
too? ... But again, wouldn't the good man, in so far as he is good, be,
to that extent, sufficient for himself? ... And the man who is suffi-
cient needs nothing because of his being sufficient ... And the man
who needs nothing would not feel affection for anything either .. .
And what he doesn't feel affection for he wouldn't love either .. .
And the man who doesn't love is no friend. 15
Neither are the 'bad' friends to each other, nor are the 'good' friends to
each other. Might it be, then, that the 'unlike' are friends to the 'unlike';

21
 Friendship East and West

that the opposites of 'good' and 'bad' men are friends? In its favour,
Socrates once more resorts to utility:
The poor man was forced to be friend to the rich; the weak, because
of his need for assistance, to the strong; the sick man, to the doctor;
and everyone who was ignorant felt affection for and loved the man
who possessed knowledge. 16
So unlike is friend to unlike? Socrates has a (too) quick refutation:
Wouldn't those terribly clever fellows, those experts in disputation, leap
on us at once in delight and ask whether enmity is not the most opposite
thing to friendship? ... So then ... is the enemy friend to the friend or
the friend friend to the enemy? ... is the just friend to the unjust or the
self-controlled to the undisciplined or the good to the bad?17
For Socrates, the upshot is that like cannot be friend to like, nor unlike
to unlike. There seems just one possibility left, really a variation on the
second case: can it be that the 'good' is befriended by 'what is neither good
nor bad'? This is undoubtedly an obscure question, but Socrates' point is
brought out by the one example he really wants to highlight:
That's why we'd say that those who are already wise, whether they
are gods or men, no longer love wisdom, and that those who are so
ignorant that they are bad do not love wisdom either, because no bad
or stupid man loves wisdom. So, we're left with those who possess
that bad thing, ignorance, but have not yet been rendered foolish or
stupid by it, in that they still believe they don't know what they don't
know. Consequently, those who are still neither good nor bad do, in
fact, love wisdom. IS
And Socrates (temporarily) expresses his triumph at having solved the
problem:
... We've discovered what a friend is and what is not. We say that in
the soul, in the body and anywhere else, it is what is neither bad nor
good that is the friend of the good because of the presence ofbad. 19
We should note that the discussion has again reverted to treating, as
possible terms in the philia relation, not simply persons but also objects;
and that the utility of the object of ph ilia is very much at the heart of the
relation.
[218c] The first thing that is loved, the proton phi/on - which para-
doxically is not loved when it is possessed - is produced out of a transitivity
argument based on treatingphilia as a utility notion. The argument actually

22
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

relies upon quite complex transitivities and utilities, which require a sub-
stantial unravelling. I will try to track the main outlines only.
We have just seen that Socrates arrived at the conclusion that it is what
is neither bad nor good that is the friend of the good because of the presence
ofthe bad. The 'because' here is obviously a reference to utility, the utility
of the good in the context of the possession of the bad. He now modifies
and sophisticates this thesis by introducing what appears to be a second
kind of utility notion, that of being a friend of a 'for the sake of' b:
Is the man who's to be a friend a friend to someone or not? ... Is it
for the sake of nothing or because of nothing, then, or for the sake of
something and because of something? ... Is that thing for the sake of
which the friend is a friend to the friend a friend, or is it neither a
friend nor an enemy? ... The sick man ... is a friend of the doctor,
isn't he? ... So it appears that ... the body, which is neither good nor
bad, is, because of disease - that is, because of a bad thing - the friend
of medicine, and medicine is a good thing; and it is for the sake of
health that medicine has acquired the friendship, and health is a good
thing, isn't it? ... So what is a friend is the friend of what is a friend
for the sake of what is a friend because of what is an enemy.20
There appear to be two notions of utility operating here, the 'because
of' and the 'for the sake of' relations. It might plausibly be said, however,
that the latter is really a version of the former. For why is medicine a friend
'for the sake of' health? Surely the claim is that medicine is a friend only
'because of' the absence of health (i.e. the presence of disease) - which
implies already that medicine is not a friend (is not 'loved', not befriended,
not an object ofph ilia ) unless it has utility; and equally that health itself is
not a friend (is not 'loved', not 'befriended', not an object of ph ilia) unless
it has utility. If this is so, it is really the 'because of' utility that is at the
heart of the argument for the proton philon, and at the same time para-
doxically renders that notion unacceptable.
We have in the last quotation one example ofthe new model of philia,
concerning the utility of medicine for the sake of health because of disease.
Another example can be constructed for Socrates' earlier discussion with
Lysis about parental love, for there we were told that Lysis' parents will
love him when he becomes useful. For Lysis, then, the model would go:
Lysis is a friend of learning because of ignorance and for the sake of
usefulness to his parents. This is the utility of learning for the sake of
usefulness because of ignorance. In fact, these two examples of the model
nicely match the division between the body and the soul, for the sickness of
the body renders its medicine a friend and the 'sickness' of the soul renders
its 'medicine' a friend.
23
 Friendship East and West

Let s = Socrates' body, m = medicine, d = disease, h = health; then

sNFh & hNFm --+ sNFm (because of d)

and let 1 = Lysis' soul, e = learning, i = ignorance, u = usefulness to his
parents, then

lNFu & uNFe --+ lNFe (because of i)

so these cases clearly illustrate the transitiveness of the NF relation on the
basis of the utility relation 'because of'.
But that utility notion, manifested as the 'for the sake of' relation, also
enables Socrates to construct his argument for the proton philon. If the
model of ph ilia is generally applicable, it seems that we are going to be
forced into an infinite regress, where anyone thing that is a friend is a friend
for the sake of something else that is a friend and that in its turn is a friend
for yet something else that is a friend. To stop the regress we must assume
that something is a friend but not for the sake of something else:
Well then, aren't we bound to get tired going on like that and give up,
or else arrive at some point of origin which will not refer us to yet
another friend, but which will constitute the first thing that is a friend,
for the sake of which we say that all others too are friends?21
The transitiveness of the relation 'for the sake of' is obvious enough. Let
us call it FS, and let p = pleasure (a pleasant physical existence) and g =
happiness (a state of the soul). Then
mFSh & hFSp --+ mFSp (because of d)
and
eFSu & uFSg --+ eFSg (because of i)
which is what we should expect given that FS is a reflection of the relation
NF. So it looks as though anything which is a friend for the sake of
something else which is a friend borrows its friendship from that something
else.
Now a plausible response to the last quotation would be that, of course,
if certain things (health, usefulness etc) are 'befriended' for the sake of
other things, there will be infmite regress unless the chains of 'for the sake
of' relations terminate somewhere. Not necessarily at the same point,
though - all we need are things for the sake of which other things are
'befriended'. But Socrates takes these chains to terminate at the same point,
which he call 'the good'. This is the proton phi/on, the first friend which is
that for the sake of which all other things are friends.

24
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

Moreover, he suggests that all the rest may not really be friends at all
except in name
My fear about all this is that all the other things, which we said were
friends for the sake of that thing, being as it were phantoms of it, may
deceive us, and that that ftrst thing may be what is really and truly a
friend. 22
And more positively:
All the things we say are our friends for the sake of some other thing
that is a friend are clearly friends in name only; whereas what is really
a friend should be that thing in which all those so-called friendships
terminate. 23
In sum, the transitiveness of the relations NF and FS, in terms of which
Socrates has unpacked the idea of philia - transitiveness being based in
each case on the idea of utility - has brought him to the proton philon.
If that was not enough, Socrates now fmally notes a very awkward
consequence indeed. Since philia is based on utility, and things are
befriended out of that utility, what should we say about the proton philon
when we have acquired it? There is nothing we then lack, so we have no
need for (NF) anything, and we have nothing left to befriend. The proton
philon is not an object ofphilia once we have acquired it, so it looks a very
odd object to terminate the chain of 'friendships'. And even when we have
not yet got there, when we still have a lack and hence a need for friends, it
appears that 'the good' is not actually valued/or its own sake but for the
utility it has in alleviating 'the bad':
Then is the good loved because of the bad? Suppose that ... the bad
were removed and did not interfere with anything, body, soul, or the
other things which we say are in themselves neither bad nor good.
Wouldn't the good be of no use at all to us in that case, but have
become useless? You see, if nothing harmed us anymore, we'd have
no need of any beneftt ... Is it because of the bad that the good is
loved by us, who are between the good and the bad? Is it of no use
itself for its own sake?24
Transitiveness and utility have done their damage in producing this
unhappy conclusion. Add to that Socrates' readiness to allow the terms of
the philia relation to be objects (the good, health etc) and the damage seems
inevitable. He has no chance of making sense ofthe normal, symmetrical
and nontransitive personal relationship which Lysis and Menexenus enjoy,
for he has on the contrary come to deny both boys the title of 'friend' and
failed to ftnd a happy alternative object to which to apply it.
25
 Friendship East and West

Aristotle's 'perfect friendship' is symmetrical and not utility

Aristotle devotes two books of the Nicomachean Ethics - Books 8 and 9-
to a careful discussion of the nature of friendship. He makes no mention of
Plato's Lysis in these pages, yet he clearly has this text in mind. He treads
very carefully through the minefield which Plato has richly laid over the
territory.
One thing Aristotle is very careful to avoid is allowing the terms of the
relation 'is a friend of' to be objects:
It would, for example, be absurd for a man to wish his wine well. If
he has any wish in the matter, it is that the wine may keep, so that he
can taste the joys of possession. 25
And he squarely places the social at the heart of his treatment. Philia, he
says,
has somewhat the character of a virtue, or at any rate involves virtue.
Besides, it is one of the things which life can least afford to be
without. No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of
having all the other good things in the world. 26
Aristotle can then be expected to safely avoid the kind of transitivity
argument which Socrates was led into culminating in 'the good' as the 'first
friend'. When Aristotle emphasis 'the good' as the aim of friendship, it is
not at the expense of treating all other objects of friendship as merely means
for procuring it.
Very helpfully, Aristotle distinguishes between three goals or objects
which friendship has: the good, the pleasant and the useful. These are the
'grounds or motives for loving', of which the first is superior. In a sense,
each of these motives involves a desire for good, but in the case of the
inferior motives it is a good for the befriender, not the befriended:
Thus friends who have been brought together by a feeling that they
will profit by their association do not love one another for their
personal qualities, but only so far as they are useful to one another. It
is much the same with those whose friendship is inspired by the
pleasure they have in each other's society ... This means that, when
a friendship is founded on the expectation of some advantage to be
received, what the friends are thinking of is their own good; when it
is based on the expectation of pleasure, they are thinking of what is
pleasant to themselvesY
In the case offriendship which is motivated by the good itself, the situation
is very different:

26
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

... it is only between those who are good, and resemble one another
in their goodness, that friendship is perfect. Such friends are both
good in themselves and, so far as they are good, desire the good of
one another. But it is those who desire the good of their friends for
their friends' sake who are most completely friends, since each loves
the other for what the other is in himself and not for something he has
about him which he need not have.2 8
Hence friendship motivated by a desire for the good of the befriended
Aristotle calls 'perfect friendship' and sees it as superior to utility friend-
ship or pleasure friendship.
The main point to note is that Aristotle sees perfect friendship as quite
different from a relation which aims for some utility for the befriender. It
takes friendship in itself to be the end, and not just the means: it is
'friendship for friendship's sake'. Not that such perfect friendship must
avoid any kind of pleasure or utility, but that the motivation for the
friendship must not lie in such pleasure or utility; for
when two such men are friends each is good not only absolutely but
in relation to the other, the good being both good in themselves and
profitable to one another. So this kind of friendship includes the
utilitarian kind. But it also includes the kind which has pleasure for
its motive. For each of these friends is pleasant in both ways, since
the good are pleasant both in themselves and to each other. 29
Aristotle has noticed, then, that there are certain features of friendship
between persons which distance it from philia towards objects, and in the
case of 'perfect friendship' distance it from utility as its motive. But what
of the all-important feature of reciprocity, which I used above to explain the
symmetrical and nontransitive logic of 'is a friend of? On this Aristotle is
very clear:
Goodwill or benevolence ... must be reciprocated if it is to become
friendship; where it is not reciprocated we can only say that one of the
parties is well disposed towards the other. And not only must the
feeling between friends be reciprocated; the friends, I suggest, must
be alive to this ... To be friends then men must have (a) mutual
goodwill, taking the form of each party's wishing the good of the
other, (b) knowledge of the existence of this feeling. 30
So Aristotle appears to recognise a kind of reciprocity such as I
emphasised above, the kind in which the reciprocation of good will is
mutually recognised by the parties concerned. And so far we can say that
Aristotle's treatment of friendship is on very much the right track, avoiding

27
 Friendship East and West

the pitfalls of the wider sense of ph ilia and so avoiding the paradoxical
impasse of the Lysis.
But a closer consideration of Aristotle's perfect friendship suggests that
he has not fully recognised the nature of reciprocity, of 'seeing each other
as seeing each other in a different light'. For Aristotle's perfect friendship
involves merely a mutual recognition of reciprocated good will, something
which could well take place at a distance. Reciprocity, in my sense,
involves entering into a variety of cognitive, emotional and volitional states
such as trust, understanding and sympathy, which engage both friends in an
intimate manner. Wishing someone well, even ifit is mutual and even if its
mutuality is known by both parties, is not the same thing as the intimate
relation of shared trust etc. Arguable Aristotle's lesser notion of mutual
recognition of mutual good will is enough to explain the symmetry and
nontransitiveness of 'is a friend of' and to that extent Aristotle has the
advantage over Plato. But it does not encompass the full intimacy of the
friendship relation.
Perhaps Aristotle's theory suffers from an imprecision in its expression,
and a little work filling in the details might bring it closer to the real
reciprocity which friends enjoy. For what, we may ask, does it mean to say
that perfect friendship 'seeks the good'? And what is 'good will'? And why
can only 'good' men form perfect friendships?
Take the last question. On the face of it, anybody can enter into a
friendship, whether good, bad or indifferent. Surely Aristotle's theory is
too elitist? Yet we might take a very different tack in giving sense to
Aristotle's remarks if we remember that the reciprocity of friendship
involves such things as trust, sympathy and understanding. Only those with
the capacity to manifest such attitudes could therefore enter into friendships
and we might call such people 'good'.
It does not follow that all will be equally successful at maintaining these
attitudes or manifesting them in an equally non-ambivalent way, for after
all the demands of friendship vie with the more selfish and self-centred
demands which are part of human nature - not to mention the demands of
other friendships, and of family, state and so on. (Aristotle's practical
reason is needed to balance these demands and choose among them.)
Friends can easily break their friendship and often put it sorely to the test.
Aristotle's point may simply be that a capacity for trust, sympathy and
understanding is a necessary condition for being a friend.
It may be, too, that the idea of 'good will' can be fleshed out to mean
something more than wishing the other all the best in life. Similarly, the
idea that perfect friendship 'seeks the good' may be unpacked to bring out
the real reciprocity of the relation. Aristotle might be on the right track, but
he has left us with some work to do.
28
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

Thesis 4: The central features of friendship are intrinsic

Aristotle has come closer to an understanding of the real nature of friend-
ship in his recognition that 'perfect friendship' is a social relation, that it
has a symmetrical logic and that it is not a utility notion. It is part of, or
contributes towards, eudaemonia. But he has left some work to do, for we
may now ask the following: What is the 'good' which such friendship
seeks? And what role does friendship play in eudaemonia, in our fulfilling
our potential as human beings?
To find our answers we have to look just a little deeper into the reci-
procity of friendship. Then we will discover that, although friendship is (in
the sense so far explored) notfor anything, we can indeed expect an awful
lot from our friends. Let us first, however, take an instructive passage from
Jowett's own introduction to the Lysis in The Dialogues ofPlato:
Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual affection and
remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his friend what he
cannot do for himself. He can give him counsel in time of difficulty;
he can teach him 'to see himself as others see him'; he can stand by
him, when all the world are against him; he can gladden and enlighten
him by his presence; he can 'divide his sorrows', he can 'double his
joys' . . . When the heart is failing and despair is setting in, then to
hear the voice or grasp the hand of a friend, in a shipwreck, in a
defeat, in some other failure or misfortune, may restore the necessary
courage and composure to the paralysed and disordered mind, and
convert the feeble person into a hero. 3l
And Jowett adds a dire warning to those who take their friendships too
lightly or with too little tact and insight - and we may add to those, who in
treating friendship as a utility notion, thereby mistake their friends for
means rather then ends in themselves:
The sweet draught of sympathy is not inexhaustible; and it tends to
weaken the person who too freely partakes ofit. 32
What Jowett has drawn our attention to - in words written in the 1870's
- are ingredients in a friendship relation which are 'intrinsic'. Far from
being the uses to which one may put ones friends, once one has them, they
are the very core of the friendship relation itself. Jowett's benefits of
friendship are no mere consequential advantages we might or might not get
from our friends, but the very essence of friendship itself.
This is because on entering into a relation of friendship these features are
created, over and above any pre-existing features of the persons involved.
Before friendship, a and b do not 'notice each other', they do not mutually

29
 Friendship East and West

recognise each others' personhood, they do not share a bond of sympathy, of

trust, of understanding, of support and pleasure in each other's company. The
reciprocity of friendship, whereby friends 'see each other as seeing each other
in a different light' as I put it above, is something which cannot pre-exist a
friendship and is something which the friendship relation creates.
What, then, is the use of friendship? Friends are not/or anything, and if
we use our friends they are thereby abused and the friendship grossly
undermined. We do not use them to our advantage at their cost, for they are
not means but ends. We do not treat them as opportunities for self-
advancement, for gratifying our own lust for power, for control, for enhanc-
ing our reputation, for winning others' esteem.
Friends, on the contrary, provide us with the chance to exercise certain
of our capacities as human beings, and in this way friendship contributes to
eudaemonia. Friendships allow us to engage in mutual trust, in mutual
support and mutual understanding and thereby our humanity is in a very
real sense made real. What we are capable of cannot be discovered in a
solitary existence or in the cold, competitive rivalry which sadly marks too
much of human existence. The need for friendship is truly eudaemonic.

NOTES
I record my enormous gratitude to those friends, colleagues and students who
have helped me to find a way of expressing my ideas on friendship - all, in their
way, qJLALa: Michael Clark, Pauline Hallam, Elizabeth Kirby, Indira Mahalin-
gam, Paul Noordhof, James Webber, and Terence Wilkerson - Indira and
Terence gave me particular encouragement for the project. Though they do not
agree with everything I say, they know what I am talking about.
2 Quotations are from the translation of the Lysis by Donald Watt in Plato: Early
Socratic Dialogues edited by Trevor J Saunders, London Penguin, 1978.
References are given by page number to that translation, and by the usual
Stephanus page numbers so that alternative translations may be consulted.
3 Quotations are from the translation which is printed in Aristotle: Ethics edited
by J A K Thompson, London Penguin, 1955. References are given by page
number to that translation, and by Book and Chapter numbers so that
alternative translations may be consulted.
4 LysIS 2IId, p. 142.
5 See G Vlastos, 'The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato', in his Platonic
Studies, Princeton University Press, 1973, footnote on pp. 4 and 6.
6 LysIS 220b, p. 156.
7 LysIS 210b, p. 139.
8 LysIS 2IOc, p. 139.
9 LysIS 212a, p. 143.
IO LysIS 212b, p. 143.
II LysIS 212d, p. 143.
12 LysIS 213c, p. 144.
13 LysIS 213a, p. 144.

30
 Friendship in Plato's Lysis

14 Lysis 214b, p. 146.

15 Lysis 214e, p. 147.
16 Lysis 215d, p. 148.
17 Lysis 216a, p. 149.
18 Lysis 218a, p. 152.
19 Lysis 218c, p. 153.
20 Lysis 218d-219b, pp. 153-4.
21 Lysis 219c,p. 155.
22 Lysis 219d, p. 155.
23 Lysis 220a, p. 156.
24 Lysis 220b-d, pp. 156-7.
25 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 2, p. 230.
26 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 1, p. 227.
27 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 3, pp. 231-2.
28 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 3, p. 233.
29 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 3, p. 233.
30 Nicomachean Ethics Book 8 Chapter 2, p. 231.
31 B Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, Vol 1, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1892, p. 46.
32 Jowett, op. cit., p. 47.

31
 2

Honour, Shame, Humiliation and

modern Japan!
Peter Edwards

'True modesty (that is, the knowledge that we are not our own
creations) does exist, and it well suits the great mind, because he
particularly can comprehend the thought of his own complete lack of
responsibility (even for whatever good he creates). One does not hate
the great man's immodesty because he is feeling his strength, but
rather because he wants to feel it primarily by wounding others,
treating them imperiously, and watching to see how much they can
stand. Most often, this actually proves that he lacks a secure sense of
his strength, and makes them doubt his greatness. To this extent,
cleverness would strongly advise against immodesty.'
Nietzsche2
The first part of this paper investigates some of the differing relations that
honour, humiliation, reputation, shame, embarrassment and decency bear
to each other. In the second half, these concepts provide the focus for
speculations about some general characteristics of Japanese inter-personal
relations. The account emphasises the pressures which fashion them and
result in an honour code characterised by what I call 'aggressive humility'
or defensiveness and whose concern is primarily with reputation. 3 Com-
parisons and contrasts are drawn fairly freely from sources outside Japan
and from different historical periods. Conscious that there are many pitfalls
awaiting one who tries to contrast and, where I think illuminating, to
compare the use of the above concepts in such diverse homelands as Japan,
England and the Mediterranean basin, each region displaying considerable
further diversity within itself, this present working paper is also concerned
to avoid another danger. This is what might be called the danger of taking
up with insufficient scepticism, and so also insufficient scepticism about
one's scepticism, a romantic attitude to ordinary language, and by
implication to the conventions and way of life which it expresses. 4 Such
attachments don't always serve well our desire to understand the

32
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

significance of the conventions governing 'what is said and done'. The

adequacy of one's understanding of their significance, that is, of 'why what
is said and done is said and done' depends in large part upon one's interests,
upon what one finds to invite curiosity and puzzling and this is natural
enough when dealing with concepts which are essentially contestable. 5 The
shortcomings of this approach will be most obvious perhaps to those
favouring detailed local investigations of an anthropological nature, but I
think there is room for these different approaches to co-exist. 6
Although honour has come to stand for different values in different
cultures, its earliest locations were wherever law's authority was weak or
absent, which is where it flourishes today. Its natural homes have been and
are, as Pitt-Rivers remarks, 'aristocracies and criminal underworlds,
schoolboy and street-comer societies, open frontiers', and among the
mafia, yakuza, prison inmates and nation states. 7 The energy that is given
form by this precedence-settling conception of honour is partially con-
trolled in one or both of two ways. Externally, it can be controlled by some
superior form of power, usually the law, or an overwhelming danger. 8
Internally, the energy can be re-directed by ideological means and thus at
least partially transformed or dispersed. 9 It can be moralised, civilised,
abandoned or denied, or repressed and fantasised. To be moralised at all,
our motivations must to some degree include fellow-feeling and the actions
they lead to must to some degree be their own reward. If a conception of
honour is civilised, then physical violence as the means for settling pre-
cedence must be replaced to some degree by other means. If abandoned or
denied, it must be the case that one simply doesn't ever mind a jot going
last and obtains not the slightest element of self-esteem from this being so.
If a conception of honour-as-precedence is repressed and projected into
one's fantasies, then the arena in which precedence is apportioned is
re-located. Rather than pitting oneself against a part of the world that does
or may not yield to one's will, one seeks compensation in fantasies of
grandeur or in more elaborate other-worldly terms, perhaps by thinking
such things as that 'the first shall be last, and the last shall be first' . Like the
effects of law, these four ideological means by which the demands of
honour have been placated historically and which combine in various
complex ways with each other, have the effect of restraining the immediacy
and ferocity of the man of honour's impulses. The law can have no
authority over men of honour unless civility or morality or both have
mollified the strict demands of honour. It can otherwise be at best an
inconvenience and at worst an insult, for honour demands the speedy
exercise of autonomous self-assertion: 'the readiness is all' to the purpose.
Although only a lengthy book could hope to do justice to the historically
specific connections between the various factors restraining and transforming
33
 Friendship East and West

honour and its associated concepts in different cultures, distinguishing the

different types of ideological restraint on honour-as-precedence serves to
remind us that the impulse to acquire precedence can be inhibited in more
ways than 'moralisation' suggests. Moreover, there are, of course, very
substantial differences in what qualities comprise such moralisation, and as
to whether these have the effect of embellishing or stripping down the
overall con- figuration of qualities that bring esteemed status. Additionally,
the legal codes of states have sometimes worked to contain and collaborate
with the more resilient constituents of an honour code or simply sought to
harness the members of an honour group by making symbolic gestures of
respect, much as missionaries have in their campaigns for converts
absorbed and, so to speak, re-christened native customs.1O Thus present-day
cultural differences between southern and north-western Europe over the
territory covered by points of honour are also reflected in legal concepts. This
is most conspicuously so in relation to the Mediterranean cuckold who is
regarded as the paragon of dishonour. I I As Pitt-Rivers puts it, 'The right of a
man to defend his honour is far more clearly recognised in the judicial
procedures of southern European countries than in Anglo-Saxon law, which
generally requires the demon- stration of material damage for an affront to be
actionableP A practice of many Mediterranean societies such as ridiculing the
cuckold was much alive in late seventeenth-century England and after, but
would be thought of as absurdly childish today.
Section I briefly reviews various kinds of errors of social judgement.
Honour, shame and the question of what sense can be made of' Japan as a
shame-culture' are the subject of section II. Relations between stigma,
shame, humiliation, excellence, humour, self-irony and ridicule are
examined in sections III-VI. In the context of Elias' long-range historical
approach, questions concerning embarrassment, and decency are treated in
sections VII-IX. Sections X-XIV provide a brief discussion of authority,
Japanese national indentifications, neo-Confucian elements in the honour
code and the role of/ace. Sections XV-XVI discuss etiquette and manners
and concepts for grasping relationships of dependence and independence:
amae and cronyism. Defensiveness, women and the defensive assault on
reputation are the concerns of sections XVII-XIX, whilst fellow-feeling,
envy, and shame's audiences are discussed in section XX-XXII. Sections
XXIII-XXV, conclude with a final discussion of shame, humiliation and
ridicule and a distinction is drawn between self-esteem and self-respect.

I. Hot and Cold errors of Social Judgement

The concerns of this paper touch on questions of personal and collective
irrationality. I take a general truth about personal irrationality to be that,
34
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

unlike cold errors (perceptual and cognitive factors) which, when

discovered, dispel their subjects' illusions,I3 hot errors (motivational and
emotional factors) of human inference can persist and recur to bias the
social judgements of their makers. 14
Two matters concerning the utility of the hot/cold error distinction need
to be mentioned briefly. First, for many purposes it can be important to
discover whether a source of hot error, such as a desire, is a character trait
or just an occurrence in extraordinary circumstances. Regarding each type
of error that I wish all things considered to correct, I must take different
courses of action. In the one, I must try to think of some way in which
changes in my character might be effected; in the other, I must avoid the
unusual circumstances in which I become so susceptible.
Second, and pace Nisbett and Ross, we should note that in addition to
employing the useful distinction between hot and cold errors, there is
always room to ask of any cold factor whether its coming into existence,
persisting or overshadowing is itself motivated. ls Whole 'traditions' are
invented, and strategically innocent parts that took form as by-products of
diverse activities may be reassembled or fragmented. Where motives apply,
as is claimed of say, ethnocentric beliefs, it is interesting to ask what these
are or were. 16 We can't say in advance of empirical investigation that the
official re-division of Shintoism and Buddhism in the early Meiji period -
the downgrading of the latter and the elevating of the former - was a
strategy by which the rapidly modernising Japanese state could stifle the
potential threat to authority posed by a religion with an egalitarian afterlife
and elevate one whose hierarchical credentials were unimpeachable, but it
is an appropriate question for historians to ask. 17
In other ways too, a cold error can conceal a hot one. We don't often query
the objects of our perceptual beliefs in the normal run of events, but sometimes
we do. A departure from illusion can be the result. At other times, we are made
to revise our beliefs. I become aware of a cold error when on an icy morning I
reach for my fur hat and get clawed by the cat. However, unlike delusions, once
discovered, an illusion is an experience we can know we are having while we
are having it, and this means we don't always believe the appearance that
causes our illusion. Of course, an illusion may secure belief in us if we are not
conscious of its illusory status. We recall conscious illusions in many forms:
the flicking back and forth from 'duck' to 'rabbit' whilst looking at the well
known diagram, seeing the tears of joy and then those of misery in a photo-
graph of a child's face, or in the work of Escher. Sometimes, it may not be
ambiguity in what we perceive that accounts for the illusion. It is rather some
condition or attribute of ourselves, such as an ailment, a prejudice, a strong
desire or aversion, that renders us susceptible. We can make appropriate
allowances, but this may not change how what we perceive appears to us,
35
 Friendship East and West

and for a variety of reasons. Such facts about our characteristic terrestrial
point of view, or the psychophysiology of our sense perceptual capacities
affects the perceptual significance that certain theoretical beliefs have for
us. As Wittgenstein pointed out, our belief in the law of gravity doesn't
make the sun look as if we are going round it. Being fully aware of the
effects of binocular parallax when I am drunk won't make the lamp-post
ahead of me look like a lamp-post. What I see appears and also appears to
be two lamp-posts. 18 Having the concept of some social practice and being
able to respond appropriately doesn't always mean that we understand
much of what is important to us about what we are doing when we go
through its motions. 19

II. Honour, Shame and Japan as a Shame-culture

Unlike virtues such as honesty and dishonesty, shame and honour are
states, and shame can be felt. To be shameless is not merely to fail to
experience shame. Neither is it merely not to sense that what one has done,
or has befallen one, is shaming, for one can possess a sense of shame whilst
being ignorant of one's shamed state. To be shameless is to be insensitive
to what is considered indecent, discreditable or dishonouring, and so to be
without honour. To be unshameable is to be incapable of being shamed, but
it need not imply that one has no honour, for there are persons so situated
in their societies that their honour is unassailable. 20 Honourable and shame-
ful behaviour and states are specified by meeting or failing to meet the
standards, demands and obligations to which particular individuals, groups
or societies adhere. One can honour someone by paying or showing her
respect, because, as Hobbes noted - pace Aristotle and numerous other
moral theorists - 'honour consisteth only in the opinion ofpower',21 what
Pitt-Rivers has called 'the pecking-order theory of honour' .22 Fear can be a
motive for respecting someone on the historically more ancient precedence
theory of honour because the distinction between showing and having
respect finds no purchase there, but not on a republican or Montes-
quieuesque theory of virtue - what some might regard as a highly moralised
theory of honour - in which the important constituents are public spirit,
respect for the law and patriotismP Moreover, on a republican theory of
authority, the obedient are supposed to be so because of the perceived
virtue ofthose in authority. Indeed, this is what licences for individuals that
portion of their augmented self-respect made possible through citizenship.
Japanese and non-Japanese, those who have and those who have not
lived and worked for some time in Japan, her apologists and her critics,
casual and more careful observers of Japanese life, will pay tribute to the
very conspicuous role that shame plays in the culture's past and present. It
36
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

is shame that has been talked and written into prominence by Japanese and
non-Japanese alike. Shame's companion terms 'honour' (meiyo) and
'reputation' (hyoban) have been spread less thickly across pages devoted to
the discussion of Japanese culture. There is a consonant disparity in the
number of terms which modem Japanese employ for shame-avoidance and
honourrespectively.24 However, since 'honour', 'reputation' and 'possess-
ing a sense of shame' are conceptually inseparable over much of their
territory, such a disparity in itself does not permit us to draw far-reaching
inferences about the ethical character of Japanese culture. 25 What is
apparent, despite the far heavier emphasis on men's requirement to defend
women's chastity in Mediterranean societies, is the comparatively strong
resemblance in scope, incidence and contaminationist character of
Japanese to Mediterranean shame. 26 The behaviour associated with
precedence-acquiring honour in the Mediterranean however, bears far less
resemblance to individual Japanese bahaviour, whereas the latter bears
many similarities to the conformist reputation-preserving and shame-
avoiding behaviour of Mediterranean women. Rather than an appropriate
conclusion, the claim that Japan is a prime example of a shame-culture to
be contrasted with one of guilt, is where our investigation startS. 27
The Freud-Benedict distinction between shame and guilt is very untrust-
worthy, but it has been accepted by some of Benedict's critics. It is not that
on Benedict's account the notions are exclusive. She sees the two types of
culture as placing a different degree of reliance on each of the two notions,
but this leads her to confine shame in a 'guilt-culture' to such things as a
person's not dressing appropriately, making a slip of the tongue, and
various gaucheries which would even in the England of the late 1940s have
been classed as occasions for embarrassment. Moreover, guilt is held to
occur when one's honour is threatened by self-acknowledged failure to live
up to 'one's picture of oneself. The problem here is that this sounds more
like shame than guilt, but this is not all that is unsatisfactory in her account.
For Benedict, shame is supposed to be 'a reaction to criticism by other
people', from which there is not relief, and unlike guilt it 'requires an audience
or at least the fantasy of an audience' .28 'Reaction' is too weak a concept to
convey the kind of response characteristic of shame. In 'shame' one must at
least understand what the attitudes of the 'judges(s)' signify. Secondly,
Benedict's claim that the nature of shame, unlike guilt, can't be 'relieved by
confessing' distracts her from the fact that what is repaired in the reparations
of shame is oneself.29 Her understanding of guilt is a trifle cavalier. If it were
not for its currency in the therapy movement to which she refers, it might strain
credulity. Benedict cheerfully assures us: 'This device of confession is used in
our secular therapy and by many religious groups which have otherwise little
in common. We know it brings relief (my italics).30
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Thirdly, it is not true that there must be in all forms of shame an

imagined if not a real audience present. Many who have written about
shame share Benedict's assumption. Williams thinks that 'to overlook the
importance of the imagined other' is a 'silly mistake' .31 However, the fact
that when a person is rationally ashamed of himself he would expect to be
able to have his reasons for being so endorsed by the reasonable opinions
of reasonable people, and that on occasion, he might even imagine his way
through such thoughts using the model of an internal audience for the
purpose, doesn't mean that he can't be ashamed without imagining such an
audience. Just because the basic model of shame is that of being exposed to
others' condemning glare, and many shamings are induced by a real or
imagined audience, it doesn't mean that they must all be so. If a person
recognises that he has failed miserably to live up to standards that he both
respects and are not beyond his reach, he may well feel ashamed of himself,
but he doesn't need an audience real or imaginary for this. Perhaps, in
matters of self-concern, he failed to carry out certain of his intentions
because he was lazy or wasted time he thought he considered precious.
Taylor claims this type of case would be one of guilt, and adds revealingly:
'The crucial thought here is just that what I am doing is forbidden , .32 (my
italics) I suspect Taylor's 'crucial thought' is a legacy of the Protestant
doctrine of 'duties to oneself. Apart from this, assertions of one's own
guilt in such matters serves to advertise one's own earnestness, and so may
appear merely colourful. No guilty thought need enter the picture at all. The
judgement that one has wasted, or the thought that one is wasting one's
time, is accompanied most commonly in a secular context by the feeling
that one has been or is being stupid, absurd or that one is behaving or has
been behaving ridiculously. This points us towards shame not guilt. In
these cases, no guilt need be involved and we don't need to imagine an
audience to feel ashamed in such circumstances however much an audience
real or imagined might feature in the aetiology of the concept. As 0 'Hear
has suggested, we need merely to be able to think of ourselves both as
'judged' and 'as judge' .33 All one needs is reflection, and for reflection to
issue in the thought that one is, say, diminished or disgusting. Finally, the
idea of an 'audience' suggests otherness, something apart and separate
from what I am. Taylor concludes:
'The point about the audience is that it occupies an observer and not
a participant position. Unlike the agent, the audience is detached. It is
reference to just this basic notion of the audience which is primarily
needed for an explanation of shame: in feeling shame the actor thinks
of himself as having become an object of detached observation, and
at the core to feel shame is to feel distress at being seen at all. '34

38
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

The idea of an audience is present in many instances of shame, but not all.
In many cases in any society, being shamed by a real or imagined audience
is what induces the feeling that one is ashamed ofoneself. In some honour
societies, it may be true that one is hardly ever ashamed unless a real or
imagined audience induces such a feeling in one. It is possible to be shamed
and be too obtuse to take in what occurred, or just be ignorant of the
circumstances that have shamed one. A class of others may feel repugnance
for me because of what they attribute to me or because they see me in a
certain state. I am in a state of shame if I share with them at least some of
their defilement-based evaluative beliefs, but it is only when I become
conscious of such shared beliefs that I recognise my shamed state. When I
do so, and the glare in the eyes ofthe audience may be how such awareness
is effected in me, Ifeel shame.
It is also possible within societies in which shame is to a greater degree
interiorized to be ashamed merely at the thought of failing in maintaining
standards one respects, the standards having become detached from the
vicissitudes of an actual audience. In some contexts, public exposure can
relieve rather than exacerbate an individual's shame. This may occur when
what one is ashamed to discover about oneself is something about which
one has deceived oneself - one recognises one's earlier intimations, what
they pointed to, and how one failed to draw the appropriate conclusion.35
There need be no confusing guilt and shame, nor is it necessary to claim
that such self-conviction presumes the agent believes in some omniscient
god from whose insight nothing is concealed. 36
Such shame can be experienced if one thinks that certain thoughts,
impulses, feelings, and emotions - generally, involuntary states - may be
indicative of one's character; but the thought or feeling does not need to be
anchored to one's character. One may just recognise it as part of what one
is. Doubtless, it has been claimed that there have been cultures that believed
that such states were not part of oneself. It has been alleged that some of a
person's mental states do not belong to him, that they are merely what
Dodds referred to as monitions: that is, an astonishing idea, an insight, a
Proustian involuntary memory. Such recognitions have 'in common that
they come suddenly, as we say, "into a man's head"'. Often he is conscious
of no observation or reasoning which has led up to them. But in that case,
how can he call them 'his'?3? This is a familiar pattern of thought. A theory
of the mind which has come to be associated especially with Plato and
which casts its shadow on later thinkers such as Freud is misleading. Many
unbidden thoughts and feelings are projections of how I see the world then.
Even if I don't think that what I feel reflects on my character, I may still
acknowledge that the feeling is part of what I am. Say I have an irrational
fear of dogs, and don't believe that that dog is a worthy object offear. I may
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still feel fear when looking at the beast. And, though I might be susceptible
to the expedience at a later time of denying it, the fear would have been my
fear. Similarly, I may think it is just 'dishonourable' or 'indecent' to find
myself being the entertainer of certain mean thoughts about someone. Even
if they prove well-founded, I may be ashamed by the advent or immediacy
of my suspicions or by the vulgarity, venality or cynicism that the drift of
my private thoughts betray. I may also be ashamed by my lack of feeling,
callousness, or failure - on account say, of my preoccupations - to feel
what it would have been decent to feel on some occasion.38 The relevant
self-interrogating thought here is that it is reasonable to feel shame when
one thinks that what one has done or failed to do has lost or would lose one
one's respect in the reasonably held opinions ofreasonable people. 39
Despite the confusions dispersed by Benedict, it is jejune to suggest, as
Doi does, that 'the Westerner prefers (sic) the sense of sin or guilt' because
it 'often depends on a feeling that there was no need for one to have done
something that one has in fact done. '40 Doi tells us that 'the sense of shame
is not simply a superficial matter of concern for the good opinion of others
but is something extremely delicate, involving the whole inner
personality' .41 Doi emphasises that, 'one experiences shame most of all,
just as in the case of guilt, in relation to the group to which one belongs; just
as betrayal of the group creates guilt, so to be ostracised by the group is the
greatest shame and dishonour. '42 Thus, instead of a self-respect stemming
from personal conviction and involvement in activities perceived to be
valuable in themselves, honour and shame operate most seriously as a
function of one's allegiance to the group. This sense of shame or concern
for repute is hostage to the shifting evaluations ofgroup opinion.
The Japanese word commonly translated as guilt (tsumi) does not have
the same sense as in English. Doi seeks to impress upon us that the
'Western sense of guilt' is a withered form of the Japanese notion of
group-betrayal. He adds that 'the Westerner is not normally conscious of
it. '43 Indeed, his analysis of the Japanese sense of guilt is revealing. 'What
is characteristic about [it] ... is that it shows itself most sharply when the
individual suspects that his action will result in betraying the group to
which he belongs:44 So, tsumi occurs when trust is jeopardised. As Dale
noted, it is most keenly felt when giri-bonds are endangered. 45 Outside
these, though evidently experienced, it is a less salient notion. Hence, tsumi
is controlled by the evaluations of the group and commonly associated with
a fear of the disapproval of others, with the loss of one's repute. Some have
referred to this kind offear as pathological anxiety.46
As Buruma remarks, the focal point ofthe Japanese creation-myth is that
at which Izanagi happened to see his wife Izanami in a state ofpollution. 47
Unlike the Garden of Eden foundation myth, no action was involved. The
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

common expression tabi no haji wa kakisute (outside the hometown there

is no shame), is one that Doi himself renders 'the traveller discards his
shame' and quotes in support of the claim that tsumi and shame (haji) have
the same scope and limits. Guilt and shame in harness were found to be a
crucial component in Lifton's studies of Chinese Thought Reform. 48 He
also, found that guilt is unlikely to be very focused where there is no
shame.49
It is conceivable that the limited human scope of the terms tsumi (guilt)
and haji (shame) partly account for the relative lack of agent-regret and
remorse in the tone of those who have offered accounts of their part in
wartime atrocities. 50 Anger at having been misled, or the desire to have
prosecuted war leaders for pragmatic failure, for incompetence, or for
having failed to see that the war could not have been won, tend to support
this view. 51 However, the allegedly limited human scope of the terms
clearly does not fully determine all present-day Japanese people's feelings
about their compatriots' behaviour during the nineteen thirties and forties.
The prevalence of historical ignorance about the period, the eager desire to
win the admiration of people from some other countries, and successful
ideological manipulation - for instance, in the symbolic equation of Hiro-
shima and the Holocaust - helps to disguise this fact.52 The view that 'the
Japanese' can't apologise for war crimes because it would amount to their
blaming their ancestors' is nicely met by the inferred if unintended scep-
ticism contained in young female Diet member Sanae Takaichi's quoted
remark that, 'there was no reason for her to engage in reflection on the past
since she belongs to a generation that had nothing to do with the war.'53
There are, of course, touching accounts of people who did know something
of the horrors that occurred and feared the consequences of what might
happen in retaliation, sometimes with tragic result. 54 Evidence for the
prevalence of a giri-centric or group-centred conception of guilt may be
detected in a study ofletters discussing 'responsibility for the war' written
to the Asahi Shinbun in November 1945. Though this was a population
whose efforts and sufferings make accounts of the worst horrors of the
London blitz pale by comparison, most of the correspondents direct their
complaints at the incompetence and deceitfulness of the military and war
leaders, at their having been 'stirred up' to prosecute a reckless war. 55
However, the thirty year struggle and legal battles of Saburo Ienaga, in his
bid to challenge Education Ministry screening procedures applied so his
history textbooks dealing with the Nanjing Massacre, the infamous Unit
731,56 and Japan's wartime invasion of neighbouring Asian states,57 are a
tribute to a concern with historical truths that exclusively group-centred
concepts would be hard pressed to explain. 58 It should be borne in mind that
the dangers of abandoning tatemae and speaking out in public on such
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issues are considerable - a fact of political life to which the shooting in

1990 of Hitoshi Motoshima, the Mayor of Nagasaki, bears witness. 59 Thus,
when we reflect on the finding that 'the shifting of responsibility is a prime
characteristic of authoritarian personality' our interpretations must take
into account the scale of the consequences of accepting it.60
At the limit, conscious shame involves the recognition that one's con-
dition or what one has done fails to conform to a standard of conduct or
decency held by those one respects, and in consequence ofwhich one feels
in a state of disgrace. The shamed person, as Williams has said, feels
'exposed' or 'a loss of power' or that she has had her 'protectedness
stripped away. '61 This occurs when shame is imposed from outside. Behav-
ing with heady moral insouciance, one fails to notice one is behaving
shamelessly, and suddenly being made to realise it forces one to accept the
'justice' of one's humiliation. At that point one is shamed. Among the
'civilised cruelties' , some of the least likeable we inflict are those that occur
when trying to impress those we don't respect. 62 As it is possible to
experience humiliation without shame, feeling a 'loss of power' or
'exposed', or that one has had 'one's protectedness stripped away' are
perhaps necessary, but not sufficient conditions of shame. In fact, the case
that Scheler, Taylor and Williams all agree on as one of shame, that of the
painter's nude model who is said to feel shame when she notices that the
artist is no longer viewing her as a model, but rather, with sexual interest,
seems not to be a particularly apposite example of shame for many women
today.63 Why do we suppose the model will be so tame? For financial
reasons she might need to keep the job, and put up with the leering painter,
but even so this need not involve feelings of shame. Might we not expect
her to be made of tougher stuff, and feel embarrassment or irritation or
anger or all three depending on - suppose it is a he - his manner being
merely pathetic or more confidently on the make. If she does feel' exposed'
or 'at a disadvantage' this need not indicate shame but rather her embarrass-
ment. She might also feel pity for the artist. Of course, she might feel
ashamed of herself for feeling ashamed under such circumstances, and so
for feeling that it was shaming to be so viewed. Such a case might be a
staging post on the way to a greater self-possession. Thus, the woman who
finds being so viewed embarrassing might well think that it would be
pusillanimous to be shamed under such circumstances. To feel shame
would be beneath her dignity. Doubtless, such changes in sensibility are
very recent. Yet if so, she might see the attitudes of those who thought her
ashamed, as patronising.
In approving Sakuta's criticism of Benedict's views, Doi endorses the
contention that the Japanese experience of shame is a deep one.64 It should
be noted that this is precisely what Benedict herself claimed. 65 Unlike
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intensity, depth of feeling implies a seriousness of outlook on the world and

a certain temporally extended commitment to the objects of one's feelings.
Not all shamings are deep in this sense. The images characteristically used
for describing the two states differ significantly. To live with a conscious-
ness of one's shame is to have the whole of oneself subsumed by the
emotion; by guilt one may be wracked, it 'gnaws' at one from within
suggesting there being something in one to offer resistance, but it can also
live discretely rather than invade one's character - unlike shame. In one
respect shame is like being in love in that it can induce in us the experience
of helplessness; a comprehensive state of guilt, however, must leave a part
of one's character intact and active, for it must voice the accusation. 66

III. Stigma
Though bound up in different ways with shame and humiliation, stigma
connects more with standards of presentation and less directly with con-
duct. It's not so much what the stigmatised person does or fails to do; it's
whether or not, how he does or fails to act and how he presents himself, is
acceptable. Thus a stigma may be neither humiliating nor shaming so long
as one can hide it. Whatever lengths people may go to in desperation to
disguise a stigma, there are many that can't be disguised. Moreover, for
those that can be disguised (for some people sometimes and with more and
less success), such as unemployment, certain bodily disfigurements, or the
wrong kind of sexual predilection or accent, the potential humiliation and
shame of discovery, and often enough the humiliation of having to practice
a particular form of deviousness, is worth it. It may be worth it when a
person 'possesses a trait that can obtrude itself upon attention and turn
those of us whom he meets away from him. '67 A person is stigmatised,
Goffinan emphasises, because people by whom he wants to be accepted
'fail to accord him the respect and regard which the uncontaminated aspects
of his social identity have led them to anticipate extending, and have led
him to anticipate receiving; he echoes this denial by finding that some of
his own attributes warrant it. '68
Whereas stigma makes one unacceptable because of what distinguishes
one, vulnerability to certain bodily shames are based on the mere exposure
of what is common. Stigma's shame melts away especially before those
who share one's stigmatic characteristic, but the sensitivity of defilement-
based bodily shames tend to be more dependent on the relationship between
the audience and oneself on the occasion of one's exposure.69 In many
cultures, such shame tends to be high in relation to the excreting and
expelling from the body of naturally generated or ingested matter and
fluids, and especially in the course of bodily sexual activities. 70
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IV. Shame, Humiliation and Excellence

Shame can also be experienced when a person, group or nation is con-
fronted by standards superior to those that have previously held sway.71
Particularly when standards of performance are estimated competitively,
shame may be consequent upon the downgraded assessment of the person's
powers. Humiliation ensues whether he recognises such downgrading or
not, but ifhe does he'll feel humiliated. He may choose the humble path of
scaling down his view of his own abilities or he may take up the gauntlet
and attempt to reclaim his reputation or honour. The scale or risk of further
humiliations that prowess carries will depend on the person's ability to
extend his powers. However, two provisos need to be entered here. When
Nozick remarks that 'we evaluate how well we do something by comparing
our performance to others' (his italics) he went on to illustrate the point
with examples of activities in which people characteristically wish to excel,
that is, to become pre-eminent, superior, to outdo or surpass others.72 It is
true that with many activities people wish to do well they try to excel, and
that excelling at them is something most people gauge by reference to the
highly estimated performances of others. Doubtless, the general standard of
human achievement in many activities would have suffered were it not for
the competitiveness and rivalry that produced it. However, one can become
over-impressed with the value of competitiveness merely because, given
the will and the capacity, it is often responsible for the successful attain-
ment of excellence in activities and products we admire. A new gadget for
torturing people may excel all rivals, but we are not obliged to give it our
admiration.
Firstly, competitive comparison sets targets on the basis of past performers'
achievements. This is why competitive motives are rarely the crucial factor in
the imaginative accomplishments of geniuses who in stepping beyond the
current standards create new ones for those that follow. Hearing of a complaint
that his portrait of Gertrude Stein didn't look like her, Picasso retorted, 'No
matter; it will. '73 The less illustrious can also have their heads turned by the
distractions of competitive requirements.
Secondly, the idea of competing in order to excel others or even one's
own past performances and the 'targets' that are invented to cater to the
desire for objectification, are not always germane to the idea doing some-
thing well. Competitive comparison, like many other motivations alters
priorities within and may transform the overall purpose and point of
activities. Some activities we wish to do well we spoil if we try to excel at
or assess too precisely how well we are doing them. 74 Some things that
many people like to be able to do well such as entertain friends or make
somebody feel welcome, dress, and bring up children, eat, drink, have sex

44
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

with a lover, give presents to close friends and members of the family, look
after their grandparents, maintain their health, show gratitude, may be
spoiled in this way. Trying to excel in such matters diverts attention from
the integrity of the ends pursued. In such contexts, the pursuit of excellence
destroys decency.75 The exasperated may gain cold comfort from the
thought that such over-reaching indecency invites ridicule and eventual
humiliation, but the facts of social life past and present do not lend over-
whelming support to such gentle hopes.
Shame's humiliation begins to beckon when one's capacity to sustain a
standard in one's activities falls below those of decency, rather than those
of excellence. Since a person's sense of decency can't be had apart from an
awareness of others' expectations, the distinction between excellence's
desiderata and the basic requirements of decency can be difficult to
differentiate. The difficulty is compounded in most complex societies in
which the effects of diverse 'reference groups' cut across each other.76
Moreover, in societies in which the stimulation and control of demand
rather than that of supply is the characteristic long-term problem besetting
economic policy makers, emotional investment in standards of decency is
likely to be constantly under threat to the blandishings of excellence. For
standards of decency demarcate what people need in order to be able to
appear in public without shame. The reasonable opinions of reasonable
people can offer scant refuge for the decencies when set against the allure
of possessing those symbols of economic power that both express and give
brief protection from a basic human vulnerability, namely, humiliation.

V. Shame, Humiliation, Ridicule and The Casaubon Problem

How might one regard the less than wholly welcome attentions of a band of
jeering hooligans? Suppose a man is knocked to the ground and urinated on
by the said band. He is humiliated and ridiculed. Is he shamed? A Londoner
might claim to feel ashamed if he had exaggerated respect for his own
pugilistic prowess, but even then he'd be claiming to feel ashamed on
account of his inability to defend himself, not because he had been used as
a urinal. The latter would be the cause of his humiliation, and no doubt of
his feeling humiliated.
Humiliation-as-an-emotion usually lowers one's self-esteem, though
there are exceptions which we shall come to in section VIII. Vanity,
pretension, and presumption invite it. 77 Even if the pretence or presumption
is warranted, one can suffer humiliation by being treated in various
grotesque ways. Our urine victim is an example of this. Being forced into a
situation in which the hold one has on one's dignity or humanity is sub-
stantially reduced is humiliating. Torture, even in its more aesthetically
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refined and intelligent forms, is not a particularly informative case of the

general human vulnerability to humiliation. It is the latter taken to an
extreme. 78
As with shame, even if one understands that one is being perceived as
having humiliated oneself, this need not involve one's feeling or being in a
state of humiliation. A field anthropologist, who understands that the aim
of the Priteni sniggering at him is to humiliate him - owing to his inability
to belch with sufficient swagger and abandon - need not be or feel humili-
ated. 79 If it is correctly said of a person that he has been humiliated, then it
must be the case that he did or would be capable of recognising his having
suffered a loss of presumed power whether in the form of lowered self-
esteem, self-respect or dignity.
Humiliation can accompany shame in so far as a felt 'loss of power' is
involved in the self-diminution that shame works on us. When humiliation
occurs as a constituent of shame, the shame one experiences is effected by
an actual audience. 8o This brings us to a grisly fact about some humiliations
and the shame that may accompany them. There is no parallel here with the
desires that may comprise reparative guilt. Given the absence of legal
constraints, internalised humanistic rhetoric and the means to avenge, a
comprehensive and fully intelligible solution to a perpetrated humiliation is
to have its perpetrator(s) blinded or killed. 81 Such a 'solution' tends under-
standably to find favour, not in defensive honour codes or in the defensive
domain of a code where what is of concern is the defence of community-
wide values, but in domains where there prevail aggressive zero-sum
strategies for the winning of honour. The mere existence of such strategies
for winning honour would hardly be enough on their own to encourage
revenge of this kind. However, a characteristic of many societies or groups
governed by defensive codes is that individuals have little if any discretion
as to what is publicly perceived as augmenting or diminishing their powers
and so their honourable standing or reputation. 82
Some may wonder why, in contrast to disclaimers, apologies, particularly
sincere ones, can't eschew the need for vengeance. Christian rhetoric is not
alone in claiming its efficaciousness. The problem is partly that the apologiser
is liable to deceive himself into imagining that his apologising is equivalent to
his compensating the injured party, whereas the low-cost option he has chosen
serves mainly to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes. The impulse to apologise
is perhaps particularly difficult to resist when for one reason or another - but
particularly where the other's dignity would be further eroded - compensation
cannot be made. Additionally, the more sincere the apology the more it may
exacerbate the original humiliation - as sometimes may be the case with the
person who apologises to a man for sleeping with his wife. Sincerity and
decency are not always each other's best friend.
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

Humiliation can be felt quite independently of shame. The two states can
sometimes be confused. Since they often occur together this is not surprising,
but the distinction is a significant one for much of what this paper set out to do.
Self-important resistance before the accomplished fact of one's humiliation
may seek an ethically elevating balm by calling on shame. 83 It is not just
isolated personal motives that lead humiliated individuals to pose as shamed
ones. The structure of social practices can propitiate a similar form of collective
self-deception or false consciousness.84 The individual case occurs when my
ethical narcissism or conceit is shown up by the fact that 'reasonable people
who are in a position to judge,' believe that the professed object of my shame
is more reasonably to be regarded as having humiliated me. I do not claim that
there will always be 'reasonable people who are in a position to judge.' I claim
only that this condition is sometimes satisfied. The illusion-inducing con-
clusion that I draw, namely, 'that I am experiencing shame' is possible because
of the 'latitude' that inductive reasoning gives me. 85 I assume that the tasks I
set myself are gauged by certain standards I regard as honourable. They may
very well be so, and my desire for self-respect is bound up with meeting them.
I persistently fail, and show little evidence of ever being able to meet them. I
then experience the resulting self-disgust as shame. Just as being shamed
attests my respect for the standards I have failed to meet, so in my humiliation
my vain pretence to standards I cannot meet is flattered back to life by my
concluding that I am ashamed of myself In this way, one may have in one's
character the means to perpetuate indefinitely an illusion about oneself.
There may be ways of breaking out of the vicious circle of personal
illusion. Aid may come from outside one's character in the form of intimate
relationships with people who do not share one's own illusions about
oneself. Alternatively, there may be a number of 'endogenous' paths back
to self-respect. In the humility that bespeaks self-knowledge one may lower
the standards before which one estimates oneself. Again, if we suppose a
person to be endowed with the capacity for pursuing other activities he can
contemplate valuing and enjoying, and has the means and the imagination
to see how he could do so, he may then set out upon the pursuit of quite
different aims. However, he may come to recognise that though he does
indeed possess the capacities such that it is not unreasonable for him to
aspire to them, he nonetheless may have other shortcomings that impede
him in various ways: he may be lazy, stubborn or unwilling to make the
effort to acquire some skill that is a required means to his ends. The
shortcomings that may be overcome in one person's life, or over a period
in that life, may not be generalizable.
A helpful analogue for some of the issues being explored in this paper-
especially those of repute in its cultural and more strongly gendered con-
nections - is provided by George Eliot's portrayal of the character and
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circumstances of Casaubon in her novel Middlemarch. What makes

Casubon's life's work, The Key to all The Myths so utterly pointless is his
refusal firstly, to learn German and so obtain access to the best classical
research of his generation; and secondly, his unwillingness to meet other
scholars, to allow them to read and criticise what he has written, and so help
him sort the wheat from the chaff. Moreover, it is simply too late in his life
to make the requisite accommodations and reforms. If Casaubon wasn't
aware of these ruinous handicaps, of the fact that they have been self-
inflicted, that in consequence he must live a life of pathetic subterfuge and
face-saving and one that he makes more rather than less unbearable by
marrying Dorothea, it might be correct to see him as a merely contemptible
comic character. We need to assume only that he knew such conclusions
were overwhelmingly plausible, not that he had admitted or acknowledged
such propositions to himself. It is because of what the author, in various
ways, draws our attention to, that imagining Casaubon as a comic figure
would be a wild misinterpretation. When we imagine Casaubon we may
begin to feel with him. We may imagine the fear and misery that he tries
desperately to stifle by the simulation of confidence. Ifwe do this we shall
then, perhaps, go on to pity him for his wretchedness. If so, we shall then
no longer be imagining his situation and feeling with him, but feelingfor
him. But, if this is what we feel when we feel for him - and we feel what
we feel for him as a consequence of having felt with him - then any
contempt we may at first have felt inclined to feel for him is likely to be
replaced by pity.
It is quite possible, however, for someone to imagine Casaubon's point
of view and situation, understand the circumstances with which he is
confronted, but react with revulsion to the feelings he correctly imagines
Casaubon is portrayed as experiencing. Perhaps his own practical experi-
ence and ethical allegiances banish or disown in imagination the feelings he
finds himself inchoately feeling with, or just registering in Casaubon. It is,
of course, a vexed question at what point such refusal is appropriate. 86
Alternatively, he may be so busy condemning Casaubon for his in-
adequacies, the unjust attitudes which these have generated in him, or the
distress which his behaviour causes others that Casaubon's own plight and
inner turmoil are of little if any interest to him. The latter may be grasped
peripherally as a consequence of one's attention being taken up with, say,
Dorothea. Yet if such concerns leave an interpreter merely with contempt
and disgustfor Casaubon, then I claim such judgements are a diversion - a
diversion that in many ways mirrors the snap-shot judgements of practical
life. In this case, we are diverted from and so possess an inadequate
understanding of Casaubon and by implication of the extraordinary
achievement that Middlemarch is.
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

What makes us interpret as self-important the individual case of claim-

ing one's humiliation as shame is that the agent is seen to be judging
himself inappropriately in one of two ways. Each way consists of two
sub-categories. In the first category, a person's claim to be ashamed is
based on a failure to live up to standards that the group of which he is a
member does not recognise as standards of honour or as requirements of
good repute. Either he fails in something the others regard as too trivial to
be regarded as a matter of honour or he fails to live up to standards that
surpass those respected by his peers. In the first case, he displays preciosity
or fastidiousness, in the second he boasts vainly, but in both he exhibits
pretension and self-indulgence.87 Thus, in both cases he is making himself
worthy of ridicule. He is merely humiliating himself by his claiming to be
shamed when he has not, in fact, suffered a comprehensive loss of status.
In the second general category, a person's claim to be ashamed is based
on a failure to live up to a standard of conduct he sets for himself, but one
that would be regarded by people who were in a position to judge, to be
inappropriate. Either he fails in something the others would regard as
insignificant or petty, or what he fails to achieve is way beyond what it is
reasonable to regard as his standards. As above, in the former case he
displays pettiness and in the latter he boasts vainly. He may be disappointed
in both cases, but in neither case is his claim to be 'mortified' by such
disappointment justified, and in consequence he is an object fit for ridicule.
His fittingness for ridicule is, of course, the greater, the longer he fails to
become aware of his state.
However, couldn't we also construe the above cases as ones in which
our agent might be ashamed as well as humiliated? If so, the distinction
between humiliation and shame may dissolve. In fact, we can answer 'yes'
to this only if we fail to notice that the person's 'humiliation' and his 'being
ashamed' take different objects. The humiliation stems from two sources in
the vain boaster's case, from only one in the pettifogger's.
The object of the pettifogger's distress neither shames nor humiliates
him. What humiliates him is his being seen to claim for his pettiness the
high status of shame. If he becomes aware of how he is regarded and
accepts the audience's judgement, then he may experience humiliation, but
it will be a humiliation that has its source in his recognition of himself as
having behaved absurdly, not in his failure to attain what he now recognises
to be unworthy of such regard. If, on the other hand, he continues to claim
to be shamed or humiliated or both, despite the audience's responses, then
his distress will invite further ridicule from the audience.
The vain boaster's case is more complex. Unlike the pettifogger, the
vain boaster is humiliated twice over. Firstly, he is humiliated owing to the
audience's recognising his failure to attain that to which he pretended.
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Secondly, the vain boaster is humiliated by the audience's recognising

either, that the standards he fails to meet and against which he judges
himself to be shamed surpass those of his peers and so are not those of the
conception of honour he shares with them, or that what he has failed to
achieve is way beyond what it is reasonable to regard as his standards.
Unlike the object of the pettifogger's distress which neither shamed nor
humiliated him, that of the vain boaster's does humiliate him. It does so
firstly, because he is seen to fail at something he expected to be esteemed
highly for attaining, and secondly, on account of his inviting further
ridicule by claiming to be ashamed of a failure to which no shame is
attached. His claiming to be ashamed is seen as a still greater vanity - a
refusal to see his pretence for what it is. Imagine an extremely able and
brilliant modern philosopher who seriously claimed to be 'ashamed of
himself' because he had failed to satisfactorily explain human conscious-
ness or realised that he was now unlikely to have the impact on human
thought that we associate with the names of Aristotle or Kant.
Two objections suggest themselves, The first is, 'am I not forgetting that
many if not all great works of creation and discovery have been made by
people who have aimed higher than those around them might have thought
reasonable?' Such people have set their own aims and judged themselves
by very high standards of attainment. So isn't the stress on an accurate
understanding of one's abilities simply a play-safe directive that if adhered
to would discourage those willing to take the risks of above average
ambition? The objection is irrelevant, since all that is being claimed is that
if a person's achievements fail to meet such elevated standards, he cannot
be taken seriously in claiming that such failure has shamed him. Ifhonours
are won by an awe-inspiring or wondrous achievement, it doesn't follow
that shame awaits the unsuccessful aspirant. This is partly because such
honour is disjoined from shame in the way that the especially male concern
with precedence is, and partly for a quite different reason - that having a
concern for one's honour when engaged in such purposes is an extra-
vagance. In being thus adscititious the aim to attain honours is a distraction,
unlike its centrally motivating role in the concern with precedence.88 The
risk to ambition is disappointment, to one's presuming success one's hum-
bling or humiliation, not shame.

VI. Ridicule, Incongruity and Self-irony

The second objection to the account might be that it is inordinately earnest.
Regarding humiliations this way ignores the leavening role of comedy in
life. In coming to see oneself as having behaved in an absurd way I may
also be able to fmd it amusing. However, it will pay us to inquire what the
50
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basis is for a professed attitude of approval and even admiration which

some individuals and cultures have for the qualities of character that enable
people to laugh at themselves, to take a joke, and so to allow themselves to
be laughed at. The attitude is, as often as not, allied to a mild form of pity
for those who seem unable to do this. In honour cultures, and as we shall
see this is noticeably true of Japan, there tends to be little social space in
which a person might dare to make light of himself, never mind find his
own incompetence amusing.
The superiority theory of laughter has enjoyed a long history and its
advocates remain widespread. It claims that laughter is always an expres-
sion of pleasure in being superior to another individual or collectivity. In
one respect this is obviously false. In many cultures laughter is not always
a sign of pleasure. A Japanese, for example, may employ laughter in the
service of etiquette to mask any spontaneous feelings that might accom-
pany his mention of say, a recent death in his family. It is also intended to
lessen the awkwardness that an interlocutor might feel on being subjected
to such a declaration. However, as long as we think of laughter in its
connection with pleasure and amusement, then we can proceed. As Hobbes
warns, 'much laughter at the defects of others, is a sign of pusillanimity.
For of great minds, one of the proper works is, to help and free others from
scorn; and compare themselves only with the most able. '89 So the theory
requires qualification or re-interpretation if it is to explain how someone
can laugh at himself.
One qualification to the superiority theory, envisaged by Hobbes him-
self, was that one can laugh at one's earlier self.90 The re-interpretation on
the other hand, involves claiming that laughter directed at oneself is defen-
sive. People certainly laugh at aspects of their pasts and often employ
laughter as a defensive strategy. We may put a brave face on our humilia-
tion in order to dampen the enthusiasm of the scornful or boorish, or laugh
to show (perhaps also self-deceivedly) that our self-respect is secure
despite our ineptitude, and we may laugh defensively for many other
reasons. The production of self-defensive laughter does not imply that one
fmds comical what an audience might fmd so. When we laugh at our pasts,
it is often because the event found comical at the time by others did not
have damaging consequences of a kind that is still with us. I might now find
it funny to be reminded of how I looked, the picture of equestrian conceit,
that day many years ago when my horse bolted and threw me, but not ifI'm
still confined to a wheelchair or paralysed. Moreover, even ifthe habit or
incident cited has to the speaker (who might be oneself) no apparent
'connectedness' to one's present, the company's response and one's own to
its response might prove wrong the Parfitian appearances. 91 Thus, on the
superiority theory so far, individuals and nations that claim the ability to
51
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laugh at themselves are confined to laughing at those aspects of their pasts

that neither seriously embarrass nor entail damaging consequences to them-
selves in the present. Alternatively, people are laughing at themselves
defensively rather than displaying an ability to find themselves objects of
amusement, and so pretending - and perhaps to themselves - to such an
ability. Probably, a great deal of laughter directed at oneself is of these
kinds, but the question is, 'must it all be so?' The self-irony theory might
be held to explain why some people find what they do or fail to do amusing
and why such people are able to laugh at themselves. Just as irony generally
preys upon qualities such as naivete, self-confidence, self-conviction,
punctiliousness and earnestness, so the self-ironist preys upon his own
earnestness, credulity, vanities, lack of foresight and trusting nature
(supposing it hasn't been crushed in the vain attempt never to be caught
out). At first, the self-ironist might appear to be conducting in his own
person that rare marriage between urbanity and humility. However, suit-
ably tailored, a penchant for self-irony is compatible with a descendent of
the superiority theory of laughter.
For, we can imagine a person proud of his ironical sensibilities using them
assiduously on himself to reach each new perspective before he can be caught
off guard and ironized from without. Such frequent uses of self-irony tends to
blunt its edge and give way to mock self-mockery. Its motivation may then be
little different from Eliot's 'frankness ... of the repUlsive sort that comes from
an uneasy consciousness seeking to forestall the judgement of others'.92 For,
this re-assuring self-irony is motivated by the desire to secure an indefInitely
disposable or plastic persona and so for invulnerability. The aim is to be ever
at least one description ahead of one's audience. Even if the self-ironist is
ostensibly, as Pirandello remarked ofMontaigne, 'the type ... with no ideal to
defend nor the strength to persist, the sceptic who tolerates everything and has
faith in nothing, who has neither enthusiasm nor aspirations, who uses doubt
to justifY inertia through tolerance,' there are usually, whether of decency or
taste, unwritten rules of self-engagement.93 These are, of course, sometimes
broken, to the embarrassment of the protagonist's company. Very few human
beings would feel quite at ease if placed before a wholly fair-minded but utterly
merciless panel of critics commenting on their personality, character and
emotional repertoire, intellectual virtues and bodily attributes. A person's
making fun of some feature of himself can be very poor evidence for thinking
it an invitation to flatter his efforts by embellishment. As in the well-known
case of Cyrano de Bergerac, the consequences can be worth avoiding. He can
make fun of his nose but woe betide anyone else who takes the liberty.
Even if the self-ironist would acknowledge the truth of what one says,
he may for all sorts of reasons find it repellent to admit what he strongly
suspects about himself. The liberty taken in stating what one takes to be a
52
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

truth about him can offend. It may not merely insult his intelligence, as
when with an air of discerning benevolence he is 'informed' of those
failings, faults and weaknesses with which he is already on adequately
intimate terms. As Helen Lynd pointed out, it is perhaps a reflection of the
degree to which many people have become insensitive to the experience of
shame that this thought can seem at all strange. Indeed, W. H. Auden
revealed his sensibilities unflatteringly when of Stendhal's Diaries he
expressed 'surprise that Stendhal found it hard to admit certain things to
himself' and asked, "How can admitting anything to oneself be daring?'>94
Presumably, because much of what one 'accepts' - about oneself or those
one loves - is the product of inductive reasoning. Therefore the conclusions
are more or less plausible, rather than definite. One may be warranted in
holding the beliefs one does about oneself or others, but the mere practical
commitments oflife that can provide eminently good reasons for action, are
a constant source of temptation to go beyond what is warranted. The
defining conclusions one reaches, conclusions that such admission
requires, both narrow the ambit of one's future choices and, however much
one may feel convinced, make claims to what one knows lack epistemic
conviction. Being an act of definition, admission may - depending what it
is an admission of - require daring. It may require one to decide to trust or
distrust certain feelings one is prone to, require one to abandon some class
of cherished rationalisations, or have the courage to form convictions and
banish one's pusillanimous inhibitions. Additionally, the admissions that
reflection may provoke often require one to 'neaten up' one's world. 95
Thus, they may bring new unfamiliar risks. The devil one knew may have
made predictable entries and exits, but the new sources of sentimentality
are prone to steal on stage unscripted. Ricks' suggestion, drawn from
literary and linguistic sources, that there is some basis to the popular
English view of the French, that they are brazen-faced and unembarrass-
able, might appear to make it easier to understand why Stendhal should
have thought admitting things to himself daring. What it doesn't explain is
how Stendhal could have come to be aware that such an admission was
daring.96
So what are the conditions that enable us to laugh at ourselves and be
amused by the liberties that others take with us, whilst retaining our
self-respect? We should note that there may be people who by natural
indisposition neither have nor are capable of developing the requisite sense
of humour. Moreover, we are not concerned here with our being amused
merely at the liberties others take with us. For, we might be amused by their
effrontery or the grotesqueness of their attempts to take liberties with us.
This would amount to our ironizing the person who takes the liberty,
whereas what we are seeking are cases when the liberty taker and oneself
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share the same object of amusement, namely, oneself. Humorous allusion

to one's minor foibles are perhaps the easiest things to treat in blithe spirit,
but then often only before special categories of others, the categories
depending on people's personal qualities and relationship to oneself, their
circumstances, the kinds of roles in which they stand to one, and the
internalized social conventions one shares with them.
What restricts humour among the occupants of roles - whether it
involves conduct to each other or towards an institution's outsiders - is not
the seriousness of the purposes with which the roles are invested. What is
important is the degree to which their occupants' self-respect is vulnerable
to their conduct not being seen under the aspect of their role. Why assume
that conduct not seen under the aspect of an allotted role should tend to
cause one a loss of self-respect? We might say, 'because it is incongruous
with oneself as seen under the aspect of one's role.' A reply might be, 'this
can't be an explanation, because such incongruity deliberately enacted is
often the occasion for humour and the humourist doesn't thereby lose
self-respect.' The reply has suggested to us perhaps half of the required
explanation. What is true of the humorous role-dissociator is that the
attributes in which his self-respect reside are not wholly subsumed by the
esteemed status granted him in virtue of his role performance.
The limiting case for the humorous role-dissociator in one direction is
that in which none of his self-respect is tied to his meeting the standards of
conduct governing his role. One can imagine a blithe-hearted store
detective peeling off the electronic tags and freely dispensing luxury items
before cheerfully escorting patrons out through the main doors, a 'Father
Christmas' refusing to give any presents out and spending his time eating
all the chocolates, or with more seriously purposeful ridicule, the conduct
of the members of Baader-Meinhoff referring to the presiding judges as
'state-pigs'. In such cases, the sources of the persons' self-respect lie
wholly outside the performance of those duties deemed creditworthy within
their allotted roles. However, it may also be that a humorous role-
dissociator has a fair portion of his self-respect subsumed by the esteem
accorded to his performances in a role. His confidence in his ability to
remain a competent executor of his role and thus retain his self-respect
despite detaching himself now and again from its rubric will be justified by
such things as his ingenuity and his understanding of the leeway permitted
and even demanded by his role-correspondents. Of course, on one count or
another his confidence may tum out not be justified.
Societies, and particular institutions within them, differ greatly in
respect to the permissible leeway between rubric and role performance and
in the discretion that role-occupiers may exercise in mediating between the
two. Some societies, like Japan, acknowledge relatively few sources of
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

self-respect that lie outside one's public roles because respect is granted
only to that which is publicly esteemed or possesses status. Behaviour
which appears as incongruous with the norms governing one's public role
therefore represents a grave risk to one's self-respect tout court. So it is a
generalised fear of error, and less of its seriousness, that restricts humour.
A reduction in such fear provides the necessary circumstance in which
so-called 'role-distance' and the humour that it may give rise to can occur.
The more the incongruous feature concerned is felt by the person to
reduce the acceptability he would like to enjoy in the company of others,
the more risky the humour. Permanently stigmatising features or failings
may be the object of amusement least precariously only to those who share
them or to those whose sympathy is born of a receptivity to reciprocal
humour in respect of some equally stigmatising feature of their own.
Among those not sharing equally in such misfortunes, unquestioned
loyalty, affection or love, respect, openness or receptiveness and under-
standing, perhaps come closest to the qualities required of those who may
sometimes laugh with someone about his affliction. However, even then, it
is likely to be imagination's arrogance to think that one's sense of timing is
infallible. For, each person has 'an equivalent centre of self, whence the
lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference.'97 Weare
discussing whether the amusement can be shared, not whether it can be
tolerated or forgiven.
A person's admission to and amusement at his own vanities is often the
less threatening to his self-respect because into the telling is smuggled the
oblique reference to his elan or enviable audacity. Nonetheless, such
amusement may reveal a capacity for a measure of self-confident humility
that the timorous can only have when shorn of self-respect. When the
failing or stigma is unlikely to be permanent, then humorous regard,
particularly from those with the qualities listed above (though not them
alone), is far less liable to wound. In paying one the tribute of being
someone that can dissociate himself from the incongruities that occasion
amusement one may avail oneself of a perspective from which one can
laugh at one's own incongruities. 98
We asked above what the conditions were that enable us to laugh at
ourselves and be amused by the liberties that others take with us, whilst
retaining our self-respect. The qualification is important, because without
self-respect we could laugh at ourselves like a universal sceptic might
promise he could. I was assuming that people wouldn't be amused - though
they might defensively act it - if the object of their amusement was
humiliating to themselves in the present. Part of the pleasure of close
friendship rests in our being able to reveal our own absurdities in the
confidence that we will not thereby be humiliating ourselves. Amusing or
55
 Friendship East and West

otherwise, whether such revelations humiliate us will depend on whether

our friend is trustworthy and circumspect before others with what we reveal
and what he sees revealed in us, for otherwise we may suffer humiliation at
one remove. Of course, humiliation may be lurking closer than this. It is not
only that I may embarrass my friend and thus myself, by my recognising
that what I have revealed about myself he cannot respect in me. What I
reveal to my friend in the belief that he will fmd it amusing, may so disgust
him that not only is he unable to respect what is revealed of me, but this
revelation may lose me his respect tout court. There are, of course, national
analogues of such misplaced humour. Jokes told before the wrong audience
or in the belief that respect once gained can never cease to charm, are
subject to similar reversals.
Some shortcomings, less of character than personality, embarrass us in
friendship even more directly.99 It may suddenly dawn or in private reverie
we notice that we have behaved as one incapable of friendship, as a bore
who needs to talk, but is not interested in conversation. Such suscepti-
bilities are an especial temptation to those who in professional life are
accustomed to a captive or deferential audience, and to the lonely.

VII. Shame's humiliation: gender, society and Pirandello's umorismo

An important feature of humiliation is that unlike shame it almost always
depends on an actual audience. When one says to oneself, 'That's a humili-
ating thought!', it is usually not that one is suddenly recognising one's present
state as a humiliating one. One is usually imagining circumstances in which
one would be humiliated by the actions of others. This isn't the only possi-
bility. I have already argued that one doesn't need an imagined audience to
explain all cases of shame. Now I want to argue that this is also true of
humiliation. I believe that a widespread ethical quandary, faced by many
modem women, provides an illustration of non-audience-based humiliation.
A familiar way of comparing and contrasting societies and the oppor-
tunities for different categories of person within them, is by registering the
way in which their conventions lend support to the pursuit of certain types
of self-expression and thwart others. Such a perspective has the advantages
and disadvantages of alerting one to the political aspects of personal oppor-
tunity. Let us make an intra-society comparison. A dilemma for many
women in western social democracies and beyond, has been whether to
criticise the organisation of society for its lack of sexual equality in respect
of the accessibility of culturally esteemed goals, or - since the attainment
of such goals has been found more destructive of other satisfactions for
women than men - to try to change social judgements of what is esteemed.
Since the two objectives are not incompatible in principle, the dilemma is a
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

practical one. A resolution, supposing one can be found, lies well beyond
the remit of this chapter.
The point I wish to make is in many ways a depressingly familiar one,
but the kind of distinctions between shame and humiliation I have been
seeking to air brings one aspect into sharper relief. If the ethical-historical
and sketchy speculations I put forward carry any weight, I am neither
supposing they would do so regardless of prevailing economic and political
conditions, nor assuming that sexual stereotypes are merely an expression
of such conditions.
The speculation is that, since in many western societies a measure of
independence has become in recent times a prerequisite for attaining
respect in public, women have been obliged, in the course of taking up
activities from which they had previously been excluded, to lose in con-
siderable degree a sensitivity to shame that women of former generations
felt. This was the historical point at issue in our earlier challenging of
Scheler, Taylor and Williams' interpretation of the artist's model example.
Allowing oneself to seek protection in such sensitivity to shame is for some
modem women to have one's face set in the wrong direction. The loss of
this sensitivity, that represents liberation from a former state of relative
helplessness, also imposes new ways of encountering old risks. For what
shame formerly protected is now increasingly ceded to humiliation. Indeed,
the humiliation comes in double measure. Whereas shame's humiliation
was an imperfectly but vigilantly protected species, the humiliations of the
autonomous agent must be borne by the agent alone. If not merely suffered,
the initial humiliation may, in being disowned, rationalised, or returned
with scorn, risk further humiliation and self-contempt to its sufferer.
If the conditions that autonomous assertion requires are the same for
each sex, why should it be more of a problem for women? I have already
mentioned that the attainment of goals in the arena of public life is more
destructive of other satisfactions for women than men. We can mention just
four of the many familiar factors, that serve in general to increase women's
vulnerability to humiliation relative to that in men.
Firstly, if in general men and women wanted offspring to an equal
degree, possessed equal amounts of economic and political power and
enjoyed public and professional respect to an equal degree, the average
period of fecundity in women being shorter than that of fertility in men
would make the desire for offspring more often of greater concern to
women than men. Thus, in the desire for offspring, women would be
disadvantaged in the pursuit even if biological constraints were all that
there was to contend with. The multitude of other inequalities simply
exacerbate women's susceptibility to humiliation.

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Secondly, advertisers of feminine deodorant sprays rely on many of the

same preposterous beliefs as did the authors of Leviticus in making the
discomforts that attend menstruation not merely physical ones. 100
Thirdly, a bewildering conflict of need that issues in the desire for
autonomy on the one hand, and to be taken over by erotic experience, so
inviting a loss of an already more limited and less robust autonomy on the
other, is possibly dispersed more widely among women than among men. 101
Fourthly, the desire to be desired heterosexually is for women some-
thing which generally requires more effort and encourages more extensive
modifications to one's individuality than strategies employed for similar
purposes by men, a fact to which the history of Western art as much as the
forms of life in which it has been cultivated attest. 102
For these and other reasons, it is not merely women's various pretences
- those of decency as well as excellence - which are more vulnerable to
humiliation before others. Increasingly, the employment of the pretences
themselves is regarded by women as humiliating. It is the thought of what
one has done to get admired that humiliates. The fact that one has had to do
it underlines one's lack of power. Thus, humiliation can be experienced
without even an imagined audience contributing to the emotion. One may
be ashamed of oneself for having suffered, what one has come to regard as
indignities, so meekly. If this is where one's thoughts take one, then they
won't stop here. For, if one has to humiliate oneself in order to please
someone one likes and is fond of, can one respect him if he is content for
this to be so? Ifhe doesn't know that one experiences the humiliation, can
one respect oneself for not telling him? Even if one answered a confident
'No' to both these questions, unless a lot more were known of the particular
protagonist's situation, it wouldn't be possible to know whether such
conviction was sufficient reason to alter the protagonist's priorities. We can
imagine cases in which, it might be worth sacrificing one's own
self-respect all things considered. There isn't space here to explore these
questions, but a couple of examples may remind us of the way the world
characteristically resists our best wishes. 103
In the general cases above, there is a background assumption of a social
context in which self-reappraisal might make practical sense. The general
and sketchy presentation leaves it open what sort of opportunity there might
be for non-masochistic self-reappraisal. For, if self-reappraisals are to be
rational, which is not the same thing as them being non-illusory,104 they
require the existence, or the rational prospect of conditions in which there
is some chance of effecting the desired results in the light of one's other
priorities. The suggestion is that one needs to heed other priorities, not that
they be regarded as inflexible. I may possess the capacity to make many
practical choices which I admire others for making, which I wish I could
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make, but which I would do all I could not to make. There need be no
'weakness of will' involved, quite the reverse. One's situation may not
permit one to trot along the path of righteousness. If so, one may live as best
one can without the satisfactions or respect of rigorously high-minded
moral optimists. The realistic choices one has may not be those of 'good'
and 'bad', but of 'bad' and 'worse'.
In life, as in art, reflection can sometimes enable us to distinguish what
is given to us in perception, and what perception provokes in us; this is
something we often need to be shown. Pirandello spoke of 'double percep-
tion' in distinguishing the comic from the humorous. 105 'The comic'
involves 'the perception or sense of the opposite'. It occurs when we are
amused and find ourselves laughing at the incongruous, and it evinces a
capacity for basic ironyY16 We can also fmd ourselves in the midst of such
laughter being caught by 'the feeling of the opposite', what Pirandello
identifies as umorismo. 107 What is involved in umorismo is a 'feeling/or the
comic character' . Pirandello illustrates the distinction thus:
'I see an old lady whose hair is dyed and completely smeared with
some kind of horrible ointment; she is all make-up in a clumsy and
awkward fashion and is dolled-up like a young girl. I begin to laugh.
I perceive that she is the opposite of what a respectable old lady
should be. Now I could stop here at this initial and superficial comic
reaction: the comic consists precisely of this perception of the oppo-
site. But if, at this point, reflection interferes in me to suggest that
perhaps this old lady finds no pleasure in dressing up like an exotic
parrot, and that perhaps she is distressed by it and does it only
because she pitifully deceives herself into believing that, by making
herselfup like that and by concealing her wrinkles and gray hair, she
may be able to hold the love of her much younger husband - if
reflection comes to suggest all this, then I can no longer laugh at her
as I did at first, exactly because the inner work of reflection has made
me go beyond, or rather enter deeper into, the initial stage of aware-
ness . . . herein lies the precise difference between the comic and
humor. '108

In practical life, as in aesthetic experience, and supposing it is an occasion

when we see more than the superficial and comic, what we do as readers,
viewers or listeners when we feel/or the comic character is exercise our
sympathetic imagination. We don't identify with her when our imagining
her situation leads us to pity her. We switch back and forth between our
feeling/or her in the role of the sympathetic audience and feeling with her
our feelings are limited by what we can imagine and our imagining by what
we know of such feelings, so our feeling with her does not amount to our
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identifYing with her. It is rather that, our feeling with the dolled-up elderly
woman, as with Casaubon, involved our imagining the protagonist's situa-
tion from her point of view. We imagine the fear, humiliation, anxiety,
discomfort and distress that we think she would feel in that situation, and
the knowledge on which such imagining draws is based on what has
happened to us, on what and who we have taken an interest in, and may be
augmented by the understanding that unsentimental literature can convey.
The historically shifting domain within which such imaginative capa-
cities are readily and conventionally exercised evince long-term changes in
social and political values. Instances of a social superior's capacity and
even propensity to feel with a socially inferior person, and thus his capacity
to feelfor him are not absent from Tokugawa Japan. I 10 However, a crucial
change occurs, not merely in the status we attach to another person's
attitudes and feelings, but in our own imaginings of such, when we imagine
a person under the aspect of her independence and individuality. A certain
kind of embarrassment becomes possible. The significance of this will
come out shortly.

VIII. Does humiliation always lower self-esteem?

Does humiliation always lower one's self-esteem? By deliberately humili-
ating oneself enough, or being the quickest to spot one's own humiliation
one may be able to outmanoeuvre any potential humiliator. Such a person
possesses all the advantages and disadvantages that are lacking in the
complacently self-important person who is humiliated but too obtuse to
notice it. (There is no concealed claim here implying that a better life is
lived by she who notices most or - whatever it could mean - 'notices
everything'. Giving shape to a life requires what systematic utilitarians find
unjustifiable, that one fail to notice much of significance in the world).
There are figures like Dostoyevsky's underground man who willingly
identify with their self-humiliations as exercises in purification. II I
Dostoyevsky shows us how unstable a state this cannot but be. For any
aspiration to have oneself thought of as illusionless opens one up to the
charge of pretension. A similar balancing act may occur, though much less
successfully, with persons and nations whose preferred self-image is that
of a victim. For, the self-ascribed victim invites inquiries that he may not
be able to handle. Contamination of self-ascribed victims' accounts,
whether owing to their ignorance or the self-deceived misconstrual of
events that led to their suffering, will make others' respect drain away into
pity or worse. 112 Nonetheless, self-ascribed victimhood, is perhaps a way in
which some people seek to meet their need for purification. Thus, Buruma
finds the Japanese novelist and essayist Sakaguchi Ango fashioning a
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

self-image from the deep yearning for depravity, describing his pre-
dominant tone as that of a 'disenchanted romantic'.113 In both
Dostoyevsky's and Ango's cases, self-humiliation is a way of gaining self-
esteem. Similarly, Riophe detects a self-righteous hunger for self-esteem
among the lengthy and sometimes competitive public confessions of
'humiliation' voiced by the 'latter-day Clarrisas' or rape-crisis feminists on
American campuses. 114 Self-esteem may also attach to the confession of
humiliating events or facts in a certain 'humiliation game' wherein the
winner is the one who relates an event or fact about himself the revealing
of which is judged by the other players to be most humiliating. Winning at
such games, as one of David Lodge's characters found to his cost, can have
other consequences too. 115

IX. Embarrassment, Decency & 'the civilizing process'

Like Furbank, I am impressed by Elias' view that it is illuminating to see
changes in intimate psychological phenomena such as our susceptibilities
to embarrassment, shame, our sense of delicacy, and the bounds of modesty
and decency, as symptoms of long-term trends in political history.116 As
with all such general theories, we should proceed with caution and not be
too aghast to find ourselves barking up a flag-pole. There is an attractive
neatness achieved in Furbank's gloss of Elias' view that unembarrassment
and shamelessness can be equated with a lack of, or limited 'identification
between man and man.'117 The point is illustrated well by Elias when he
quotes from Della Casa's Galateo. In giving a list of malpractices that one
should not perform in public, including falling asleep, paring or cleaning
one's finger nails, and taking out letters and reading them, he remarks,
one should not sit with one's back or posterior turned towards
another, not raise a thigh so high that the members of the human
body, which should properly be covered with clothing at all times,
might be exposed to view. For this and similar things are not done,
except among people before whom one is not ashamed (se non tra
quelle persone, che l'huom non riverisce). It is true that a great lord
might do so before one of his servants or in the presence of a friend
oflower rank;for in this he would not show him arrogance but rather
a particular affection andfriendship. liS
Although a commonly expressed view, shame is not a feeling we experi-
ence merely before equals. We can feel it at its most intense before those
we revere and regard as our superiors or before those we love or view with
a certain awe, and this is so even when we know they don't or won't try to
understand the reasons for our actions. I 19
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 Friendship East and West

It is not sufficiently clear how we are to understand identification as

Furbank, following Elias, has used it here. Making explanatory use of a
term that is currently bandied about as loosely as is identification may risk
confusion. In the course and cause of abstracting from anything we neces-
sarily simplify it. In this case, the distinct mental states or processes over
which identification generalises have different implications for our under-
standing of the changes in Elias' 'embarrassment and shame thresholds'.
Often, the term is employed to refer to someone's wholehearted approval
of some practice in which he does or can imagine playing an active part.
There need be no other person's state of mind which the agent's own
imaginative thoughts are based on, so this is unlikely to be what Furbank or
Elias have had in mind.
The psychoanalyst's understanding of identification is quite different. It
involves a person, in consequence of some emotional tie, neither self-
consciously, nor consciously thinking, but nonetheless thinking and
imagining the thoughts and imaginings that he is thinking and imagining
under the constraints of the model he has of the thoughts and feelings of
the particular person to whom he has the tie, or with whom he wishes in
some way to merge. 120 The psychoanalytic use of identification does not
refer to an event or an episode, but to a way in which, over some period of
time, a person's autonomy is impaired. This use is too comprehensive in its
implications for our requirements. It would imply that everyone who is at
any moment not under the influence of a wish to merge with somebody is
thereby unembarrassed or unashamed, and that only those who are so
identifying themselves can be in a state of shame or embarrassment. Both
conclusions are unacceptable. The alleged desire of which psychoanalytic
identification is the expression is not a necessary condition of embarrass-
ment or shame.
Certain kinds of embarrassment between friends demonstrate this. In
being too assuming, I may demonstrate the crudeness of my sensibilities or
the insufficiency of my emotional repertoire to the kind of particularised
interest or sorts of responses between friends of which he knows and I
don't. Or, on occasion, I may be too confident in the precision with which
I advert to my friend's motives or claim to know my own, and so register a
lack of respect for my friend. Or, perhaps, I resort to religious or psycho-
analytic language for this purpose in ways that my friend regards as
grotesque or preposterous. Or, I simply talk openly about things which
embarrass him. In these examples, my noticing some involuntary
behaviour, the blinking downward glance or inflexing of his cheek muscle,
may make me aware of my friend's embarrassment and I find myself
abashed. I may feel abashed on account of what his embarrassment dis-
closes to me about myself or himself, or it may be that what embarrasses is
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

my adverting or alluding to something which each already knows the other

knows. In the latter, I am not embarrassed by a discovery, but by having my
clumsiness revealed. In none of the cases, do I need to have been thinking
under the constraints of a model I had of the thoughts and feelings of the
particular person to whom I have a tie, or with whom I wish in some way
to merge. Embarrassment reminds us of the separateness of persons, but it
doesn't follow that when not embarrassed I assume the contrary any more
than when not being reminded that I shall die one day implies that I
normally walk around assuming I am immortal. Nonetheless, I suggest that
the conditions which give rise to such embarrassment are to be found less
often in contexts and cultures where there is no accepted convention for
persons expecting their friendships to combine affection, trust, openness
and an equal respect for the other's independence.
It is a mistake to think that the various kinds of embarrassment should all be
regarded as merely minor forms of shame. For one thing, when shame is
induced in us by our perception of another's shame, the structure of awareness
involved may be very different from that which characterises the embarrass-
ment that occasions others' embarrassment. Outside the realm of friendship,
embarrassment may be experienced when what is at stake are the interests or
self-conceptions of others to whom we have no antecedent relationship.
Embarrassment may arise in us when we witness others' humiliating them-
selves. l2l For some, it is also experienced when they see others being humili-
ated, and this draws us closer to a kind of embarrassment that is not a matter of
the avoidance of immodesty, or a breach of etiquette or manners, or which
lends itself with quite the same facility to humour.
We can be shamed by another's shame because she and ourselves have
an allegiance to an entity that is important to both of us. The specification
of the entity depends partly on what she has done or has befallen her, and
partly on the significant audience. We shall have more to say about the
latter below. We feel with her not in consequence of our imagining her
situation from her point of view, but because the allegiances that weigh
with her we recognise to be ones that also weigh with us. This is an
intelligible sense in which we can be said to identifY with someone, say a
member of our family or nation. Compare this with what happens in the
case of aesthetic imagination. Our feeling with someone, say Casaubon,
comes about as a result of our centrally imagining his situation, not because
what weighs with him also weighs with us. What such imagining leads us
to discover about him, may make us feel/or him. It makes us experience
pity for him, not self-pity.
However, neither the way one's embarrassment occasions the
embarrassment of others, nor the way shame can be contagious among
those who share the same identifications, shows us that the threshold of

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embarrassment and shame expands with people's having greater propen-

sities to identify with each other. Nonetheless, I think that Furbank's
Eliasesque intuition is basically correct. When shame and embarrassment
involves a real or imagined audience its expanded threshold is underwritten
not by an enlarged domain in which identification operates, but by one in
which we have a propensity to imagine others' responses and attitudes, or
what Wollheim called, to 'centrally imagine' them. 122
This a consonant with Elias' suggestion that the 'civilising process'
reflects changes in the objects rather than a diminution of our ready aware-
ness of danger. Preoccupations with the perils of brute physical nature gave
way before the direct violent threats of other men, thence to the indirect
threat of others' opinions, and lastly, to our own internalised fears. 123 Elias
claims, of course, that it is the proportion of internal to external objects of
fear that increases. 124
I may be able, of course, to imagine an audience's contemptuous judge-
ments of me and yet deny the facts on which their judgements are based, or
I may acknowledge that the facts are as the audience believe, but not share
the attitude to the facts in virtue of which I am held in contempt. If this is
so, then in imagining how the audience sees me, and imagining its con-
temptuous feelings for me, my attitude towards my behaviour or state and
so towards myself will not be one of contempt. 'The conflict expressed in
shame-fear', as Elias put it, 'is not merely a conflict of the individual with
prevalent social opinion; the individual's behaviour has brought him into
conflict with the part of himself that represents this social opinion ... he
himself recognises himself as inferior. He fears the loss of the love or
respect of others, to which he attaches or has attached value.'125 Yet, the
absence of such fear may not render him fearless and indifferent. In
imagining the consequences of being regarded with contempt, I may fear
for what may befall me or those I care about.
Although embarrassment involves a particular type of self-
consciousness, self-consciousness is not the same as consciousness ofself.
There are innumerable things which can be the source of one's self-
consciousness or consciousness of self. A person very self-conscious about
her beauty, or her professional or social position experiences anxiety over
its social recognition, whereas a person conscious of herself in respect of
her beauty, or her professional or social position exudes confidence on their
account and feels no such anxiety. Embarrassment's self-consciousness is
incompatible with, but not defined by the absence of, presence of mind.
Moreover, 'presence of mind' or the customary state of having one's wits
about one, of knowing what to do or say in awkward or dangerous circum-
stances, is not in itself hostile to embarrassment. Embarrassment can be the

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subject of second-order attitudes. In those who take an overweening pride

in their customary presence of mind, the attitude may sometimes be one of
hostility.
Much current writing on the subject of embarrassment conceives it to
involve breaches of etiquette or codes of manners, a faux pas perhaps. or
the making of minor professional errors, rather than being a response to
one's own ethical shortcomings, and sees embarrassment as manifesting a
concern to avoid and by its display rebut the charge of immodesty. 126 This
is true of many cultures, and perhaps generally true of honour cultures. The
object of embarrassment is seen as an object of humour. 127
The main point of the discussion below however, is to suggest some
connections, in part historical, between decency, embarrassment, openness
in dealings with others and voyeurism. Embarrassment that is not a matter
of breaches of etiquette or politeness however, does not fit so nearly into
the category of morals or aesthetics, for it arises when one becomes aware
not of one's 'indecency', but of having shown 'a lack of decency towards
others', that is, a lack of respect for other individuals' basic pride in their
independence. Such independence has come to form part of a person's
dignity. Like the concepts 'vulgarity' or 'refined', it leans towards the
aesthetics of character.
The embarrassment at issue is bound up with a peculiarly modem
application of the concept of decency. We shall come to three major strands
in it shortly. First, we may be tempted to categorise this sense of decency
with an older and still current usage in which it expresses a person's not
wanting to be and especially to be seen to be immodest, or not wanting to
be, and especially to be seen to be the kind of person who unreservedly
enjoys the immodest displays of others. As early as the 1930s, Elias
observed that' a certain relaxation' was setting in regarding the threshold of
shame and embarrassment. Like the current spectacle of a woman's hands
habitually pulling down her figure-hugging stretch mini-skirt that has been
specifically designed and chosen because it will ride up, Elias' remarks are
instructive and provoke in us a plethora of uncomfortable questions, about
our freedom and our hypocrisies, that few will feel immediately able to
answer satisfactorily:
'The freedom and unconcern ... (of social practices) like modem
bathing and dancing practices, is only possible because the level of
habitual, technically and institutionally consolidated self-control, the
individual capacity to restrain one's urges and behaviour in corres-
pondence with the more advanced feelings for what is offensive, has
been on the whole secured. It is a relaxation within the framework of
an already established standard.' 128

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Even if one is not discomforted by the questions about freedom and

hypocrisy, given the unevenly distributed capacity and provision of effica-
cious contexts for the socialisation of 'civilised' behaviour, it is at least
plausible to think that the formidable increase in the requirement to inter-
nalise restraint and self-control in our characters, may have come to lack by
some degree that 'consolidation' which Elias is, nonetheless, right to
note. 129 Nevertheless, this is not quite the sense of decency we are after.
One prominent direction that the lack of such a sensibility takes is
voyeurism, not merely in its scoptophilic sense, but more generally. The
king of objection some may have to affected voyeurism is not relevant to
our discussionpo However vast a subject voyeurism is in its own right, our
mention of it here is in respect of its coming historically to fall under a more
general category of indecent behaviour. Although such phrases as 'the right
to be left alone' and 'the right not to be interfered with' point up demands
for negative liberty, and express adherence to that enlarged respect for
privacy that is peculiarly modern, they also conceal important positive
liberties which those accustomed to indulge them freely may not always
acknowledge sufficiently. Albeit not a freedom ever perhaps wholly
exempt from threat in any culture, the freedom to express - to fmd, create
and have fashioned - one's personality in public space depends on one's
being able to presume upon robust and widely disseminated attitudes that
respect the value of personal autonomy and independence. Conventions
that respect the important virtues of frankness and openness can't take root
if this is not so. These attitudes possess very shallow roots in Japan.
The scoptophilic use of 'voyeur' is fIrst recorded in English at the tum
of the nineteenth century. 'Voyeur' and its corollaries' broader use, in
reference to persons who plaintively or gloatingly, and often covertly,
watch others who are in various respects defenceless before their gaze, and
invoking a strong element of prurience, isn't recorded in English before the
mid-1950s.131 The prurient state of mind, Ricks remarks, 'is characterised
by a particular attitude which it adopts towards its own impure imaginings,
an attitude of cherishing, fondling, or slyly watching.' 132
A new use for 'decent' was fIrst recorded in the fIrst decade of the
twentieth century: 'accommodating, pleasant', 133 but this doesn't capture
the broader and later twentieth century uses of 'decency'. Two such uses
are of particular interest, and the contrast with Japanese experience may be
suggestive. Their signifIcance lies not in their users' attachment to ideas
that are novel, but rather in their use within a social context in which social
democratic ideals are diffuse. First, is the use that voices an allegiance to
the idea of the equal dignity of each individual. That respect is due to
individuals in virtue of their 'common humanity' is a broad and important

66
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

claim. It is neither trivial nor needs to rest on religious belief. Within the
body of qualities human beings have in common, our present concern stems
from our capacity to be distressed by various situations in which we may
fmd ourselves, or represent or have represented in thought; in particular,
with our susceptibility to humiliation. 134 Neither a humble nor a humbled
person needs to have been humiliated. The perception and experience of
humiliation is sensitive to the relationship between agents and their signi-
ficant audiences. In a society in which general social deference is fairly
widespread, that is, in which a very considerable number of people occupy-
ing humble positions fully acknowledge and accept their humble status, and
regard their own manners as relatively rough, it is likely that there will be
many situations in which referring to a person as 'common' will not offend.
It is no longer a polite English usage, for it has come to be perceived as
humiliating the persona about whom it is used. This use has become
indecent. It became so before the proponents of what is referred to as
political correctness got going in earnest. It is not our task to discuss the
relationship between the breadth of the ideological ambitions in that move-
ment and the use of' decency' at issue here. This would require independent
discussion of the many complex and difficult issues involved in the move-
ment's aims. However, it is not so misleading to see the focus of certain of
the sensibilities in playas being trained upon what is regarded as humiliat-
ing to voice in public. Thus, whatever additional hopes or expectations
some may entertain that ethical changes of a profound kind follow pre-
scribed changes in the regulation of public discourse, it can readily be seen
that much current debate is about 'decency' in the sense referred to here.
The currency of the second conception of 'decency' rests far from
comfortably with the first when social democratic ideals register in
citizenly sensibilities. What was once expected of and used about the few
now enjoys a broader use. The nearest recorded use of the word 'decent'
was that of maintaining 'a fair measure' in performance or tradeps As
Keen has shown, the quality of frankness, candour and openness (fran-
chise) exhibited in one's dealings with others, 'visible testimony to the
combination of good birth with virtue, comprised one of the classic virtues
of European chivalry from at least the twelfth century onwards. I 36 Whereas,
a member of a society of knights might lie to a non-knightly inferior
without affronting him - the latter possessing no right to the truth from the
knight - in a social democratic context, successfully lying or deliberately
deceiving any sane adult is, in most cases, to humiliate him. 137 Of course, it
may indicate that the person lied to is already perceived to be in a signi-
ficantly humbled or aberrant state. In a social democratic context, telling
the truth to anyone might call on one's courage and so touch one's self-

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respect and on that account be a virtue, but within the European medieval
code of chivalry, although one might find oneself owing the truth to
someone, for example another knight, it need not have been the case that
one found oneself owing the truth to anyone. There were any number of
human beings who one might deliberately deceive without having one's
virtuous reputation sullied by the imputation of cowardice. In both common
speech and academic writing the distinction between lying and deliberately
deceiving someone is sometimes denied.138 In reference to democratic
politicians' public statements this is commonly the case, yet the tattered
legacy of this distinction is evinced in the British MP's fear of getting
caught out lying to Parliament. This modern use of 'decency' demands an
openness and frankness in a person's dealings with others. There are certain
proper and special domains of responsibility from which these demands are
withdrawn such as those often occupied by democratically elected states-
men and military commanders in wartime. There are familiar situations of
daily life in which there is a conflict of decencies: the deliberate deception
of others might preserve decency of one sort, while it endangers another. It
is often the question of whether one's behaviour carries the imputation of
cowardice that matters to the issue of whether or not one's indecent behaviour
will eventually come to be seen as mitigated by circumstance. The more
habitual a guardedness, the more it may come to suggest guile, deviousness
or is perceived to mask the pusillanimous delight in deceiving others.'39
The provinces of life in which misgivings about voyeurism and
prurience are at their most active are those in which, in Ricks' words,
'Defencelessness, trust, the relinquishment of conscious control, the
frankest physicality", leave people's vulnerabilities in need of protection
by others' internalised sense of decency; that is, where the need is not
rendered superfluous by love. 140 An internalised sense of 'decency' that
respects the dignity of a person's bodily and psychological integrity and
separateness is particularly important as a precondition for a certain
conception of friendship. For unlike the case with love, decency and its
potential embarrassments are not made superfluous therein. The kind of
friendship referred to here is that in which neither party is seen, in respect
to the other, to be pretentious, or as an object to exploit or invade however
benevolently the latter may be intended to be. It is above all in such
friendship's affection that independence and intimacy may co-mingle
without distortion of either. 141 'Decency' now enjoins a respect for each
person's independence, just as it once found becoming, behaviour that
respected a person's social standing or rank. The array of attitudes that such
a concept may invoke is by no means peculiar to friendship. Though, as we
have noted, such decency cannot expect to be a respected piece of the

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world's moral furniture at all times and in all circumstances, it may inform
a person's responses quite broadly. It is an attitude that can be exhibited in
a person's character in numerous ways. We find it well illustrated in
Middlemarch, in the author's portrayal ofthe Vicar, Mr Farebrother, who
on reaching a delicate point in his relations with the young doctor, Mr
Lydgate, felt,
'. . . simply the relief of a desire to do with as little pretence as
possible. Apparently he was not without a sense that his freedom of
speech might seem premature, for he presently said - "I have not yet
told you that I have the advantage of you, Mr Lydgate, and know you
better than you know me. You remember Trawley who shared your
apartment at Paris for some time? I was a correspondent of his, and
he told me a good deal about you. I was not quite sure when you first
came that you were the same man. I was very glad when I found that
you were. Only I don't forget that you have not had the like prologue
about me."
Lydgate divined some delicacy of feeling here, but did not half
understand it.' 142
Mr Farebrother's wish not to have an unfair advantage over Lydgate is the
expression of an ideal of decency. It is not an attitude to people informed
by innocence, but rather by an aversion to guile. Its worldliness bespeaks a
freedom from pretence and cynicism and so from that affected worldliness
that can be secured without bothering the imagination.

x. The Perception and Evaluation of Authority

To understand how the evaluative force of a descriptive term has worked,
works, has been, and has been got to work, is to understand how the
evaluative conventions change in response to wider social, economic and
political events, and change often on the lips of those who knowingly and
unknowingly bring about the events that take place. Such historical under-
standing allows us to see how, in turn, the wider events that take place
disrupt former conventions in foreseen and unforeseen ways, providing
novel opportunities for the subversion, creation and stabilisation of values.
There is no neutral perspective from which to understand the supposed
authoritarian character of modern Japanese inter-personal relations. If the
characterisation of the explanandum, or what calls for explanation, that is,
the character of Japanese inter-personal relations, is too eagerly couched in
the terms used by the theorists of authoritarian personality whose percep-
tions and interpretations of people's opportunities and motives were

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formed in very different social contexts, then the explanans, or what is

offered as an explanation of it, may founder. It need not do so. Not only
need we examine the social and ideological context of the explanandum -
something we shall come to much later in the paper, we must needs be
aware of the social and ideological contexts that have fashioned the English
concepts in which the present thesis is advanced. For, I believe that many
features of modem Japanese inter-personal relations can be illuminated
when we see them as exhibiting characteristics that were at home in the
peasant-aristocratic honour systems of early modem Europe and earlier.
The term authoritarian was coined in cultural contexts in which ideals
of individual freedom were part of the ethical and political currency. The
aetiologies of its coinage, acceptance and changing patterns of usage are in
part peculiar to the concerns of the successive socio-linguistic communities
that fashioned it. Its application is not restricted to such contexts or to
people who share exactly similar concerns. It is, at least, apparent that
Japanese self-conceptions and inter-personal relations display an authori-
tarian and conformist character. 143 Indeed, so long as one acknowledges the
fact of plural domains of authority, and the context-specific character of
deference relationships in Japan, then a number of the more familiar
characteristics of authoritarian personality theory are evident. One suspects
the qualification regarding 'specificity' could be transferred without much
loss to medieval Europe, the Great Chain having been welded into Being
and hoisted aloft the welter of ad hoc arrangements that comprised practical
life. For the temptation to neaten up the worldjeopardises the credibility of
the historian of ideas no less than it breathes sentimentality into the life of
our individual and collective emotions. It is not, of course, that such
'neatening up' is merely an outcome and to some extent an aim of any
necessarily selective historical account of a given society, it is also a social
practice which it is proper for the historian to record. Arrangements for
ceremonies and receptions are tailored in part to respect and in part to
modify the social 'pecking order' or honour-as-precedence. Even if such
orders of precedence are more indicative of general relations of deference
in the etiquette-suffused uppermost circles of officialdom than in the lower
reaches of a society, caution is needed before drawing far-reaching con-
clusions from a survey of such arrangements about more general relations
of power and social deference. 144
Summarising a long tradition of writers on the authoritarian personality,
Hudson remarks that, 'the true authoritarian is characterised not by the
content of his beliefs, but by the kind of pressure that will induce him to
change from one belief to another.'145 The authoritarian shows a marked
proneness to shun individual responsibility for his actions, and should a

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former object of allegiance, authority figure or group, suffer a loss of status

or power, then he will deny responsibility and its consequences. 146 This
feature is related to a familiar view that the shifting of blame is the attempt
to dispel guilt by relieving dissonance. 147 However, in Japan, it is more a
case of avoiding taking the actions and risking the mistakes for which
individual responsibility is weightier (because more exposing) than that
which has had historically its source in 'joint responsibility-groups' (gonin-
gumi).148 Though a common belief in the prevalence of suicide is

compatible with an aversion to taking on responsibility, the incidence of

even the 'cold duty' of suicide in Japan is not compelling evidencefor the
acceptance of responsibility, for, as Reischauer has stated, in Japan 'suicide
is statistically no more prevalent than in the Occident.' 149 Avoidance rather
than evasion is salient. Adorno found authoritarians to have a ready surface
confidence in their worth whilst at various times showing the unmistakable
signs of an underlying self-contempt. lso 'Fear of exposure' will do as well
in a society permeated by a concept of face. A feature that propitiates
authoritarian and conformist tendencies in the Japanese case is the
relatively high incidence of distrust and lack of confidence in autonomous
perception and judgement - something easily concealed by a display of
fetishism before the published word or a voguish consumer good. Impro-
visation and unprecepted initiative are met with a corresponding aversion
even when called for by urgent need, a fact sadly underlined by the
character of the official response to the Kobe earthquake of January 1995.
In addition to the loss of face before the outside world perceived to be a
consequence of accepting speedily available foreign relief services, what
weighs importantly in such aversion is the unpredictable nature of the threat
to oth~s' face which bold improvisation within Japan represents. As with
transgressions, it is in the public admission of responsibility for such
initiatives that the aversion is at its strongest.
It is also claimed of authoritarians that they lack spontaneous sympathy
and generosity, and that the inclination to aid or co-operate with another is
governed by an agent's position or standing relative to others, superiors
being treated with obsequiousness. I 51 We should be on guard here. Much
behaviour requires an awareness of its cultural context if it is to be
understood correctly. Indeed, we may not be able to see much of what it
signifies, and so understand whether it is interesting, if we ignore the
concepts that guide it. This is not to say that a culture's preferred descrip-
tions of itself, like those of individuals, whoever we are and wherever we
come from, can be taken at, so to speak, face value. ls2 Preferred
descriptions may be deliberately or inadvertently misleading or concealing
of the real interests and values at issue. Such concealment is not always

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down to the agent in question. What it is that obscures real interests is an

empirical question, and we can believe such interests exist and can be
identified in particular cases without believing that that task is easy, or that
for such a task to be cogent a general moral theory needs to be endorsed. If
so, then regardless of what a person thinks he is doing, agents' preferred
descriptions will not always identify the behaviour in question correctly.
The realisation of values like spontaneous sympathy or generosity
require that there be a context or contexts in which the particular actions
that agents perform are seen, at least by their recipients, to express such
values coherently. Lack ofa culturally endorsed context for one's intended
actions may mean that they are viewed with antipathy or meet with ridicule.
Thus, an action may not be regarded as generous if the intended benefit
immediately bestowed is outweighed by the heavy burden of indebtedness
it leaves in its wake, or by the humiliation it confers on the receiver. 153 In
such cases, and given that we sincerely intend to benefit a person, it is our
ill-informed if genuine sympathies, our cultural obtuseness, which has led
us astray. We may be familiar with the phenomenon of the aggressively
overreaching giver of invitations or gifts parachuting into another's com-
pany and playing on the recipient's susceptibility to embarrassment.
In Japan, sympathy, spontaneously expressed in assistance to strangers
may, regardless of the indubitable needs, be met by onlookers with ridicule.
In certain cases, this may stem from the helper's unwitting humiliation of
the needy person, but not all help humiliates people, and the response is
more likely to stem from a general feature of honour societies. As Castan
said of eighteenth-century France, 'General benevolence or charity are not
demanded of people. You may leave a dying man unaided, having ascer-
tained that he has no claim on you by reason of kinship, neighbourliness or
related interests.'154 Noticing a lack of considerateness among individuals
in public, some Japanese, especially those who have lived abroad, have
come to feel that a susceptibility to shame born of 'the fear of being noticed
and observed by other people', is itself shameful. I 55 If shame about such
shame or second-order shame were to have widespread practical effects and
these turned out to be a generalised considerateness, current attitudes to
status would be unlikely to remain intact. Even being able to use appro-
priately and spontaneously the English 'Much obliged!', to express the
speaker's acknowledgement both of a kindness done, and that it was done
without regard for return, betrays an understanding of people's expecta-
tions that doesn't always travel well. Moreover, we are not always aware of
enough of the history of the usage of familiar terms in our own language.
This may lead us to make the wrong comparison or identify too glaring a
contrast between the concepts of one society and those of another. Finally,

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

it should be noted that lack of considerateness in individuals doesn't always

equate with lack of considerateness in society, a fact underlined by the local
government provisions for blind people in the city where most of this paper
has been written.

XI. Obsequiousness, Condescension and Servility

Let us take some examples of terms which have been 'on the move' in
English, in a way that is significant for our querying the application of the
term authoritarian in modern Japan. We should remember that a change in
the use of a term is rarely an isolated event - the expression of a single
change in perception and behaviour - and that the concerns that motivate it
will likely be on changes in use in other parts of a vocabulary, and in
behaviour. 156 For example, the terms servile and obsequious and their
corollaries, have a decidedly pejorative ring to them in current British and
American English. Similarly, apart from the usage whereby it conveys
merely 'acceding, acquiescing or consenting to something' and has no
connotation of social deference, or of someone's 'willingly lowering him-
self before those whom he duly recognises to be his social inferior', so do
the terms condescend and condescending, and for similar reasons. 157 The
sort of behaviour they generally refer to does not have the same conno-
tations in Japan. Indeed, it is not a rare event to find a Japanese English
speaker, and intending nothing but courtesy, thanking one for having been
'condescending' when one has complied with some trivial request.
The terms' obsequious', 'condescend' and 'servile' are notthe only ones
one could examine historically - if all too briefly - in an attempt to obtain
some purchase on what has been referred to as 'the authoritarian
personality', but we needs must make do with a small selection here. I find
Furbank's view very plausible, that in the newly, if meagrely democratic
English society of the 1860s, a person's dignity came increasingly if gradu-
ally to be felt to be bound up with the notion of independence. 158 The
opportunities to realise such an ideal in England were, have been and are,
far meaner and more destructive of other satisfactions for one sex, than for
the other. This is reflected, perhaps, in a historical lag in the 'felt indignity
of dependence' on the part of many English women. Nevertheless, ifbeing
'in service', previously not an indignity, became increasingly to be
regarded as one from the 1860s till the curtains closed on 'service-based'
society in thepost-1939 era, we would expect awareness of this factto have
its effects on people's feelings and behaviour, and so on the use of the terms
which gave the latter expression. And, if 1939 was about the time after
which an increasing number of people felt it to be indecent to give voice to

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the judgement, or otherwise imply, that someone was' a social inferior', we

would expect linguistic conventions to express this fact too. Just that seems
to have happened. Of course, this transformation in the conventions of
public speech was one with which perceptions and feelings less obediently
conformed. Moreover, the public convention was, perhaps, not general till
the mid-l 960s.
In 1859, Macaulay could write that, 'An army may be so constituted as to
be ... efficient against an enemy, and yet obsequious to the civil magistrate'
(my italics). He is offering a model of military conduct of which he approves.
There is no hint that he is using 'obsequious' to convey what it has been
capable of conveying since the turn of the sixteenth century, namely, 'undue
submissiveness, fawning or abject behaviour.' The Oxford English
Dictionary's last recorded entry for the 'assumed social fact' use of
'obsequious' is 1877;159 the 'assumed social fact' use of 'servile' ,albeit in the
phrase 'servile birth', is last recorded in the mid-l 880s;l60 and, apart from its
use for describing the manner of a German prince in the l880s, 'condescend'
and 'condescending' lose their 'assumed social fact' usage - Dr. Johnson
described someone as having 'a very humble and condescending air' - in the
mid-eighteenth century.161 After these times, to be called 'obsequious' or
'servile' is to be thought of as cringing and so a reproach to one's self-respect,
just as to be described as 'condescending' is to be upbraided for one's super-
ciliousness or haughtiness.
What we find in these potted histories of English usage is not the
disappearance of an 'assumed social fact use' and the phoenix-like re-birth
of a use for these terms expressing reproach or distaste for such behaviour,
but the former giving way before an already long-established pejorative
usage. In Japanese too, there are terms which can be used pejoratively for
an exaggerated or unctuous show of humility. Indeed, as Ikegami has
shown, there was within the broad category of master-vassal (samurai)
relationships of the late twelfth and thirteenth-century a tradition of fiercely
assertive samurai autonomy.162 There is the noun koto and its verbal
corollary koto 0 suru, that like the English 'kowtow' derives from Chinese
and is used of a low bow. In less literary vein, used scornfully and especi-
ally of politicians ingratiating themselves with displays offalse humility, is
dogeza (a prostration, from the kneeling position) and the verb dogeza 0
suru. Both koto and dogeza also have 'neutral' uses for describing
behaviour that respects the 'assumed social facts' of the occasion.
Gomasuri, used of a person, and goma 0 suru meaning 'to grind sesame
seeds' conveys 'oiliness or unctuousness of character'. However, since
'independence' isn't by convention broadly regarded as a condition of
'dignity' or 'self-respect' within modern Japanese culture, the behaviour
which earns a pejorative description is defined against norms, encoded
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

within rules of etiquette, protocol and politeness that express a proper

deference.
In the English case, the scope of the terms servile, obsequious and
condescending as currently used is now rather different, for they have lost
the anchorage formerly provided for them by an honour system, albeit an
honour system set against a more robust individualism than has character-
ised continental European, and especially Mediterranean, societies. The
conduct that formerly earned a pejorative use for these terms could then be
contrasted with conduct in contexts that earned a neutral or approbatory
use. For the propriety of the neutral or approbatory uses rested on the
presupposition that the existence of socially inferior and superior persons
in society, is compatible with the dignity of those in socially inferior
positions. This presupposition - what I have called above an 'assumed
social fact' - insured that conduct regarded to be an appropriate expression
of such differences - posed no threat to the dignity of superiors and (many)
inferiors alike. It need not be assumed that the whole population were in
thrall to the presupposition. No doubt, some persons perceived as social
inferiors regarded themselves as being subjected to an indignity thereby,
and there were those, such as radical Protestants, whose beliefs forbade any
such complaisance. Nonetheless, the beliefs on which the 'facts' of the
honour system rested were consistent with the belief 'that the dignity of
persons is not impaired by their dependence'. Whereas the reproach was
directed formerly at undue servility, undue obsequiousness, and undue
condescension, a person's assumption of superiority in social status or rank
being out of proportion or too ostentatious, current uses of 'servile',
'obsequious', and 'condescending' deliver an unqualified reproach, to
one's self-respect in virtue of one's lack of respect for others' dignity.
It was not the desire characteristic of an honour system (a desire to hold
others at a distance, which, gratified, would have entailed an enhanced
sense of one's own dignity), that preoccupied the owners of great country
houses in late Victorian and Edwardian England. It has been suggested,
rather that it was an aversion, or the desire to avoid the embarrassment of
being seen by servants, that required their invisibility.'63 Thus, having
domestic arrangements that ensured the social, and where possible,
physical invisibility of servants was not constitutive of the object of desire,
but a means to it. It became embarrassing to observe or to be addressed by
people who behaved as if they thought of themselves as servile. Condes-
cending behaviour, rather than as a creditably humbling indulgence came
to be regarded as indecent. The public statement of another person's lowly
social 'origins', or its barely concealed social shibboleth-spotting equi-
valent, has come to risk being regarded as an offence to decency. This may
be so despite the lack of an intention on the part of a speaker to be socially
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deferential or condescending. I64 In a social democracy, there is no social

authority. For how can there be a social authority that risks offending
standards of decency in merely proclaiming or declaring itself? It can rest
only on presumption, and so deserves no respect, a fact which Mrs Thatcher
when Prime Minister drew attention to in her observation that, we don't
have to go back very far to recognise that each one of us is descended from
someone or other that nobody's ever heard of. Ifit does manage to procure
social democratic respect, it thereby undermines the social democratic
citizen's self-respect.
Despite the very different - roughly, professional rather than social-
bases of deference in the Japan of the 1990s, to claim a generally accepted
connection or association between 'independence' and 'dignity' would not
be remotely plausible.

XII. National Identifications, Uniqueness and Authority

Every culture possesses a store of sentimental beliefs about itself. Some of
the following seem to fall into this category. For example, 'that the
Japanese are cleaner than other peoples',165 or 'that Mt. Fuji is the most
sublime mountain in the world',166 or 'that only in Japanese do the times
tables rhyme'167 or that Japanese people have an 'innate aesthetic sense for
things beautiful'168 or a special love of nature,169 or that 'Japanese can
understand each other without speaking,'170 or that Japan is an especially
safe place to live. 171 Takeo Doi, writing in the nihonjinron genre, talking of
amae (the desire to be indulged) expresses a typical view:172
'a person may appear not to be displaying amae behaviour when
internally his or her heart is full of amae feelings. Amae itself is an
emotion that is constituted tacitly. It is telepathic, pre-linguistic, and
does not need the medium of language. It is communicated directly
from heart to heart'I73
The claim here is not being made about that non-verbal 'communication
without words' with which we are all familiar. 174 The suggestion is that
there is a fundamental difference in modes of communication between 'the
West' and 'Japan'.175 Zen Buddhist beliefs are a putative source for, though
it is doubtful they are the source of, the animus behind such views. I76
These sorts of conceits are found in all cultures, especially in the world's
more culturally isolated communities, and though Japan's physical isola-
tion has lessened, its cultural isolation is still very much in evidence. 177 In
virtue of the individual's emotional needs, indigenous localism and the
group as source of compensation for a languid sense of individual auto-
nomy, Japan's high standard of general education has made such isolation
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

particularly acute in intellectual life. Nakane has claimed, that owing to

Japan's prosperity, intellectual isolation is now more pronounced than
during the Meiji period. 178 In the recent past, Afrikaners and Venetians
spring to mind as offering comparison in this regard. In the 1950s, James
Morris recorded how as one stepped aboard from the quayside one would
receive a kindly reminder that 'Venetian seaweed is slippery' .179 In general,
it may be surmised that pretensions to and beliefs about uniqueness are far
more widely spread than the nationalistic ideologues into whose hands such
dispositions play.lso As Ivan Morris put it, 'in Japan as elsewhere,
insularity, a sense of isolation, and the resultant paranoia, persecution
mania and belief in uniqueness all combine to lead nationalism into
dangerous channels.' 181
One way of distinguishing an authoritarian but non-totalitarian society from
a totalitarian one, is that whereas there is in the former a high degree of
behavioural compliance secured through the local or general sources of
cultural and institutional authority, in the latter such compliance is secured
through centralised state powers. In the absence of an efficacious culture of
symbols, the arms of the State must exert a proportionately greater degree of
direct control over behaviour. 182 As many have noted, this is something which
tends to consume more resources than when the wills of less fractious indi-
viduals can in large measure be won over, or relied upon to do what they are
already perhaps not greatly indisposed to do, as has been more the case in
Japan. As Weber remarked of every form of 'imperative co-ordination', ' it
should be kept clearly in mind that the basis of every system of authority, and
correspondingly of every kind of willingness to obey, is a belief, a belief by
virtue of which persons exercising authority are lent prestige.' 183 The beliefs
involved are, I suggest, intelligible in relation to Japan's kind of honour
society. It is not just the existence of the rule oflaw and independent judiciary
that are important. As Kolnai put it,
'For the ancient Greeks "the West" (or "Europe") meant society with
a free constitution and self-government under recognised rules,
where "law is king", whereas the "East" (or "Asia" signified
theocratic societies under godlike rulers whom their subjects serve
"like slaves" ... In the Secularised State terrestrial power (being no
longer linked with the Divine) is no longer absolute but becomes
relative, hence a correspondingly heightened appreciation of human
personality and individual conscience ... The democratic principle
of a constitutional "opposition", most peculiarly Western of all con-
stitutional phenomena is deeply rooted in the general philosophy of
the West - the postulate of empiricism requiring all original beliefs
to be proven by experience. 184

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Though there is a more complex story to be had, one which admits of

considerable qualification, Kolnai's point is a powerful one. In addition to
the existence of a 'constitutional opposition' and - at least in Britain - its
being accorded public political respect in the course of the eighteenth
century,185 an independent judiciary, and the rule of law, it is who has an
active say in querying the priorities, and whose experience, or rather who
brings her experience to bear on the 'testing of original or traditional
beliefs', that matters. Moreover, the importance of the concept of 'the rule
oflaw' in Britain and the West generally owes as much to facts about the
circumstances under which the law is resorted to, as it does to the de facto
acceptance of its rulings - a point which is brought home by reflection on
the early development oflaw in Japan. Ikegami brings out this distinction
particularly well:
'Although the notion of dori l86 informed particular acts of medieval
adjudication, the concept was never developed into a system of
philosophy of law to serve on an intellectual and theoretical level as
the basis of the state. Western judicial tradition, by contrast expanded
the moral and philosophical bases of law, stressing the concept of
public power as the protector of''justice'' during the medieval period.
This Western legal concept of justice as rooted in a universal divine
or natural order superior to sovereignty, which is central to Western
political thought, did not have a parallel development in Japan, where
a balance of power maintained by naked force came to the fore more
openly. The hierarchical structure of the courts and the legal pro-
fession characteristic of Europe never developed in medieval Japan.
The relative position of the law and the courts in Japanese conflict
resolution appears to be much lower than in the European case.'187
Given the character of the honour code in Japan, it is not difficult to work
out why there is not a convention whereby opposition and disagreement is
a publicly respected activity. It can't be inserted within a code that doesn't
recognise opposition to, or disagreement with a person's ideas, proposals
or judgements that isn't also perceived as a personal attack on that person's
self-esteem. The concept of 'opposition' distinct from 'enmity or
antagonism' was introduced to Japan in the nineteenth century, Yukichi
Fukuzawa coining the work hantai (impersonal opposition) mid-century.188
Establishing the convention would require either the dissolution of the
honour system, or that individuals be prepared to suffer inordinate and
frequent humiliation. Humiliation can be experienced for the same reasons
in societies that have the convention of respect for disagreement, but it is
rarely experienced on the same scale of frequency or intensity. This is
because of the existence of a convention, neither foolproof nor a sham,
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

whereby criticism of one's work and of oneself can be separated. 189 A

corollary ofthis is that in societies where a person's self-respect is regarded
as separate from her self-esteem, people are much less likely to fear or
receive the sort of ridicule that is both so feared and much gone in for in
Japan. On many occasions, it is rather the person who stoops to ridiculing
another who is despised. It is, of course, hardly a novel claim to deny that
the economic freedoms necessary for capitalist accumulation lead in- exor-
ably to the growth of other personalliberties. l90 Even if certain kinds of
economic freedoms were a necessary condition, it is less plausible to regard
them as a sufficient condition for the development of Kolnai's 'heightened
appreciation of human personality and individual conscience'. It is, no
doubt, too early to judge from the cases of Japan and China, whether in the
longer run a convention of respectable opposition will come into being, but
it is unlikely to do so with an honour code as robust as that of modem Japan.
If one were to believe the Braudelian account - that China in the Ming
period (1368-1644) was characterised by 'a solidly-based market
economy', but there was no capitalism because there was no accumulation,
and no accumulation because the Confucian morality of the state bureau-
cracy wouldn't permit anybody to make himself 'abnormally rich' - one
might be encouraged to think that, respecting the development of personal
civil liberties, Japan would make for a yet more tantalising object of
counter-factual historical explanation than China. 191 However, as the work
of Elvin confirms, Braudel's thesis is guilty of giving too much credence to
the unerring integrity of the Confucian bureaucrats. 192 Braudel's picture of
Japan in the late Ashigawa period (1368-1573) might give the impression
that the full range of civil liberties were beckoning appealingly from the
pallet. Japan was,
'in a kind of anarchy not unlike that of the European Middle Ages,
everything developed simultaneously in the diversified arena of Japan
as the country gradually formed itself over the centuries: a central
government, feudal lords, towns, peasantry, an artisan class, the
merchants. Japanese society bristled with 'liberties' like the liberties
of medieval Europe, which were privileges behind which one could
barricade oneself for protection and survival. And the mixture was
never set for good, no unilateral solution was ever successfully
imposed. Is this, too, reminiscent of the pluralism of feudal societies
of Europe, which generated conflict and movement? With the even-
tual arrival in power of the Tokugawa, we must imagine an uneasy
balance, forever having to adjust its elements to each other, not a
regime organised along totalitarian lines as in China. The triumph of
Tokugawa, which historians have a tendency to exaggerate, could

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only be a semi-triumph - real but complete - like those of the

monarchies of Europe.' (my italics).193
The dodgy phrase 'everything developed simultaneously' alerts us to the
costs, which are not always negligible or avoidable, or an author's appeal-
ing breadth of vision. We are left wondering whether Braudel's timely
scepticism over Tokugawa hegemony does not itselflead him to play down,
or in his focusing primarily on the economic aspects of individual freedom
disregard, non-economic personal liberties and their preconditions. A
sharper focus might have displayed significant differences in the character
and aetiology of the liberties to be found in medieval Japan compared with
those for European, and especially north-western European societies at the
time. Weber noted the lack of powerful 'corporately organised interest
groups' as well as the presence of a 'dependent chivalrous class', (ie.
samurai) in the Tokugawa Shogunate. '94 We should note, however, that
Weber's observations of samurai culture were made of a social group that
were at a particularly significant stage in the process of having their own
self-perceptions 're-focused' and conceptions of honour 'tamed.'195
It is surely plausible that these conditions would have made it very
difficult to develop institutions that might have served the cause of
developing non-economic civil liberties. There are other differences too
which suggest that medieval Japan was less well placed for the develop-
ment and public recognition of liberties such as 'the respect for public
debate', 'freedom of expression', and 'the right to be left alone' which
reside - despite the constant vigilance required for their health - in what
pass for the social democracies of the West. Such public values enhance
respect for personal autonomy, rather than merely for individualism.
Japanese interpersonal relations are in some respects as intricately indi-
viduated as those in western social democracies, but what they generally
lack is respect for personal autonomy.l96 It is not clear how much store
should be set upon the absence in Japan of what Macfarlane has argued to
be (in England at least, and so crucially, transplanted to North America and
beyond), an extremely individualistic marriage and family system that has
remained virtually unchanged since at least the middle of the thirteenth
century.197 Similarly, it is unclear how much weight is to be borne by the
vigorous European tradition of religious and humanistic writings celebrat-
ing liberty of conscience or dissent, or by the absence of defences of such
liberties of the stature of Milton's Aeropagitica, his Doctrine & Discipline
ofDivorce or Mills' On Liberty. I 98 The tone of the letters ofHojo Shigetoki
(1198-1261) to his family have a remarkably modern ring, but to an
English ear it is the voice of Lord Chesterfield and Machiavelli, not Milton
or Mill that his advice calls to mind. '99

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Despite believing that 'ideas can cause actions', it may be that intellec-
tual historians, even when not Whiggishly inclined, tend to exaggerate the
role of ideas presented in their most articulate forms. Those ideas that
govern one's upbringing and one's perspective on the sort of family
relationships available to one,zoo may be of far greater importance in
assessing the later susceptibility of a society's members to novel ideas of
opposition and to taking widespread public action in behalf of common
interests against the state. 201
The difficulty of establishing such respect in modern Japan has been
compounded by the nihonjinron claim that there is a special Japanese
concept of the public and the private. 202 It is rather, as Dale has argued, that
'instead of public relationships, in Japan there were only duties to the
Emperor.'203 The individual freedom that has a special claim on others'
respect presupposes that 'as a private citizen, (one) can nonetheless make a
public action in defence of the common interests of all other individuals in
the community against corporations or the state. '204 As Dale has argued, the
words used for 'the individual (shilwatalatshi) and the state-monarch
(koloyake)' are not, fitting translations for private and public. '205 They are
ill-fitting because the distinction between the private and the public realms
in western democracies presuppose independent institutions that inter-
mediate state powers and that realm of private life (privatus) that is with-
drawn from public life. '206 The protection of the private realm may be a
necessary foundational condition for the growth of allegiance to such
independent institutions.207 It isn't a sufficient condition. Their existence
represents not so much a guarantee as barbicans which, if manned effec-
tively, may here and there stem the tide of intrusive demands for informa-
tion, on the part of government and powerful agents of economic interest.
However impressively inventive the purveyors of successful national
myths are, they need to have touched their audiences' enthusiasms. 20s The
beliefs comprising the identifications of the Japanese ethnie - to use
Smith's term for an ethnic community - shouldn't encourage one to think
that all identifications are the product of invention. 209 Even where they are
invented, since one cannot deduce intentiQns from consequences, one
cannot assume that national fantasies were fashioned for nationalistic ends.
Indeed, it seems that in Japan a sizeable portion of shared historical or
myth-impregnated memories were originally floated or fashioned to further
the 'needs of rulers and factions of the ruling classes to preserve their
position against rivals, internal and external, and to provide a loyal base in
the mass of the population.' Thus, 'only as a by-product of these concerns,
(is) the growth of defmite ethnic polities evident. '210
Despite the talk ofthe eclecticism and basic irreligiosity of the Japanese,
perhaps Isaiah Ben-Dasan in his The Japanese & The Jews is touching
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attitudes that are borne fairly widely and, in certain moods expressed, when
he likens being Japanese to devotional religion. 21l It is not surprising
perhaps that Yamotoists who propound national blood and race myths have
often found fertile soil for their doctrines. 212 However, caution and
qualification are needed, for otherwise one might find oneself drawn under
the influence of the tribe illusion,213 an illusion that tends to keep fellow-
ship with another popular illusion that Japanese society is conflictless. But,
as John Dower has said:
'Even in the most desperate years of World War II, Japan's leaders
never succeeded in establishing a totalitarian state, or a consensual
polity, or a harmonious body politic. Contrary to the popular image
of a fanatically loyal populace resolutely united behind the war effort,
intense competition and conflict took place within as well as among
different constituencies - the military, the civilian bureaucracy, old
zaibatsu and new zaibatsu, political parties, small and medium sized
enterprises, rural versus urban interest, and so on. Like the myth of
the "enterprise family," the wartime slogan "one hundred million
hearts beating as one" was an illusive goal rather than a description
of reality, and this internal tension and competitiveness is as import-
ant as any other legacy to the postwar years. '214
It would be an appealing exercise if some of the energy that went into
embellishing fantasies of uniqueness were directed to a recent suggestion
of Morris-Suzuki. Non-Eurocentric and non-nihonjinron-centric histories
might begin with the premiss that,
'Japan as we know it today was formed in the mid-nineteenth
century, where the country known as Nihon imposed its political
power over the two neighbouring countries, the Kingdom of the
Ryukyus to the south and the land of the Ainu to the north.'215
Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725) might not have disapproved, complaining to
his own contemporaries that, 'the history of our country is turning into an
account of dreams told in a dream. '216
Ideologically charged emotions that have their base in a fantasy about
the unity and uniqueness of Japan, merit attention. They are widely shared.
Emotional allegiance to a 'unique' national identity was not absent from
members of the Japanese Communist Party of the 1930s and inter-war
years. Indeed, it seems to have provided one of the stepping stones for
realignment in tenkosha (the objects, targets or victims of the thought-
control policies of the government). It has been argued that far from being
the application of clever techniques of thought-reform (tenko) by govern-
ment, government policy was probably ineffective in encouraging tenko.
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'Many tenkosha', Steinhoff claims, 'would have made the same painful
emotional discoveries about themselves even if no-one had given the
process a name.'217

XUI. Honour and Face

A conception of honour that emerges in the years of the Tokugawa
Shogunate, one that is intimately tied to the concerns of forming and
preserving the modem state, gives a very high priority to unquestioned
loyalty and a commensurate aversion to betrayal (of persons and/or
groupS).21S Such a conception of honour requires conceptions of shame,
guilt and humiliation that would not survive in more reflective domains.
Such values are particularly vulnerable to charismatic or symbolic mani-
pulation or to the exploitation of anxieties regarding status and reputation.
There can also be a more direct resort to fear as an ad hoc option. 219 Some
indication of the sources for symbolic manipulation have already been
mentioned. In addition, there are several reasons why a Japanese may be
especially vulnerable to considerations of status. Personal virtues should
always be evaluated in the context of their cultural constraints. Seen in this
way, against the palpable risks to one's personae (the conceptions other
people have of one) in Japanese society, the scope for risk-free self-
assertion is very restricted. This should be taken into account by those keen
to make inter-cultural comparative judgements of an individual's boldness.
In a notionally pure shame culture a person is shamed by acceptance of
the audience's authority and on account of his being seen by it to have
failed to live up to its demands. 220 It need not matter that demands are made
on abilities and aptitudes that are beyond a person's capacities so long as
others are similarly situated and have similar attitudes to standards they
also cannot meet. Face is the more easily saved when doing so is conven-
tional, and the existence of a convention can provide a balm for what in
different circumstances can be the rarely relieved wretchedness of a
Casaubon.
What may matter is not merely that one is, or that one fears one will be,
seen to fail, but who one fears will see, who one cannot help imagining
might see, or who actually sees the failure. What matters most is not 'what
one does or fails to do' but 'whether or not what one does or fails to do is
seen by members of the same honour group as oneself. '22lThere may be
further complications if ties of loyalty implicate other members of one's
status-group within the larger group endorsing the honour-code. People
who share the honour-code and who stand to lose face corporately or by
bonds of group-loyalty, are thus likely to be motivated collectively to save
face. One can imagine, on the one hand, the individual members of a
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company or university or a university department being in cahoots to keep

face (menboku) before a particularly threatening audience - other
companies, a rival university or department - whilst, on other issues,
individuals have to keep face, retain their self-esteem or what Benedict
calledgiri-to-one's name, before other members of the same sub-group.222
Yet, Doi remarks that 'a person who presents an artificial front in order to
deceive others is a 'person with ura-omote.' And, that 'Such a remark is
always critical. '223 Nonetheless, if the pressures are great enough one would
expect just such artifice to be evident. A bad outcome is the best outcome
when the alternative would have been worse.
It is worth noting that reference to an artificial front indicates that the
Japanese notion of shame (haji) is not consonant with the notion of a 'pure'
shame-culture as conceived to exist by some anthropologists and others,
(though not in fact by Benedict).224 In such, it is supposed not to be possible
to recognise appearance/reality or public/private distinctions, or that a
person may have merely reputed as opposed to real qualities. 225 As we have
already observed, it is important to specify exactly what public/private
distinction is at issue and be wary of possible equivocation between the
normative and the perceptual uses of 'recognise'. What is perceptually
recognisable need not be respected. What is not respected may receive little
or none of the public acknowledgement which conveys approva1.226 For
these reasons, what is not given public sanction may have to live in the
shadows, and what lies in the shadows is often not heeded. Yet one cannot
let go unheeded what doesn't exist.
On account of the greater visibility and the immediacy with which
incompetence can be (perceptually) recognised in some domains of life,
pretence is more difficult to negotiate. For example, in neurosurgery,
fire-fighting, plumbing, traffic-signal repair work, the management of
exporting companies people have not only to be able to maintain face but
actually possess the relevant competences. Nonetheless, dexterity in
traversing the omote/ura (front/rear, or formal/spontaneous self) distinction
is so important a skill in Japanese adult life it must needs be taught well.
Tobin has recently suggested that, 'the most crucial lesson to be learned in
the Japanese pre-school is not omote, not the ability to behave properly in
formal situations, but instead kejime - the knowledge needed to shift fluidly
back and forth between omote and ura. '227
Shame-avoidance and a defensive concern for one's reputation and
honour and that of those to whom one is tied is expressed in the colloquial
saying, Mittomonai kara yoshinasai (Don't do it, you would look bad).228
A pattern of concerns, perhaps not wholly unrecognisable to the inhabitants
of numerous rural Mediterranean societies is, as Hendry has shown,
provided by the sources of anxiety surrounding a couple's childrens' future
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marriage prospects. 229 A thorough search called kuchikiki (enquiry of

mouth, hearsay) or kikiawase (enquire variously and compare) is carried
out in order to determine suitability.230 No sources of 'contamination' or
'pollution' must be discovered. 231 These may be mibun no koto (a matter of
birth). The family register containing details of such things as previous
divorces in the family, early deaths, illegitimacy, a tendency to infertility,
is scrutinised. Ketto (blood or stock) must not be contaminated by marriage
with burakumin (formerly official, now unofficial outcasts) which would
lead to a complete break with the non-burakumin family.232 Hendry records
a case of a father committing suicide because his daughter married a
burakumin with a police record.233 Ainu, the indigenous people of
Hokkaido are avoided as marriage partners. Foreigners are also regarded as
sources of contamination. Such contamination can also be effected by a
family'S incidence of diseases feared hereditary, leprosy, epilepsy, neurosis
and other mental illnesses. 234 It has been suggested that twins or triplets
keep that fact a secret if possible at the time ofmarriage.235 Descendants of
people exposed to the radiation of the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are a recent pariah groUp.236 Relatives with a criminal record are
also likely to prejudice the chances of a person's marriage.237 Recently, it
has been reported that a reason for AIDS victims being driven overseas to
die in secrecy is the concern that other family members retain their
marriage eligibility.238 Potential marriage partners must be as healthy as
possible. The required document should include, 'details of height and
weight, results of a chest X-ray, blood test, urine examination, and an
indication of blood pressure and eyesight.' In order to see how often a
proposed partner has been registered as off sick, 'some people apparently
call at (his or her) school or place of work'. This serves also 'to gain a
reference on general qualities of character, and from the school, a scholastic
record. '239' Approximately equivalent social standing' between the partners
is a matter of concern, historical factors being of more concern in the
country, conspicuous wealth in cities. 240 Many sources of anxiety are based
in a family's immediate locality. If none ofa family's relatives live near a
potential partner's place of residence, Hendry found that 'it was quite in
order to stop passers-by, knock at doors, and wait for a free moment in
shops to put questions about the family' .241 Awareness of the possibility of
such inquiries is an inducement to maintain good relations with neighbours
and to have one's whole family support local shopkeepers and be a source
for their custom. 242 The pressure on agents to maintain an 'artificial front'
can thus be great. The reason for this is much the same as that which is
found within the agrarian honour-codes of Mediterranean societies. As
Cohen puts it, 'Evasion arouses far less hostility than open defiance and the
questioning of community values that it implies. '243 Moreover, it is often
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regarded as inadvisable to leave oneself hostage to the ominous finality of

the collective imagination batted about by those hoping to settle old scores
and sheer caprice alike. 244
Bearing in mind the normative pressures and constraints, these status-
preservation relationships fall into Aristotle's category of the lesser
instrumental friendships.245 Indeed, they would rate as the least virtuous of
this lesser category since in lesser instrumental friendship there may be
involved an exchange of intrinsically pleasurable activities, whereas in
relationships the rationale for which is to curry favour, what is of concern
is the exchange of instrumental value. Though such relationships are
motivated by 'the desire to impress', and so associated in non- or less
authoritarian societies with personal attempts to acquire advantages over
others, in Japan such relationships are basic structural requirements oflife.
To understand the character of status-pressure in Japan, it is crucial to be
prepared to see much of it as more than 'an optional weakness' in indi-
viduals. It does not, of course, follow that all relationships with local
shopkeepers have this character. Constraints of circumstance may set the
initial pattern for a relationship, but its character may develop in various
ways, as in the experience of, say, a war-time friendship. In both Japan and
non-authoritarian societies, such strategies may bring humiliation and loss
of face to the unsuccessful. But, in the non-authoritarian society a person
might be ashamed or, if the humiliation is slight, amused by having the
vanity of his ploy brought home to him. He will not feel shame for having
been unsuccessful in establishing such relationships. In Japan, the relation-
ships such strategies are played out in are the means whereby basic
standards of decency are made manifest. It is as commonly a matter of
passing muster as of vaunting one's would-be superiorities. Thus, to fail in
them with respect to basic values held in common is to fail those for whom
one has special responsibilities. This is why such failure can incur shame's
humiliation, and for this reason there are elaborate face-saving procedures
for making the kotowari (excuse, apology or refusal), and commonly a
nakodo (go-between) is resorted to.246 So too can failure magnify humilia-
tion when passing muster is eschewed in favour of vaunting one's would-be
superiorities.

XIV. A neo-Confucian Honour Code

As is evident and often remarked, many of the basic values of Japanese
society are in origin Confucian,247 a body of thought which like other value
systems can be both adapted for new purposes, and on account of its
secularism especially, adopted piecemeal.248 However, as Ikegami has
shown recently, it is perhaps largely from within the important samurai
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tradition - on the decline though it was after the Meiji Restoration - that a
deep internalised sense of honour and shame had its source. 249 Moreover,
whereas in Chinese Confucianism chu (loyalty to the sovereign) gave way
before ko (filial piety), the neo-Confucianist education received by the
Tokugawa samurai reversed the order of ko and chu so that loyalty to one's
master took precedence over duties to members of one's family, an order of
precedence preserved today, though the company has now replaced or
become the master. 250
One of the strongest neo-Confucian influences has been that of the
thinker Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200), referred to in Shushigalat or the
Zhu Xi school. 251 Early eclecticism proved convenient for Zen monks in the
Kamakura (1185-1333) and Ashikaga (1336-1568) periods, and a
Buddhist-inspired Confucian monk (jusho) emerged.252 The fundamental
idea, whether Confucian or neo-Confucian in Japan, is that of a deliberate
tradition containing the forces of individualism.253 The source concepts
from which the honour code has evolved and been adjusted within Japanese
society can be stated briefly. Etymologically, the termJen (J:jin) combines
the characters for 'man' and 'two', and seems to involve a respect for
oneself and for what one is in comparison to an animal, and a feeling of
humanity towards others.254 Unlike Christianity, it is free of proselytising
ambitions.255 Blocking the gaps in the positive edicts of the code is the
negative so-called Silver Rule 'What you do not want done to yourself, do
not do to others.' Despite the procedural rigour, diligence and accepted
inflexibility with which so many everyday regulations in Japanese life are
enforced, there is in Japan a notable absence of that periodic public or
collective expression of vindictiveness and hatred to which societies more
vigorously influenced by aggressive honour codes and/or the Abrahamic
religions - even in their adulterated flexi-Commandment forms - are prone.
This is exemplified by Japanese attitudes towards criminals and among
survivors and families who suffered as a result of the dropping of the
atomic bombs. However, to some degree, such attitudes may have their
source in the fact that A-bomb victims and criminals are regarded as objects
of shame and so of aversion rather than hatred. Apparent equanimity and
toleration is, at least, over-determined.
The 'man of Jen is untiringly diligent.'256 The concept of Chun-tzu (J:
Iatnshi) suggests a man of superior cultivation and 'perfect address', who is
'poised, confident and competent. '257 In Japan, this has to be read in the
context of what Nakane has termed its localism.
'The Japanese have failed to develop any social manner properly
applicable to strangers, to people from 'outside'. In the store of
Japanese etiquette there are only two basic patterns available: one

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which applies to a 'superior' and another which applies to an

'inferior'; or, to put it another way, there are expressions of
familiarity and there are expressions of hostility but none which
apply on the peer level or which indicate indifference. This produces
discomfort with a stranger, whether he be foreigner or Japanese.
The Japanese are often thought by foreigners to be very reserved.
A more accurate description would be that Japanese on the whole are
not sociable. This is partly because, once outside their immediate
orbit, they are at a loss for appropriate forms of expressions. They
have not developed techniques for dealing with persons 'outside',
because their lives are so tightly concentrated into their 'own' groups.
Within these groups, the Japanese could not be described as
reserved. '258
The importance of the fact that Nakane draws our attention to when she
says that there is no social manner that can be applied outside one's group
is that, despite there being profuse forms of ritual politeness, service
protocols and etiquette, hospitality and civility extended to honoured
guests, Japanese society evinces a lack of culturally underwritten manners.
Havoc would reign within the structures of authority of which Japanese
persona relations are the expression if liberal manners were the practice.
Good manners, with certain provisos - breakfast with Hitler perhaps - are
supposed to govern our conduct with anyone. However the capacity was
developed historically, the possessor of good manners must be disposed to
imagine the situation and feelings of others and towards anyone improvise
courteous, generous or considerate responses. Such imaginative disposi-
tions are risky by nature. In good manners, compassion for the other
person's feelings brings forth the response, and it must be able to override
the basic impulse behind etiquette and protocol. The latter impulse need
have nothing to do with compassion. Though for some there is delight in
the technicalities of both etiquette and protocol, each involves centrally the
desire to have oneself seen to be doing the correct thing.259 Tribute-like,
observing etiquette and protocol are means whereby one may, in respecting
established position, rank and social status, have grounds for believing that
the lack of fit between one's persona-image (how one thinks others see
one) and one's persona (how others see one) is not cause for embarrass-
ment. Their subtleties and refinements are primarily concerned with how
one presents oneself rather than with sensitivity to others' feelings. Any-
where in the world, knowledge of etiquette and protocol is compatible, and
no doubt not infrequently found, with coarse sensibilities. 2OO
There is no inconsistency in the fact that Japanese may, as Nakane
suggests, not be particularly sociable despite living in a culture that places

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a high value on physical presence. Lack of sociability or being relatively

unenthusiastic about taking up opportunities to converse and share the
company of other people with whom one is not already on familiar and well
understood terms and even when the situation is shared, co-exists with
great emphasis being placed on the maintenance of social relationships
requiring one's physical presence. As the anthropologist, Harumi Befu has
remarked, 'among Japanese the very desire to sleep alone raises suspicions
of deviancy.'261 In one of many resemblances, the sentiment that informs
this attitude is shared by Bedouin culture where it is evinced in the rule of
hospitality whereby, 'it is considered rude for a host or hostess not to sleep
with his or her guests. '262 The requirement of physical presence is another
reason why Japanese returning to Japan are liable to be regarded as
'polluted', need to be 're-acculturated' or are felt to be disloyal and poten-
tial sources of discord. Signs of' differentness' are ascribed pejoratively as
'foreign'. As White has put it,
'Membership in a Japanese group is mandated not by a particular
contract, behavior, or belief but by active presence and participation in
the social network - a constant maintenance of the predictable obli-
gations and interactions that make up group membership. The goal of
participation is not a product but a process - a process of teamwork, of
balancing individual achievement and group harmony . . . Belonging
does not just depend on active involvement, it is that daily interaction
itself, and there is no acceptable substitute for being there.'263
However, it is not harmony but conformity that is the issue here. What such
pictures of 'balance' and 'harmony' are blind to is their illusory quality and
the extent to which such groups can be hotbeds of envy. For those who
share it, the illusion of harmony makes the conformity it requires that much
less unpalatable. If envy in societies like Britain and the United States is
less concentrated within professional groups, it is perhaps more widely
dispersed outside them. In societies that value personal independence the
demands of equality are demands for the re-negotiability of opportunity. In
Japan, the illusion of harmony is invigorated by envy, just as envy's
existence reveals the illusory quality ofthe ideal. Miyamoto has argued that
illusory Japanese harmony is based on self-reflective sameness or narcis-
sistic identification.264 This is not to say that the fear of provoking envy has
no effect because it doesn't bring about harmony. There are palpable
effects. If one needs to be reminded of the deleterious effects of intra-group
envy, it is common observation that school pupils, students and others who
return from a period of study or work abroad with an impressively fluent
foreign language - in most cases English - are obliged to conceal their new
found skills. 265
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Within the dualistic Chu Hsi school ofneo-Confucianism, both Ii (J: re)
as the generic essence or nature of each existing thing and ch 'i or qi (J: ki)
that gives each particular thing its material being, are necessary and present
in every existing thing.266 Chu Hsi dualism is thus distinct from that
independence involved in the Cartesian outlook. 267 The ethical impact of
the concept of Ii falls into two parts. Firstly, it stresses the need for
precedent, and promulgates a code of behaviour. Confucian maxims
'sought to order an entire way of life so that no-one properly raised need
ever be left to improvise his responses on momentary impulse because he is
at a loss as to know how to behave', (my italics).268 This is not unconnected
with what may be described as a certain lack of suppleness in emotional
response, for where the public expression of emotion is proscribed, the
capacity for flexibility of response is unlikely. Hierarchy is a constant
factor in inter-personal relations. 269 Thus the various professional roles and
relationships of social 'life will have been normatively delineated and
defined. '270 Relations of deference define all family realtionships.271 Li also
requires respect for age.272 In Japan, the precedence of elder over younger
(cho-yo-no-jo) is qualified by the concept of ranking which captures better
the proper order of paying respect.273 Rather than age alone, it is length of
service and date of appointment that registers the key distinctions in the
world of work: senpai (seniors), kohai (juniors), and doryo (one's
colleagues). For these there are distinct terms of address. 274
These relationships too fall within Aristotle's lesser friendships
category. The relationships of kohai, senpai, and doryo which are also
graded hierarchically, are based on the exchange of 'loyalty for bene-
volence'. These order a group's expectations, and are articulated through
the concept of on (a deep sense of one's indebtedness or obligation towards
superiors), or giri (duty, also among equals) and nirljo (feelings of
affection). In the world of work, whether company or university, one's
sense of belonging is defined by two important principles. One is uchi
(inside) and defines one's being a part of the larger group. The other orders
cone-shaped vertical hierarchies linking person to person at the apex of
each of which is situated the senior senpai.275 Between these cone-shaped
vertical hierarchies and within the larger group there may be considerable
rivalry. Thus, the concepts that structure each agent's image of professional
life defining his prospects and guiding his interests therein, can be
extremely intricate. Authority accrues to those who are in a position to call
in historically accumulated on and can rely on the - preferably -
'unprompted promptings' of giri and ninjo. However, viewing the con-
figuration of individual biographies from a perspective that takes in the
larger group (that is itself comprised of rival hierarchies), their deter-
mination will, in addition, owe much to the personal qualities of senior
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senpai within the larger group, to their prudence, far-sightedness, skill in

taking soundings and in their feel for well-judged compromise between the
hierarchies to which each has an intro-group allegiance.

xv. Amae, Cronyism and Independence

The structure and expectations within such relationships, whether within
the confines of an internal hierarchy or taking in the larger group, involve
face to a great extent in that both parties to the relationship are at least
supposed to appear wary of making a direct request that their due be
given.276 The obligations are taken for granted even if responses are subject
to the quirkiness that one could meet with anywhere. The attitudes and
emotional repertoire of such relationships - especially those of internal
hierarchy - are based on what the psychologist Takeo Doi, in a widely
accepted work, has called 'the world of amae' characterizing infancy and
reaching through adult life. As Doi puts it: 'if A is said to be amai to B, it
means that he allows B to amaeru, ie. to behave self-indulgently, pre-
suming on some special relationship that exists between the two.' When not
allowed to amaeru, a junior person may respond in various ways. He may
sulk (suneru), behave perversely (hinelrureru) or serve notice of his resent-
ment (uramu).277
In Japan, as Doi suggests, the notion involves a junior party presuming
on some special relationship wherein he seeks from time to time to be
indulged, is indulged, and in doing so intends to communicate to the senior
party his wish to become sweet (amai) to the latter. In recognising the
intentions of the junior party and permitting such behaviour (ie. the junior
party to amaeru) the senior party communicated his intention to become the
junior party's benefactor. The nearest (polite) notion used of public or
non-familial relationships in English is perhaps that of the disposition to
curry favour, but it isn't a part of the 'illocutionary force' or conventional
uptake on the part of the person whose favour is being sought that the
person seeking it have his persona perceived as 'sweet'.27 8 In the European
tradition, the public relationships that afford the nearest comparisons with
that of the benefactor and the person he allows to amaeru were perhaps
those of the grand seigneur and his retainers, or in a more modern sarcastic
voice, 'the man who likes to play Ie grand seigneur' with his toadies. The
mafia or corrupt boss of a state's intelligence agency and his flunkies would
be further instances of this type of relationship in which those with 'clout'
indulge and depend on those without.
How much of a commonplace it is that such expectations govern the
actual norms and half-hidden understandings of ordinary professional life
anywhere is an empirical question. Some people claim to believe that a
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form of soft mafia governs all professional and political relationships in

every society. But, this seems another instance of cynicism posing as
worldliness. At its service is the vice of deducing intentions from
consequences. One can be complaisant without being unctuous. What
distinguishes the person allowed to amaeru and his benefactor from the
sycophancy that is sometimes detected in relationships of ordinary
professional life in modern Britain or the U.S., is that in the latter such
behaviour breaches a convention. The sycophant is despised because his
lack of independence is perceived as undignified, and may be perceived by
himself to be so. For this reason, when the convention is breached by the
British or American sycophant his individual hypocrisy is deeper, for he
often deceives himself as to the character of his relationship. Such is the
price of preserving the illusion of dignity in his own eyes. Alternatively, he
might brazen it out, another try to cheer himself up by proclaiming to others
that "the world's just like that', or employ a general truth to conceal a
particular mendacity, as in 'everyone has to make compromises'. Some
interlocutors may be complicitous out of pity or with similar misgivings
about themselves seek the false comfort of like company. Some may
quietly acknowledge their own self-abasement. Another may employ
defensive self-irony as a way of hoping to steal a march on his interlocutors
and obscure his persona. However, for a person to be indifferent to the fact
that his behaviour was earning him such a persona in the eyes of his
benefactor or society at large would imply that he was shameless.279
Unlike the man being allowed to amaeru, whose actions comprise 'the
intention to communicate his intentions' to have his persona understood in
a subservient light by a benefactor (the benefactor taking for granted the
reciprocal nature of such a relationship), the despised, say, British syco-
phant, tends to communicate his sycophantic persona whilst intending only
to reap the benefits of his sycophancy. His fictive ideals of independence
and autonomy belittle his would-be benefactor's intelligence and/or
assume the latter's lack of integrity, or play on his embarrassability. The
man being allowed to amaeru is merely obeying the conventions of a
society wherein subservience to one's seniors and superiors is normal and
not shameful. Indeed, omitting to amaeru (for whatever reason) will often
be interpreted as 'arrogant'. The absence of respect for a person's inde-
pendence and autonomy is the absence of something that, in practical life,
would have no effective respect accorded to it. Rather than being esteemed,
it would more likely invite odium.
This is not to say that in Japan such ideals are not admired. Notionally,
they may appeal in the world of film, literature or the imagination. For an
ideal to have such appeal its ramifications need not be understood very
thoroughly. For example, such ideals might be being experienced as merely
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'escapist'. Though not a bad thing in itself a central feature ofthe escapist
experience of art is that what one is experiencing isn't being tested against
what one knows, suspects or imagines to be the refusals and resistancies of
the world or those in one's own and other people's characters and against
one's own frailties. 280 Whether the work calls for more than an escapist
mode of attention or not, such a way of experiencing art is insensitive to the
distinctions, and lacks or casts aside many of the kinds of questions, that
critical aesthetic appreciation demands. One aim of such critical readiness
and reflection is to be alert to sentimentality in the work. One is less likely
to be so when one has a poor grasp of the context of the experiences being
portrayed. Failures of such alertness means that the education of our
emotions, a maieutic function of great and even good art, is impaired. Such
an alertness can help to wean us from, just as its absence can deliver us into,
the treacherously welcoming arms of sentimentality.
Whereas 'the world of amae' in Japan reaches through from infancy to
adulthood and extends across the public and private realms, there is in rural
Mediterranean societies especially, and in some of their transplanted ethnic
cultures, a not too dissimilar pattern of conventional expectations. Thus a
woman seeks and expects to be pampered and indulged by a man who
views her with amorous and/or marital respect. 2S1 Dispersed more broadly
in the world are the minor types of tactful ingratiation. For example, the
habit of children, especially daughters, but also dependent wives, of
approaching their fathers and husbands respectively, for special requests
after dinner.
Whether deliberately or by default, presenting one's persona-image
such as to be pampered, whether within the conventions of the rural
Mediterranean or so as to be allowed to amaeru in Japan is to embrace in
some measure one's own infantilisation. The sources of such infantilized
persona-images are diverse. Whereas in rural Mediterranean cultures these
may be traced to ancient chivalric codes in which aggressive and defensive
honour codes complement each other, within 'the world of amai' such
infantilization may have its source in the complementary feudal relation-
ships in which the deferring party seeks to be indulged and to benefit from
one who is more powerful, influential, or has more leverage, and maintains
or gains status in consequence.
At work, Japanese social relationships register considerable differences
compared with those in Britain. In some respects, the contrasts may not be
so stark as first appears. The significance of the potential loss of face that
will attach to one's being unable to honour giri or on and the formality and
standardisation of the conventional expectations involved are distinctive.
Additionally, the degree of public acceptance and private willingness to
rank the obligations and demands of the work-place above those calls on
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one's time that come from family and other personal concerns, is a salient
feature of the Japanese value system.
In Britain, despite the existence of a far from moribund 'personal
empire-building' and 'jobs-for-the-boys-and-girls' mentality, this is very
widely perceived to be deleterious to professional competence.
Favouritism, nepotism and cronyism are vices neither comfortably nor
entirely easily banished from any social body - thus the creepy savoir vivre
of a distinguished mid-career professor at one of Britain's oldest
universities beginning a conversation with a graduate student: 'And whose
creature are you then?,282 The distribution of such vices over various
institu- tions is as unlikely to be even, as belief in their complete absence or
omnipresence is likely to be true. Nonetheless, however much the injustice
of the effects of such vices is harped on about in societies in which people
aren't mutilated or tortured for relatively minor offences or threatened with
execution for saying irreverent things about the local ethnic or not so local
god, as human vices go they are hardly the most heinous.
The options for anyone wishing to act contrary to the effective con-
sensus of the group are, as Robert J Smith remarks, 'to suppress personal
desires, to modify one's preferences in acceptable ways, or to leave the
group altogether.'283 As Nakane's examples of novelists and actresses
show, the concept of ranking holds sway even among those who in their
professional lives are evaluated - at least as tatemae the world over has it-
on individual ability or in Hobbes' sense on their worthiness. 284 That is, not
on their worth, which is 'so much as would be given for the use of a
person's power ... a thing dependant on the need and judgement of
another', but on their aptitude, and 'consisteth in a particular power ...
whereof he is said to be worth.'285

XVI. Etiquette and Manners

Li is designed to replace improvisation with ceremony and 'a pattern for
every act.'286 (my italics). This is why, compared with the idealised liberal
manners and their retarded forms which regulate inter-personal relations in
late-twentieth-century Britain, etiquette and codes of politeness cover so
much of Japanese social life. The arenas of embarrassment in the two
societies occupy distinct social spaces. For, whilst the rigidity of the
requirements in the Confucian system helps to dispense with those not
infrequent awkwardnesses, embarrassments, and worries that accompany
the desire not to embarrass or to appear to condescend, or to humiliate
oneself in one's relations with unfamiliar others in British society, such
awkwardnesses and embarrassments in Japanese society loom most
threateningly in the space between uchi groups. Thus, as the earlier passage
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from Nakane pointed out, such awkwardness is felt most severely in the
company of foreigners. In the English case, it is more often wariness about
a person's individual tastes or (increasing) ideological predilection or some
other aspect of her personal outlook that can make acting with good
manners problematic. Moreover, because manners (in their idealised liberal
sense) display more flexibility than etiquette and its commensurate forms
of politeness, there is less social space than in Britain or the U.S. for the
display of spiv manners (ie. manners in their adulterated form: 'be polite to
those who are important and disregard or be rude to those who are not').
In Japan, it is registering the rank - and status-revealing aspects of a
person's personae that at first matter and reassure most. As mentioned
previously, his or her importance is indicated by his or her intra-group rank
and the ranking of the larger group within the larger social hierarchy that is
Japanese society. The presentation of meishi and the eyes that beam in on
the company name provide daily illustration ofNakane's inverted V prin-
ciple. 287 Such assessment dictates not one's manners but one's manner.
Thus, rather than taking an interest in an individual's personal qualities, it
is knowing how to acknowledge him or her as a type which is sought. It is
the acceptability, invariability and etiquette-guided nature of such persona-
frisking that is peculiar to Japanese conventions. In England, outside
special contexts such as job-vetting procedures or being interviewed,
having one's persona frisked, though hardly rare, is perceived to be intru-
sive and conventionally indicates the crudeness of a person's sensibilities.
Though authoritarian, neo-Confucianism need not be the inspiration for
any nationalistic animus. It has been pointed out that as a body of doctrines
in Japan, it was less ethnocentric than in China just because it involved
appreciation of another culture. Despite the stress on loyalty to the ruler and
a hostility to foreign barbarians, adherents of neo-Confucianism in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were accused of disloyalty on account
of their taking an interest in things Chinese.288 However, as Warren W.
Smith points out, in Japanese Confucianism, in addition to 'the horizontal
axis comprising human beings and their relations with one another, there
was a vertical axis in which gods and spiritual beings were above men.' It
wasn't that Shintoism benefited by acquiring 'the elements of an ethical
code.' Rather, 'in Japan, Confucianism ... was strengthened by making
these relationships dependent on Shinto gods and spiritual forces higher
than man.'289 The hortatory appeal of the man ofjen's tenacity can thus be
the more easily harnessed for secular allegiance.
The Aims of the Shibunkai which set the agenda for neo-Confucian
activities after 1918 stressed the 'uniqueness' of Japan among all other
nations in the Far East and stressed the need 'to enhance the peerless
Japanese kokutai (national polity).'290 The humble totemic origins of this
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way of fantasising one's own favoured uniqueness are not peculiar to

Japan. Similar collective fantasies have existed in variant forms among
Europeans, North Americans, in the Middle East and other Asian cultures.
But the capacity for the uniqueness fantasy to persist in the national
imagination is unusually strong, and the form it takes is distinct. We tend
to be slower to chant the uniqueness of that which disfigures, disparages or
is believed uncommentworthy than that which we hope will incite admira-
tion. Claims to uniqueness tend to camouflage their perlocutionary force. 291
The uptake a speaker is trying to secure in his audience when laying claim
to the 'uniqueness' of some instance of a kind is usually its unassailable
superiority to others of the kind. 292 Unless the speaker's interlocutors
believe that the speaker's assertions of uniqueness are true, such assertions
can be the source of amusement or invite ridicule. Even when hype is
recognised for what it is, the bait is not always rejected. A person not by
nature supine may, owing to situational pressures and constraints of various
kinds, be rendered obtuse, his judgement corrupted. Pace Elster, it is not
always true that, 'nothing is so unimpressive as behaviour designed to
impress. '293
As Adam Smith duly reminds us, 'Great success in the world, great
authority over the sentiments and opinions of mankind, have very seldom
been acquired without some degree of ... excessive self-admiration. '294
Smith does not say, however, that self-admiration is a sufficient condition
of such success. Highly advanced technology, and from the point of view
of many people, an extraordinarily successful economy, can make one fail
to recognise the resemblance which the hierarchically constrained forms of
address have to those that characterised the 'fact-to-face' societies of early
modem and medieval Europe. 295
There are many differences within this basic similarity in the influence
of authority on character. I shall mention just three of these . The first is that
the feudal attitudes that inhere authority relations have been effectively
transferred from social to professional categories, access to the latter being
obtained by way of formal educational institutions and the examination
system that grades those who pass through it. 296
The second, concerns the way in which the experience of ordinary
English social life over at least the past six hundred and fifty years differed
significantly from that of continental Europe. Compared with medieval life
in Japan and continental Europe, there was in England a general paucity of
group activities and institutions based on them.297 As Macfarlane has
argued pace Marx, Weber and their innumerable followers, English family
structure since the mid-thirteenth century - whatever was true of medieval
European peasantries - has been characterised by an extreme individualism
in which the individual is considered more important than the group.298 If
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Macfarlane is correct, such individualism pre-dates Protestantism,

capitalism, industrialisation and urbanism, with the consequence that a
great many historians of the subject must be seen to have concocted their
claimed casual relations, others simply taking such accounts on trust. 299 The
truth of Macfarlane's counter-claims about the origins of English indi-
vidualism are independent of his belief that, 'In essence, primogeniture and
a peasant joint ownership unit are diametrically opposed'. This is just as
well, for the history of Japanese agriculture exhibits both. 300 More signi-
ficant is the fact, 'that English "freehold" tenure in the seventeenth century
... gave an individual complete and total rights over his land,'301 whereas,
in Japan, despite primogeniture 'the peasant's property in the land was ...
circumscribed by the ban on land alienation and by restrictions on the crops
he was allowed to grow ... Ifhe attempted to leave the land he could be
brought back by force, for he as much belonged to the fief as the land he
cultivated. '302
The third, concerns a more general difference between European and
Japanese historical experience. Shintoism never suffered the fate that befell
the ancient indigenous pagan religions of Europe. In Europe, these were
effectively crushed as major sources of ideological power by Christianity.
In Britain, for example, this occurred soon after the middle of the eleventh
century.303 The contrast with Europe's more urban and Protestant cultures
is perhaps greater than with those more remote peasant cultures in which
Catholicism, Greek or Eastern Orthodox Christianity hold sway. The
general point, nonetheless, stands. The ritual and visceral mythology of
Shintoism has remained acknowledged and respected as a vital component
in the Japanese emotional repertoire and finds expression both in personal
and in the collective imagination.304 The legacy of the gods of classical
antiquity in Europe does not bear comparison. What has survived in the
intellectual life of the more articulate is not part of the ideological and
emotional furniture of everyday life. Shintoism extends respect to the kind
of repertoire of untempered and unmoralised emotions Elias found in
medieval Europe. Such emotions escape synthesis with the austerities of
Confucian self-control and Buddhist restraint. Moreover, there are
doctrinal or interpretative conflicts within Buddhism itself about the proper
attitudes to take towards the emotions and passions, and to their expression.
The expression of such emotions remains suppressed wherever ritual,
ceremony and the impulse to neaten things up make their demands felt. In
the neo-Confucian, as in the Early Stoic, there is no provision for one to
learn creatively from one's emotions, to have one's sensibilities educated
or one's ideals refined by them, to develop by increasing one's sensuous
awareness of the world. 30S Ethical education is a matter of becoming free
from passion's sway. In the one tradition it is being motivated by an
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eupatheia, 'the impulse of a fully rational man' , whilst in the other emotion
is dissipated in stylisation and ritual. 306
A common cliche for explaining cultural differences resorts to the
manifold effects of Abrahamic religion on European civilisation. Thus, one
might lump together such diverse cultural items as 'guilt' (rather than
specifically Abrahamic or Christian guilt), rationalism, the felt need to
make distinctions, demeaning attitudes to women and homosexuals and lay
them at the feet of some entity called Christianity.307 Such views rest
uncomfortably with the fact that so many of the basic categories of the
world's greatest philosophy have not merely been Western, but discovered
and created by people uninfluenced by the Abrahamic religions. 30B This
need not be more of a temptation the further we are historically and
geographically from the events we seek to explain, but if the outlook one is
concerned to rationalise is nihonjinron, there is a special reason for this.
What Buruma has described as an intensely narcissistic national neurosis,
and one that can inhabit otherwise liberal minds, is given to explanations of
Japaneseness which seek to prove both its uniqueness and its univer-
sality.309 Even those such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, the nineteenth-century
'father of Japanese modernization', 'repeatedly insisted' Miyoshi declares,
'that Japan should distance itself from Asia, since Japan is the only
civilised country in the area - a notion that is even now tacitly held, if not
openly proclaimed, after so many wars and devastations, by many
Japanese, businessmen, students, housewives, even scholars.'3IO Despite
well known historical reasons for Japanese hostility to Christianity,3!! in
1985 one can find a former Prime Minister, and with no apparent
embarrassment, proclaiming that Christian love came from Asia since
"how can it have been born in a world which depends on contracts? The
Ten Commandments are a product of desert life, where 'eye for eye, tooth
for tooth' principles prevail."3!2 No doubt, the fact that China has a lengthy
history of enforceable contract law must have slipped Mr Nakasone's
mind. 313
It is at least as difficult in the cultural as it is in individual cases to assign
causal responsibility for behaviour to ideas. Nonetheless, it may be conjec-
tured that Christianity has been over-rated in this causal respect. What is
perhaps more important is to look from the bottom upwards. Thus, it may
pay to look not only at what was synthetically achieved in the history of
individual psychology owing to the hegemony of the culture in which
Christianity played so prominent a part, but to look at what was lost in that
process.

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XVII. Defensiveness
The values of the modem Japanese honour code are strikingly less
illustrious when compared with Japan's ancient past, or those existing
among say, the warrior-nobility of archaic Greece.314 In the latter, the feats
by which one displayed one's arete, personal excellence, were mostly
individual. Aesthetic considerations were prominent. As Williams has
remarked, the term arete was associated with 'the notion of being well
thought of and spoken of, cutting a good figure. '315 This contrast is not
surprising. Given the historical forms of Japanese agriculture and the
pressing need for close co-operation among the working population, such
values are in many ways ideally suited both to flourishing and being
re-interpreted within what Watanabe has referred to as the 'Don Peasant'
mentality of Japan. 316 Such an honour-code recognises that respect resides
in a person's not being egregious. 317 Its basic character is defensive
involving kamaeru (taking a posture, to prepare oneself).318
There can be a problem with any outlook or ethical code that prescribes
modesty or humility as a prelude to the winning of honour in the public
realm. For, since the currency of honour is esteem, the values sought must
exhibit themselves conspicuously.319 Such honour needs public recog-
nition. However, if self-effacement is meant to have life breathed into it at
the behest of public recognition, the agent who is trying to efface himself
conspicuously is liable to have his bluff called. Such agents are vulnerable
to the heartless, especially if the latter is witty. A party of Glaswegian
professors, towards the end of an annual stay at an Oxford college in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century, were dining at High Table when one of
the party embarrassed by a certain lack of polish in his own and his
colleagues' table manners leant over to the Master and expressed his hope
that he and his Fellows would not think too poorly of them after they had
departed. 'Fear not', was the reply, 'when you are gone it is most unlikely
that any of us will have cause to think of you again.'320 Perhaps the moral
here is that 'if you really are humble, don't let your insignificance go to
your head'. However, since quips of this kind can remove from the pathetic
their last pretences to dignity, many people armed with the wit behave like
those without it. Many would eschew such cruelly bought moments of
self-exultation for reasons concerned with their own self-respect. The dis-
inclination may exist even when the self-demeaning self-ascriber is
engaged in a self-enhancing strategic ploy. Thus strategic self-demeaners
often obtain their ends. The brazen-faced, the man with ko ga muchi (a
thick-skinned face) can 'do well' ifhe can count on the embarrassability of
others. The more conventional the means of expression - as with etiquette
- the less deceptive is the ploy or omoteltatemae (surface, face, front!

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official stance, principle or intention). Either his strategies dare others to act
in ways in which they would not respect themselves for acting, or they are
part of the normative currency, the etiquette of accomplishment. Thus, a
man successful in obtaining office may include in his speech: 'I am
honoured to accept this office though 1 am a man of sengaku hissai'
(shallow learning, talentless). Such honour is not won by bold or illustrious
acts however much this might have been the case before what Ikegami has
described as the taming of the samurai warrior ethos. For the Tokugawa
authorities both needed and needed to control the samurai if their rule was
to last. The gradual 'bonsai approach', as Ikegami has called it, involved:
'supporting the tradition of honor while simultaneously attempting to
transmute and convert that spirit of honor into other forms, or direc-
tions that would better serve the purposes of the state. The authorities
commonly employed two disciplinary strategies. First, they would
attempt to tame the violent elements of honor by confining their
exercise within the cage of bureaucratic procedure. Second, they
would allow the Tokugawa practitioners of honor to reinterpret the
old tradition in more moralistic terms.'321
Thus today's male reputations are the more easily maintained and defended
by affecting symbolic acts of modesty, and by demonstrating one's loyalty
by conformity, obedience and the diligent employment of one's energies.
One analogy might be that the modern Japanese honour-code bears a
similar relation to its pre-Tokugawa ancestor as does negative utili-
tarianism to the nobly inconsistent ideals of John Stuart Mill.322

XVIII. Women and Honour as Reputation-for-Restraint

It may be objected that such values are not appropriate to an honour-code.
Some may have the cultures of archaic Greece or the European and especi-
ally Italian Renaissance, Heian (794-1185) or at least pre-Tokugawa Japan
in mind when thinking of what is constitutive of honour. But, this may be
to draw the cordon around what is most familiar, or more accurately,
around those values from which one doesn't avert one's gaze. For, thinking
of honour as indicating an essentially audience-based unspectacular set of
esteemworthy qualities can hardly be regarded as unfamiliar. 323 It has been
the lot of women's honour to be comprised of such virtues as modesty,
purity, self-control, honesty and chastity for much of Western history.324
This passive conception of women's honour has been challenged
recently. At least for modern Naples, the suggestion is that it may be more
illuminating to conceptualise 'women as carriers of group identity and as

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social boundary markers.'325 Even so, with such a conception of honour, an

agent's primary desire is not to fail in its observance. 326
Observing the courtly aristocracy of late seventeenth and early
eighteenth century France, Elias found that it was 'the structure of the
society itself rather than 'the individual husband giving his wife greater
freedom that contributed to the diminishing of social inequality between
the sexes.'327 It has had and to a considerable though more to do with a
man's viewing his wife as feudal property. 329 In contrast, a husband became
the feudal tenant of his wife's body according to ecclesiastical thought in
twelfth century France. He was authorised to use it for the purposes of
procreation, but her soul belonged to God alone. 33o The habit among older
Japanese men, especially in speeches at weddings, of being confident of
parading their own humility by referring to their wife as gusai (my foolish
wife) or as saikun (little one), or on other occasions, not merely
disavowing, but proffering belittling disclaimers to compli- ments paid to
their wives, is well marked. Married women are addressed conventionally
as 'Mrs Interior' (okusan), a term with feudal roots. Some feminists have
recently revived an old term tsureai (life-partner) derived from a verb for
marrying meaning 'to accompany' (tsureau).331 Moreover, some men,
despite the risk of ridicule from the many, bravely refuse to patronise their
wives. However, as a social category, women's access to the arena of
public estimation is subordinate, and a reflection of their husband's, or
virutally non-existent. Such attempts to redefine marital relationships, so to
speak, wedding 'respect' to 'love' in a society in which respect is hostage
to public esteem, and the latter to professional status, faces formidable
obstacles. It is unclear how much has changed since 1957, when Kindaichi
pointed out that:
'In English the word 'love' can express one's affection for any
person, but the Japanese word ai (love) is used only for friends or
your equals or someone below you in standing. Sometime ago I saw
in a newly published Japanese dictionary the word keiai with the
following definition: uyamai aisuru koto (to respect and love).
According to traditional examples, however, no such Japanese phrase
exists - uyamau (to respect) and aisuru (to love) cannot be practiced
at the same time. The dictionary definition should have been uyamai
shitau koto. Words like shitau (to long to follow an admirable thing
or person) and kawaigaru (to love someone below you or pet
animals) are linked with the superior-inferior relationship of
people. '332
There is a long-range and speculative conjecture that is perhaps worth
entertaining. It is not so much about power as influence, and of a kind
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which may in tum have had literature as its main source. The samurai
tradition, unlike the knight of European chivalry, was not composed of
members of the aristocracy, but clearly separated from ancient Japan's
aristocratic ruling class. 333 In Europe, the warrior on horseback and the
feudal knight belonged to a single chivalric class because they were one and
the same person. 334 Thus, samurai were specialist dependent warriors and
less well placed to look fondly on the mollifying of their conception of
honour. Contrastingly, the honour code of chivalry, overwhelmingly
secular in content, was moralised to some substantial degree. Keen relates
how the Ordene de chevalerie, widely popular for two centuries and more
after its composition sometime before 1250, warned the knight that, 'He
must not be consenting to any false judgement, or be a party in any way to
treason; he must honour all women and damsels and be ready to aid them
to the limit of his power'335 Other influential works of the time also
emphasised loyalty, truthfulness, largesse, courage, wisdom, courtesy, and
independence of spirit, in addition to the martial virtues of hardiness and
prowess. Of particular interest to our present concern is the importance of
women and their proper treatment. 336 Keen observes that, 'in the context of
the chivalrous life ... love (is perceived) as a human passion which, rightly
regulated, sharpens and refines the honourable ambitions of martial
men.'337 Love between the sexes is of many kinds, so it is especially
significant that the chivalric tradition encouraged a man - at least a knight
- to derive some portion of his own self-esteem from the honour which he
won as-a-tribute-to-the-woman-he-loved.338 The tradition highlights and
propitiates an important desire in the constitution of a love that respects the
beloved.339
Whereas in European societies a wife's jealousy about her husband's
sexual infidelity has tended to arouse specifically sexual jealousy -like that
in husbands - as well as jealousy on account of a perceived threat to her
social position, in Japan it has tended to be aroused much the more strongly
by the wife's fear oflosing her social status. As Buruma puts it, 'any threat
to take it away from them can unleash jealousy of the most violent kind and
there is sufficient evidence that men live in morbid fear of it. '340 If this fear
accounts for the traditional saying, danson johi (respect men and despise
women), then it may do so because the affectation of contempt is often the
best part of valour among those beating an ignominious retreat. A more
plausible interpretation of the saying however, rests as in Bedouin society,
on a view of women as representing threats to male self-mastery.34I
Japanese Confucianism and Bedouin stoicism would both be expected to
find appeal in such dignifying rationalisations. 342 Nevertheless, if retreat it
be, it is one conducted before those whose source of power is itself a
dependent one.
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Men's fear of women, rather than more narrowly of wives, may have an
additional cross-cultural source. It may play on what might be mistakenly
thought of as the peculiarly Mediterranean ambivalence, of woman as
'object of maternal veneration' and as 'voracious erotic demon', and thus
as goading 'a desperate fear of masculine inadequacy' .343 Despite the
claims of historians that 'the Middle Ages (i.e. men) ... regarded (women)
... as figures oftemptation who paradoxically had no desires oftheir own',
fear of women may well have rested and still rest on a belief in the
prodigious sexual capacities and rapaciousness of women once inhibitions
are cast aside. 344 Assertion of women's 'paradoxical nature' serves only to
suggest mystery where none exists. Why have so many (male) moralists
expended so much energy trying to persuade people of the potential
depravity, lustfulness and inconstancy of women if they were convinced
that women lacked sexual desires?345 That some women sometimes have a
capacity for prolonged sexual arousal and serial orgasm, and that men,
perhaps for evolutionary reasons, cannot match this is not news and was not
so when the sex researcher Mary Jane Sherfey presented her findings in the
mid-1960s. 346 However, unlike pride which is an unreliable though rarely
an irrational guide to the value of its objects, fear is not self-restraining.
The attributes a person wishes for within a defensive honour code are
modesty, humility, honesty and self-control, and at least for women in
many cases chastity - where this is not already included under modesty.347
Such attributes are presumed rather than perceived as having been acquired
triumphally or won in - what is usually - aggressive zero-sum competition
with others. In defensive honour codes, whether that of a woman in the
Florentine Renaissance or of a modem Japanese, humility and modesty
must appear to, and often do, guide conduct.348

XIX. The Defensive Assault on Reputation

Within an aggressive honour code, the challenge to another's reputation that
wins most honour for its perpetrator must be made openly. Honour accrues to
him who abjures fear of the direct challenge. Within defensive codes such fear
is endemic, courage far rarer than endurance and so the methods tend to be
either clandestine, collaborative or both. Thus, although the main motive of
honour codes, whether aggressive or defensive is envy, the defensive assailant
tends to aim to inflict damage or destroy another's reputation (hyoban) without
any corresponding personal advancement. Such are the ideal conditions for the
flourishing of malicious - as opposed to admiring - envy.
There are at least four sources of vulnerability that make members of a
defensive honour code more dependent on those who may come to con-
demn them, than members of aggressive codes. First, potential damage to a
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person's reputation may be exacerbated if the agent is unable to count on

the 'undecided' portion of the relevant audience being willing to provide,
respect, or even acknowledge counter-evidence. Loss of power will be
more easily effected by the absence of an impartial court of appeal with
powers to make independent inquiries. Moreover, not every Susanna can
count on a Daniel who has the concepts with which to ask the right
questions.
Second, even when there is an apparent willingness to consider counter-
evidence, the evidence which would most likely refute the content of
malicious gossip for instance, may in itself not be readily conspicuous, as
in accusations of unchastity.
Third, active defence of one's reputation may require of a defendant
behaviour which would permit further inferences of an unfavourable or dis-
abling kind to be made about him. In many everyday instances within Japanese
life a challenge to authority is held to be a sign of an improper lack of modesty
or humility. Challenging group authority openly is regarded as virtually
synonymous with arrogance because it constitutes a shunning of what lies at
the heart of the code's values. It is not just a case of ' methinks the lady doth
protest too much', and the eschewing of modesty and humility, but that the
agent runs the risk of being perceived to be disloyal.
Fourth, if the accusers are members of defensive honour codes, they tend
to need to 'cover their tracks' . Obloquy or slander or anonymous libel in the
form of poison pen-letters (akui no tegami) may appear from nowhere and
no-one in particular. The accusations may be treated with silent disdain
(mokusatsu, to kill with silence), much as would happen in an aggressive
honour code when a superior refuses to acknowledge an intended affront.
Whether this can be done successfully will depend on many contingencies:
the nature of the accusation, the likelihood that disdain will provoke a
raising of the stakes in the course of which the butt of the campaign comes
to be perceived as contagious, the extent ofthe accusation's circulation, the
particular persons who know, its probable origin where to some degree that
can be narrowed down, the attitude of the accused party, and perhaps most
important of all the attitudes and responses of those who wield most power
or would if necessary be able to call upon powerful support. If the accusa-
tions levelled at someone are abroad, then authority may settle on rumour
in much the same way as Conservative Party leaders were chosen in Britain
before Alec Douglas Home's reforms of the early 1960s. Whether such
'soundings' forge official opinion about what action to take regarding, say,
some alleged misconduct, or the making of decisions pertaining to new
policies or projects, they will be taken through the network of intra-group
allegiances and loyalties summed up in Nakane's inverted V principle.349

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xx. Fellow-feeling
In aggressive-competitive honour codes, the sense that a damaging rumour
is all about one and authourless, that it has 'crawled out of the woodwork',
is less a matter of course since the rumour's perpetrator may have some-
thing to gain from advertising his humiliating another. In the case of a
defensive code such as that in Japan, a person who publicly triumphed over
the humiliation of another Japanese would incur censure for offending
against that all-important principle of belonging to uchi (inside)groups, the
largest cordon of which encloses all Japanese people. 350 He will be moti-
vated by the fear of censure or 'sleeping vengefulness' as well as perhaps
by the desire to let the other keep face.
In quite another direction, the expression of an impressive comradely
decency and Confucian exemplariness can be seen in the practice whereby,
on occasion, management responds to 'hard times' by administering self-
imposed top-down pay cuts. The latter cannot but contrast favourably with
what is all too frequently the case in Britain or the U.S. where such hardship
is more than occasionally met by senior management granting itself huge
pay rises and laying offworkers. 351 Such side-constraints as are embodied
in the uchi-principle are less evident within aggressive-competitive codes.
In the latter, different effects can be expected to follow from perceived
inequalities of power between individuals or families or other bases of
group loyalty on which individuals may count. Inequalities of physical
power, or the perceived short measure of honours, may encourage an
accuser or a perpetrator of someone else's dishonour (such as a male
seducer of a virtuous woman), to make public his part in the matter. Honour
may accrue to him as a consequence, and he may believe - falsely in the
case of the Vicomte de Valmont - that this will outweigh the ill-effects of
any subsequent retaliation.
Further complexities in honour codes reveal themselves when the
priorities that attach to an agent's identifications fluctuate with temporal
and spatial location. Such variations may be enhanced when a change of
context ushers in a change in the degree of forcefulness which it is accept-
able for a person to use in backing up his demands. Moreover, how it is
acceptable for an agent to make d~ands on another may only very in-
adequately be gleaned from contexts taken discretely. The contexts and
corresponding social relations that govern the discretionary powers agents
have over each other may vary with respect to whose powers of discretion
dominate. Such changes of context and the social relati(;ms therein are often
predictable. They may vary routinely or cyclically or over a life-span. An
example of the latter in contemporary Japan is the relative decline since
World War II of mothers' powers over their (especially first) sons' married

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lives and the corresponding decline in the fears of young wives for their
interfering mothers-in-Iaws. Predictability, even when far from perfect,
allows for anticipation, and if mutual understanding issues in trust then
anticipation may be reciprocated to the benefit of both agents. Both within
and between societies, the conventions that guide agents' expectations
about the discretion they will exert in re-fashioning the sets of expectations
internal to their relationships vary considerably. Routine spatial changes in
expectations are well illustrated both in Japan and many rural Medi-
terranean societies by differences in the order of subordination for men and
women depending on whether they are inside or outside the home. In Japan,
a wife with 80-95% of her husband's salary enjoys considerable power at
home, but from the public world of status she is, except in very rare cases,
excluded.
It should be borne in mind that aggressive-competitive honour codes do
not differ from their defensive counterparts on account of the latter's agents
being incapable of or indisposed to feel aggression. The concern is with
public acknowledgement and the normative rather than merely the sense
perception of actions and their manner of being carried out. We are familiar
with the thought that attack is the best fonn of defence. Equally so,
defensiveness can be the most efficient means of ensuring that tenaciously
pursued self-interest is rendered inconspicuous. This latter fonn of'mask-
ing' is as important within defensive honour codes as the doctrine of 'duties
to oneself' is to Christians of a Protestant persuasion. The latter doctrine
turns a blind eye to,just as it morally elevates, self-interest.

XXI. Fellow-feeling, Envy, Defensiveness and the Group

The Japanese honour-code leaves relatively little room for the effective
public control and scrutiny of the private sector. For reasons already
discussed and bound up with the facts of hierarchical life, private loyalty
(shiteki shingi) to one's company's interests tends to override public
loyalty (koteki shingi) to the national interest. 352 On the one hand, the
ever-ready charge of disloyalty and the grave consequences that attend such
a judgement are strong disincentives to an individual's 'speaking out'. On
the other, if charges of incompetence are made from without, loyalty strives
to sustain the appearance of competence and propriety.353 This again, gives
a defensive air to honour and repute. Since questions about actual com-
petence must be raised in many areas of professional life however, the
defensive honour- code doesn't have full sway. As Watanabe has claimed,
'post-war Japanese corporations are of 'equestrian' nature as far as
their framework is concerned, while 'agrarian' insofar as their inner

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governing principle is concerned. The present Japanese corporations

are, in a sense, behaving exactly in the manner of profit-seeking
ability-based groups ('mounted bandits'), yet component members
are far more like peasants in agrarian villages. '354
Honour-as-precedence is the moral currency of the large-scale corporation
or institution. Whilst new forms of economic and socio-historical organisa-
tion make for novel sources of pressure on contemporary value systems it
is also doubtful whether any honour-code's integrity has ever been com-
plete. Thinking that it is is a common error of the investigator.
Malinowski's caution was that,
'In laying down the moral rule, in displaying its stringency and
perfection, the native is not trying to deceive the stranger. He simply
does what any self-respecting and conventional member of a well-
ordered society would do: he ignores the seamy and ugly sides of
human life, he overlooks his own shortcomings and even those of his
neighbours, he shuts his eyes to what he does not want to see. No
gentleman wants to acknowledge the existence of what is not done,
what is universally considered bad, and what is improper. The con-
ventional mind ignores such things, above all when speaking to a
stranger - since dirty linen should not be washed in public'.355
The error is more significant for the understanding of some cultures than for
others. There is no cogent reason for thinking that in general investigators of
Japanese culture are markedly more successful in overcoming this problem
than those investigating the world's many other cultures. The stultifYing
preoccupation with 'uniqueness' disposes one to suspect otherwise.
Someone may feel both the glow that accompanies admiration and
embarrassment in the same experience.356 The person might be aware that
she possesses something distinctive and admired - whether natural or
acquired - and yet feel sheepish or bashful (tereru) about its display. It is
hardly the stuff of an aggressive or honour-as-precedence-code that she
may feel abashed - never mind ashamed - at the thought that she might be
putting others in the shade. To flourish, this delicacy of fellow-feeling
requires forms of social life for which ancient masculine honour codes and
modem capitalism do not offer the best possible support. 357 Indeed, it is
significant that the term spiv, which so consummately captured the visual
nature of those qualities that run rough-shod over decency, today sounds
simply quaint.
There need be nothing hypocritical about the having of such an ambi-
valent attitude, though of course this charge may in practice be difficult to
rebut. But, what is interesting about this in relation to our present

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discussion is the character of an audience's response to such a person. Its

going unrecognised represents the marginalising of a particular kind of
communal fellow-feeling or decency (see section IX above). A category
such as 'capitalist production' would be hard put to explain the absence of
such fellow-feeling in the relations between men and women, and even
more so between women. 358 Even if such sentiments are being eroded, as
might be the case in Japan, a person may well feel at least slightly ashamed
ifhe fails to conceal his advantages. 359 Here again, there is a parallel with
that part of an honour-code traditionally allotted to women. A woman
might on occasion experience self-esteem tinctured with shame for appear-
ing too alluring to men. Any life can feel within it the opposing tugs of
fellow-feeling and competition. Such contexts precisely identify the focus-
ing of guilt through shame. Her shame might have a double source. Partly
it might lie in what she had done and done to herself in order to be alluring,
but secondly, and even had she 'done' nothing, it might stem from her
feeling her own lack offellow-feeling with other women, for the distinction
between 'directing others' attention to one's advantages' and 'failing to
conceal them' is sometimes difficult to observe. When a method of 'playing
down' an advantage becomes conventional it can, of course, be used
intentionally to direct attention to the advantage. She might feel that her
desire for self-esteem has got out of control, and a loss of self-control might
entail a loss of self-respect.
As Levenson pointed out with respect to the fallacious belief in nineteenth-
century China that Mencius' ideas would retain their integrity when read and
cogitated upon in a new context, a culture may absorb alien ideas piecemeal
and refashion them, but there will be unforeseen and unforeseeable con-
sequences for the parent culture toO.360 Oakeshott put the case well:
'Whatever we know, we know as a whole and in its place in our
whole world of experience. The process of knowing is not a process
of mere accretion. To speak of 'adding to knowledge' is misleading.
For a gain in knowledge is also the transformation and the recreation
of an entire world of ideas. It is the creation of a new world by
transforming a given world. If knowledge consisted in a mere series
of ideas, an addition to it could touch only the raw end ... But, since
it is a system, each advance affects retrospectively the entire whole,
and it is the creation of a new world. 361
An example from the teaching profession is apt here. According to
Watanabe, once a person of incontestably high status and ability is intro-
duced to a professional body run according to the customary practices of
Don Peasant mentality, the greatest vice will be envy. As we can see from
the passage below, Watanabe is using 'envy' in its traditional way to refer
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to that which is malicious rather than to either admiring enry or the

detached covetousness which is often all the word conveys in modem
English. Only the former is a vice. The maliciously envious person A seeks
to destroy, thwart or block B by playing 'dog in the manger', when he can
conceive of B as someone who is or recently was close enough to A in status
or station for B's elevated state or its imminent likelihood to be perceived
by A as threatening to break the bounds of A's conception ofthe acceptable
inequalities that can tolerably exist between A and B. Such an emotion may
extirpate the maliciously envious person'sfeelings of humiliation just as it
registers so indelibly the existence of his state of humiliation. On its own,
envy is a passive contemplative vice. Even sexual jealousy will be sought
by the anxiety-ridden self-deceiver as a carapace for malicious sexual envy.
For jealousy clings to the pretences of pride and dignity. Malicious envy is
what we are left to when defeated. Admiring envy or detached covetous-
ness merely remind us of those respects in which we recognise our inferior
attributes or possessions or our inferior capacity to obtain goods or ends we
value relative to other human beings. Besides those a bit short in the tooth,
someone who never experiences such a feeling must either be constitutively
lucky and have a narrow range of values, or think of herself not merely as
a god or goddess, but as Godlike.
Being truly humble or modest is not humiliating or self-demeaning.
Moreover, such modesty is compatible with admiring envy, but not with the
malicious variety. Admiring envy can inspire, stimulate and encourage the
cultivation of talent whether individual or collective. Malicious envy
wishes to destroy the preconditions wherein talent can flourish. It induces
timorousness and given the costs of chancing one's arm, it makes hide-
boundness rational. Malicious envy is the more effective in restraining the
individual development of talents and abilities involving imaginativeness
or improvisation (e.g. speaking a foreign language), for these expose the
individual before others to the risk of making mistakes. Watanabe illus-
trates conventions that he has dubbed Don Peasant:
'Let us take the case of a man who has taken a doctorate in English
literature at an American university, after going to the United States
straight from High School in Japan, and seeks employment as a
professor of English literature or full-time instructor at a number of
universities. There is only a very small possibility that he will be
selected by a reputable university. Why? Because many teachers
would be annoyed by the arrival of such a capable man. Teachers
without a doctorate might perhaps feel awkward in comparison.
In a university society, which should be a world of ability and
scholarly achievement, but is in fact run along the lines of an agrarian

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society, men with ability only slightly above the average are rejected
in this fashion. To have ability and at the same time stay in the
university means being completely under the aegis of an onshi, a
'teacher to whom one is indebted' ... The employer has first to be
convinced that harmony in those human relations already in existence
will not be disturbed if an able man is brought in. '362
Though her attitude to it is rather different, Nakane is in broad agreement with
Watanabe's analysis, and claims it to be found in almost all the professions in
Japan.'363 The ethical significance of such a state of affairs may be rendered by
saying that in the cultural circumstances over which the Japanese honour-code
is now being called upon to preside, the qualities perceived as esteemworthy
by its members are perhaps increasingly those of individual aptitude or
Hobbesian worthiness. 364 Even if this claim is true, we need not believe it is
reflected in selection criteria. Given the nature of Japanese group social
structure, it would be difficult to think Watanabe and Nakane are incorrect in
claiming that they are not merit-based - supposing that merit is based on
individual apitude. 365 Selecting for excellence or aptitude demands rational
assessment. Such rational assessment aims to select qualities which optimally
fit agent to function. This rationale is in principle independent of the assess-
ment at which any actual group may arrive. In Japan however, such a mode of
assessment runs up against the basically non-contractual conception of the
relationship between employer and employee. The principles of social struc-
ture upon which the group is based and within which the employer-employee
relationship is to be understood derive, as Nakane shows, from the medieval
concept ichizoku-roto (one family group and its retainers) or ie. Stressing its
importance she writes:
'Though it is often said that the traditional family (ie) institution has
disappeared, the concept of the ie still persists in modern contexts. A
company is conceived as an ie, all its employees qualifying as
members of the household, with the employer at its head ... The
employer readily takes responsibility for his employee's family, for
which, in tum, the primary concern is the company, rather than
relatives who reside elsewhere ... (The modem nuclear family) unit
is comparable to the family of a servant or clerk who worked in the
master's ie, the managing body of the pre-modern enterprise. The
role of the ie institution as the distinct unit in society in pre-modem
times is now played by the company ... (Thus) employers do not
employ only a man's labour itselfbut really employ the total man, as
is shown in the expression marugakae (completely enveloped). This
trend can be traced consistently in Japanese management from the
Meiji period to the present. '366
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The strong and substantially similar pulls of filial piety (oya koko) and
loyalty (chu) towards on-receivers - onshi in Watanabe's example - require
that compromise be forged between competing conically structured
factions (habatsu) comprised of vertical relationships between debt
creditors and indebted subordinates or oyabun (the person, oya, with the
parental status) and kobun (the person, ko, with the status of child). On is a
form of indebtedness to a specific superior individual for providing a
resource or granting a favour one needs. It is often advisable for an oyabun
to obtain some of his kobun positions or promotion when he himself gains
a position of increased responsibility. Such indebtedness may be exacted in
diverse ways and at any time from the subordinate at the on-receiver's
discretion. Moreover, in its nature on can never be fully repaid. 367 There is
little public space in which such procedures can be challenged. Any
challenger must bear the consequences of defying the authority of the
group.368 The chances of external lateral support are vanishingly small,
since that would involve those who came to one's aid defying group norms
oftheir own, and the perceived personal costs of mounting such a challenge
are considerable. Besides the great fear of obloquy, the penalty may
ultimately be one's withdrawal or ejection from the group.369 Thus,
evasion, modification of aims or personal repression are the better courses.
Becoming biddable is the shrewdest of many courses, as can be gleaned
from many a deftly draughted ukiyo-e print, with the head lowered and
forward, hana iki 0 ukagau (to try to guess one's boss'/master's wishes),
the eyes modestly upwards and vigilant. The traditional sources of self-
esteem are not egregious and the locus of self-esteem is in one's attachment
to and fellow-feeling within the group.370
Constrastingly, personal excellence, if it is to flourish, cannot but be
salient. Envy of such esteemed salient qualities is envy of a kind of
self-esteem which conflicts with that prescribed by the honour-code. 371 It
conflicts with it because it runs through Aristotelian self-respect. One
cannot envy what one does not value, though one can affect hypocritically
to despise it. 372 First, one values someone for possessing talents that one
does not oneself have, and because one does not have them one wishes he
didn't have them. One then seeks to rid oneself of one's envy by ridding
oneself of the valuable object to which it is directed. This is done in the
name of harmony (though perhaps factional compromise would be a more
accurate description). It cannot be that 'harmony' achieved in this way
furthers aptitude or excellence. 373
As Miyamoto has argued, it is through intra-group mechanisms of
(malicious) envy, that the bullying (ijime) first encountered in school extends
throughout adult life. Bullying channels the hostility which the pressure to
conform creates whilst simultaneously serving the purpose of enforcing con-
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formity. The basic goal of group conformity is achieved through fear of

ostracism. The attempts to quell such fears take two related forms. First,
one does one's utmost to avoid others' envy, and secondly, if one experi-
ences envy of another oneself, then because the cause of such a feeling
(e.g .. a person's creative talents) threatens the illusion of group harmony,
the aims of the invidious are justified in victimising the person concerned.
Harmony based on group conformity is in no small part an illusion. It exists
in the minds of sentimentalists, particularly perhaps in that of the non-
Japanese apologist. To voice it merely makes the bullies' tasks easier.
Despite the powerful agents of repression, and the pressures on individuals
to suppress their differences of feeling and real opinion, like human beings
anywhere, each Japanese is different from his and her fellows in in-
definitely many ways.374
If job-related competence and excellence are not the key criteria, then
what determines preferment? As Nakane has remarked, it is not nepotism.
It is better described as hierarchically structured cronyism. Length and
frequency of face-to face contact and activity 'becomes the individual's
private social capital. '375 Such values cannot be wholeheartedly identified
with. If there was wholehearted identification, there would be no envying
of (and so valuing of) the bearers of values (such as those of distinguished
ability) with which the Don Peasant mentality is in inherent conflict. 376
Moreover, crony-based selection is in Japan as elsewhere, another cause of
envy. Group decisions to protect a wrongdoer or to expel an innocent
person unjustly are motivated by the state of an agent's comradely
relations. As Nakane has stated:
'If a man happened to make a mistake in his work his friends in the
group would protect him. Even in a very serious case, where no
reasonable excuse would justify his actions, they would protect him
with the group power and fabricate some irrational and emotional
justification. They are at all times firmly on his side, not necessarily
because he is right but because he is one of them. His fellows know
well enough that he has committed a fault and is in the wrong, but
even so, they retain to a striking degree their tolerance and sympathy
for him. An accusation serious enough to lead to loss of career may
well arise out of a man's unhappy personal relations with his fellows
rather than from the actual weight of his misdemeanour.'377
As previously suggested, such a way of advancement is not wholly in
contrast with what occurs in the deliberations that precede preferment in
Britain or the U.S. Among the differences are that whereas in Japan it may
be almost always a necessary condition of preferment, in Britain or the U.S.
it merely sometimes improves - and occasionally very substantially
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improves - one's chances over those of less well-connected others. More-

over, especially ifthe disparity in aptitude is particularly glaring, there is a
chance that someone, not always an important figure, will 'blow the
whistle'. Obviously, 'whistle-blowing' is futile where the conventions pay
scant respect to, or scorn ideas of fairness, or where the idea is alien or
regarded as 'not applicable'.

XXII. Shame's Audiences

Let us draw a distinction between two types of imagined authority figures,
or collectively, shame-inducing authoritative audiences. Of course, one
may be shamed without being aware of the fact (i.e .. the state rather than
the feeling), but let us leave aside such well-known cases. Our present
distinction is between being ashamed about what one has done or failed to
do when such a state is induced by recognising one's own unworthiness in
the eyes of (i) an internalised dramatic audience of reasonable persons
making reasonable judgements about one and being ashamed or antici-
pating a loss offace on account of how one is regarded by (ii) an internal
dramatic audience of persons whose publicly stated opinions are not so
conditioned and may reach conformity owing to quite extraneous moti-
vations. Call the first an internalised dramatic audience and the second, an
anticipated dramatic audience. Whereas the imagined judgements of an
internalised dramatic audience or reasonable persons can be used asser-
tively to defend and refute the opinions of an actual audience, those of an
anticipated dramatic audience must give way before the judgements and
attitudes that the actual audience ordains to present.

XXIII. Shame, Self-Esteem, Humiliation and Ridicule

Benedict was not wrong to stress the heavy hand of actual opinion, even if
it is humiliation, and the attempt to avoid it, that in Japan, as in other
socially mobile capitalist societies, is now doing more of the work for
shame than when she wrote her remarkable book. In regard to strangers,
and compared with the current convention in England, ridicule in Japan is
more easily provoked by trivial incompetence or maladroitness. One
doesn't often need to witness the laughter that one can have directed at one,
should one be the victim of someone else's maladroitness, or suffer in some
minor way from one's own, to be convinced that ridicule is a widely
dispersed and easily-triggered response to what does not manifest
circumspection.378 That such Japanese are laughing at one out of embarrass-
ment is not wholly mistaken. There is rarely, if ever, malevolence in such
laughter. Bearing in mind our discussion of Pirandello's distinction
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between comedy and humour, the uninhibitedness of such laughter - at say,

a foreigner walking on crutches - merely stems from the common human
capacity to perceive the incongruous as ludicrous. Moreover, such
responses are sometimes related to the victim or others with unabashed
amusement. The absence of such restraint in some Japanese makes way for
spontaneously expressed emotion of a kind that is incompatible with the
disposition to feel with and so for the comic victim or fall guy. An agent
with a more internalised and narrower susceptibility to shame would be
ashamed of so reacting. 379 A pedestrian splashed by a passing car, a trip on
a proud cobblestone, the receiving of some minor physical hurt in public is
sufficient to generate derision and ridicule (chosho, azakeri).380
Such responses to what lacks conformity are different from, though related
to, and often combined with, the phenomenon noted by Erasmus in early
sixteenth-century Germany, and familiar to foreigners in Japan, especially in
the provinces, of being viewed. 381 The latter, which on occasion may allow us
to forgive the unfortunate for feeling he is a new addition to the local zoo or the
hapless descendant of some caged Dutchman, is strictly speaking neither to be
classified as voyeurism nor under the more incidental notion of having a
butchers. For such staring is remarkably unselfconscious and unabashed. It
does not approach the self-conscious communicativeness involved in eye-
balling. Indeed, it often enough gives way to scoffing and the pointing of
fingers, especially when the spectators are in their early teens or younger. What
such viewing shares with voyeuristic practices is that it is conditional upon the
viewer holding the upper hand. 382 He or she must be situated safely, usually in
like-minded company, behind the window of a bus or car as the viewed person
is, say, waiting at a zebra crossing. Apart from situations where spatial
relations grant the licence and provide the protective wrapping for the viewer's
viewing, the viewer's stance is fenced round by social regulation or
convention.
The aetiology of such an intense fear of and propensity to ridicule
people is likely to include the effects of early schooling, and this despite the
ebullience and freedom, not to say wildness, of small Japanese children. 383
Although formal discipline is brought to bear most conspicuously only
when children enter junior high school, that relatively late imposition is
unlikely to provide a satisfactory explanation. 384 A more important pair of
principles operating from kindergarten onwards, and perhaps more effec-
tive in virtue of their informality, is that such children have impressed upon
them the importance of what are, in effect, two sides of the same coin: (i)
performing all school activities as a group so that no-one is left out, and (ii)
doing nothing that will distinguish oneself from the group. One can see how
such basic principles act as midwife to what later in life will become the
required 'active presence and participation' in the life ofthe group.385 Lack
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of circumspection or unwillingness to 'join in' is commonly given as the

explanation for much horrific 'group' bullying (ijime) and cruelty in
schools. 386 Such bullying sows the seeds of the adult phenomenon that we
have already noted. The obligation to conform, comes to govern and has the
effect of closing off the arena of autonomous choice as it might otherwise
come to be cultivated in the practical imagination. Classical and neo-
Confucianism is predominantly designed to do just this. For, the
sure-footed practical imagining of many positive freedoms or capabilities
requires the presumption of certain publicly acknowledged and respected
negative liberties, or freedom from various kinds ofinterference. 387 Shorn
of the conditions of plausibility such imaginings may, of course, be
repressed and displaced in fictional or filmic identification.388
The puerile grotesqueness of modern Japanese TV 'humiliation' games
and endurance contests is perhaps best seen in this light as a continuation
of an old tradition. Adherence to the therapy of taking voyeuristic or
vicarious pleasure in others' humiliation and pain is hardly peculiar to
Japanese society. It is well represented in the traditions of the northern
English working men's clubs, the Old Music Hall, and the history of public
executions. 389 It is how such therapy is expressed that is distinctive and may
disguise the similarity of emotional gratification involved.
Nakane suggests that the Japanese desire to copy others is generated by
the fear of being laughed at. 390 Similar considerations are no doubt a
motivation for the resort to much gift-giving outside the family taking the
form either of cash (new notes appropriately enveloped or wrapped), or of
precisely price-ranked gifts or tokens. 391 A by-product of this association is
that it enhances the meretricious identification of the virtue or goodness of
a thing with its money-value. Such ranking accords with considerations of
relative status and hierarchical position. Graded standardisation reduces the
potential for embarrassment caused by making a fool of oneself. This might
be induced by a gift expressing a mistaken perception of one's status
relative to the person who receives it or simply jarring with the recipient's
perception of such. The giver seeks to avoid the very undesirable con-
sequences of his miscalculating his persona-image before the receiver.
Correspondingly, what otherwise might be the onus on the receiver to
improvise a response is removed since receiving a standard persona-
expressing token is governed by etiquette. Apart from their merely
economic function such gifts are tributes rather than, or as much as,
presents. Tributes act as signs that one has honoured or paid appropriate
respects to a person. Condescension respects a person's persona. Such
standardisation seeks to ensure harmony ofpersona and persona-image. 392
Gradation is a means for the ritual welding of social description to pre-
scription - of providing a conventional bridge across Hume's is/ought
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divide. 393 Indeed, the transactions of honour as a whole achieve this, for as
Pitt-Rivers noted,

'. . . they not only provide, on the psychological side, a nexus

between the ideals of society and their reproduction in the actions of
individuals - honour commits men to act as they should (even if
opinions differ as to how they should act) - but, on the social side,
between the ideal order and the terrestrial order, validating the
realities of power and making the sanctified order or precedence
correspond to them. Thus, thanks to its duality, honour does some-
thing which the philosophers say they cannot do: derive an ought
from an is; whatever is becomes right, the de facto is made de jure,
the victor is crowned with laurels, the war-profiteer is knighted, the
tyrant becomes the monarch, the bully, a chief.'394
Subsidiary to the point of such gifts, and in the neo-Confucian spirit of Zhu
or Chu Hsi (J: Shushi), is the desire to avoid the risk, not merely of
miscalculation but also of ethical ineptness, of conferring importance on
personal feelings, susceptibilities, tastes or idiosyncrasies. As Whalen Lai
shows (in this volume), Chu Hsi's metaphysics distinguished non-material
Principle from material Ether:
'Principle is public, moral reason; Ether ends up being private, parti-
cularized feelings. The latter though not evil is susceptible to evil. In
practical terms, moral learning henceforth meant letting public
Reason override private Emotion ... The result is that when Chu Hsi
re-wrote the classical rites ... he did not just simplifY the classical
rules. He added to that goodness of ritual form a puritanical cult of
self-control and of perpetual vigilance.'395
Though power and authority forge interest, interest guides rather than governs
perception. What may appear to be self-perpetuating harmony in hierarchical
Japanese status relationships is open to doubt, for reasons peculiar to
modernity. For whilst the inducement to 'harmony' in status-governed
relationships in Japan is enhanced by the individual need to avoid being
'considered irresponsible and untrustworthy' (the penalty for not fulfilling
one's giri and especially on, and likely to bring grave consequences for an
agent's prospects of preferment), they are rendered unstable for other
reasons.396 Status relationships are constantly threatened in a society where
there is, individually, for groups, and nationally, what Nakane has described as,
'a desire to be on a level similar to the other person who is supposed to be
higher than oneself,'397 Such motivation is to be expected when, on the one
hand, elaborate etiquette commemorates and serves to authorise the form of
hierarchical relationships, whilst on the other, general human predispositions
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

that modernity has claimed for itself have been at least quickened by the
manifold opportunities that modernity itself represents. Burke noted the
relative strength of ambition as a motive to distinguish oneself compared
with the desire to imitate others, remarking that:
'It has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort
that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is, that where we
cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to
take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of
one kind or another. '398
As different a thinker as Nietzsche stressed repeatedly and more broadly
still that 'every living thing does everything it can not to preserve itselfbut
to become more,' (my italics)399 and that, 'self-preservation is only one of
the indirect and most frequent results. '400
The omnipresence of potential ridicule is a frequent theme in Japanese
literature. Botchan, the hero who provides the title for one of Soseki' s much
loved works is the constant butt of ridicule, and there is not reason to think
this a literary conceit. 401 The thought that the desire to humiliate (kutsujoku)
has little to do with honour (meiyo) is perhaps to display a post-Protestant
reading ofpracticallife.402 Ifnot universal, the connection between honour
and humiliation exists in many Asian societies and among those of the,
especially rural, Mediterranean basin (where the institution of the
'cuckold': cabrao, corno, cabron, cornuto, is a hallmark ofhumiliation).403
It would be difficult to claim its absence from those widely dispersed
communities which, whether through migration or colonisation, are off-
shoots of older Mediterranean communities.404 Whilst Christian ethical
teaching has undoubtedly had some affect on the moral psychology of
many people in contemporary post-Christian societies, even casual obser-
vation of various types of interpersonal relationship makes one sceptical
about the extent of its power to re-define honour, or to inhibit the private
harbouring of Schadenfreude, or the desire to take revenge and to
humiliate.
Secondly, one reason shy ridicule can have such a devastating effect in
Japanese life is because its responsive audience is felt to be omnipresent:
'the wall has ears' (kabe ni mimi ari). Another reason, as Mr Pooter found,
is that too pressing a concern to avoid appearing ridiculous increases one's
chances of being so. Similarly, a high degree of self-consciousness, of
anxious concern over one's persona-image rarely enhances one's
sensitivity to the particularities of other people's feelings and interests.
Given the lack of prominence, favourable acknowledgement and public
respect for intimate non-instrumental friendship, respect for privacy is
rarely present and the confidences imparted the more nimbly betrayed.
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 Friendship East and West

Failures in circumspection, adroitness, or self-discipline, or in professional

life, evidence of imperfection or egregiousness, may appear ridiculous
before an imagined audience. If such occasions are in view of an actual
audience, humiliation ensues.

XXIV. The Adequacy of Aristotelian Self-Respect?

There is perhaps another consideration which cedes the ethically threaten-
ing territory from shame to humiliation and fear of ridicule. The key
variable here is the degree to which an honour-code gives priority to
face-saving over Aristotelian self-respect. Aristotelian self-respect derives
from one's ability to carry out one's intentions in the activities that
exemplify one's aptitudes. Just being able to appear to do so, won't give
one such self-respect.405 If one respects oneself, the implication is that one
has the confidence to carry out one's intentions - to do what one intends,
not merely to be able to appear to do so. If one's confidence to carry out
one's intentions is justified and one has good grounds for believing that the
ends at which one aims are valuable, then fear of humiliation and/or
ridicule is lessened. Such self-confidence is anchored down with an under-
standing of the grounds of one's self-respect and so in authentic identifi-
cations. One is fore-armed against the presumptions of an audience so long
as it shares one's conception of reasonableness.
The contrary ideal to that of a pure honour-as-precedence society would
be that in which agents' self-esteem was wholly anchored in their Aristo-
telian self-respect.406 Although some may contend to the contrary, there are
reasons for thinking such an ideal is incompatible with all the reasonably
grounded needs characteristic of men and women. Many of us need, now
and again, some of us for inordinately much of the time, to be found
interesting or objects of affection, attractive, or in some way significant to
one or more people. These other sources of self-esteem are part of what
lends us our self-respect.407 Many such sources of self-esteem and the
self-confidence to which they give rise are more vulnerable to the vicissi-
tudes of the audience than either the self-esteem that stems from upholding
values upon which one's Aristotelian self-respect rests, or from that basic
pride that heralds defiance of or resistance to the danger of degenerative
adaptation.408 To the extent that one's self-esteem presumes not merely on
others' opinions, but upon the involved emotions and attitudes that parti-
cular individuals, such as friends, lovers or one's children may regard one
with, one's self-esteem will be fragile. Against the withdrawal of such
attitudes or emotions an internalised dramatic audience can provide no real
defence.

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

XXV. Self-Esteem and Self-Respect

Though different in kind from Aristotelian self-respect, basic self-esteem is
perhaps the more widely distributed of the two forms. Basic self-esteem
stems from agents valuing powers that in the Hobbesian sense posses
'worth'. Such powers are estimated at 'his price, that is to say, so much as
would be given for the use of his power: and therefore is not absolute; but
a thing dependent upon the need and judgement of another. '409 Such powers
display great variety and are not confmed to the category of the ethical
however broadly the latter might be conceived. The valuing of such power
and the self-esteem that attaches to its possessor may be quite promiscuous
respecting the kinds of ends regarded as worthy of pursuit. Basic self-
esteem may just as easily accrue to one from one's sensing that others'
regard for one is based on fear as on admiration. Only if one's self-respect
stemmed entirely from one's competence in activities that one found to be
good in themselves, would it be the case that Aristotelian self-respect had
displaced and made redundant basic self-esteem.
A case in which the distinction can be drawn clearly is that of the
Dumfriesshire blacksmith, Kirkpatrick MacMillan, who in 1839 built the
first self-propelled bicycle. Saying that he wanted for nothing and was
entirely content with the circumstances of his life, he eschewed fame and
fortune preferring to continue taking pride in his artisan skills. MacMillan
had self-respect and a pride in his work. He may have had self-esteem that
rested on the competences and other activities that gave him his self-
respect. It appears he had no hankering for further self-esteem. His
(artisanal) attentions were given to his work and the practising of the skills
it involved. Self-respect is unlike self-esteem in that it does not require one
to have emotions, beliefs, or desires respecting oneself in relation to one's
activities or condition. Therefore, no particular attitude to oneself has to be
true of oneself for one to have self-respect. This is not the case with
self-esteem. It requires one to consciously believe that one's own way of
life is superior to those of others. As Rawls pointed out, 'it implies a
confidence in one's ability, so far as it is within one's power, to fulfil one's
intentions.'4IO Rawls links this conception to what he refers to as the
Aristotelian Principle. This states that, 'other things being equal, human
beings enjoy the exercise of their realised capacities (their innate or trained
abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realised, or
the greater its complexity. '411 This doctrine seems to rest on inform ground
empirically if one includes activities which though important to people's
lives are more closely connected with self-esteem, or with self-respect that
has its source in activities which are not necessarily improved by being
made more complex, or which are accompanied by other forms of gratifi-

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cation. It doesn't seem obvious that sexual activities either do or ought to

obey the Principle. Nonetheless, the fact that on the Aristotelian model,
self-respect and an agent's potential for shame increase and decrease in
tandem indicates that an agent's potential for shame depends on his exer-
cising of abilities he believes worthy of respect.
Self-esteem is not in itself indicative of an agent's abilities. A person can
gain or have self-esteem on account of his large bank balance, what he
owns, his looks, his being the youngest ever champion of some fashionable
sport, his belief that he is found attractive by his wife, or on account of the
fear that he is able to inspire in others. His self-esteem need not be affected
by his knowing how he made his money, but his self-respect is. Similarly,
whereas the youngest ever champion's self-esteem is based on his aware-
ness of himself as being the youngest-ever-champion, ifhe respects himself
for being so it will be because it is the result of playing well. Much
self-esteem and its loss are sensitive to what Runciman called an agent's
reference groupS.412 Where, as in Britain, there is great variety in the
objects of esteemed consumption because given that reference groups cut
across each other so much, one person's status symbol tends to be another's
object of ridicule. Snobbery tends to be the more complex in consequence,
and shame narrowly confined. Self-esteem may result from the most
Veblenesque type of conspicuous consumption, but one can't have 'shame-
avoidance' as one's reason for acting so. Echoing St. Jerome, Adam Smith
was adverting to a condition of shame-avoidance when he said that the
currency of acceptability in eighteenth century Glasgow, was being able to
appear in a linen shirt. 413 It is not susceptibility to shame, but 'competitive
conformity' that makes each of the households of a late twentieth-century
Japanese community strive to possess the latest in agricultural machinery
regardless of whether it serves best its practical purpose.414
In Japan, self-esteem is acutely sensitive to diminutions and reversals in
the value of an agent's persona-image before his group. There is little room
for an independent appeal to be made to values anchored to the competent
or excellent exercising of abilities. Rather, such values are relational. In
this, the Japanese honour-code again bears a resemblance to what has been
claimed to be women's value orientations, to what Gilligan thinks of as a
different kind of responsibility. In this, the Japanese honour-code again
bears a resemblance to what has been claimed to be women's value orienta-
tions, to what Gilligan thinks of as a different kind of responsibility. In the
following passage she begins by quoting with approval a girl high school
student's view that, 'Responsibility is taking charge of yourself by looking
at others around you and seeing what they need ... and taking the initia-
tive.' Gilligan then adds that, 'In this construction, responsibility means
acting responsively in relationships, and the self - as a moral agent - takes
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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

the initiative to gain awareness and respond to the perception of need. The
premise of separation yields to the depiction of the self in connection, and
the concept of autonomy is changed.'415 Now, the relational emphasis
strikes a chord, but then the talk of 'taking the initiative' leads us into an
ethical domain in which emotional suppleness and risk are crucial, and so
away from that in which the Confucian values of self-control, precedent,
hierarchy, and the need to eliminate improvisation dominate. Nonetheless,
the wedding of Confucian identifications and Japanese localism would
seem to be an example of what is meant by 'selves in connection' and the
yielding of 'the premise of separation. '416 This may give pause to the
thought that relational values or a relational ethics is in and by itself an
attractive perspective from which to conduct ethical reappraisal. Moreover,
relational value is not incompatible with a sub-Kantian transcendental
subject. Hume was wrong to think that pride gives us our idea of the self.
On the contrary, we can only experience pride, shame, humiliation and so
on because - unlike the lower animals - it is a presupposition of our
capacity to have such experiences that we have an idea of ourselves that is
not synonymous with the experience of such states. If I am ashamed of my
cowardliness in not sticking up for my friend, it is not one of my persona-
images, that of my being a friend that is ashamed, it is me.
Self-esteem, and self-respect may exist independently of each other. I
have suggested, however, that in the Japanese honour code, self-respect
barely exists unless borne up by self-esteem, and that a reputation for
loyalty and diligence figure prominently in such esteem. For self-esteem is
the estimate one has of oneself as one believes or imagines one is valued by
those others whose opinions matter to one. Conformity in such evaluations
confers its own authority. If self-respect and self-esteem can be distin-
guished in such a scheme, the former can be said to attach to one's ability
to maintain a good reputation, this being the seat of one's self-confidence.
Conversely, in ethical contexts in which the standards that gauge a person's
fitness, aptitude or good character are, in principle, independent of the
opinions others may happen upon, a greater proportion of the sources of a
person's self-confidence will have their base in his self-respect. In contrast,
any defensive honour code offers precious little opportunity for victims to
appeal to such independent standards, and a cruel truth about such a code,
whether governing the self-evaluations of women within various Medi-
terranean communities or those of contemporary Japanese, is that when
opinion crystallizes, the code has so little to offer a victim's self-defence-
apart from pretence. So, face, which is the last resort of the defiant or the
guilty in ethical life more generally, is the first port of call and the safest
harbour when accusation beckons or before submitting to humiliation. In
this respect, face in defensive codes is adopted with that readiness which in
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 Friendship East and West

aggressive or assertive honour codes characterizes the impulse to demand

satisfaction from someone who has deliberately affronted one, that is,
someone one cannot (successfully) disdain. Earlier in this chapter, I
claimed that shame can take different forms. Our susceptibilities to shame
reflect our identifications (and so are a way of informing, reminding or
shocking us into acknowledging what we sometimes forget, or aren't
sufficiently aware we value), but this may not make them any the easier to
understand for the agent. In many matters we may know our suscepti-
bilities, and so are able to take preventive action. Such strategies do not
always indicate that we understand reflectively what we are avoiding, even
when we know why we are avoiding it: I feel ashamed - so ashamed I don't
want to ask myself why this thing should shame me. I just want to separate
myself from the shameworthy object. Avoiding such confrontation tends to
reduce my capacity for reflective self-understanding.

NOTES
An earlier and shorter version ofthe second half of this paper was presented at
the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Conference on Ways of
Understanding Cultural Diversity, July, 1993, Hancock, Massachusetts. lowe
thanks to John M Koller and Ben-Ami Scharfstein for their question, though I
doubt whether I shall have managed to answer them to their satisfaction. lowe
thanks to Munekazu Tanabe for giving me, during many hours of work over
the past two years on the 4th edition of Kenkyusha 's New College Japanese-
English Dictionary, the benefit of his extensive knowledge of Japanese idiom
(and not infrequently of the intricacies of Old and Middle English grammar).
I thank Paul Hoornaert, Peter Robinson and Oliver Leaman (the editor ofthis
volume) for their comments, criticism and generously given time, and the
latter for his extraordinary forebearance. My greatest debt is to Nina Edwards
who took time off from more pressing concerns and from altogether more
appealing pursuits to read severally the parts and the whole of this essay, and
discuss it with me on countless occasions. I alone am responsible for the views
expressed, for any errors of fact and opinion, and for the infelicities of style
and expression that remain.
2 From Human, All Too Human, trans. by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann,
intro and notes by Marion Faber, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1994, Section 9,
Man Alone With Himself, 588, p.248.
3 The use I have in mind for the phrase 'aggressive humility' is one that
distinguishes between a style of presentation that invokes humility in one's
manner and the aggressive or assertive character of the aim(s) of one's
actions. The preferred phrase, 'to make a firm purpose of amendment', used
in the Catholic confessional and expressing an attitude of contrite
determination is distinct from the use I make of 'aggressive humility' here.
Nor is the latter phrase being used here to suggest more broadly that the agent
is trying to convince others - epistemically or just psychologically - and so
sometimes also himself of his declared detennination to change his ways. For

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

the phrase used by Stanley Fish of Stephen Booth and apropos psychological
conviction see Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class?, Cambridge,
Harvard UP, 1980, p.355.
4 An extensive treatment of many related issues can be found in Stanley Cavell,
The Claim ofReason: Wittgenstein, Scepticism, Morality and Tragedy, Oxford
Blackwell, 1979, (hereafter TCR).
5 See W. B. Gallie, "Essentially Contested Concepts", in his Philosophy and
The Historical Understanding, London, Chatto and Windus, 1964,
pp.l57-l91.
6 This paper certainly draws heavily on many fme detailed anthropological
investigations. For a study of honour and shame that incorporates a very
valuable general discussion of how the concepts operate and which I found
most helpful, see Julian Pitt-Rivers, Honour and Social Status, in Honour
Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. G. Peristiany, Chicago,
Univ of Chicago Press, 1966, (hereafter HSS), pp. 19-78; See also Michael
Herzfeld, Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis ofMoral
Systems, in Man (N.S.), 15,339-351; and, for a very exceptional work in the
history of ideas informed by much comparative work, see Eiko Ikegami, The
Taming of The Samurai: Honorific Individualism & The Making of Modern
Japan, (hereafter TSS), Cambridge, Harvard University Press 1995. Pitt-
Rivers' imagery aptly captures what may be lost: 'Like tropical fish whose
radiant colours fade once they are taken from the water, the concepts which
compose such a system retain their exact significance only within the environ-
ment of the society which nurtures them and which resolves, thanks to its
intemal structuring, their conflicts with each other'. ibid. p.39.
7 Julian Pitt-Rivers, Honor, (hereafter HON), in David L Sills ed., International
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 6, New York, The Macmillan
Company and The Free Press, 1969, p. 150.
8 If there is going to be much of a future, an awareness of overwhelming dangers
in the form of ecological considerations will probably have to play its part in
moderating the insistent desire for precedence among nations.
9 The term ideological is being used now in its merely descriptive sense. See
Raymond Guess, The Idea of a Critical Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press 1981, pp. 4-12.
10 Ikegami explains that even though for reasons of shame-avoidance late
Tokugawa samurai rarely claimed their legal privileges - their exemption from
prosecution for disrespect-killing and wife-revenge - the continued exemption
provided, 'two outlets for violence . . . retained because they conveyed
significant symbolic messages of the valuation ofthe samurai's cultural and
social tradition: the samurai's status-superiority to other classes (in the case of
disrespect-killing) and the disciplinary prerogative within the samurai house-
hold (in the case of wife-revenge) ... their major impact was ... to induce in
samurai, samurai women, and commoners a conscious awareness of the full
implications ofthe Tokugawa power hierarchy.' TSS, p. 247.
11 Pitt-Rivers, HON, p. 506.
12 Pitt-Rivers, HON, p. 509.
13 See Pears, Motivated Irrationality (hereafter MI), Oxford, Blackwell 1984 p.
73-75.
14 Much research on the subject of hot and cold errors is presented and summarised

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 Friendship East and West

in Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings ofHuman Iriference hereafter

HISSH/), Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1980.
15 Nisbett and Ross are frank about their 'prejudice' in favour of cold errors. 'We
proceed from the working hypothesis that inferential and judgemental errors arise
primarily from non-motivational - perceptual and cognitive - sources. Such
errors, we contend, are almost inevitable products of human information-
processing strategies. In ordinary social experience, people often look for the
wrong data, often see the wrong data, often retain the wrong data, often weight the
data improperly, often fail to ask the correct questions of the data, and often make
the wrong inferences on the basis of their understanding of the data. With so many
errors on the cognitive side, it is often redundant and unparsimonious to look also
for motivational errors. (my italics), HISSHI, p. 12.
16 For an explomtion ofcounterfactual history that goes beyond what I am suggesting
in the text see If The Moors in Spain had won, Philip Guedalla, in If it had
Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History, London, Longmans, 1932,
pp. 1-19. lowe thanks to Geoffrey Hawthorn for handing me a copy of this article
many years ago. For an ambitious recent treatment of the questions at issue see his
Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social
Sciences, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
17 David G Goodman & Masanori Miyazawa, Jews in The Japanese Mind: The
History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype, New York, Free Press, 1995, pp.
19-20.
18 See Lawrence Wright, Perspective in Perspective, London, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1983, pp. 10--12, for remarks on the different phenomenon of
motion parallax see pp. 335-41.
19 The account of understanding I favour is broadly I line with that outlined by
Michael Scriven in his The Contribution ofPhilosophy ofthe Social Sciences
to Educational Development, in Philosophy & Educational Development, ed.
George Barnett, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1966, pp. 47-68.
20 As was that of women aristocrats in the southern Spain of Pitt-Rivers' study,
HSS,p.71.
21 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, (hereafter L), Pt. 1, ch. 10, ed. & intro. Michael
Oakeshott, Oxford, Blackwell, 1960, p. 60.
22 HSS, p. 23.
23 See John Plamenatz, Man and Society, Vol. I, London, Longmans, 1963, pp.
265-276.
24 Mariko Tarnanoi, Shame, Family and State in Catalonia and Japan, in David
D. Gilmore ed., Honour and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean,
special publication, American Anthropological Association 22, Washington
DC: A.A.A., 1987. See also the discussion in Ikegarni, ITS, p. 17.
25 Pitt-Rivers remarks that when 'honour and shame ... are not equivalent,
(they) are linked exclusively to one sex or the other and are opposed to one
another.' HSS, pp. 42-43.
26 As Ikegarni puts it: 'The theme of women's virtue and virginity was relatively
subdued and secondary in the scheme of the Tokugawa samumi culture of
honor.' ITS, p.246.
27 The classic study is Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and The Sword:
Patterns ofJapanese Culture, 1946, Tokyo Charles Tuttle, (hereafter CS).
28 There is discussion of this in Lynd, who noted a number of ways in which the
distinction was coming under criticism. See her On Shame & The Search For

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

Identity (hereafter SSI), Helen Merrell Lynd, London, Routledge & Kegan
Paul 1958, pp. 22-3. The quotations from Benedict come from The
Chrysanthemum and The Sword: Patterns ofJapanese Culture (hereafter CS),
Ruth Benedict, Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 46th pr., 1991, pp. 222.
29 See for an extensive discussion of these issues, Shame and Necessity (hereafter
SN), Bernard Williams, Berkeley, California V.P., pp. 73-lO2, 219-223.
30 CS, p. 222.
31 Williams, SN, p. 82.
32 Gabriele Taylor, Pride, Shame and Guilt (hereafter, PSG), Oxford, Oxford V
P, 1985, p. 88.
33 See Guilt and Shame as Moral Concepts, (hereafter GSMC), Anthony O'Hear,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LXXVII, pp. 73-86; also, Williams
points out that Hippolytus, of Euripides' play of that name, 'accused of wrongs
he has not committed, becomes so desperate when his purity is not understood
and accepted that at the climactic moment of his attempt to justifY himself his
wish is to be his own audience'. See S N, pp. 95-96.
34 PSG, p. 60.
35 Such an example is given by Helen Lynd who contrasts the experiences of
Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne in Faulkner's The Scarlet Letter, SSI, p. 31.
But, the thought is familiar in psychoanalytic practice and other contexts: what
is shaming is not the thought of an imagined audience, but one's own
discovery of one's self-deceits.
36 Robert Merrihew Adams in Involuntary Sins, The Philosophical Review,
XCIV, No.1, Jan. 1985,3-31, explores numerous interesting cases ofthe way
involuntary states figure in the self-attribution of blame, though the general
thrust is more towards guilt than shame.
37 E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and The Irrational, Berkeley, Vniv. of Calif Press,
1951,p.l1.
38 For discussions which are of the same general persuasion as the above text see
I. Thalberg, Mental Activity and Passivity, Mind, Vol. LXXXVII, No. 347,
July 1978; and Understanding Persons, F.M. Berenson, Brighton, The
Harvester Press, 1981, esp. pp. 118-126.
39 This way of formulating the thought was suggested, or so I recall it as having
been suggested, in Bernard Williams' lectures entitled Shame & Necessity,
The J. H. Gray Lectures, Cambridge, Faculty of Classics, 1984.
40 See The Anatomy of Dependence (hereafter AD), Takeo Doi, trans. John
Bester, Tokyo, Kodansha International, 1971, revised ed. 1981, p. 55.
41 Doi,AD, ibid.
42 ibid., p. 53.
43 AD,p.49.
44 AD,p. 49.
45 MJU, p. 178.
46 See The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden, New York, Bantam
Books, 1971, pp. 154-172.
47 SeeAJM,p.4-5.
48 See Peking's 'Thought Reform' - Group Psychotherapy to Save Your Soul, in
China Readings 3: Communist China, ed. Franz Schurmann and Orville
Schell, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 134-145.
49 The point is made by Williams this: "Shame looks to what I am ... Ifwe come
to understand our shame, we may also better understand our guilt. The struc-

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tures of shame contain the possibility of controlling and learning from guilt,
because they give a conception of one's ethical identity, in relation to which
guilt can make sense. Shame can understand guilt, but guilt cannot understand
itself." S N, p. 93.
50 See Buruma, WG, esp. pp. 129-135, 162-163. See also Regret: The Per-
sistence of the Possible, Janet Landman, Oxford, pp. 51-56. The other way-
denial- is not infrequent. The latest well known cases at the time of writing
were those of the now dismissed Justice Minister Shigeto Hagano who called
the Nanjingmassacre a 'fabrication' (see The Japan Times, 7 May, 1994,p. 1),
and the similarly dismissed head of the Environmental Agency, Shin Sakurai,
who was reported to have claimed at a news conference on 12.viii.94, that
Japan had not intended to wage a 'war of aggression' in the Pacific during the
Second WW (reported in The Times, 15 August 1994, p. 9). Iritani describes
the Nanking massacre in which over a period of six weeks Japanese soldiers
were permitted to do as they pleased with the native population in what came
to be known as sanko seisaku (kill all, bum all, destroy all). Iritani describes
the soldiers behaviour as 'savage' and 'sadistic'. The 'orgy of cutting victims'
heads off', 'chopping and smashing at the skull', 'ripping the stomach to
pieces', 'burying Chinese people alive', 'cutting up and pushing objects up
into the genital organs', 'dismembering the arms and legs', 'drowning and
burning people to death' cannot expect to meet with a less unfavourable
description - unless, perhaps, one were a postmodernist who held the outlook
with appropriately irresponsible yet inappropriate conviction. Having not a
whiff of such ruthless frivolity about him, Iritani concludes, 'Such ferocity and
cruelty has rarely been seen in the history of mankind'. The grisly episode is
discussed in ibid., pp. 196-205. International estimates of the numbers killed
were 200,000. The official Chinese estimate was 300,000.
51 For a discussion of the international trial in Tokyo of Japanese leaders see
Harold Wakefield, Chap. XVIII: War Guilt, in his New Pathsfor Japan, intro.
Sir Paul Butler, New York, Oxford U P, 1948, pp. 162-183. Bumma reports
that the Japanese' historian Hata Kunihiko thought that, 'the Japanese leaders
should have been tried according to existing Japanese laws, either in military
or civil courts. The Japanese judges he believed might have been more severe
than the Allied tribunal in Tokyo'. When asked 'on what grounds Japanese
courts would have prosecuted their own former leaders?' Hata answered, 'For
starting a war which they knew they would lose' See WG, p. 163.
52 On Hiroshima see Buruma, WG, pp.92-111. On why Nagasaki is a trickier
item to juggle with in that the bomb exploded over a district populated by
burakumin and Christians, it 'had more military targets than Hiroshima', and
the 'Mitsubishi factories ... (that) produced the bulk ofJapanese armaments',
see WG, p. 100. On attitudes and official policy towards the wartime sex-
slavery see George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Sex-slaves of Japan's
Imperial Forces, Tokyo, Yen Books, 1995, and P. N. Bhagwati, former Chief
Justice of India, ILO Defied Convention for 'comfort women', The Japan
Times (hereafter JT), September 25,1994.
53 Resort to the one view or the other is not uncommon. The first is aired by
Nicholas D Kirstof, Why a Nation ofApologizers Makes One Large Exception,
New York Times International, 12 June, 1995, Takaichi's view is referred to
by Minoru Tada, The War Dead did not know, JT, 9 June 1995.

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

54 Such is attested by the Chibichirigawa cave incident where on 2 April 1945,

84 Yomitan residents, Okinawa Prefecture - remaining uncoaxed by offers of
chewing gum and chocolates from American soldiers - turned knives on
themselves after slitting their children's throats, for fear that the Americans
would mete out atrocities of a kind which a young Japanese nurse and others
had reported of Japanese soldiers. See JT, 1994.
55 Iritani, ibid., esp. pp. 160--252. Japan left little ideological trace in the
countries it invaded. However, as Elvin notes, subsequent economic growth in
the Chinese provinces occupied by the Japanese was markedly higher than in
their previously unoccupied neighbouring provinces. See Mark Elvin, The
Pattern of The Chinese Past (hereafter PCP), Stanford, Stanford UP, 1974, p.
312. Humiliation was not the only result of Japanese imperialism. 'Though it
was self-serving,' Beasley remarks, 'it did contribute to the subsequent dis-
integration of European Empires.' Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945, W. G.
Beasley, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1991, p. 251).
56 On Japanese biological welfare experiments on human subjects see especially
pp. 33-81 on the infamous Unit 731, and chap. 10 Who knew? pp. 132-148 of
Factories of Death: Japanese biological warfare 1932-45 and the American
Cover up, Sheldon H Harris, London, Routledge 1994.
57 On the Bataan death march and the Burma-Siam Railway see Gavan Daws,
Prisoners of The Japanese: POWs of World War in the Pacific, New York,
Morrow, 1994., pp. 60--94 and 183-251 respectively. On Japanese prison
regulations and discipline and the grave strategic and military misperceptions
ofthe Allies - what Daws refers to as 'a disastrous white man's miscalculation
about the Japanese, a world-scale mistake' see pp. 94-140.
58 See JT, March 17, p. 2, and October 21, 1993, p. 1 Saburo Ienaga's stance is
supported fairly regularly in articles in English-speaking newspapers in Japan.
For example, see Kenzo Uchida, Japan Should Study 1ts Past, JT, 12
November, 1993 and Face up to our wartime past, Minoru Tada,JT, 26 v. 95.
See also The Brutal Truth about Japan, Robert Whymant, The Guardian, 14
August 1982, p. 15.
59 Hitoshi Motoshima was shot by a right wing extremist for saying in December
1988, that 'the late Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for the war. '
See Lost Without A Faith, Bururna, Time, April 3, 1995, p. 30, and Jonathan
Rauch The Outnation: a search for the soul ofJapan, Boston, Little Brown &
Co, 1992, p. 137.
60 See Hudson, FM, p. 67, and footnote 3 above.
61 For the view that such experiences do constitute the 'root of shame' see
Williams, SN, p. 220, and Taylor, PSG, p. 81.
62 In a moment of cruel wit Emma, of Jane Austen's book of that name,
humiliates Miss Bates at the Box Hill picnic, but it requires the indignant
fair-minded exactness of Mr Knightley's recounting to overcome her initial
attempt to disown the character of the event. In remembering her own part as
she imagines it was experienced by Miss Bates, and aided in that task by Mr
Knightley's account, she imagines Miss Bates' crushed feelings at having
been treated so by an old friend. She feels with her in imagination, thenfor her,
and then in condemning herself for the ugliness of her action she accepts
humiliation and is shamed.
63 See Taylor, PSG, pp. 60--61, Williams, SN, pp. 220--221.

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 Friendship East and West

64 Doi is referring to A Reconsideration ofthe Culture ofShame (Sakuta Keiichi,

Haji no Bunka Saiko, Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo, 1967, AD, p. 55. See above
fn.23.
65 Aside from the just and often repeated criticism that Benedict perceives the
Japanese as homogenous as one might have believed had one been confined to
Benedict's sources (a self-perception which it is not difficult to come across in
current provincial street-ideology), what she said is that 'The primacy of
shame in Japanese life means, as it does in any tribe or nation where shame is
deeply felt, that any man watches the judgement of the public upon his deeds'
(ibid., p. 224. For a fair-minded defence of Benedict as not being in any sense
a racialist see, A New Look at The Chrysanthemum & The Sword (hereafter
NLCS), C. Douglas Lummis, Tokyo, Shohakusha, 1982, pp. 7-10.
66 'With guilt ... I am more dominated by the thought that even ifI disappeared,
it would come with me.' Williams also refers to Morris's remarking that 'guilt
is rooted in hearing, the sound in oneself of the voice of judgement'. See SN,
p. 89, and Herbert Morris Guilt and Shame, in his On Guilt and Innocence,
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California Univ. Press 1976.
67 Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management ofSpoiled Identity (here-
after SMSI), Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1968, p. 15.
68 Goffman, SMSI, p. 19.
69 See the section The Own and The Wise, in Goffman, SMSI, pp. 31-45.
70 See Elias, The Civilizing Process, Vol. 1: The History ofManners, (hereafter
T HM), pp. 129-191. See also Eric Heller's essay Man Ashamed in In The Age
ofProse, Cambridge UP, 1984, pp. 217-232.
71 See O'Hear, GSMC, p. 79.
72 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (hereafter ASU), Oxford, Blackwell
1974, p. 240-241.
73 The remark quoted from On Art and The Mind, Richard Wollheim, London,
Allen Lane, 1973, p. 312 was recorded originally by Nelson Goodman in
Languages ofArt, Indianapolis 1968, p. 33. Also compare: 'The reason for
which a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who,
has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It was
Beethoven's Quartets themselves (the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth) that devoted half a century to forming, fashioning and enlarging a
public for Beethoven's Quartets, marking in this way, like every great work of
art, an advance if not in artistic merit at least in intellectual society, largely
composed today of what was not to be found when the work first appeared,
that is to say of persons capable of enjoying it.' Within a Budding Grove Part
I, Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. 3, Marcel Proust, trans. C. K. Scott
Moncrieff, London, Chatto & Windus, 1941, pp. 146-147.
74 The idea that what bears value is increased for being more fmely discriminated
may illustrate an affinity between Nozick's thought and what is in many ways
his book's target, John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. For Rawls' Aristotelian
Principle (for further discussion of this see sections XXIV-XXV below).
75 A theme often pursued in novels dealing interestingly with snobbery and
against a precise enough background. The 'type' is represented well by Jane
Austen's character Mrs Elton in Emma.
76 See on reference groups W. G. Runciman, Relative Deprivation and Social
Justice, London RKP, 1966. On reference groups with the currency of esteem
being material possessions, Dittmar, summarising Crosby's findings, remarks

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

that 'the essential preconditions for felt deprivation (are) comparisons with
relevant others which make one's own material standing appear below what
one deserves'. See The Social Psychology ofMaterial Possessions: to have is
to be, Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p.45 and F. Crosby, Relative
Deprivation and Working Women, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.
77 I found Ian W. Miller's book though-provoking, appealing and I am indebted
to his excellent discussion of humiliation See Humiliation: and other Essays
on Honor, Social Discomfort and Violence, (hereafter H), Ithaca, Cornell U.P.,
1993, esp,. pp. 93-207.
78 See Miller, H, pp. 165-169, and for a very extensive and illuminating study of
the perverse destruction of the presumption of our humanity see Elaine Scarry,
The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford, Oxford
UP, 1985.
79 I believe the Priteni were the inhabitants of Britain at the time of the Roman
invasion. Caesar confused the then inhabitants of the territory now called
Great Britain with a tribe (the Brittam) who were at the time the inhabitants of
territories now governed by the State of Belgium.
80 See Imagination and Identification, Richard Wollheim, in his On Art and The
Mind, London, Allen Lane, 1973.
81 Compare the saying: 'La lessive de I'honneur ne se coule qu'au sang' ('The
laundry of honour is only bleached with blood') Pitt-Rivers, ibid., pp. 25, 74.
82 See for a similar distinction P.N. Furbank, Unholy Pleasure or the Idea of
Social Class (hereafter UP), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985, p. 86.
83 Miller gives the example of Gawain, see H, p. 192.
84 For discussion of the Marxist conception see W. G. Runicman's False
Consciousness, Philosophy, 1969, pp. 303-313, and Denise Meyerson, False
Consciousness (hereafter FC), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991.
85 See Pears, MI, pp. 77-83.
86 Naturally, this will not apply to those who belong to the 'to understand is to
forgive' or 'everything human is dear to me' school of thought, unless of
course, they are working with a conception of 'the human' that ignores much
of the historical record. There are, of course, some subjects that many of us
find beyond our capacity for centrally imagining, and so are only marginally
plausible subjects for art. Unlike most of us, the administrators of morgues
have to treat necrophilia as a serious practical problem. I have no idea whether
this issues in an understanding of the phenomenon.
87 Obviously not all boasting is vain. There is a use of boast implying that
someone or something is displaying a valued attribute or quality that he
possesses.
88 Cpo Pitt-Rivers, ibid., pp. 42-43.
89 Hobbes, L, p. 36.
90 Quoted in Robert C Roberts, Humour and The Virtues (hereafter HTV),
Inquiry, 31, June 1988, 141.
91 See Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1984, pp.
298-306.
92 George Eliot, Middlemarch, London, Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 183,
hereafter M, p. 183.
93 Luigi Pirandello, On Humour (hereafter OH), introduced, translated and anno-
tated by Antonio Illiano & Daniel P. Testa, Chapel Hill, N.C., U of North
Carolina Press, 1960, p. 92.

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 Friendship East and West

94 Lynd, SSI, p. 32. Auden's review was in the New Yorker, Dec. 18, 1954, pp.
142-3.
95 For discussion of this and related issues, lowe to Nina Edwards a more than
usual debt of gratitude.
96 Christopher Ricks, Keats and Embarrassment (hereafter KE), Oxford, Oxford
Univ. Press, 1974, pp. 5-6.
97 The authorial voice is speaking ofthe education of Dorothea's understanding,
George Eliot, M, p. 22.
98 In thinking about these issues, lowe a debt to Roberts' stimulating article
(HTV, esp. pp. 139-145).
99 The way I am using this distinction is that, whereas character refers to a
certain stability in those traits whose primarily relevance is in their directed-
ness to the value of activities generally, personality refers to those qualities
which we refer to in describing our repertoire of responses, and how we come
across to other people.
100 See Leviticus 15: 19-30. As one would expect in a pollution-suffused religion
such as Shintoism menstrual blood gets a bad press. Befu reports the custom
in some parts of Japan that menstruating women used to be segregated in
special huts outside the village, Japan: An anthropological introduction (JAJ)
H. Befu, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1981, p. 106. Also see Hendry, MClpp. 201, 223, fil.
8. For an eminently reasonable recent discussion of attitudes to and beliefs
about menstruation, see Sophie Laws, Issues of Blood: The Politics of Men-
struation, London, Macmillan, 1992.
10 1 Although the theme has itself been much explored over the history ofimagina-
tive literature, there are few more perspicacious portrayals designed for the
modem eye and ear than can be found in the character of Ada played by Holly
Hunter in Jan Campion's The Piano.
102 See John Berger, Ways of Seeing, London, BBC and Penguin Books, 1972,
esp. pp. 35--64.
103 Some of these issues are aired in Simone De Beauvoir questions Jean-Paul
Sartre, in New Left Review, May/June 1976, pp. 71-80.
104 A radical 'conversion' is non-rational- what one finds oneself approving and
valuing had no source in one's antecedent reasons for action - but not illusory.
Rational self-appraisals can tum out to be illusory if the world changes in
certain ways without warning and radically.
105 Pirandello, OH, p. 115-118.
106 See Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press,
1974,pp.226-227.
107 Pirandello, OH. p. 24ff.
108 Pirandello, ON, p. 113.
109 See Wollheim, Imagination and Identification, pp. 65-80, and Cavell, CLR, p.
421-423.
110 See Gary P Leupp, Servants, Shophands, and Labourers in the Cities of
Tokugawa Japan (hereafter SSL), Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1992, pp.
72-92.
III I am indebted to a perceptive discussion of the Dostoyevskean concern with
humiliation in Miller, H, p. 170.
112 See Buruma's chapters on Hiroshima and Nanking, in WG, pp. 92-135.
113 Buruma, WG, pp. 53-55.

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

114 See Katie Riophe, The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism, London,
Hamish Hamilton" 1994, pp. 51-84.
115 In Changing Places, a university lecturer in English wins by admitting to other
astonished contestants and members of his own department that he has never
read Hamlet. When the department are next scratching their heads desperately
looking for some way in which budget cuts can be made and their own skins
saved, someone eventually remembers how the victory was gained.
116 See P. N. Furbank, UP, p. 124, and Elias, PC, 1939, Oxford, Blackwell, 1982.
117 See PC, pp. 292-300, and THM: 'In order to be really 'courteous', by the
standards of civility, one is to some extent obliged to observe, to look about
oneself and pay attention to people and their motives. In this . . . a new
relationship of man to man, a new form of integration is announced.' p. 78;
also see Furbank, UP, p. 119.
118 Elias, THM, p. 138.
119 Miller's view that, 'shame requires groups of rough equals, while humiliation
can work within and across stable hierarchies' is perhaps slightly different to
mine in this respect. See H, p.x., and 117-136.
120 See James Drever, A Dictionary of Psychology, London, Penguin, 1953, p.
125; Richard Wollheim, Identification and Imagination, in Freud A Collection
of Critical Essays, ed. R. Wollheirn, 1974, New York, Anchor Books, pp.
191-195.
121 Miller puts it well: 'Humiliation and shame are not contagious in the way or to
the same degree that embarrassment ... Our own embarrassment is often our
best indication that we have judged others to be humiliating themselves.' H, p.
ISS.
122 See Richard Wollheirn, Identification, p. 179. Other works of Wollheirn's to
which I am indebted are: The Mind and The Mind's Image of Itself, and
Identification, both in his On Art and The Mind: essays and lectures, London,
Allen Lane, 1973, pp. 31-53, 54-83 respectively.
123 Elias, PC, p. 274, 285--6, 292-300.
124 Elias, PC, p. 300.
125 Elias, PC, pp. 292-293.
126 See Rom Harre, Embarrassment: a conceptual analysis (hereafter E), in
Shyness and Embarrassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology, ed. by W.
Ray Crozier, Cambridge, CUP, 1990, pp. 181-204.
127 Miller,H,pp.152-159.
128 Elias, THM, p. 140.
129 The demand is likely to be accompanied by increases in the tendency to break
free from such restraints and with the often dire consequences that much
modem journalism so vividly and enthusiastically chronicles.
130 For example, if it pleases someone to hide behind a perforated screen and watch a
person who, having freely consented to such disguised observation, has sex with,
say, a toad, then no objection can be lodged on grounds of unfairness to the
bufophile, though the unfortunate toad might have a stronger case.
131 See The Compact Edition ofthe Oxford English Dictionary, (hereafter OED),
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989, p. 779.
132 Ricks, KE, p. 13.
133 See OED, p. 327.
134 There is no space to argue for these views here. But see Bernard Williams, The

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 Friendship East and West

Idea o/Equality, in his Problems o/The Self, Cambridge, C.U.P., 1973, esp.
pp.232-239.
135 See OED, pp. 326-7.
136 Maurice Keen, Chivalry, YaleUP, 1984,pp.2, 131, 149,249.
137 I do not know how significant, if at all, were the differences between north-
western and Mediterranean European chivalries in this matter. For some
remarks to this effect drawn mostly from somewhat later Italian and Spanish
theorists of honour see Pitt-Rivers, ibid., p. 32-34. I am grateful to Maurice
Keen on this point.
138 For an example of this assimilation see Hugh Mellor, Telling The Truth, in Ways
o/Communicating, ed. Hugh Mellor, Cambridge, C.u.P., 1989, Lecture 4.
139 We may remember the different situations and attitudes taken up by Frank
Churchill and Jane Fairfax to their secret in Jane Austen's Emma, and Emma's
particular dislike of Jane's never forwarding an opinion of her own.
140 Ricks, KE, p. 15.
141 Compare St Augustine: 'I take no pleasure in being thought by my dearest
friends to be such as I am not. Obviously, they do not love me, but another in
my name, if they love, not what I am, but what I am not.' See S. Aureli
Augustini Hipponiensis episcopi epistulae, (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesi-
asticorum Latinorum, 44, ed. A. Goldbacker, Vienna, 1895-1923. The remark
is quoted in Maria Aquinas McNamara O.P., Friendship in St. Augustine, in
Studia Friburgensia, New Series, 20, p. 209.
142 George Eliot, M, p. 183.
143 Apart from the evidence oflanguage usage, there are an indefmite number of
illustrations of the authoritarian character of interpersonal relations one could
give from everyday life. An example of the former would be the natural
statement of a father saying, Watashi wa watashi no musuko 0 isha ni shita (' I
made my son a doctor'). lowe thanks to Takeshi Kogurna for this example and
for discussions with him relating to his Cognitive Analysis o/Complex Tran-
sitive Verb-structures, Kanazawa University MA thesis submitted March
1995. A colourful example of daily life from a local private university, which
two months previously had received a visit from an ex-US Secretary of State
to take his honorary degree, took place in January 1993. 'The Snow Country'
had been living up to its reputation and one day 6{}-70 students and Faculty,
held up on their commuter journeys, 'clocked-in' late. After having the
offending faculty and students line up outside, berating them, and having each
in tum walk several paces forward and express his or her humble apology for
being late, the President then gave a signal and a line of transit vans trundled
towards the offenders. Each person, including a number of western members
of Faculty were issued with shovels and driven offto spend the rest of the day
shovelling snow. No surprise was expressed when I asked a number of
Japanese friends for their reactions. On authority in agricultural communities
see R. P. Dore, Land Re/orm in Japan, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, pp.
351-387, and Documents A, Band C in Social Control in the Hamlet,
Appendix IV, pp. 490--491. See also Elias, THM, pp. 7{}-84, 134--143.
144 Pitt-Rivers found that in Spain there was considerable variation in the import-
ance attached to precedence in the pueblo (in Andalusia), and a consistently
marked increase in its importance as the centre of national society is
approached. HSS, pp. 53-55.

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

145 See Liam Hudson, Frames ofMind: Ability, Perception and Self-perception in
the Arts and Sciences (hereafter FOM), London, Methuen, 1968, pp. 6, 4-7.
For Hudson's earlier work on 'convergers' and 'divergers' see his Contrary
Imaginations: a psychological study of the English Schoolboy, Harmonds-
worth, Penguin Books, 1967. pp. 49-67.
146 See FOM, 66-fJ7, and Derek Wright, The Psychology of Moral Behaviour,
(hereafter PMB), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971, p. 214-215. For further
remarks on this subject see below, section XVI on Guilt.
147 PMB,pp. 101-102, 106.
148 See Leupp, SSL, p. 76.
149 See Leupp, SSL, p. 77, and Edwin 0 Reischauer, The Japanese Today: Change
and Continuity, (hereafter TJ1), revised and enlarged ed., Tokyo, Tuttle, 1992,
p.168.
150 See PMB, p. 217.
151 PMB, p. 216.
152 For a well-argued discussion of these issues see Deborah Knight, Selves,
Interpreters Narrators, Philosophy and Literature, 18, 1994, pp. 274-286.
153 See the discussion of girl below section XIV and following. The humiliations
and resentments that the inappropriate giving of gifts can bring with them are
interestingly discussed in Miller, H, pp. 5-7,16-17,20--25,35-48.
154 The translation is Furbank's. See Yves Castan, Honnetee et relations sociales
en Languedoc 1715-1780,1974, p. 179, quoted in Furbank, UP, p. 88-89.
155 See KunioFrancis Tanabe A Concept ofshame to be ashamed of, TJT,3.vi.95.
156 For a socio-linguistic discussion of the history of language in early modem
Europe, of the way language 'echoes' society, for the significance of changes
in the usage of subject pronouns for monitoring the history of intimacy and
detachment, and for a discussion of the conventions of polite conversation in
early modem Italy, see Peter Burke, The Art of Conversation, Cambridge,
Polity,1993,pp.23-7,89-120.
157 See OED, pp. 680--82.
158 Furbank, UP, 119.
159 The quotation comes from Macaulay's History ofEngland, xxiii, V, 2. OED,
p.659.
160 OED, p. 40.
161 OED,p.680--82.
162 Ikegami helpfully suggests 'two ideal types of samurai master-vassal relation-
ships: the first one representing the autonomous aspect characterized by socio-
economic autonomy on the side of followers; the second one stressing the
heteronomous dimension of the relationship, wherein the samurai was tightly
incorporated into his master's house. 'TS, pp. 82-90.
164 For a stimulating discussion of these issues see Furbank, UP, p. 75-143.
165 This very widespread belief among Japanese and non-Japanese alike is, I
suggest, the result of both hot and cold errors of judgement. First, there is a
common confusion of cleanliness with neatness. In the Japanese case this
tendency is perhaps particularly strong owing to the prevalence of ingrained
ideas of symbolic purity and defilement. These pervasive presuppositions
probably issue from Shinto and Buddhism. On Shinto see the entries under
Shinto respectively in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 16, 15th Ed., Wm.
Benton, 1943-73 publisher and Helen Hemingway Benton, Publisher, 1974,

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pp. 671-676; Kodansha Encyclopaedia of Japan, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1983,

Vol. 7, pp. 125-139; Encyclopaedia of Asian History, prepared under the
auspices of The Asian Society, A. T. Embree ed., Vol. 3, London, Charles
Scribner's Sons, Collier Macmillan, 1988, pp. 446-449. See also Japanese
Identity, Isamu Kunita, Fujita Inst. of Management, 62.610,1987. For a local
account ofthe effects in Kanazawa of ideas of defilement on outcasts (senmin)
such as eta, kawata, tonai and monoyoshi see the admirably lucid Kanazawa:
A Seventeenth Century Japanese Castle Town, James L. McClain, Yale V.P.,
1982, pp. 45-46, 129-132.
Second, in ordinary social life rules of politeness or good manners forbid
our casting aspersions on people's cleanliness and this banal fact more often
than notpre-empts any desire to cast our gaze to parts of other people's bodies
or clothing that would betray such shortcomings.
Third, many of us have a blinkered view of the sorts ofthings that we regard
as the fitting objects of hygiene judgements. This is only an application of
Gombrich's point: we are better at detecting meaning than noticing the real
appearance of things. (See Illusion in Nature and Art, ed. by R. L. Gregory &
E. H. Gombrich, London, Duckworth, 1973, pp. 193-243). One hears a
judgement being made over and over again and if this does not itselfmake one
suspicious - as can be the case - then one's expectations are, if they needed to
be, diverted towards what is sparkly, carefully wrapped, and daintily
presented. A non-Japanese may note that this procedure is done more dili-
gently than in her own society. But, in any society watch how often and to
which parts of the body people's hands travel to on a regular basis whilst
employed at the counter to wrap up your meat, fish, seafood, vegetables, at the
baker's, in restaurant kitchens should you often enough get a glimpse. In
Orwell's Down & Out in Paris & London it was the patrons ordering the most
expensive dishes who were the biggest gulls. Do we think much has changed?
A spell in a hotel or restaurant kitchen - whatever the country - might well
dissolve our protestations. For treatment of the significance of 'wrapping' in
Japan see Hendry, ibid. For an anthropologist's and a cultural historian's
theorising of ritual cleanliness see respectively, Mary Douglas, Purity and
Danger: an Analysis ofthe Concepts ofPollution and Taboo, Harmondsworth,
Penguin, 1966, and Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process Vol I: The History of
Manners, trans. Edmund Jephcott, New York, Pantheon Books, 1978, pp.
51-159. For a study of 'perfect Puritan slaves to cleanliness' see Simon
Schama's wOlk on the Golden Age of The Dutch Republic, The Embarrass-
ment ofRiches, London, Fontana Press, 1991, pp. 375-480.
166 As Kawasaki put it, 'the Japanese ... are innocent enough to think, for
instance, that Mt. Fuji is the most sublime peak in the world. I have, however,
seen similar symmetrically shaped volcanoes in other parts of the world, some
perhaps much higher, some even more grandiose and awe inspiring.' Japan
Unmasked, Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle, 1969, pp. 11-12.
167 lowe this example to Sunao Nakagawa.
168 See D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, Bollingen Series LXIV, New
Jersey, Princeton V.P., 1970, p. 363; Kunita, ibid., p. 151, 163.
169 See Kunita, ibid., p. 159-65. As Reischauer put it, 'Ironically, the Japanese,
for all their love of nature, have done as much as any people to defile it.' TJT,
p. 9. What may seem to some non-Japanese odd about the belief is partly
explained by how Japanese geography and climate have for very good reasons

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forged perceptions of the natural world as a set of forces to be feared. The great
care and domain of control needed in order to grow rice under such conditions
is only one of many instances. On the significance of rice in Japanese self-
perceptions see Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time, Emiko
Ohnuki-Tierney, N.J., Princeton U P, 1993. But, this explanation is in-
sufficient. When Kunita says, 'The aesthetic beauty ... is not man-made as in
the West.' ibid., p. 163, he is saying something that might have sprung to the
lips of an English person about Japanese aesthetics. How can what is imitated
by man not be man-made? The confusion goes deeper than this. Funda-
mentally, the Japanese attitude to nature condones greater intervention and
neatening up than does the English. Supposing that Japanese presuppositions
regarding the aesthetics of nature are conditioned by Zen as Suzuki seems to
believe, then the statement that 'When Zen speaks of transparency, it means
... clearing away' (ibid., p. 361), leaves open the evident disposition to
'improve on nature', and that strikes at the heart of English and perhaps
western presuppositions about what is required of the attitude of respect.
Neither the legacies of Christianity nor Romanticism seem sufficient to
account for the attitude. Buruma discusses Japanese 'abhorrence' for 'nature
in the raw'. 'It is worshipped, yes, but only after it has been reshaped by
human hands.' A Japanese Mirror: Heroes & Villains of Japanese Culture,
(hereafter AJM), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985, p. 65.
170 The word is haragei meaning 'implicit manual, or belly understanding'. See
E. o. Reischauer TJT, p. 136.
171 See Tetsuya Fujimoto and Won-Kyu Park, Is Japan Exceptional: Reconsidering
Japanese Crime Rates, in Social Justice: a Journal ofCrime, Conflict and World
Order, Vol. 21, n02, 1994, pp. 110-135. Fujimoto and Park's three main findings
are that (a) Japan's showing ofa very low reported crime rate dates only from the
late 1960s, (b) that despite its low-crime reputation Japan's overall crime-rate has
been rising steadily since 1974, and (c) if the measurement of public safety takes
into account deaths caused by road accidents, those at work, and suicides, then a
rather less favourable picture presents itself The authors conclude that, 'Total
death rates for Japan were not very different from those in the other 15 countries
compared during this period' (ie. from 1950), p. 118.
172 The nihonjinron are, as Dale puts it, 'consciously nationalistic and obsessed
with any idea which might confirm the belief that the Japanese are unique.'
The nihonjinron (discussions of Japanese identity) 'constitute the commercial-
ised expression of modem Japanese nationalism. The rubric resumes under
one genre any work of scholarship, occasional paper or newspaper article
which attempts to defme the unique specificity of things Japanese. It gathers
within its ample embrace writings of high seriousness, imbued with a deep,
often specious erudition, and the facile dicta of interpretative journalism. Its
theme - the quest for autochthonous identity - answers to profound needs,
since it is echoed repeatedly at every level of discourse; and yet the massive
energy invested in these inquiries has ended invariably with, at best trivial
results.' Peter Dale, The Myth ofJapanese Uniqueness (MJU), New York, St.
Martin's Press, 1990, p. 14.
173 See The Anatomy ofSelf: The Individual Versus Society, (hereafter AS), Takeo
Doi, trans, Mark A Harbinson, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1986, p. 138-139.
174 This is annotated in numerous works on so-called bodily communication, but
also in Goffinan's work, see ibid. and Relations in Public: Microstudies of

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 Friendship East and West

Public Order, New York, Harper & Row, 1971, Richard Sennett, ibid., p. 299.
See also Jonathan Miller's Communication without Words, lecture 6 in On
Communication, Cambridge, Cambridge U P, ed. Hugh Mellor, 1991.
175 For a discussion of the now familiar identification between nationalism's
myths and a nation's language, see Anthony D Smith, Language and Com-
munity, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World, (LCER) Cambridge, C.U.P.,
1981, pp. 45-62.
176 For example, Suzuki puts it: 'the Japanese are great in changing philosophy
into art, abstract reasoning into life, transcendentalism into empirical imma-
nentism' ibid., pJ07, and again 'Zen does not follow the ordinary rules of
ratiocination' ibid., p. 406. This general view informs Nobuhiro Nagashima's
A Reversed World: Or Is It? The Japanese Way of Communication and Their
Attitudes Towards Alien Cultures, in Modes of Thought: Essays on Thinking
in Western & Non-Western Societies, ed. Robin Horton and Ruth Finnegan,
London, Faber & Faber, 1973, pp. 92-lll. On what he refers to as the
'minimum message complex' and the theory of yu-gen ('remote & faint, or
obscure') Nagashima claims 'an increased degree of participation by the
receiver'. However, Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Five Precepts, the
rules for the conduct of the lives of Buddhist monks, seems altogether less
carefree. See especially the fourth 'to abstain from false speech'. Buddhist
Scriptures, trans. Edward Conze, Harmondsworth, Penguin Classics, 1959,
pp. 70--73. Dale has an altogether less evasive explanation for the animus or
motivational source of haragei: 'Haragei is only non-verbal because open
declaration of intent is explosive. This mark suggests an outlook marked by
intolerance and suspicion rather than cosy symbiosis, and harmony here is a
very tenuous, fragile matter.' MJU, p. 102, pp. 100--115. This is a tatemae-
saturated form of 'harmony'. It is not unlike that which Fritz Zorn has an
aversion to in his harrowing book, Mars, Picador, 1982, for which I thank
Jeremy Edwards who first directed my attention to it.
177 The first Europeans to set foot in Japan were Portuguese, driven by contrary
winds onto a small island off Kyushu in 1542 or 1543, but the Tokugawa
Shogunate imposed isolation on the islands of Japan until the Meiji Restora-
tion of 1868 whereupon strenuous efforts were made to modernize the
country. See Storry, ibid.; Reischauer, ibid., pp. 3-102, The Rise of Modern
Japan, W. G. Beasley, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1990.
The sorts of difficulties experienced by Japanese who live abroad for a while
- especially children - is a further illustration of this fact. The sense of
belonging to uchi groups and the loyalty therein requires actual presence, so
returnees may be regarded with suspicion. Where possible, concealment of
one's foreign experience is not uncommon. Ifnot, concealment of what it has
brought about in one is the next best thing. See on the topic, The Japanese
Overseas: Can They Go Home?, (hereafter TJO), Merry White, NJ, Princeton
UP, 1992, esp. pp. 103-129. For the external view see The Problems Facing
Japanese Children at School in England, Itsuko Mizuochi and Terry Dolan,
Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 24, No. I, 1994, pp. 123-134.
Compare also Japan's 'International Youth ': The Emergence ofa New Class
ofSchoolchildren, (JIY) Roger Goodman, Oxford, Oxford UP, 1993, see esp.
The Cultural 'Problems' ofKikokushijo, pp. 51-73.
178 'If Japan were much more backward a considerable number of Japan's
intellectuals would have sought training abroad, and could therefore help to

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overcome localism among other Japanese intellectuals ... our predecessors of

the Meiji period, who did study abroad, were much more international in spirit
than the intellectuals of today ... The general tendency of the majority of
Japanese, as is so strongly evidenced by the modem intellectual, is to seek
security rather than autonomy.' Japanese Society, (hereafter JS), Chie Nakane,
London, Pelican Books, Rev. ed. 1973, p. 139.
179 James Morris, Venice, Faber and Faber, 1960, p. 36.
180 For a bracing attack on the idea of mystical conceptions of culture see the
discussion of the 'fundamental attribution error' and others in Making
Common Sense of Japan, Steven R Reed, Pittsburgh U of Pittsburgh Press,
1993, esp. pp. 3-46. However, on the relation between anthropological
relativism and that of contemporary Japanese business elites, see Kosaku
Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: a sociological
enquiry, London, Routledge, 1992, esp. pp. 158-226. On the enterprise system
more generally see W. Mark Fruin, The Japanese Enterprise System: Com-
petitive Strategies and Cooperative Structures, Oxford, Oxford UP, 1992.
181 Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, Ivan Morris, Oxford, Oxford UP,
1960, p. 424, quoted in Dale, MJU, p. 12.
182 For a vigorous discussion of the sources of power in Japan see Karel van
Wolferen, The Enigma ofJapanese Power, New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1989.
183 See The Theory of Socia I & Economic Organization, Max Weber, NY, The
Free Press, 1947, p. 382.
184 The War Against The West, Aurel Kolnai, with a Preface by Wickham Steed,
(WA W) London, Victor Gollancz, 1938, pp. 24-6. The first part from p. 24 is
quoted in Ian Buruma's The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany &
Japan, Farrar, (hereafter WG), New York, Straus & Giroux, 1994, p. 44.
185 Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy, Cambridge UP, 1985.
186 As Ikegami puts it: 'a blend of common sense and established tradition among
the samurai ... a principle of consensus that could be accepted by different
independent social groups', TS, pp. 88-89.
187 TS, p. 89.
188 Jonathan Rauch, The Outnation: a Search for the Soul of Japan, Boston, Little
Brown, 1992, p. 138. Fukuzawa created expressions equivalent to 'liberty', 'right'
and 'equality', 'no laughing matter' suggests Miyoshi, 'in a language long soaked
in the hierarchic, authoritarian, feudal ethos in which no such concepts existed'.
See Masae Miyoshi, As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United
Stated, (hereafter AWST), Tokyo, Kodansha, 1994, p. 169.
189 The point is emphasized by Rauch, ibid., p. 138.
190 See Civil Liberties in Britain, Barry Cox, Penguin Bks, 1975, p. 13.
191 See Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, CI5-CI8: The Wheels of
Commerce, Vol 2, London, Fontana Press, 1985, pp. 585-594.
192 There were numerous vastly wealthy merchants, some with dynastic fortunes
that lasted for more than two hundred years, In any case, it is misleading to
think that there was such a sharp distinction between 'merchants' and
'officials'. For a most lucid account of how close but perhaps inevitably
dissociated China was from the technology-driven accelerated economic
growth which was characterizing Western Europe see The Pattern of The
Chines Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford, Stanford UP, esp. pp. 268-319.
193 Braudel, ibid., p. 590. See also W. J. Macpherson's The Economic Develop-
mentofJapan, c.l868-1941, London, MacMillan, 1987, pp. 24-31, for the

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 Friendship East and West

view that it is a mistake to accentuate the rigidity of sakoku (seclusion policy).

194 Weber, ibid., p. 378, my italics.
195 These two expressions are taken from Ikegami' s recent study of the influence
of the samurai on notions of honour in Japan over the seven hundred years
preceding the Meiji Restoration of 1868. See Eiko Ikegami, The Taming ofthe
Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making ofModem Japan (hereafter
TSS), Cambridge, Harvard U.P., 1995.
196 See discussion of giri and on below Section XIV.
197 See Alan Macfarlane's The Origins ofEnglish Individualism, (hereafter DEI),
Oxford, Blackwell, 1978, esp. 189-206.
198 A classification and introduction to various articulations of individualist
thought can be found in Individualism, Steven Lukes, Oxford, Blackwell,
1973. For a work that focuses more directly on individualism in everyday life,
see Macfarlane, DEI.
199 See TSS, pp. 90-92 and Carl Steenstrup, Hojo Shigetoki, London, Curzon
1979, pp. 78-9.
200 See Emmanuel Todd, The Causes ofProgress Culture, Authority and Change,
Blackwell, 1987, pp. 44-46.
201 See Cox, ibid., pp. 76--120, 291-313.
202 For a very clear-headed account ofnihonjinron attempts to bury the distinction
see Dale, MJU, pp. 61-65. There is compelling evidence that the Japanese
language does not prevent Japanese citizens from attaining an understanding
of what it is to lodge a claim in defence of common interests against corpora-
tions and the state. For an example of such a campaign against a corporate
interests see Japan's Dark Side To Progress: The Struggle for Justice for
Pharmaceutical Victims ofJapan's Post War Economic Boom, Takanori Goto,
Chiba, Manbousha Publications, Japan, 1991. An example of the difficulties
facing someone trying to bring a case against the State for ordering him to
re-write accounts ofthe Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731 (which over several years
carried out thousands of medical experiments on Chinese people), and the
Battle of Okinawa is the long-time campaigner Saburo Ienaga. See JT21.x.93.
and Buruma, WG, pp. 172-3. 189-201.
203 MJU, p. 64.
204 MJU, p. 64.
205 MJU, p. 65. For Doi's use see AS, pp. 40-41.
206 Much of this paragraph is indebted to the admirably clear-headed discussion
in Dale. MJU, p. 64-65.
207 See Politics and The Public Interest in The Seventeenth Century, J. A. W.
Gunn, London, RJ(P, 1069,pp.34-59.
208 The assumptions being made in this paper regarding national myths find
sympathetic expression in Michiel Baud's Identity and Ethnicity in an Island
Laboratory: Nation-building in the Dominican Republic, read at the 23rd
annual meeting of the Society for the Comparative Study of Civilisations,
Dublin, 7-10 July 1994. For different assumptions see E. Hobsbawm, Nations
and Nationalism since 1870: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge C.U.P.,
1990, and Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric
Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1983. There are many cases where sizeable sections of the public protest their
government's or a self-interested group's cynical or pretentious but self-
deceived appropriation of their cultural symbols. The question of marking

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan
remembrance, commemorating or celebrating military campaigns and their
human toll is open to interpretations that don't need to invoke manipulation as
their governing principle. In Soldiers and Pioneers: The Ideological Deploy-
ment o/Clothes in Israeli Society (a paper read at the Venice Conference on
'Masks, Masquerades & Carnival', 1-4 February 1994, Tali Izhaki and
Avraham Oz stress the parodic nature of the dress codes of contemporary
radical nationalist settlers in the Occupied Territories, showing how the latter
have attempted to appropriate for manipulatory ends previously abandoned
myths of early socialist and agriculture-based Zionist settlers. I thank the
authors for a copy of their paper.
209 For the invention view of cultural beliefs and institutions see Smith lists the
attributes of an ethnie or ethnic community as 'I. a collective proper name. 2.
a myth of common ancestry. 3. shared historical memories. 4. one or more
differentiating elements of common culture. 5. an association with a specific
"homeland". 6. a sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the population.'
ibid., p. 21. On wartime memories see Iritani, LCER, pp. 208-211, and
Buruma, WG.
210 The Ethnic Origins o/Nations, Anthony D Smith, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986, p. 91.
211 The Japanese & The Jews, Isaiah Ben-Dasan, trans. from the Japanese by
Richard L Gage, Tokyo, Weathemill, 1972.
212 The ideal is that of a pure minzoku, akin to the Nazi use of the word Volk.
Yamato minzoku refers to the 'ancient clan that unified Japan as a kingdom
around the fifth century, a period associated with pristine Japanese values.
Some proponents of this form of nationalism (Umehara, a Jomonist), fmd that
even the Yamotoists were 'tainted by foreign influence.' See on this Ian
Bumma, God's Dust, New York, Vintage, 1991, pp. 237-262, esp. 244-245.
Cpo Kolnai's rendering of Rosenberg, the father of National Socialist Party
lore: 'The spirit of the race realizes its own ability to assimilate everything
racially & spiritually akin, and, at the same time, the iron need to eliminate and
suppress everything foreign.' Rosenberg's use of the heretical mystic Meister
Ekkehard captures what is involved in 'blood' mythology. 'As Ekkehard
expresses it, there is something in man which is neither conscious will nor the
sensuality of the flesh. He calls blood that higher substance in man's soul
which is not subject to his will. The noblest thing in man is his blood, if it wills
rightly; if it wills wrongly it is the vilest.' Kolnai, WAW, p. 35.
213 See Robert C Christopher, The Japanese Mind (hereafter TJM), Tokyo, Tuttle,
1987, pp. 17-58.
214 For an informative and even-handed discussion of tensions within Japanese
society, see Japan in War & Peace: Selected Essays John W Dower, New
York, The New Press, 1993. The quotation can be found on p. 26.
215 See Rewriting History: Civilization Theory in Contemporary Japan, Tessa
Morris-Suzuki, Positions, 1-2, 1993. I am most grateful to David Kelly for
passing me a copy of this imaginative article. The sentence quoted is on p. 540.
216 The quotation from Arai Hakuseki can be found in Sources 0/ Japanese
Tradition, Vol I (hereafter, SJT I), compiled by Ryusaku Tsunoda, William de
Barry and Donald Keene, Unesco Collection of Representative Works, Japan
Series, New York, Columbia U.P., 1958, p. 465.
217 Steinhoff, ibid., p. 94.
218 The 'break' betWeen pre- and post-inception of the Tokugawa is chronicled in
Ikegami, TTS.

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 Friendship East and West

219 See Straightjacket Society, (hereafter SS), Masao Miyamoto, Tokyo, Kodansha,
1995, and for the sheer terrorism that can be practised by teachers as well as fellow
pupils in Japanese schools see Shogun's Ghost: the Dark Side of Japanese
Education, (hereafter SG), Ken Schooland, Bergin and Garvey, 1990.
220 I have been helped to think about the concepts of shame, and its relation to
self-respect and integrity by Gabriele Taylor's Pride, Shame & Guilt:
Emotions ofSelf-assessment, (hereafter PSG), Oxford, Oxford U P, 1985. On
the idea ofa shame-culture see esp. pp. 54-7,109-111. For discussion of this
ethical domain see chapter 5 of A Critique of Utilitarianism, in Utilitarianism:
For & Against, by J. J. C. Smart & Bernard Williams, Cambridge, Cambridge
UP, 1973, chapters 3-5 & 10 of Moral Luck, Bernard Williams, Cambridge,
Cambridge U P, 1981, and by Williams' J. H. Gray Lectures at Cambridge in
1984 entitled Shame and Necessity. Some ofthe latter are now part of a book
of that title, ibid.
221 This view is argued for in respect of Mediterranean societies in David Cohen,
Law, sexuality and society (LSS), Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1991, pp.
54-69.
222 See chap. 10, The Dilemma of Virtue, pp. 195-227.
223 Doi,AS, p. 33.
224 Benedict, and see her Patterns ofCulture, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1934; E.
R. Dodds, The Greeks and The Irrational, Berkeley U of Calif Press, 1951;
Christopher von Furer-Haimendorf, Morals & Merit: A Study of Values and
Social Controls in South Asian Societies, London, Weidenfie1d & Nicholson,
1967, see esp. pp. 217-221.
225 See Taylor, PSG, p. 55. See also Cohen, LSS, pp. 54-69.
226 O.E.D., Compact Ed., p. 2441.
227 See Japanese preschools and the pedagogy ofselfhood, in Japanese sense of
Self, ed. Nancy R Rosenberger, Cambridge, Cambridge U P, 1992. Tobin goes
on to quote Doi approvingly: 'To be Japanese is to be aware that things have
an omote and an ura, and a person is not considered in adult until he or she has
grasped this distinction.' pp. 24-25, and see Doi, A, 1986, p. 33. Omote and
ura are paired terms, and they shift as the point of view shifts. 'Omote is the
side that is visible to the eye; ura is the side that is not.' As Doi remarks, 'when
the point of view shifts, omote and ura may be transposed,' AS, p.29. Doi
suggests that the reason for this is that 'omote and ura correspond to the
distinction between soto (outside) and uchi (inside) that is often prominent in
the Japanese consciousness of human relations. Omote is that which is pre-
sented to the soto. Ura that which is not presented to the soto, but kept closed
up in uchi' AS, p.24. It may be that the preferred image or stereotype of social
relationships with which Doi is contrasting Japanese social relationships
comes from that which is projected in certain parts of the north American
continent. Perhaps Doi was struck by the differences which the former present
to an image of social relationships in which these distinctions are to varying
degrees unheeded in preferred linguistic practices and so are less evident. That
there may be a gap between preferred linguistic practices and the distinctions
which are evinced by one's emotional dispositions is a contention captured
amusingly in Cyra McFadden's The Serial, London, Picador, 1980. It would
be, to many an English speaker, a presupposition of his linguistic habits and
feelings that he would refer to his brother or sister as 'my brother' or 'my
sister' when speaking to a person whom he felt lay outside a circle of people

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with whom his brother or sister enjoyed a certain degree offamiliarity. There
is little that is peculiarly Japanese in such distinctions. Moreover, the use to
which omote and ura are put in articulating distinctions within Japanese social
relationships is not remotely as mysterious as Doi suggests. When he says that
'since soto and uchi are different for each individual, what is soto for one
person may become uchi for a person included in that soto. Clearly, the
former's omote becomes the latter's ura. In this sense, omote and ura are
extremely relative, and it is for this reason that they suggest a quality of
two-sidedness ... As we have seen, the Japanese actually use - and use
frequently - ways of speaking that signity the two aspects of omote and ura in
things. And even if these aspects are contradictory at the level of words, they
are both true. This is the result of differing points of view. Moreover, Japanese
do not usually make an issue of the fact that there is a lack of logical
consistency between the two. Perhaps this is because we give precedence to
the logic of omote and ura over logical consistency in language ... most
Japanese are not very attentive to using words analytically, and neither are
they very enthusiastic about relying on logical consistency'. AS, p. 29. But,
why is this any different from the ordinary use of tensed terms: later/earlier,
now/then, before/after, or the use of terms such as smooth/lumpy, hard/soft, or
brittle/malleable which have point-of-view-dependent uses? From a different
range of objects. There is no logical inconsistency involved. It is mystification
of this sort which has led some to detect the distinct whiff of the nihonjinron
in Doi's writings. On this, see Dale, MJU, pp. 178-9. I should like to thank
Meir & Shunit Shahal who fITst put me on to Doi's work.
228 Quoted in Ikegami, ITS, p.17.
229 See J. Davis, Land and Family in Pisticci, London School of Economics
Monographs on Social Anthropology, No. 48, London, The Athlone Press,
1973, pp. 28-29.
230 These details I owe to and are all recorded in Joy Hendry's Marriage in
Changing Japan (hereafter MCJ), Tokyo, Tuttle, 1986, p. 133-138. See also
Reiko Atsumi's Basic Social Structures and Family Systems, in Eastern Asia:
An Introductory History, ed. Colin Mackerras, Melbourne, Longman
Cheshire, 1992, esp. pp. 45-49.
231 For an informative discussion of purity and impurity in contemporary Japan
see Illness and Culture in Contemporary Japan: an anthropological view,
(ICCJ) Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984,
esp. pp. 34-38.
232 For an extensive survey of the Burakumin see Japan's Invisible Race: Caste
in Culture and Personality, George DeVos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, Berkeley,
U of Calif. press, rev. ed. 1972. On caste more generally see Caste in the
International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, ed. David L Sills,
NY, Macmillan & Free Press, 1968, pp. 333-344. In a work discussing and
taking issue with Louis Dumont's views (Homo Hierarchicus: the Caste
System and its Implications, Rev. Eng Ed. Chicago 1980), Quigley cautions
against the purity/impurity or doctrinal view of the Indian caste system. See
Declan Quigley, The Interpretation of Caste, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press,
1993, pp. 54-86.
233 MCJ, p. 134. For an account of burakumin life in the Sanya district of
northeast Tokyo see The Other Japan, James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly,
April 1988. I thank Iris Elgrichi for this reference.

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 Friendship East and West

234 MCJ, p. 135. Hendry records the fact that The Eugenic Protection Law - Law
No. 156 of 1948 'makes sterilization and abortion legal for people with a
history of mental defects or other hereditary diseases.' p. 135. Leaving Japan
recently, Steven Hawking remarked aptly, "If I had been born in Japan, I
would be folding paper or making envelopes now." Ishikawa No Tamogo, Vol.
21, Vol. 2, June 5, 1994,p. 7.
235 MCJ, p. 152, fn.38.
236 MCJ, p. 135.
237 MCJ, p. 135.
238 As Stan Sesser, a correspondent of The New Yorker charges that AIDS is the
worst affliction to have in Japan 'because it is perceived as a foreigners'
disease in a country that is intensely xenophobic, and as a gay disease in a
nation where homosexuality is still not discussed.' JT, 9.ix.94, p. 2.
239 MCJ, p. 135.
240 MCJ, p. 136--136.
241 MCJ, p. 133.
242 MCJ, p. 133.
243 Cohen, LSS, p. 65.
244 Cpo Pitt-Rivers, ibid, p. 48.
245 See Nicomachean Ethics, 1155b 19-21.
246 MCJ, p. 138-145.
247 See Reischauer, TJT, pp. 175-180,203-4, 376; ConjUcianism in Modern
Japan: A Study of Conservatism in Japanese Intellectual History, Warren W
Smith, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 2nd ed., 1973. See also R. P. Dore,
Authority and Benevolence: The Confucian Recipe for Industrial Success,
Government & Opposition, 1985, pp. 196--217, Flexible Rigidities: Indus-
trial Policy and Structural Adjustment in The Japanese Economy 1970-80,
London, The Athlone Press, 1988, How The Japanese Learn To Work,
London, Nissan InstitutelRoutledge Japanese Studies Series, 1991, p. 4-5,
128. I should like to thank Kathryn Nyles for first directing me to Dore's work.
248 See Joseph R Levenson, Confucian China and its Modern Fate, London,
Routledge, 1958, CCMFl
249 Seelkegami,TTS,pp.299-369.
250 See Ikegami, TTS, pp. 251-253. lowe thanks to Prof Munekazu Tanabe for
discussion of these points.
251 See ConfUcianism, (hereafter C), James McMullen, in Kodansha Encyclo-
paedia ofJapan Vol. I, intro. E Reischauer, Sep. 1983, Tokyo, Kodansha, Ltd.,
pp. 352-358.
252 C, p. 355.
253 The Religions ofMan, Huston Smith (hereafter RM), Harper & Row, 1958, p.
177-179. For discussion of neo-Confucianism see the entry under Con-
jUcianism, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 4, Chicago, 15th ed., H. H.
Benton pub 1974, pp. 1095-97. For recent debate about the use of the terms
'Confucian' and 'neo-Confucian' see the exchange between Wm Theodore de
Bary and Hoyt Cleveland Tillman in Philosophy East & West, between July
1992 and January 1994.
254 RM,p.179.
255 Aspects of Japanese localism are described by Nakane, JS, pp. 138-143.
256 RM, p. 179.

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257 RM, p. 180-181.

258 JS, pp. 135-136.
259 Furbank remarked on Proust's Franr;oise and her sheer aesthetic delight in
aristocratic technicalities, UP, p. 86. In Japan too, it is evident that many take
a pleasure in their proficiency in presentational technicalities.
260 These distictions are discussed in my paper entitled Manners, Politeness and
Etiquette: western assumptions and modern Japan, at 23rd Annual Meeting of
the Soc for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Dublin, 7-10 July 1994.
261 Befu remarks that, 'Japanese sleeping arrangements emphasize ... mutual
dependence for emotional security. (fhey) fmd it deeply satisfying to sleep in
the company of others ... there is little sexual interest manifested during this
sleeping, even when individuals of different sexes, other than husband and
wife, share a sleeping room. Instead, overt interest in each other's sexuality is
repressed. Here again, one sees the primacy in Japanese emotional life of
sharing each other, as it were, over the idea of privacy' JAI, pp. 163--4.
262 'Although Bedouin husbands and wives sleep together under normal circum-
stances, they would not do so when visiting; each would sleep with members
of his or her own sex ... The public admission of active sexuality implied by
the couple's wish to sleep together was considered the height of immodesty.'
Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, (hereafter VS),
Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1987, p. 49.
263 White, JO, p. 105. See the discussion on pp. 103-129 on which my remarks
are based. See also Goodman, JIY, pp. 58-65.
264 See Bullying Endemic to Japan, Masao Miyamoto, JT, 17 January 1995,p.18,
and his SS, pp. 133-151, for an expanded discussion of the more general
bullying convention in Japanese society.
265 See Miyamoto, SS, pp. 142-144.
266 For discussion of the relationship between 'principle' (Ii, J: ri) and 'ether' or
'material force' (qi or chi, J: kl), see Ki. Ri and Ten, George W. Knox in
Transactions of the Asiatic Society ofJapan, 1st Series XX, pt. 1, 1982, pp.
157-77. In the context of Chu Hsi and other neo-Confucian schools see
McMullen ibid., pp. 1096-97.
267 See Meditations on Thejirst Philosophy, VI, pp. 127-143, in A Discourse on
Method: Meditation and Principles, trans. John Veitch, intro A. D. Lindsay,
Dent, 1969. Williams distinguishes Descartes' conception of there being two
independent kinds of object in the world', as 'substantial dualism'. See
Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, Bernard Williams, Harmondsworth,
Penguin, 1978,p.293.
268 RM, p. 181.
269 Some may find Dore's characterization somewhat understated: 'It is obvious
that Japan is a society in which hierarchical ranking permeates personal
interactions more than most.' Authority & Benevolence, p. 197. See also his
The Ethics of The New Japan on the The Imperial Rescript on Education,
Pacific Affairs, XXV, 2 June 1952, pp. 147-159.
270 RM, p. 182. See also Bumma, AJM, p. 15.
271 RM, p. 183.
272 RM, p. 183-184.
273 See Nakane,JS, on ranking, pp. 26--41, see also Bumma, AJM, p. 15.
274 See JS, p. 28.

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275 See Understand Japanese Society (hereafter UJS), Joy Hendry, Routledge,
1987, p. 202-5. For an early Tokugawa neo-Confucianist, Muro Kyuso, on the
subject see Tsunoda et al., SJT I, pp. 424-430.
276 See Hendry, UJS, p. 94.
277 See Doi, TAD, p. 29-30. Extensive discussion is found throughout TAD; also
see hisA.S.
278 For Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary force see fn.
291 below.
279 One can think up all manner of exceptional cases. For example, someone
involved in counter-espionage might [md it strategically efficacious to
contrive a sycophantic persona before a certain audience in order to get its
members to believe he had motives and aims which he in fact didn't have.
280 If not before, then at this point, existentialists will feel that the assumptions
involved in the claim just made constitute a metaphysical howler about human
freedom.
281 This point lowe to conversations with Maria J Maltas.
282 lowe thanks to Peter Robinson for this example.
283 Robert J Smith, ibid., p. 90. Also see Rom Harre, Personal Being: A Theory
for Individual Psychology, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, p. 259.
284 JS, p. 27.
285 Hobbes, L, Pt. 1, Chap. 10, pp. 57, 62-63.
286 RM,184.
287 Nakane, JS, pp. 42-66.
288 One such was the enlightened Confucianist, Arai Haruseki. See Tsunoda et aI.,
STJ I, pp. 461-466.
289 Warren W Smith, ibid., p. 140, pp. 137-139.
290 Warren W Smith, ibid., p. 104. See also Anti-Foreignism and Western
Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825, Bob Tadashi
Wakabayashi, Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1991.
291 The perlocutionary force of an utterance is distinct from its meaning when
what we do in saying what we say is distinct from the meaning of what we say.
Perlocutionary differs from illocutionary force in that the further effect that
the speaker is trying to produce is overtly conventional in the latter but not in
the former case. The original source of such distinctions is How To Do Things
with Words, J. L. Austin, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962. An example
Strawson uses is germane to the subject matter in our main text. 'The differ-
ence (one of the differences) between showing off and warning is your
recognition of my intention to put you on your guard, whereas your recog-
nition of my intention to impress you is not likely to contribute to my
impressing you (or not in the way I intended).' Strawson, acknowledging in a
footnote a point made by B. F. McGuinness adds that, 'Perhaps trying to
impress might sometimes have an illocutionary character. For I might try to
impress you with my effrontery, intending you to recognise this intention and
intending your recognition of it to function as part of your reason for being
impressed, and so forth. But then I am not merely trying to impress you; I am
inviting you to be impressed.' See Intention and Convention in Speech Acts,
P.F. Strawson, in The Philosophy of Language, ed. J.R. Searle, Oxford,
Oxford Univ. Press, 1971, p. 33.
292 The arrogance which in some may emerge from what are essentially in-
securities has, unsurprisingly, given currency to the appelative 'the ugly

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Japanese' in nearby Asian states. 'Japanese want to be liked, but like them-
selves too much to offer others a genuine invitation to understand how they
really are.' A Chinese Singaporean News Editor, The Straits Times,
Singapore, 27.9.90 quoted in The Ugly Japanese: Nippon's Economic Empire
in Asia, Freidemann Bartu, Yenbooks, 1993, p. 14.
293 Sour Grapes, Jon Elster, C.U.P., 1983. p. 66.
294 The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith, ed. by D. D. Raphael & A. L.
Macfie, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1976, p. 250.
295 On those (Woronoffestimates 80-85% of workers) lying outside the lifetime
employment system, see Jon Woronoffs Japan as - Anything but - Number
One, Yohan, Tokyo, 1991, pp. 36-39, on the quality of life and welfare
system, see pp. 221-272.
296 For the uglier side ofJapanese schooling see Schooland, SG, and R.P. Dore's,
The Legacy of Tokugawa Education, ch. 3 of Changing Japanese Attitudes
Towards Modernization, ed. Marius B Jansen, Princeton U.P., 1965, pp.
99-131, and The Ethics of The New Japan, Pacific Affairs, XXV, 2 June 1952,
pp. 147-159, in which Dore sununarises the debates ofthe late 1940s till 1951
addressed to post-war educational policy. Some ofthe ruses for getting round
the 'strict equality' which is the official aim of fonnal education in Japan are
reviewed in Ezra F Vogel, Japan 's New Middle Class, 2nd ed., Berkeley, U of
Calif. Press, 1971, pp. 57--67.
297 For the illiterate mass of the population outside their own families, church
services were the only group activity in which they participated, see The World
We Have Lost: English Society Before and After the Coming of Industry,
London, Methuen, Second Ed. 1971, Peter Laslett, pp. 1-19, esp. 9. Concern-
ing geographical mobility, it is not the absolute amount of movement that is
significant in pre-industrial societies, but rather the radius of such movement.
For the mass of the rural population in England this has been calculated to be
10-15 miles, see Population movement and Migration in Pre-industrial
England, Malcolm Kitch, in The English Rural Community: Image &
Analysis, ed. by Brian Short, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992, p. 81.
298 See Macfarlane, DEI, 196-198, and his Marriage and Love in England: modes
of reproduction 1300-1840, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986.
299 Macfarlane's thesis merits the inclusion here of his own concise statement.
' ... the argument helps to explain the curious effects of English colonization.
Englishmen who went abroad took with them a system very different from that
present in much of the world. When Daniel Thorner surveyed world
peasantries, he noted that the only areas that had never had peasantries at all
were those colonized by England: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and North
America. It is the argument of this book that this was no accident. Englishmen
did not merely shed their traditional social structure as they walked down the
gang-plank into the promised land, as at least one writer has disingenously
suggested (Shorter, see below). When Jefferson wrote, 'We hold these truths
to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent,
that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable,' he
was putting into words a view of the individual and society which had its roots
in thirteenth century England or earlier. It is not, as we know, a view that is
either universal or undeniable, but neither is it a view that emerged by chance
in Tudor or Stuart England ... The received theory, that England was like the
rest of Europe until the sixteenth century and then became different, and that

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it followed roughly the same set of developmental stages, requires re-

arrangement of most of the evidence we have from the period under
examination. Those accepting the conventional view are forced to argue that
almost all those who wrote about England up to the nineteenth century, both
those who lived there and those who visited the country, were deluded. They
are forced to take the view that those who studied their own past and their own
present were under a massive misapprehension. We have seen, for example,
that Perry Anderson & J. G. A. Pocock dismiss the views of English con-
temporaries and some later historians as a local and totally inaccurate myth.
The dismissal and manipulation of source materials seems to me to be hard to
defend. Of course contemporaries made mistakes and we have to weigh their
words, especially when they were using history for political purposes. Yet it is
surely more reasonable to assume that when they argued that England was
somehow different, when they used 'peasant' only offoreign countries, and
when they minimalized the effects of Norman feudalism, they knew, in
general, what they were doing.' (my italics). OEI, pp. 202-203.
300 OEI, p. 87. For agricultural land-holding and community practices in Japan
see Village Japan, Richard K Beardsley, John W Hall and Robert E Ward,
Chicago, U of Chicago Press, 1959, pp. 216-287, and on primogeniture
especially see pp. 239-242.
301 Macfarlane, OEI, p. 89.
302 R. P. Dore, Land Reform in Japan, Oxford, Oxford U.P., 1959, p. 11.
303 Of course, they lingered on in all sorts of fringe capacities, folk beliefs and
customs for much longer as has been documented by Keith Thomas (Religion
and the Decline of Magic, London, Penguin, 1971), but there remained
nothing that could have formed the basis for, a repository of, or even a vital
component in a common national myth of the sort that Shintoism represents in
Japan. See The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature &
Legacy, Ronald Hutton, Oxford, Blackwell, 1991, pp. 247-341. On the legacy
of the paganism of classical antiquity see Jean Seznec's The Survival of the
Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and its Place in Renaissance
Humanism and Art, tr. from the French by Barbara F. Sessions, Bollingen
series XXXVIII, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1972. For discussions of modem
witchcraft, magic and paganism in, respectively, a rural and an urban context
see The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor, Ruth E St. Leger-Gordon,
Peninsula Press, Devon, 1994, and Witchcraft, Morality and Magic in Con-
temporary London, T. M. Luhrmann, International Journal of Moral and
Social Studies, Vol 1,1986, pp. 77-94.
304 See Elias, PC, pp. 270-291, and Buruma' s AJM, pp. 11-14.
305 See Ricks, KE, p. 143-156.
306 See Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, Brad Inwood, Oxford, 1987,
p. 173. See also The Stoic Concept ofDetachment, John M Rist, in The Stoics,
by J. M. Rist, Berkeley, U of Calif Press, 1978, pp. 259-272. On
Confucianism, see Huston Smith, RM, p. 184.
307 In the case of homosexuality there may have been some element of scholarly
wishful thinking in the de-christianizing interpretative conventions of the past
generation. The wealth and variety of evidence provided by Cohen has made
it difficult to sustain the view that in ancient Greece 'homosexuality was
regarded as perfectly natural: sexual desire was not distinguished according to

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 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

its object' (Cohen, LSS, p. 171). Contrary views are to be found in Friendship
in Theory & Practice: A Study of Greek & Roman Theories of Friendship in
Their Social Contexts, Horst Herfield Hutter, Stanford U Phd, Aug. 1972, esp.
ch. 2; Primitive Secret Societies, Hutton Webster, New York, esp. pp. 27-40
in Foucault's writings on the history of sexuality, in K. J. Dover, GreekHomo-
sexuality, London, Duckworth, 1978, pp. 6()...(j8, 81-109; and in Bisexuality in
The Ancient World, EvaCantarella, Yale UP, 1992,pp. 34-92. For 'uneasiness
over the issue of pederasty' see also The Reign ofThe Phallus: Sexual Politics
in Ancient Athens, Eva C. Keuls, Berkeley U of Calif Press, 1993, pp.
267-299, & on the practices of 'radishing', and 'pubic singeing' see p. 291,
also Dover, ibid., p 106.
308 See the articles in The Legacy ofGreece: A New Appraisal, ed. by M. 1. Finley,
Oxford, Oxford UP 1981, by Bernard Williams on Philosophy, (pp. 202-255),
by A. D. Momigliano, Greek Culture & The Jews, (pp. 325-346), and by A.
H. Armstrong, Greek Philosophy & Christianity, (pp. 347-375).
Alternatively, one might mistakenly flatter such ideologies with a larger role
than they merit in say, providing the stimulus for sympathetic attitudes to the
poor or to vagrants. See Kitch, ibid., pp. 62-84.
309 See Bumma, God's Dust, (hereafter GD), New York, Vintage, 1991, p. 239.
310 AWST,p.l72.
311 For an account of what was believed to be 'the Christian fifth column' see The
Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650, C. R. Boxer, orig. 1951, Manchester,
Carcanet 1993, pp. 308-361.
312 After the Tokogawa ban on the 'evil sect' it became legal to spread the gospel
in 1873, see The Rise of Modern Japan, W. G. Beasley, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1990,
pp. 96-97. The quotation (in Bumma, GD, p. 242) comes from a speech made
at a political convention by Nakasone Yasuhiro.
313 Elvin, PCP, p. 295.
314 See Hutter, ibid.
315 See Chapter 8: Philosophy, by Bernard Williams in The Legacy of Greece: A
New Appraisal, ed. M. 1. Finley, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1981,p. 243. For
a wide variety of sources see Arete: Greek Sports .from Ancient Sources,
Stephen G Miller, Berkeley, Univ. of Calif. Press, 1991.
316 See The Peasant Soul ofJapan, Shoichi Watanabe, London, MacMillan Press,
1990, p. 9 ff; Reischauer, pp. 3-30; Christopher, TJM, pp. 3-30. For Bumma's
comments see GD, pp. 244-245.
317 And, the contrast is not only with archaic Greece, but also with the ideals of
the Florentine Renaissance. The dialogues of Alberti on The Family assume
that 'Nature has instilled a great desire for praise and glory in everyone who is
not completely listless and dull of mind', and that 'the fully manly man, the
true vir virtutis who fmally comes to prize 'the beauty of honour, the delights
of fame and the divineness of glory' above everything else in life'. Alberti,
Leon Battista, The Family, trans. Guido A Guarino, in The Albertis of
Florence, Lewisberg, 1971, pp. 27-326, p. 84, 202. Both of the above quota-
tions are from The Foundations ofModern Political Thought, Vol.!, Quentin
Skinner, Cambridge, Cambridge U P, 1978, p. 101.
318 See Hendry, WC, p. 62-3.
319 There are matters of private honour with which the public realm has little
to do.

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320 The incident and Jowett's quip is recorded in Melvin Richter's The Politics of
Conscience: T. H. Green and His Circle, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
1964.
321 ITS, 241-242.
322 Negative utilitarianism is the doctrine which concentrates on eliminating harm
from the world rather than encouraging a greater sum of pleasure. It has the
disturbing consequence that the human species should be eliminated as soon
as possible, since the most rational act, the act which to the highest degree
minimized harm would be to administer a painless deadly poison to the entire
human race. (see R. N. Smart, Negative Utilitarianism, Mind, vol. 67, 1958,
pp. 542-543). J. S. Mill, conscious of and opposed to Bentham's rhetoric,
championed poetry over pushpin but is the less consistent a utilitarian for it.
See Autobiography, by J. S. Mill, ed. with intro. and notes by Jack Stillinger,
Oxford, Oxford U P, 1971, esp. ch. 5: A Crisis in My Mental History, pp.
80-110.
323 Cpo Reputation and Respectability: A Suggestion for Caribbean Ethnology,
Peter J Wilson, Man (N.S.), 4,1969, pp. 70-84.
324 See The Double Standard, Journal ofthe History ofIdeas, 1959, pp. 195-216.
A good collection of available documents on the subjects is Woman Defamed
and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts, ed. by Alcuin
Blamires, with Daren Pratt and C. W. Marx, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press,
1992. See for the marshalling of the honour code as it affected women in north
east Italy 1550-1750 L. Accati's Matrimony & Chastity: Symbolic Change &
Social Control, International Journal ofMoral & Social Studies, Vol. 5, No.
1,1990, pp. 23-37. On honour as it figures in romantic love see Ian Watt, The
Rise o/The Novel, Berkeley, U ofC Press, 1957, pp. 135-73. For develop-
ments in the nineteenth century see Nancy F Cott's Passionlessness: An
Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790-1850, in Signs: J ofWomen
in Culture & Society, 1978, Vol. 4, no.2, pp. 219-236. For a clear-headed
discussion of the inconsistencies, injustices and attitudes towards the double
standard in 1950s United States see The Double Standard in Premarital Sexual
Intercourse: A Neglected Concept, Ira Reiss, Social Forces, 34, 1955-6, pp.
224-230.
325 See Honour and Shame: the Control of Women 's Sexuality & Group Identity
in Naples, Victoria Goddard, in The Cultural Construction of Sexuality, ed.,
Pat Caplan, London, Routledge, 1987, p. 179.
326 See the excellent survey in Cohen, LSS, pp. 70-170.
327 See Elias, THM, pp. 184-185.
328 Cp.lkegami: 'A man's ability to protect his own women from other men was
certainly important for maintaining his honor. Defending women's chastity
was not the primary theme of vengeance in the samurai society in comparison
with the degree of importance and intensity reported in Mediterranean
cultures, however. The theme of women's virtue and virginity was relatively
subdued ITS, pp. 245-246. Cohen has convincingly shown for some
Mediterranean societies that the picture of women not taking part in public life
is a result of considerable uncritical idealization on the part of investigators.
See Cohen, LSS, pp. 133-170. See also Pitt-Rivers on women's risk to men's
honour and the conflict in the dictates of honour for men, HSS, pp. 42-53.
329 I am indebted to Prof. Munekazu Tanabe for discussion of this issue.
330 Adam ofPerseigne, quoted in Duby, ibid., pp. 27-28.

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331 See Womansword: What Japanese Say About Women, Kittredge Cherry,
Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, pp. 66---68.
332 Haruhiko Kindaichi, The Japanese Language, Tuttle, Tokyo, (1957), 1991,
pp. 195-196. See also Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary,
Kenkyusha, Fourth Ed., 1974: on keiai, p. 772; on uyamai, p. 1936.
333 See Ikegami, ITS, p. 56.
334 Keen observes that, 'the word knight, the French chevalier ... denotes a man
of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if
called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the anns of a heavy
cavalryman, and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he
is - who has been dubbed to knighthood.' Chivalry, p. 1-2.
335 Chivalry, pp. 7-8.
336 Chivalry, pp. 8-15,156-170,249-250.
337 Chivalry, p. 14.
338 Chivalry, p. 12. Keen observes of Arthurian romance, that 'It held up countless
models to support Geoffrey de Charney's precept (in his Livre de Chevalerie)
that it is good for a man at arms to be in love pars amours, because this will
teach him to seek higher renown in order to do honour to his lady.' (p. 116).
In Keen's view - in contrast, for instance, to Huizinga - 'The sources do ...
tell us just enough to tell us that it would be very unwise to write off the
influence of this courtly, amorous ideal as trivial or negligible, or as a mere
literary convention.'
339 As Keen puts it, 'Most males do like their life style and achievement to catch
the feminine eye. The courtly, amorous theme in chivalrous literature linked
the martial scale of values to the terrific force oflove, with all its potential for
influencing the lives, actions and attitudes of those caught up in its meshes.'
Chivalry, p. 117.
340 SeeAJM, ibid.,p. 5-7.
341 Lila Abu-Lughod had one elderly woman tell her: 'When a man is really
something [manly], he pays no heed to women' . A young woman infonned her
that, 'A man who listens to his wife when she tells him what to do is a fool'.
And, another old woman declared, 'Anyone who follows a woman is not a
man. He is good for nothing.' VS, p. 94.
342 In both cultures there is strong emphasis on 'the stoic acceptance of emotional
pain' (p. 90). Similarly, among the Bedouins, 'the man who needs women is
called either a fool (habal) or a donkey (hmar), both epithets alluding to an
absence of 'aql. The bestial insult is applied to the man who seems not in
control of his sexual appetites. (p. 93). For a discussion of the male virtues of
toughness, self-control and the possession of reasonableness ('aql), see Abu
Lughod, VS,pp.88-94.
343 See AJM, p. 61 and more generally see pp. 47-63, and Cohen, who quotes a
Spanish proverb: 'Si quieres llegar a viejo, Guarda la leche en el pellejo.' (If
you want to reach old age, keep your semen within your skin), LSS, p. 141.
344 The modern rhetorical 'trick' is achieved firstly, by fashioning what we have
insufficient evidence to believe is not a vaingloriously ambitious norm for a
women's expectations of sexual fulfillment, and then secondly, by locating the
responsibility for such fulfillment in each man's now double sexual handicap.
The assertion of such a handicap has the potential to be very effective. First,
relative to a still prevailing myth, men's physiological sexual capacities are
re-assessed and so degraded relative to those of women, and second, if such

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high norms come to govern women's sexual expectations then any diminution
of full 'satiation' will unleash an additional kind of male insecurity, that of
lack of so-called 'sexual expertise'. Many women may not be convinced that
feminism has yet come up with what Helene Deutsch called 'the proper
management of feminine masochism.' For an excellent discussion of these
issues see Irving Singer's The Goals of Human Sexuality, New York,
Schocken paperback, 1974. The phrase quoted from Deutsch can be found on
p. 40 of Singer's book.
345 See Georges Duby, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, tr. J. Dunnett,
Chicago, Chicago Univ. Press, 1994, the blurb on the flyleaf claims Duby
argues for the general belief that women lacked sexual desires, but the book
suggests otherwise, see pp. 17-35,57-60.
346 See AJM, pp. 6-9. lowe thanks to Prof Munekazu Tanabe for discussion of
this point in relation to Japanese culture. Such facts about differences in the
physiologically-based limits for developing the capacity for sexual appetite,
arousal and serial orgasm are, of course, not merely matters of ancient testi-
mony in many historical traditions. For a summary of studies in our own
century see Reproduction in Mammals: 8 Human Sexuality, ed. C. R. Austin
and R. V. Short, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1980, esp. pp. 43-58, and The
Sex Researchers, Edward M Brecher, fWd. by Masters and Johnson, New
York, Panther, 1972, expo pp. 128-226,277-311. Caution should accompany
the conclusions that we draw from this evidence. There are few saner or more
humane discussions of these matters than can be found in Irving Singer, ibid.
Moreover, Singer's discussion is equipped with the distinctions that the topic
all too often cries out for. For a discussion of the dubious nature of Mary Jane
Sherfey'S well known distinction between women's capacity for sexual satis-
faction and women's inherent and essential sexual insatiability, see Singer,
ibid, esp. pp. 27--40. A recent survey has underlined many of the fmdings of
earlier researchers concerning differences in sexual ageing between men and
women with most of the advantages falling to women. See The Social Organ-
ization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States, Edward O.
Laumann, John H Gagnon, Robert T Michael and Stuart Michaels, Chicago, U
of Chicago Press, 1994. As Paul Robinson has remarked in a review of the
above work, 'Sexually speaking, Kinsey concluded, men and women were like
ships passing in the night.' The Way We Do The Things We Do, New York
Times Book Review, p. 22. 31. Nov. 1994.
347 As is often the case, see for example Abu-Lughod, VS, p. 49ff. As Pitt-Rivers
noted, chastity is a superfluous attribute among the women of the Spanish
aristocracy as their honour is regarded as impregnable and thus not dependent
on the protection of men. HSS, p. 71.
348 See Benedict, CS, p. 145.
349 The forging of decisions, whether in the House of Commons Tea Room or a
ryotei, largely pre-empts any public display of disunity.
350 Hendry, UJS, p. 202.
351 A recent example ofthis was The Japan Freight Railway Company's decision
in November 1993 to cut for an indefmite period the company president and
chairman's salaries by 10%, other executives taking a 5% cut. See JT, 13. xi.
94,p.7.
352 See Dale, MJU, p. 63.

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353 As Benedict put it, 'any criticism of one's acts or one's competence becomes
automatically a criticism of oneself ... this defensiveness goes very deep and
it is the part of wisdom - as it is also universal etiquette - not to tell a person
to his face in so many words that he has made a professional error.' (my
italics), CS, p. 152-153.
354 Watanabe, ibid., p. 183.
355 See The Sexual Life of Savages in North Western Melanesia, Bronislaw
Malinowski, London RKP, 3rd. ed., 1932, pp. 426.
356 Harre, E, pp. 188-189.
357 Many illustrative cases can be found sensitively treated in Richard Sennet's
The Hidden Injuries of Class. See Laslett, ibid., esp. 1-83.
358 Simone de Beauvoir as is well known had particularly pessimistic views on
this subject. See The Second Sex, trans. & ed. H. M. Parshley, New York,
Vintage Books, 1974, See pp. 602-618.
359 No doubt we should be in general on our guard against the nostalgic attractions
of survivalist interpretations of cultural values. On this see Michael Herzfeld,
Anthropology Through The Looking Glass: critical ethnography in the
margins of Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987, pp. 7-12,
136-139.
360 Levenson, Vol. I, CCMFI, pp. 60-64.
361 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, p. 41, quoted in
Levenson, Vol I, CCMFI, p. 64.
362 Watanabe, ibid., p. 81.
363 Nakane, JS, p. 122.
364 We might observe a distinction between merit and excellence or worthiness in that
the former can be interpreted by appealing to considerations of desert, whereas
excellence or worthiness is mainly concerned with a person's aptitude for or
fmeness of achievement, accomplishment, or performance in some activity. Thus,
depending on the criteria of selection or promotion, an agent may be held to merit
preferment owing to his 'disadvantaged' initial circum- stances. This would be the
case if a system ofpositive discrimination were in operation. It need not be argued
that the person selected in such a system is thereby the most excellent or has the
greatest aptitude of the available candidates.
365 Nakane's views accord with Watanabe's with regard to Japanese universities:
'Unless a professor or head of department is distinguished and broad-minded,
he is most unlikely to select someone stronger (academically as well as in
personality) than himself ... So departments or institutes within the top-
ranking universities do not necessarily possess the best available scholars; in
fact, the competent scholars often fail to reach the best posts ... There are
informal hierarchical groups which militate against opportunities for free
competition on the basis of individual merit.' JS, p. 122, see also pp. 17,67,
81,83.
366 Nakane, JS, pp. 7-15.
367 See Befu, JAI., pp. 167-68, and Nakane, JS, pp. 44-45, 67, 80-82.
368 For the prevalence ofthis system and its relation to Shintoism and Confucian
authority see Japan: Images and Realities, The Inner Dynamics ofpower in a
nation ofoutward change, Richard Halloran, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1980, see esp. The
Establishment & Consensus, pp. 71-99.
369 See Miyamoto, SS, pp. 53-71.

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370 See Dore, Unity & Diversity, ibid., p. 412--415. On the structure and formation
ofthe group see Nakane, JS, pp. 1-89.
371 As Rawls put it, 'the main psychological route of the liability to envy is a lack
of self-confidence in our own worth combined with a sense of impotence', A
Theory ofJustice, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1971, p. 535.
372 Quoted in Miller, H, p. 125, maxim 95.
373 Miyamoto, SS, pp. 168-173.
374 See Miyamoto's articles entitled, Bullying Endemic to Japan, and Japan, Inc.
survives on a mix of bullying and envy, in JT, 17 and 18 January 1995
respectively. JS, p. 140--41.
376 See Identification & Wholeheartedness, Harry Frankfurt, in Responsibility,
Character & The Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology, ed. Ferdinand
Schoeman, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1987, pp. 27--45.
377 Nakane, JS, p. 127.
378 See for some remarks on these issues Benedict, CS, pp. 195-227 and esp. 222.
379 This state of affairs is, of course, quite independent of the Eliasesque socio-
historical reading that it could be given. See Elias, PC, pp. 292-333.
380 hunpan is also used for what induces irrepressible laughter, invites sniggers,
contempt, something that is held to deserve to be jeered at, is absurd or of poor
quality. I thank Munekazu Tanabe for discussion of the use of this term.
381 Compare: 'The stranger to the country has a particularly difficult time. The
others stare at him fixedly as ifhe were a fabulous animal from Africa.' In his
THM, Elias is discussing Erasmus' Diversoria, 1523, p. 72.
382 On voyeurism see Bomoff, Pink Samurai: the pursuit and politics of sex in
Japan, London, Grafton, 1991, esp. pp. 292-300.
383 One can imagine a Freudian, fresh to Japan and confronted with the obsessive-
ness, especially the obsession with neatness of presentation, giving the pat
explanation that it must have something to do with strict infantile potty-
training and suchlike, but he'd be barking up the wrong tree. Cpo Befu, 'It is a
curious reversal that the indulgent, non-authoritarian child-rearing practices of
Japanese lead to an adult personality in which submission to authority is a
salient characteristic, while the relatively authoritarian practices of American
parents result in an adult personality which emphasizes fierce independence
and resistance to authoritarian control.' JAI, p. 165.
384 However, it explains much else. Hair 'colour' of which there is considerably
more variety than many believe is an interesting factor. Some idea of the
pressures, constraints and 'unfeasibility of complaint' is gained when one
reads every now and again of how schoolchildren are willing, or parents are
willing, to get their children to comply with a headmaster's order to have the
pupil's hair dyed 'properly' black, the children being' sent home' for the order
to be carried out. The closing of heavy entry gates, a common practice for
enforcing pupils' punctuality at high and junior high school led to the crushing
to death ofRyoko Ishida, a 15-year-old high school girl in 1990. The teacher
concerned was found guilty of professional negligence and was handed a
one-year prison sentence, suspended for 3 years. See The Japan Times, Feb II,
p. 2. We learn much about different societies' self-images by comparing how
each society reacts to the various ways its members meet their death or are
killed. Hatari Go, the very unfortunate Japanese student, who didn't under-
stand what the term 'freeze' meant in California and was shot and killed in
error is relatively well known, Ryoko Ishida got rather less publicity.

152
 Honour, Shame, Humiliation and Modern Japan

385 See Merry White, TJO, p. 105.

386 See Ken Schoolland, Shogun's Ghost, Bergin & Garvey, New York, 1990,
esp. Ch. 9: Bullied to Death, pp. 107-117; see also a short selection ofartic1es
in the early 1994 pages of JT: Jan. IS; March 17, p. 2; March 18, p. 3.
387 For the original distinction between positive and negative liberty, see Four
Essays on Liberty, Isaiah Berlin, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1969, and for
critical examination of the distinction see What's Wrong with Negative
Liberty?, Charles Taylor, in The Idea ofFreedom Essays in Honour ofIsaiah
Berlin, ed. by Alan Ryan, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1979, pp. 175-193.
The claim made in the text presupposes that neither negative nor positive
liberty is sufficient for what needs to be said about individual freedom. Put in
Taylor's terms, it would amount to the claim that the 'negative opportunity
concept' is a necessary tool with which to envisage many positive freedoms.
Taylor calls positive freedom contrastingly, an 'exercise concept' p.l77.
388 See Bururna,AJM, pp. 15,21,25,86,99-100,220-221.
389 Compare the recently much discussed case of Joseph Carey Merrick see The
True History of The Elephant Man, Michael Howell and Peter Ford,
Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1992. I thank Jeremy Edwards for discussions of
the English tradition of such entertainment. For an exhaustive and illuminating
history of capital punishment, in its public form, in England see V. A. C.
Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and The English People 1770-1868,
Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1994.
390 JS, pp. ISS-56.
391 For some research, which the authors admit must be read with some caution,
suggesting that it is money rather than its precision which is found un-
acceptable, see Paul Webley and Richenda Wilson's Social Relationships and
the Unacceptability of Money as a Gift, The Journal of Social Psychology,
129(1), pp. 85-91. 'The look of horror and disbelief on many subjects' faces
when asked to imagine giving money to the person they had chosen was
perhaps the best indication of their general reluctance to use it as a gift.' (p.89).
392 As Miller says of gift-shop patrons, 'their gifts are more to the occasion itself
than to the patron ... They are ritual artifacts, given not to benefit the recipient
so much as to indicate the proper ritual behaviour of the giver.' H, p. 45.
393 See A Treatise ofHuman Nature, David Hume, III, 1, 1. For some discussion
of this hugely influential and very extensively discussed topic in the history of
twentieth-century Western moral philosophy see David Hume: a symposium,
ed. by D. F. Pears, London, MacMillan, 1963, pp. 67-76, and Alasdair
MacIntyre's A Short History of Ethics, London, RKP, 1968, p. 167-177,
249-269, and essays no. 12-16 in his Against The Self-Images of The Age,
London, Duckworth, 1971.
394 Pitt-Rivers, HSS, p. 38.
395 See Friendship in C01!/itcian Philosophy, Whalen Lai, in this book.
396 The quoted phrase comes from an article by Ayako Sato entitled Giri secures
mutually rewarding relationships, in JT, March 12, 1993, p. 17.
397 JS, p. ISS.
398 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin ofour Ideas ofthe Sublime and Beautifol,
Edmund Burke, ed. James T Boulton, Oxford, BlackwelL 1958, p. SO.
399 The Will to Power, 1883-88, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale,
New York, Vintage, 1968, p. 688.

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 Friendship East and West

400 Beyond Good and Evil, 1886, Sec 13, in Basic Writings o/Nietzsche, trans. and
ed. Walter Kaufmann, New York, The Modern Library, 1968, p. 211.
401 See Botchan by Soseki Natsume, trans. Umeji Sasaki, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1968,
32nd printing 1990.
402 See Shakespeare & The Renaissance Concept 0/ Honor, C. B. Watson,
Princeton, Princeton UP, 1960.
403 See Cristoph von Furer-Haimendorf, ibid., pp. 219-220. In his discussion of
Mediterranean communities Cohen, to whom I am indebted once again and
whose terms for cuckold I reproduce in the main text, traces 'the core idea of
the cuckold in many ... Mediterranean communities (cabrao, como, cabron,
cornuto) [is] the man who wears the horns of the goat'. As Cohen remarks,
among Arabs ridicule is heaped upon men who fail to 'preserve their reputa-
tion through guarding the sexual reputation of their women', and 'one of (the)
popular meanings' of the work used for cuckold (dayyuth) , refers to an animal
that stands by and watches while other males make sexual connection with his
mate' (pp. 62-3). See LSS, for further remarks on Morocco, Portugal, Turkey,
Lebanon, Algeria, Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Italy and Spain pp. 54-69,
140-145,184-186.
404 See Jane Schneider, 0/ Vigilance and Virgins: Honor, Shame and Access to
Resources in Mediterranean Societies, Ethnology, Vol. 10, no. 1, 1971, pp.
1-24.
405 Many have stressed the importance of appearance over being in Japan. See
Buruma,AJM,p.13-14.
406 See Character, Virtue & Self-Respect: A Reading o/The Nicomachean Ethics,
Marcia Lynn Homiak, Harvard Phd 1976, Harvard Univ. Archives. expo pp.
61-82.
407 It is here that my account of the differences and connections between self-
esteem and self-respect differs from that of David Sachs, How to Distinguish
Self-Respect from Self-Esteem, Philosophy and Public Ajfoirs, Fa111981, Vol.
10,no.4,pp.346-360.
408 See Kolnai, The Concept 0/ Hierarchy, in Ethics, Value and Reality: selected
papers 0/Aurel Kolnai, intro. Bernard Williams and David Wiggins, London,
Athlone Press, 1977, p. 179.
409 Hobbes, L, p. 57.
410 Rawls,ATJ,p.440.
411 ATJ, p. 426.
412 See Runciman, RD5J.
413 'To walk abroad without a linen vest is not praiseworthy', see Selected Letters
o/St. Jerome, trans. F. A. Wright, William Heinrnann, London, 1931, Letter
LIl, p. 213, and Hawthorn's Introduction to The Standard o/Living, Amartya
Sen et. aI., ed. Geoffrey Hawthorn, Cambridge, Cambridge U.P., 1987, p.x.
414 For a study that takes the perspective of contemporary history on how relative
deprivation is experienced by jibun (self) through three categories of others
(mawari: immediate reference others or people around, hilo: generalized
reference others or people at large, and seken: reference society), see The
Reforence Other Orientation, Takami Kuwayama, in Japanese sense 0/ Self,
ed. Nancy R Rosenberger, Cambridge, Cambridge U P, 1992, pp. 121-151.
One might think there was a case to be made for a distinction as to the ethical
seriousness of the deprivation. For the classic discussion of reference group
theory see Runciman, RD5J.

154
415 Carol Gilligan, Remapping The Moral Domain, in Reconstructing
Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, & The Self in Western Thought, ed.
Thomas C Heller, Morton Sosna, & David E Willbery, Stanford, Stanford U
P, p. 241. The high school student respondent came from Emma Willard
School for Girls, in Troy, New York, see fn. 11, p. 349.
416 See Christopher, TJM, pp. 17-58.

155
 3

Teaching for a Fee

Pedagogy and Friendship in Socrates and
Maimonides
Daniel H. Frank

In this essay I should like to discuss a point of shared pedagogical, and

ultimately moral, significance for both Socrates (that is, the Socrates we
find in Xenophon and Plato) and Maimonides. Before we begin, let me
straightway note that the positions of both Socrates and Maimonides are a
decidedly minority view in their respective communities, as they would be
in ours today. Admittedly, Socrates was a freak, completely out of step with
Athens and her values, so perhaps the fact that his position is a minority one
is readily explained. But we are accustomed to think of Maimonides' views
relative to the Jewish tradition as almost normative (though I readily grant
the notoriety of some of his philosophical views), so the fact that his
position on the issue to be discussed was not only perceived as odd, but was
strenuously argued against by his own beloved student, Joseph ben Judah
(the addressee ofthe Guide), and later by Joseph Karo, should perhaps give
us some pause. l At any rate, I hope this essay may go some way toward
philosophically contextualizing Maimonides' position.
So, what is the controversial position? Both Socrates and Maimonides
are committed to a strong prohibition against deriving profit from teaching
(or studying) what each of them considers to be of greatest importance,
respectively philosophy or Torah. To gain a material advantage from philo-
sophy or Torah is, in ways important for us to consider, to demean the value
of the subject and, as importantly, the teacher or scholar. Correlatively, it is
to make venal what each considers to be the ultimate form of friendship, for
both believe that their respective teaching is itself the highest manifestation
of friendship. Let us first tum to Socrates' proscription of teaching for a fee.

Socrates
Socrates was by his own admission not a teacher. This 'wisest' of men had
nothing to teach, for, as he was very aware, he knew that he knew nothing. 2
And given such manifest ignorance, Socrates could hardly teach, a fortiori

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 Teachingfor a Fee

teach for a fee. But this does not take us very far. Further, we should in no
way be led to conclude that if, ex hypothesi, Socrates did have the knowl-
edge he sought and hence could set himself up as a teacher, he would then
demand a fee for his wisdom. Socrates' proscription against teaching for a
fee is not a function of what he does or does not know. Rather, as we shall
see, it is intimately connected up with the nature of the subject matter at
hand as well as the compromised position in which the teacher would find
himself.
Given the aristocratic circles within which Socrates moved, we might
suppose that the Socratic proscription against teaching for a fee is part of a
general (aristocratic) prohibition against taking money for services of any
kind. But this is much too strong. I have already hinted that the prohibition
is in large part a function of the specific subject matter involved. But apart
from this, and even granting the Greek aristocratic aversion to manual
labour,3 Socrates himself has no problem whatever with craftsmen and
husbandrymen exacting a fee for their most useful services. 4 Taking pay-
ment for services rendered is not the issue. But there is something untoward
about taking money for the sort of activity that Socrates himself is engaged
in. What is this activity?
The activity is philosophy, the love of and search for wisdom, and
clearly a major part of the emphatic prohibition against taking a fee for
philosophizing is the need for Socrates to be distinguished as strongly as
possible from the sophists, themselves purveyors of wisdom and paid
teachers of virtue. 5 If anything is memorable about Socrates it is surely that
he was not a sophist. This of course assumes that we accept the Platonic and
Xenophonic portraits of Socrates, and disregard the Aristophanic one.
What is the difference between philosophy and sophistry, and what is it
about the former that makes it quite incompatible with fee-taking? There are of
course many grounds for distinguishing philosophy from sophistry. From
Plato's point of view, the former is concerned with truth, the latter with (mere)
success; the former involves an active self-reflective involvement by the
'student' in his own learning, the latter, craft-like in its presentation, requires
(nothing but) a passive, patient-like attitude on the part of the student. 6 But
prima facie neither of the former characteristics, namely concern for truth and
active involvement by the student, seems incompatible with fee-taking. We
pay money to our therapists, who in turn offer us, with our active assistance, a
glimpse of the truth. Is there a problem here?
Socrates thought so. And the problem is simply this: In taking fees for
philosophizing, analogous to taking fees for a sophistic education, the
philosopher, like the sophist, opens himself up as well as his subject matter
to anyone who can pay. And in so doing, the philosopher loses the right to
refose his services or to terminate them once begun.? In a word, the
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 Friendship East and West

philosopher loses his autonomy. Making philosophical truth readily avail-

able to all who could and wished to pay for it assimilated the philosopher
to the sophist, of whom the objection was that he (the sophist) was avail-
able, as Kerferd puts it, 'to [having] all kinds of people being able to secure,
simply by paying for it, what he had to offer. '8 If at this point one begins to
discern the beginnings of an analogy between sophists and prostitutes
(pornai), this is hardly to be wondered at. Xenophon drew the analogy
explicitly.9
But we are not quite home yet. We have not yet addressed the issue why
philosophizing for a fee is so loathsome. To answer that it involves a
conflation of philosophy and sophistry is true but question-begging.
Further, it does not fully explicate the pejorative content of the evaluation.
Again, Xenophon likens the sophists to prostitutes in order to distinguish
them strongly from Socrates, but why is prostituting oneself especially
odious if one is a philosopher?
It seems to me that the answer to our question, why prostituting oneself,
making oneself 'available' to all those who can pay, is abominable for a
philosopher lies in the nature of philosophy itself, both the activity and its
subject matter (as conceived by Plato). Philosophy, the search for truth, is
an act of friendship and love between willing partners and Socratic conver-
sation is the spiritual or intellectual analogue of physical intercourse. lo
Given this erotic conception of the philosopher's activity, to take a fee for
it is antithetical to the enterprise itself. It would 'commodify' what cannot
be commodified. Further, it would entail extreme bad faith on behalf of the
philosopher. To be a prostitute taking a fee for 'love' is one thing, to be a
philosopher engaged in a joint venture for truth is something quite differ-
ent. To conflate the two is illicit, a sort of category mistake, to bring
together a false ideal of love with a true one. At least in a whorehouse one
is (hopefully) aware of its illusory status as an abode of love. But in
Socratic conversation there are not, or ought not to be, any illusions. One
must say what one thinks, without encumbrance, and not dissimulate. I I And
to demand a fee for this is to demean it, to assimilate philosophy to a
craft-like instrumentalism, and, correlatively, to obligate the philosopher
and thereby remove his autonomy and freedom.
So much then for the Socratic proscription against philosophizing for a
fee. To retain one's independence and autonomy, to not be obligated to talk
to anyone willing to pay, is crucial. To be 'available' not merely assimilates
philosophy to sophistry, but also provides the reason why such an assimila-
tion is odious. It forces the philosopher to engage in acts of extreme bad
faith, to pretend merely to engage in an act of friendship.

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 Teachingfor a Fee

Maimonides
Now let us tum to Maimonides and his proscription against deriving profit,
material reward, from, Torah. As noted at the outset, his position, even
though rabbinically well-established, was vehemently opposed from the
time he enunciated it. 12
First things first. Maimonides' prohibition is grounded in Avot 4.7:
'Make not Torah a crown for self-glorification or a spade with which to
dig.' He quotes this passage in both his Commentary on the Mishnah (on
Avot 4.5 and on Pereq Heleq and in Mishneh Torah (in Hi/khot Talmud
Torah 3.10-11). In the commentary on Pereq Heleq he explicates the
rabbinic dictum as follows: 'They [the rabbis] hinted at what I have just
explained to you, that the end of wisdom is neither to acquire honor from
other men nor to earn more money. One ought not to busy oneself with
God's Torah in order to earn one's living by it; nor should the end of
studying wisdom be anything but knowing it. The truth has no other
purpose than knowing that it is truth. Since the Torah is truth, the purpose
of knowing it is to do it.' And his remarks onAvot in Hilkhot Talmud Torah
are more pointed: 'One who makes up his mind to study Torah and not to
work but to live on charity, profanes the name of God, brings the Torah into
contempt, extinguishes the light of religion, brings evil upon himself, and
deprives himself oflife hereafter, for it is forbidden to derive any temporal
advantage from the words of Torah. The sages said, 'Whoever derives a
profit for himself from the words of Torah is helping on his own
destruction' (Avot 4.7).
For Maimonides, the rabbinic injunction against teaching and studying
Torah for a fee underpins the rabbinic ideal of torah lishma, study for its
own sake. This is not quite to parallel study of Torah to engaging in theoria,
for the purpose of studying Torah is to do mitzvot, as the passage from the
commentary on Pereq Heleq makes clear. Nevertheless, the rabbis were
clear, as Maimonides understands them, in sharply distinguishing between
learning Torah without regard for material reward and learning Torah,
studying and teaching it, as though it were a craft, with a view to making a
living from it. Note that the material reward may be gained from the mere
study of Torah, i.e. for no services rendered. Thus, Maimonides proscribes
both teaching Torah for a fee as well as accepting charity for studying
Torah; both the 'professional' rabbi as well as the 'professional' yeshiva
bocher (student) come under attack. For Maimonides, 'one will not find in
the Torah nor in teachings of the sages a teaching which will verify [the
practice of making Torah study a means whereby to live]' (Commentary on
Mishnah Avot 4.5). Instead, the ideal, an ideal instantiated in the sages of
old, was to study and teach Torah gratis and to have the moral (?) strength

159
 Friendship East and West

to see the importance of supporting oneself materially. Hillel the Elder was
a woodcutter, Kama the Judge was a watercarrier, Rav Joseph carried logs,
and in general for Maimonides, 'it indicated a high degree of excellence in
a man to maintain himself by the labour of his hands' (Hi/khot Talmud
Torah 3.11).
To have fallen from the ideal of torah lishma and manual labour to one
which conflates Torah with a craft is something to which Maimonides
wishes to call attention. In fact, in writing to Joseph, his disciple and the
addressee of the Guide, Maimonides implores him to accept no money from
Samuel, the Gaon of Baghdad, when he (Joseph) opens a school. To do so
would entail a loss of self-sufficiency, economic self-sufficiency (in
Joseph's case gained through the practice of medicine - the same, of
course, for Maimonides himselt).13 In a word, to accept charity or to derive
material reward from Torah 'professionalizes' it, and thereby both profanes
Torah itself as well as the individual scholar involved. Torah is brought into
disrepute, inasmuch as it would be thought to be merely another 'object' (a
'spade') with which to make a living, and the student/teacher would be
viewed as just another craftsman available for hire and, correlatively,
dependent upon the community for his well-being.
The parallels between Socrates' and Maimonides' proscriptions are
obvious. Both deplore the professionalization of their respective wisdom,
philosophy or Torah, and the correlative loss of self-sufficiency and auto-
nomy that this entails upon its practitioners. For both, the study, discovery,
and teaching of truth must not be watered down and assimilated to a
craft-like instrumentalism.
Let us grant these similarities. But a deep cleavage opens between the
Socratic philosopher and the Maimonidean sage with respect to the loss of
economic self-sufficiency entailed by their respective proscriptions of
teaching for a fee. Given that money is not to be exacted for teaching
philosophy or studying Torah, the question naturally arises: How is the
philosopher or the scholar to make a living? In the case of Socrates it will
be immediately recalled that he is utterly dependent upon the community
and his friends in particular for sustenance. 14 Again, this is not due to any
aristocratic snobbery toward manual labour - Socrates himself has genuine
high regard for craftsmen qua craftsmen 15 - but rather is due to the over-
riding sense of his mission, its all-encompassing nature. So important is his
philosophic mission that he 'neglected what occupies most people, wealth,
household affairs ... ' (Apology 36b). Everything paled in comparison to
the psychic therapy which Socrates was intent upon providing his fellow
citizens. As a result, I do not believe that Socrates is being entirely flippant
when he demands free meals in the Prytaneum as compensation for his
efforts on Athens' behalf (Apology 36b-e). Socrates believes that he is
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 Teachingfor a Fee

providing and has provided Athens with the greatest of benefits, and with
no thought to himself and his well-being, and as a result deserves sus-
tenance in return. Further, Socrates' fabled poverty attests to his life- long
preoccupation with practicing what he preaches, namely 'that the greatest
~ood for a man is to discuss virtue every day' (Apology 38a).
One cannot deny that Socrates is a figure of heroic proportions, a
paradigm of virtue and independence of thought. He sacrificed everything
for his mission and died for his beliefs. And yet, Socrates is on the dole.
This sort ofwelfarism, which makes him ultimately dependent upon others
(his friends, the polis), while simultaneously professing his radical inde-
pendence from society'S values, is an 'inconsistency' which Maimonides
cannot abide. For Maimonides, the self-sufficiency and economic inde-
pendence which accompanies self-employment is as much an imperative as
the proscriptions of teaching for a fee and taking charity for study.
Maimonides quotes Avot in this regard: 'Love work, hate lordship' (Avot
1.10) and 'All study of Torah not conjoined with work must, in the end, be
futile and become a cause of sin' (Avot 2.2; quoted in Hi/khot Talmud
Torah 3.10). Again, Maimonides' paradigms are the early sages, previously
noted, who mixed study with manual labor, great scholars who were also
economically self-sufficient. Let me once again stress that the distinction I
am drawing here is not between an aristocratic contempt for manual labour
and a democratic prejudice in its favour, but rather between a sense of
personal autonomy somehow compatible with economic dependence and
one which is not. I do not think we can say that Socrates' love of wisdom
surpassed Maimonides' love of Torah, and therefore the former's love,
unlike the latter's, trumped all else in his life. After all, torah lishma is the
overwhelming ideal in Maimonides' life. Rather we should say that for
Maimonides, economic independence was of sufficient importance, in part
underscoring the uniqueness of torah lishma, that manual labor, broadly
conceived to be sure, was to be factored into any reasonable conception of
human well-being. For Socrates, on the other hand, economic inde-
pendence was less an issue, and I suspect part of the reason is that he was
accustomed to support from his friends, while the only support
Maimonides or any rabbinic scholar could rely upon was the community,
the existing institutions. And for Maimonides, these were no friends at all
but rather his adversaries, like Samuel ben Ali.16 Thus, Maimonides' praise
of manual labor may be due less to an egalitarian sensibility - something he
was distinctly bereft of? - than to a desire to safeguard the autonomy ofthe
scholar. One may well wonder whether prior to the death (in 1173) of his
beloved brother David, 'who was engaged in business and earned money
that I [Maimonides] might stay at home and continue to study,'

161
 Friendship East and West

Maimonides himself was as 'consistent' as he later became in demanding

both personal autonomy and economic self-sufficiency.
This ideal of teaching and studying Torah gratis, and the proscription of
taking charity or a fee for services rendered, all entailed that the scholar be
employed, preferably self-employed. Perforce, this would limit the amount
of time the scholar could devote to study and teaching, though in turn it
would have the advantage of safeguarding his autonomy. Maimonides is
quite specific about the relative time to be spent in study and in labour. In
Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1.12 he is specific that if one is an artisan (baal
omanut) one should labour for three hours daily and devote nine hours for
study. Now I agree fully with Raymond Weiss that 'one might wonder
whether it is possible for a man to meet his needs by working only three
hours a day.'18 Indeed, Maimonides' famous letters to Samuel ibn Tibbon
and to Joseph himself belie the daily schedule noted in the Mishneh. 19 But
I think more significant than the actual time allotments for the two activities
is the at least nascent awareness of the issue involved, namely the profound
need for the rabbinic scholar to be completely unencumbered from attach-
ment to existing institutions. The scholar, unlike Socrates, perforce falls
back upon his own devices. There were no grants he could apply for.
In closing, we might note a rather more recent instance of the rabbinic
ideal, or at least the Maimonidean ideal of devotion to learning coupled
with insistence upon self-support. It comes from an unlikely source. Para-
doxically, Spinoza, so critical of the rabbinic tradition in general and of
Maimonides in particular, is a paradigm of that very tradition of devotion
to learning coupled with a fierce desire for independence from existing
institutions. Are we contemporary scholars and teachers as independent?
Ought we to be?

NOTES
1 See Weiss 1991, p. 49.
2 Apology 21 d.
3 See Frank 1983.
4 Gorgias 520d.
5 Harrison 1964; Dover 1971, pp. 57-8, 64; Blank 1985.
6 Indeed, the Socratic and the sophistic conceptions of virtue (arete) differ on
just these lines. For Socrates, virtue has to do with psychic harmony, not
worldly success; further, such psychic hannony comes about through dialogue
and self-reflection, not through attendance at lectures.
7 Kerferd 1981, pp. 25-6; Blank 1985, pp. 10-20.
8 Kerferd 1981, p. 26
9 Memorabilia 1.6.13.
10 Philosophy so construed is the lesson taught Socrates by his own 'teacher',
Diotima, in Plato's Symposium, 203b ff.; see also Blank 1985, pp. 22-4.

162
 Teachingfor a Fee

11 See the references in Brickhouse and Smith 1994, p. 14 nn. 21-2.

12 See note 1 above.
13 Letter to Joseph, sec. 21, p. 122, in Weiss and Butterworth 1975.
14 Plato, Apology 38b; Xenophon, Oeconomicus 2.8; see also Blank 1985, p. 7 n.
30.
15 Apology 22c-e and note 4 above.
16 See the letter to Joseph in Weiss and Butterworth 1975.
17 See especially Guide 1. intro.
18 Weiss 1991, p. 118.
19 Cf. Mishneh Torah 3.13.

REFERENCES
Blank, D. L. 'Socratics Versus Sophists on Payment for Teaching.' Classical
Antiquity 4:1,1985 pp. 1-49.
Brickhouse, T. C. and N. D. Smith Plato's Socrates. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994.
Dover, K. J. 'Socrates in the Clouds'. In The Philosophy ofSocrates, edited by G.
Vlastos, pp. 50--77. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1971.
Frank, D. H .• Aristotle on Freedom in the Politics.' Prudentia 15:2, 1983 pp.
109-16.
Harrison, E. L. 'Was Gorgias a Sophist?' Phoenix 18, 1964 pp. 183-92.
Kerferd, G. B. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981.
Weiss, R. L. Maimonides' Ethics: The Encounter of Philosophic and Religious
Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Weiss, R. L. and C. Butterworth (eds. and trs.). Ethical Writings of Maimonides.
New York: Dover, 1975.

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 4

Friendship in Aristotle,Miskawayh
and al-Ghazali*
Lenn E. Goodman

The Muslim theologian al-Ghazali (1058-1111), known as the Proof of

Islam, built his system of Islamic ethics on the framework established by
the Persian courtier ethicist Miskawayh (936-1030). He relied in particular
on Miskawayh in recasting the command ethics of the Qur'iin and the
exemplarist ethics of the sunna into the form of virtue ethics. But contrary
to the early evaluations of my teachers, Richard Walzer and Sir Hamilton
Gibb, I as Muhammad Abul Quasem 2 and Mohamed Ahmed Sherif! have
shown, Ghazali did not simply adopt Miskawayh's ethics in toto. He sifted
it critically, omitting what did not suit his needs and freely supplying ideas
from other philosophers. Pietist Sufi themes in particular change the overall
cast ofGhazali's ethics dramatically from that of his philosophical sources.
As I have shown,4 he filleted all that smacked of humanism and secularism
from the ethics of his sources before incorporating their ideas into his own
treatments. The present paper aims to show the dramatic effect of such
modifications on Ghazali's treatment of friendship. I shall start from an
analysis of the Aristotelian ideal of friendship, examine its acculturation in
the Islamic context by the work of Miskawayh, and then turn to
al-Ghazali's adaptations. The case is not simply one of the deletion or
demotion of the classical ideal of friendship preserved by Miskawayh,
where friendship or fellowship is the cement of society. Rather, al-Ghazali
substitutes for that secular cement a Sufi interpretation of the Qur' anic ideal
of brotherhood. I want to explore the meaning of that substitution.

*My thanks to Ben-Ami Scharfstein and the other philosophers who took part in the Jiminy
Peak meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy for their helpful
comments on this paper, and to Oliver Leaman for organizing the panel in which it was
presented, as well as undertaking the publication of the present volume.

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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

Friendship in Aristotle as Reciprocated Virtue and as the

Cement ofSociety
In Aristotle's foundational treatment of the moral virtues in the Nico-
machaean Ethics, friendship (ph ilia) either is or presupposes a virtue. 5
Friendship is more a matter of caring for another than of being cared for. 6
For it motivates us to regard the interests of others. Thus friendship is
understood by Aristotle by reference to the love, respect, and support that
human beings offer one another, not always for the sake of some benefit or
return, nor solely because of the good times that companions enjoy
together, but, at times, far more stably. Aristotle ascribes the stability and
strength of real friendship, its ability to withstand strains, to overcome
spatial and temporal distance (within limits), and to generate rather than
exploit and exhaust trust, precisely to its disinterestedness. Disinterested
friendship is not contingent on the utility or pleasure that any human
association may engender. Real friends are 'second selves',7 respecting and
protecting each other's interests as their own. Such friendship is possible,
Aristotle argues, because virtuous friends serve the good they see in one
another; they need not expect any direct return to themselves.
Gregory Vlastos found Plato's ideal of friendship wholly egoistic. 8 w.
D. Ross said much the same of Aristotle. 9 But this seems wrong on three
counts: First, it makes nonsense of Aristotle's differentiation of dis-
interested friendship from the lower types, based on desires for gain or the
simple appetite for (social) pleasures. Second, it ignores the dialectical
posture shared by Aristotle and Plato, which always seeks to show that
virtue is advantageous, never simply to define the virtuous as the advan-
tageous, let alone reduce the virtuous to what is commonly thought to be
advantageous. Third, it ignores the fact that for Aristotle, as for Plato, no
ground of motivation takes precedence to the good itself. Goodness dis-
covered in another makes as basic a claim on the energies and concerns of
the virtuous as would any narrow interest. The virtuous recognize virtue
when they see it and know that personal interest, rightly construed, is not
diminished but enhanced by service to another - both through the comple-
mentarity of private interests that form a community and through the fact
that personal interests are enlarged when one takes another's interests as
one's own - so that friends will genuinely rejoice in one another's
successes and achievements. lO
D. J. Allan's reductionistic claim,1I then, that one who dies for his friend
acts out of enlightened self-interest, since he gains nobility, is a palpable
analogue of the hedonistic fallacy. For if what Aristotle calls nobility
counts as self-interest (on no better grounds than Aristotle's deeming noble
actions to be intrinsically worthwhile and nobility to be the highest human

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motive, and praiseworthy as such) then the contrast between selfishness

and unselfishness becomes meaningless. Only a pedant or a prig would
distinguish acting out of nobility from acting unselfishly or, say, out of
reverence for the moral law . And only a cad would place nobility, construed
as an end worthy of choice for its own sake, on all fours with motives
derived, say, from ordinary appetites or sensory passions.
w. F. R. Hardie cites Aristotle's own defence to expose the equivocation
involved in calling Aristotle's eudaimonism selfish: 'if we grasp the sense
in which each party uses the phrase "lover of oneself", the truth may
become evident. Those who use the term as one of reproach ascribe self-
love to people who assign themselves the greater share of wealth, honours,
and bodily pleasures; for these are what most people desire and busy
themselves about as though they were the best of all things, which is the
reason, too, why they become objects of competition ... if a man were
always anxious that he himself, above all things, should act justly, tem-
perately, or in accordance with any other ofthe virtues, and in general were
always to try to secure for himself the honourable course, no one would call
such a man a lover of self or blame him. But in fact such a man would seem
more than the other a lover of self; at all events he assigns to himself the
things that are noblest and best and pleases the most authoritative element
in himself and in all things obeys this; and just as a city or any other
organized whole is most properly identified with the most authoritative
element in it, so is a man.' 12
Nowhere does Aristotle's enterprise of translating Plato's poetry into
prose have greater effect than in his account of friendship. Plato had sought
and found the meaning of eros on a cosmic scale when he wrote the
Symposium, discovering behind all human desire, that is, all wholesome
desire, a quest for immortality and perfection - biologically, morally,
aesthetically, spiritually and intellectually. But, just as Socrates brought
philosophy down out of the heavens, Aristotle asks a homelier question
than Plato's - not about the supernal, cosmically freighted and sexually
charged idea of eros but about the more generic and down to earth notion
ofphilia: What is it that binds human beings together? He answers that our
regard for others may be interested, as with boon companions or friends of
convenience. But the bonds among us may, in the stablest case, be sheer
regard for the other. In that case we still see Plato's underlying love of the
good as the basic motive, presupposed, if narrowed, in the more self-
serving types of friendship, but preserved in its purity when brought to
focus in perfect friendship.
One effect of Aristotle's offering a homelier and less superheated
account of friendship than Plato's cosmological quest requires is that
Aristotle's ideas about friendship apply directly, literally, to our daily
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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

relationships. We can see this when Aristotle tries (without much success)
to sort out the thorny questions raised in his own social context, about the
relations of a free man with a slaveP More valuably, the optimal form of
friendship in Aristotle's description matches well with what we see as a
sound marital relationship. Cultural biases common to the Greek social
milieu l4 may inhibit Aristotle in naming marriage as the paradigm of
friendship. Yet he is keenly aware of the role of philia in good marriages:
Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for
mankind is naturally inclined to form couples - even more than to
form cities ... human beings live together not only for the sake of
reproduction but also for the various purposes of life. For from the
start the tasks are divided, and those of man and woman are different.
So they aid each other by throwing their distinctive gifts into the
common stock. Accordingly, both utility and pleasure seem to be
found in this kind of friendship. But this friendship may also be based
on virtue, ifthe parties are good. For each has its own virtue, and they
will delight in the fact.IS
Despite his brilliant and well developed theoretical account of the meta-
physics of eros, Plato never married. Aristotle, despite the gender bias that
infects his biology and even his metaphysics, married twice, happily both
times as far as we can tell, once to a princess and, after her death, to a
freedwoman. His account, then, was informed by experience. Plato's
characteristically, touched an ideal.
As he intends, the homelier account offered by Aristotle is useful to
social and political philosophy, precisely because philia, taken generically,
is the name for whatever attachments bind us to the interests of others. Here
Aristotle gives a name to the basis of our constructive social relations,
which is as essential as laughter in human life, since humans are social
animals. Philia grounds the possibility of politics: What makes man a zoon
politikon, a social and civil animal, by Aristotle's account, is that humanity
cannot realize itself as humanity without social cooperation, and cannot
realize itself fully as human without the institutions of the city-schools,
theatres, palaestras, baths, temples, markets, and indeed government. Only
a beast or a god can live alone. But it is philia, our basic sociability, that
enables us to live together. And that sociability is essential to our humanity
not only at the minimal, subsistence level but through the gamut of human
activities and even at the highest levels of the realization of our humanity:
Good friends are the fairest gifts of fortune; no man would willingly live
without them. 16
Plato knew that societies are formed, in the first instance, around the
need for cooperation. But he expressed that truth by way of a myth of
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 Friendship East and West

origin, and he dramatized human interdependence by symbolizing society

as an organism. One byproduct of the symbolism was his idealization of
organic unity in a manner that seemed to make the individual not a whole
at all but a part within the organic whole of the state, as though the very
being of individuals were subordinate and expendable, and as though
individual human purposes meant nothing unless they served the purposes
of the whole. Aristotle stripped away Plato's literary reliance on a myth of
origin. He did not rest his case for the polis on the symbolism of the state
as the individual writ large. He knew that the ethos of a society reflects its
members' values, strengths and weaknesses. And indeed he argued that a
state is a community of families and depends not only on spatial contiguity
but on endogamy. But he had no use for the specious suggestion that the
state is the real person. He answers Plato's Republic as though the living
Socrates had just freshly argued his case:
The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false supposition from
which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the
state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state
may attain such a degree of unity as no longer to be a state, or at
which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior
state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been
reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality,
which should be united and made into a community by education. 17
The irritant that provokes Aristotle's insightful condemnation of Plato's
penchant toward collectivism is the idea of communism:
Such legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence;
men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some
wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend -
especially when someone is heard denouncing the evils now existing
in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of
rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of
private property. These evils, however, are due not to the absence of
communism but to wickedness ... and it is strange that the author of
a system of education which he thinks will make the state virtuous,
should expect to improve his citizens by regulations of this sort, and
not by philosophy or by customs and laws, like those which prevail
at Sparta and Crete respecting common meals ... 18
Arguing that people can quarrel and wrangle just as much over property
they hold in common as over property that is privately owned, Aristotle sets
aside Plato's notion that if integration is a social good, maximal unity is the
social ideal, dissolving households and families and submerging individual
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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

identities and aspirations in the all-embracing social good, now seen,

somehow, as both subsuming and displacing private interests, rather than
serving them.
We do not, Aristotle reasons, make all men friends by manipulating the
rules of ownership. But we can do so by giving them something to like
about each other. And that can be done by education, that is, by making
them better human beings, more capable of liking and more worthy of
being liked - and by providing occasions for them to enjoy one another's
company and profit from one another's fellowship. The friendship sought
here is not some universal, utopian or celestial ideal, but a practical speci-
fication of the generic idea. People do not need to love each other as best
friends do in order to live together harmoniously in a city. 'Goodwill
(eunoia) is a friendly sort of relation, but not identical with friendship,
since one may have goodwill towards people one does not know, and
without their knowing it, but not friendship . . . Goodwill is not even
friendly feeling. For it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas these
accompany friendly feeling; and friendly feeling implies intimacy, while
goodwill may arise of a sudden, as it does toward competitors in a contest;
we come to feel goodwill for them and to share in their wishes, but we
would not do anything for them, since . . . we love them only
superficially.' 19
Friendship, in the proper or specific sense, is for an individual, not for a
collective mass. And it is for someone with whom one interacts. The athlete
in the arena may be as impersonally related to us as an abstraction in a
board game, and the mass of humanity or one's fellow citizens are abstrac-
tions too, perforce, although we interact with them. For the interaction is
not personal. In loving a friend one loves the good in that person. But this
does not mean simply that one loves the good in the abstract or at large. One
loves this person's unique goodness. Not her haecceity, which is itself an
abstraction, but the good as uniquely revealed in her. And one loves her not
for the good one receives or takes from her, but for the good she has, to
which one can contribute, because she uniquely deserves that good, in
virtue of the goodness that she is.
Thus friendship proper is never without intimacy and particularity. Its
nature changes crucially when affection or regard is generalized or made
generic. And, even then, particularity and interaction remain a part of it -
even when its nature is altered so as to enable it to be extended universally.
One can, in an extended, generic, or metaphoric sense, be a friend to a
nation, to humanity or to God. But one can no more be a friend to the
universe than one can be a friend to Kant's categories.
The philia that unites citizens, then, does not fuse or merge their identities.
Indeed, it presupposes the distinctness of those identities. True, it does not
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flare with the intensity of that kind of love or friendship that demands
exclusivity. The ph ilia of fellow citizens is attenuated and diffuse. Yet it is
powerfully effectual. 'Friendship and justice seem ... to be concerned with the
same objects and exhibited between the same persons. For in every community
there is thought to be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men
address as friends their fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers, and so too those
associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of their
association is the extent of their friendship. '20 Friendship in the strict sense is a
kind of justice. Justice, in the narrow or public sense is a specification of
friendship in the broad, generic sense.
To enquire how to treat a friend is to look for a particular kind of
justice; for all justice in general is in relation to a friend. For justice
involves a number of individuals who are partners, and the friend is
a partner either in a family or in one's scheme oflife. For man is not
only a political but a domestic animal, and his unions are not, like
those of other animals, confmed to certain times, and formed with
any chance partner, male or female, but man has an inclination to
partnership with those to whom he is by nature akin. 21
Political relations, then, depend on an attenuated form of friendship. But
not just attenuated, also formalized and more strict as regards the relevance
of earned desert or merit in establishing the substantive basis of recipro-
city.22 The citizens of a virtuous society will die for one another, ifthe cause
be just. Even brothers are seldom called upon to do that.
Custom is the basis of ethos, and ethos is the basis of action. It is here
that we see the relevance of the idea of friendship societally. For friendship
involves more than a quid pro quo. In a healthy society, all three levels of
friendship operate: People do expect a fair return for what they spend or
invest, and they expect that affronts, offences and injuries will be requited.
Otherwise, 'they would think their position mere slavery.23 The ideal of
reciprocity is what is symbolized (thus taught in a peculiarly compelling
way) in the temples ofthe Graces. But at the same time, cooperation fosters
fellowship, and good fellowship is the seedbed of friendship.
Those who experience reciprocity, say, indirectly, from the normal
workings of a social system, will take the initiative themselves, as a result,
and contribute to the commonweal,24 Social virtues like philanthropy and
public spiritedness, then, can grow through the learning that stems from
modelling. As with any virtue, what begins from narrow motives expands
to more generous, more spontaneous, higher motives, that pursue nobility
rather than simply gain or pleasure as their end. Aristotle describes the
outcome in the simple case ofa friendship between two good people: 'Men
wish well to those they love, for their sake, not because of feeling but
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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

because of character; and in loving a friend men love what is good for
themselves; for the good man in becoming a friend becomes a good for his
friend. '25 Similarly on a social scale, cooperation breeds cooperation,
whether its basis is economic or more broadly social. We can add that
courtesy breeds courtesy, and consideration breeds consideration. As a
result of their shared life, the members of a virtuous society will enjoy each
other's company and pursue each other's good. A diffuse but pervasive
version of disinterested friendship will inform their interactions, not by
dissolving but by extending their conceptions oftheir private interests.

Biblical, Rabbinic, Maimonidean, and Qur'anic Fellowship

In the Biblical tradition that complements the work of the Greek philo-
sophers and contributes to the Islamic philosophical synthesis and agenda,
the Aristotelian ideal of disinterested friendship is deepened and enriched
by the idea of fellowship (re'ut), the target of the commandment in
Leviticus (19:18) to love one's fellow as one's self. Both Aristotelian
friendship and Biblical fellowship are conceptualized in terms oflove; and
both are operationalized in terms of practical activity in behalf of another.
Both, in effect, are social virtues. For just as Aristotle regards a diffuse
form of friendship as what knits society together, Leviticus prescribes and
seeks to inculcate re 'ut as the bond of peoplehood.
Synthesizing the Aristotelian and Rabbinic ideas of the social nexus,
Maimonides, aided by the Aristotelian idea of friendship, transmutes
Plato's idea of government as an adjudication among rival interests into the
conception of government as a conciliation of human characters:
It has been made clear as can be [by Aristotle] that man is a social
being by nature, that his nature is civil, unlike other animals that do
not need to congregate in groups. Because of the immense com-
plexity in the make up of this organism, which, as you know, repre-
sents the fmal stage in the compounding ofliving species, individual
differences abound - so much so that you are scarcely any more
likely to find two individuals who match at all in any specific
character trait than to fmd two who look alike physically. The reason
is the diverse make up of individuals: The matter is different, so the
accidents attendant on its form will differ as well ... Such immense
individual diversity is not found in any other animal species. In fact,
the variation among individuals of every other species is not wide.
But with humans you might fmd two individuals who are as different
in every trait of character as if they belonged to different species: One
might be hard to the point that he would slaughter his littlest child in

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the heat of anger, while the other might quail at killing a bedbug or
some such insect, because his spirit is too soft to do it. And so with
most accidents.
But since the nature of our species dictates that there must be so
much diversity among its members, and yet requires that we live
together socially, we need someone, necessarily, to regulate our
actions. For without this, our social existence could not be achieved
at all - someone to tone down our excesses and tune up our defi-
ciencies, to model actions and characters for us all, instituting more
constant and consistent patterns of behavior, to cover over the dis-
parities of our natures with an abundance of conventional concord, so
that society can function in an organized fashion. That is why I say
that although the Law is not natural, it makes an entry into the natural
order; and part of the wisdom of the Deity, in behalf of the survival
of this species, which He was pleased to give existence, was to give
it a nature such that its members have the ability to govern. 26
Maimonides is not here advocating artificiality, but he is explaining that
civilization needs convention, that concord is not natural but must be
achieved. He may underestimate the individual differences in non-human
species, but he values human diversity, despite the obstacle it presents to
social accommodation; he believes that obstacle can be overcome, but only
through institutions, that is, conventions. Adam does not know he is naked
until he falls away from guidance by God's truth and begins to judge good
and evil by his subjective notions of interestY But in the realm of nature
such subjective judgements and the conventions that institute them socially
are necessary conditions of our common survival - that is, the survival of
any of us. Our socialization is too vital to be left to the vagaries of
individual sociability. It must be secured by institutions (such as language)
that paper over our idiosyncrasies and make us behave, whether we are
friends or not, as though we were friends.
Genuine friendship, of course, goes deeper. Commenting on Joshua ben
Perahiah's advice, 'acquire for thyself a friend' (Mishnah, Avot 1:6),
Maimonides writes, 'He used the term "acquire" and did not say "make
yourself a friend" or "befriend others". For the point is the necessity of
finding a friend to enhance one's actions and one's interests, as they said,
"Friendship or death!" (Babylonian Talmud, Ta 'ani! 23a). If one does not
find a friend, one should try with all one's heart, even if one must draw the
other to like him, until he become a friend, constantly trying to please him,
to make the friendship firm. As the moralists teach: 'Do not be a friend on
your own terms but on those of your friend.' When the two who are liked
by one another both follow this counsel, each will seek to serve the other's

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purpose, and their aims will form a single purpose, without a doubt.
Aristotle said well: 'A friend is one with thyself.'28
This union of wills, interpreting Aristotle's idea that a friend is a second
self, is preserved in Spinoza's ideal: 'we can never bring it about that we
require nothing outside ourselves to preserve our being, nor that we live
without having dealings with things outside us ... There are, then, many
things outside ourselves that are useful to us. And of these none can
possibly be discovered that is better than those that are in direct concord
with our nature. For if, say, two individuals of just the same nature are
joined together, they form a new individual twice as capable as either alone.
Nothing, then, is more useful to man than man; nothing, I say, can be
wished for by men that would be more effective in preserving their own
being, than for all their minds and bodies so to come together in every way
as to form, as it were, one body and one mind, and, all together, insofar as
this is possible, strive to preserve their own being and seek for themselves
the common benefit of all.'29
Spinoza may seem more sanguine than Maimonides about the comple-
mentarities of human natures. But he acknowledges the Rambam's point
about diversity by specifying like and complementary natures in those who
come together, insofar as their affmities are based on reason,30 warning
those who would be free against the favours of the ignorant,3! and leaving
the institutional question of how diversities are reconciled for fuller treat-
ment in his political writings. Maimonides puts the emphasis on caution:
The wise leader, he remarks, will look upon all people, 'in regard to their
individual situations, in terms of which they are, no doubt, either like a
flock or like predators. A perfect man who keeps to himself (a mutawa/:tbid
or solitary who follows the ideal oflbn Bajjah ifhe thinks of them at all will
do so only with a view to escaping the harm that the noxious ones might do
him ifhe chanced to associate with them, or of benefiting from the helpful
ones, as necessity may require. '32 But a genuine leader cannot hold aloof,
despite the risk of falling foul of the more noxious members of humanity.
A Moses will thus be found 'advancing boldly to the great king with
nothing but his staff, to save a nation from the yoke of slavery, undaunted
and undismayed, because he has been told, 'I shall surely be with you'
(Exodus 3:12).'33
Such a leader must unite and conciliate the predators with the flock. For
Maimonides, like Spinoza, understands the ultimate demands of friendship
socially, and he casts his messianic vision in terms of the global consum-
mation of that friendship: 'Let no one think that in the days of the Messiah
any of the laws of nature will be set aside, or any innovation be introduced
into creation. The world will follow its accustomed course. The words of
Isaiah (11 :6) 'And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
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lie down with the kid,' are to be understood figuratively, meaning that
Israel will dwell securely among the (once) wicked ofthe heathens, who are
likened to wolves and leopards, as it is written, 'A wolf of the deserts doth
spoil them, a leopard watcheth over their cities' (Jeremiah 5:6). They will
all accept the true religion [that is, some form of monotheism, derived from
Judaism and respectful of it], and will neither plunder nor destroy, but
together with Israel earn a comfortable living in a legitimate way, as it is
written, 'And the lion shall eat straw like the ox' (Isaiah 11 :7).'34 For the
character of the predaceous nations is a reflection of their mores, not vice
versa, as Maimonides' reference to the impact of individual situations in
conditioning the noxious or helpful characters makes clear. When co-
operation supersedes predation, the warlike ethos will abate, replaced by a
spirit of international friendship.
Maimonides follows Aristotle in dividing friendships by their aims, into
those of utility, pleasure and virtue. His paradigm of the friendship of utility
is that of a king and his army; of pleasure, that of males and females; and
of virtue, that of master and disciple. He preserves the idea ofthe friendship
of virtue when he says that we need one another not only for enhancement
of our interests but also for the enhancement of our acts. Perhaps guided by
the Epicurean thinking of Razl, Maimonides subdivides the friendships of
pleasure into those based on enjoyment and those based on trust, mirroring
the extent to which one (offers or) expects the benefit of the doubt. He
justifies this odd invasion of the realm of pleasure by what looks to use
more like the friendship of the good, with the simple remark that it is a great
pleasure to be able to trust another to the extent that one need not be on
guard, even about matters that might in other cases bring embarrassment.
The theme, as we shall see, reflects a thought that Maimonides shares with
his predecessor al-GhazalL
The rabbinic norm that makes all Israelites responsible for one another
is formalized beyond its Biblical roots and its Talmudic moral and juridical
elaborations35 in the Qur'anic (2:77) principle of zakiit, one of the five
Pillars of Islam. This general welfare tax on wealth is traditionally
construed as a purgation that purifies and blesses one's remaining property,
through the moral and spiritual merit of sharing the mandated portion with
fellow Muslims: those too poor to owe a such a tax themselves, those with
no property at all, debtors, slaves, mujiihidin, wayfarers, and, to be sure, the
tax collector.
The structural parallels and methodological differences between a virtue
ethic and a legislatively instituted command ethic show up vividly in the
concrete specifications of the Shari 'a as to the proportions of one's camels,
kine, horses, silver, gold, merchandise, ores, and produce payable as zakiit
the threshold amounts that trigger a tax liability in each of these categories,
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and the manner in which the system is to be administered. Aristotle will

sound far more liberal in saying simply that friends withhold nothing from
one another: 'Friendship asks a man to do what he can, not what is
proportional to the merits of the case; since that cannot always be done,
e.g., in honors paid to the gods or to parents; for no one could ever return
to them the equivalent of what he gets. '36 Yet when Aristotle tries to make
a social or societal rule of this broad principle, his usual lucidity fades as
soon as he departs from the economic model of proportion, and perhaps
even sooner, when he asks who is to fIx the value of a service.37 As Hardie
says, 'In covering this kind of ground it is not possible even for Aristotle,
nor did he try, to avoid a certain amount of platitude. '38
Aristotle's remark rolls easily off the tongue: 'A friend is to be preferred
to things and not things to a friends. '39 But to interpret this in practice or
even formulate it behaviorally as a rule of conduct is not as easy as the
words might make it seem. When Aristotle fumbles with issues in the
casuistry of friendship, the ransom of captives, the priorities among friends,
benefactors, family members and the like, the reason is not that the subject
matter is inherently dull or irrelevant to practical ethical concerns. It is
simply that he has stumbled into the proper sphere of legislation, custom,
ethos and etiquette. Here virtue ethics issues no conclusive determinations
but, as Kant recognized,40 can only raise questions, to which law or custom
must provide the best answers it can.
The strength of legislation lies in its institutional articulation - for the
sake of enforcement and social realisation and implementation by formal
social agencies. Thus, with zakiit, societal support is most prominent where
the need is greatest, and familial, tribal and other informal mechanisms of
support are weakest. For the index case of a benefIciary of zakiit is the
destitute stranger. But the weakness of the legislative approach to moral
problems lies within its very strength. For institutions have a life of their
own. The minimal requirements of sanction-bearing institutions are all too
readily mistaken, as Ibn lufayl complains, for the maximal demands of
moral concern.41 And legal institutions, as al-Farabi warned, may be made
the vehicles of narrow and invidious standards. 42
Crucially, for our topic of friendship, the Qur'an (5:51) will command:
'0 ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends
and protectors (awliyii '). They are but friends and protectors to each other.
And he amongst you that turns to them. Verily Allah guideth not the
unjust.' I quote here not from my own translation, but from the King Fahd
Qur'an, published in Medinah under the auspices of The Presidency of
Islamic Researches, Ifiii', Call and Guidance, sanctioned by ulamii' dili-
gently seeking the propagation of Islam. The accompanying commentary
expounds on the warning against friendship or cooperation with Jews and
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Christians: 'look not to them for help and comfort. They are more likely to
combine against you than to help you. And this happened more than once
in the lifetime ofthe Prophet, and in after-ages again and again. He who
associates with them and shares their counsels must be counted as of them.
The trimmer loses whichever way the wheel of fortune turns. '43 Here an
ideal that ought to have been cosmopolitan, universal and open-hearted
becomes parochial, defensive and suspicious - divisive of humanity and
dismissive or condemnatory of those who seek friendship or alliance
beyond the narrow fold and amongst the alien 'other' against the hardships
of the human condition.

Miskawayh on Friendship
Miskawayh, the Persian courtier, historian and physician who naturalized
Aristotelian virtue ethics in Islamicate culture,44 is sensitive to the social
role of friendship, which he interprets, in very Aristotelian terms, as a kind
of sociability or affability, the potential that allows Aristotle to treat
humans as a social or civil species. Miskawayh opens his Tahdhib
al-Akhliiq, On the Refinement of Character,45 with a traditional Islamic
foreword, setting out the task of an Islamic ethics. In this passage he applies
a Mu'tazilite/Shi'ite voluntaristic gloss to one of the Qur'an's charac-
teristic oaths: 'By the soul and that which shaped it and breathed into it its
wickedness and piety.' The passage might seem a perfect prooftext for
predestinarians; but Miskawayh reads on - 'he who keeps it pure prospers,
and he who corrupts it fails!' Accordingly, Miskawayh reads the verses
(91:7-10) as mandating a Socratic tendance of the soul: One might, he
explains, forge the same metal into a perfect or a worthless sword. 46 The
Creator affords the matter of our humanity, but to work up that material
through art and culture is our responsibility. The word tahdhib, then,
improvement, correction, or refinement, here has the force of the Greek
paideia, so often conveyed by another favourite term of Miskawayh's,
adab, and its second form masdar, ta'dib. Adab, is literature; ta'dib is
discipline. But the meanings that link the two lie in the realm of conno-
tation. For both connote culture, and culture is Miskawayh's great theme,
as in some ways it was Plato's. The ideal of adab is courtesy, the refinement
brought by literature. Ta'dib is education conceived as moral discipline,
our means to the refinement of character.
Miskawayh's commitment to virtue ethics, then, is a matter neither of
metaethical theory nor of casebook morals, that is, practical casuistry.
Rather it is an attempt to codify an ethos, guided by literary and historical
models. It is in this respect that Miskawayh is an adib - not merely a
connoisseur ofliterary and historical traditions but a humanist who seeks in
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literature the vivid paradigms of action and character that will link the
abstract ideals of philosophy with the concrete behavioural demands of
scripture to generate a true ta 'dib paideia.
Society, Miskawayh argues, is our means to this end: Each of us is
necessary to someone else's perfection, and all of us must cooperate to
provide the material base needed to humanize our existence. 47 Once the
bare necessities are secured, higher and more intellectual plateaus are
sought - each of us advancing in the measure of his capacities and all of us
shoring up the weaknesses of the rest.48 This means that the social virtues
of friendliness, affability, and cooperativeness, are necessary to human
wellbeing, as Aristotle argued - and that in a strong sense. For we cannot
achieve our fulfillment, accomplish our work, or even actualize our nature
as human beings without an intimate reliance on one another.
Ascetics, then, are mistaken in seeking perfection outside human
society: The life of the anchorite or vagabond stunts our humanity and
thwarts our nature. Such men are neither temperate nor just. Indeed, they
lack the social theatre in which these virtues can be developed, let alone
exercised. 49 In the spirit of his Christian teacher Yal;1ya Ibn 'Adi, and in
agreement with Aristotle,50 Miskawayh argues that love is the basis of all
society - friendship being a more intimate and fellowship a more diffuse
form of love. Humanity itself is named for fellowship, according to
Miskawayh. For he derives the Arabic 'insiin from 'uns, friendliness,
sociability, treating the idea of humanity as the derivative notion and
sociability as the basic one, rather than vice versa, as the linguistic givens
might lead us to expect. He rejects the fanciful etymology of one embittered
poet who pretends to derive the word from nisyiin, forgetfulness.
Friendship in the strict sense is not generalizable: 'It is a species oflove,
but more specific, affection per se. It cannot be shared with a large group,
as love can.'51 In the young and those who share their nature, its basis is
pleasure, Miskawayh writes, following Aristotle. Love based on pleasure is
established quickly and dissolves quickly. Among the old, friendship is
rooted in usefulness. Love based on usefulness is established slowly but
dissolved quickly. 'Friendship among the good is for the sake of the good.
The good is its cause, and since the good is something stable and un-
changing in its essence the affections of those who are attached in this way
grow to be unchanging and permanent.'52 Love of this kind is established
quickly but dissolves slowly. However, a love founded on all of these -
pleasure, mutual benefits, and the good - is the stablest, established slowly,
but extinguished only with difficulty. This love, which goes beyond friend-
ship in the narrow sense, is the stablest foundation of a social order,
allowing human beings to come together as one to overcome their indi-
vidual deficiencies and act harmoniously to achieve the perfection which
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no one of them could achieve alone. 53 Fellowship, then, is the key to human
happiness and fulfillment.
Even public worship is devised by the religious law, Miskawayh argues,
to foster human fellowship - neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by
city, and (through the Pilgrimage to Mecca) among the Islamic community
throughout the world:
One must understand that this natural human sociability is what we
must cherish and cultivate in concert with others of our kind. We
must bend every effort and capacity to ensure that it does not elude or
escape us. For it is the basis of every form of love. The only reason
that both the Law and good manners make it an obligation for people
to extend invitations to one another and gather at parties (ma'iidib) is
to make them sociable. Indeed, the Law may have imposed on people
the duty of gathering in mosques five times a day, and preferred
public over private prayer, solely to ensure that this inborn soci-
ability, natural to us all as a potential, would be realized and emerge
into actuality, confirmed by the sound beliefs that unite us.
Such daily gatherings are not hard for the denizens of a single street
or neighborhood. But the proof that the Lawgiver's aim was as we
have stated is that he made it an obligation for the entire populace of
a city to gather once a week on an appointed day in mosques spacious
enough to hold them, so that the denizens of every street and
neighborhood might assemble weekly, just as those from every
household and dwelling gather daily. He further required that twice a
year the people of the city join those of the villages and the nearby
countryside in a broad, open place of worship that would accom-
modate them, to renew their fellowship with one another face to face
and enfold themselves in the love that links them together.
Finally, he made it an obligation, once in a lifetime to gather at the
holy site in Mecca, not appointing some specific time oflife, so as to
ensure latitude in finding the time. Thus persons from the most
widely distant cities would come together just as the people of a
single city do, in the same sociability, love,joy, and good fellowship
as do all those who gather every year, every week, every day, sharing
in this unity the good things they have in common, renewing their
common love of the Law, celebrating God for the guidance He has
vouchsafed them, and rejoicing in the true and upright faith that
unites them in piety and service to God. 54
It was with this thought in mind - that religion does not isolate but unites
humanity - that the wise King Ardashir of Persia (r. 226-241, founder of
the Sassanian dynasty) called religion and monarchy twin brothers. 55
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Miskawayh does not press a reduction of religiosity to social motives.

On the contrary, he treats piety and credal correctness as gifts of God whose
intrinsic value is enhanced and stabilized by participation in an integrated,
socially united community. He does not take issue with the prevalent
medieval assumption that communities, whether local or far flung, are not
ethnic, linguistic, geographical, economic, historic or cultural but credal in
their ideal form. But he does seek to explain the modalities of religious
observance - public prayer, the neighborhood and cathedral mosque, the
pilgrimage - by reference to the Platonic and Aristotelian idea that practice
gives substance and actuality to virtues that are otherwise only potential or
ideal. Aristotle makes the same point about public worship, and he too has
no reductionist intention. Immediately after describing the geographical
and genetic contiguousness of the inhabitants of a state, he writes: 'Hence
arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, and
amusements which draw men together. These are created by friendship, for
the will to live together is friendship. '56

Friendship in al-Ghaziili
AI-Ghazali frames his account of ethics on the foundations provided by
Miskawayh,57 but the same theistic interests that make naturalism proble-
matic for Ghazali also tug at the relations among human beings and lead
him to reformulate the basis of our relationships. Unlike Maimonides
(Guide III 43), he will none of the Peripatetic rationale, so welcome to
Miskawayh, which treats religious assemblies as means of enhancing soci-
ability. Like Galen and Razi (and in keeping with the Biblical obligation of
reproof, which provides the original setting of the general admonition to
love one's fellow as one's self), Ghazali speaks of friends as means of
discovering one's own faults, either by seeking their counselor by learning
from their plight. Naturally, children should be taught to respect their
friends, just as they are taught not to boast of their parents' possessions or
their own food and clothing.58 But the primary role of friends is instru-
mental: No one but God can simply give without expecting a return. In
keeping with his general substitution of action for the sake of a heavenly
reward in place of sheerly disinterested action, Ghazali argues that acts of
generosity toward one's friends can be considered pure if done for the sake
of a reward in heaven, or for the sake of cultivating the virtue of generosity.
They need not be done for the friend's sake alone. 59
Everyone needs help, so everyone needs friends. They are an aid in time
of trouble and a necessity in time of need. But friends can be a source of
temptations - to gossip, for example. And popularity can be a source of
overweening pride. One must walk a narrow track indeed between the
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influence over others that one needs to survive in life - to repel the attacks
of enemies and to promote one's interests appropriately - and the tempta-
tion to arrogate to oneself the divine attribute of sovereignty - as though
human power were something one could carry beyond the grave. The
saintly do attract more influence than they need. But there is a right and
wrong way to acquire influence and to use it. 60 To make friendship an end
in itself is a secular and humanistic way of organizing one's priorities.
When saintliness (#dq) pursues detachment, Ghazali argues, it seeks
escape from the worldliness of valuing friendship for its own sake - or
friends for themselves.
Friends may meet at school or in a prince's court, drawn together
perhaps by appearance, pleasant conversation, or some chance ofbenefit.61
Turning Aristotle on his head, Ghazali argues that if what is sought is some
godly aim, like enhancing one's heavenly reward, or if the love one feels
for another is based on his love of God, then one's love is in fact directed
toward God. That is, the instrumental love of another is really on behalfof
God,fi- 'lliih, for the sake of God; and the admiration of another's godliness
is really directed toward God, /i- 'lliih. Ghazali's discovery of a godly
motive in such feelings of attachment to another, is, of course, a means of
their legitimation. Discovering an intrinsic basis for the friendship would
delegitimize it. For pietism, the risk is that a relationship that is legitimate
insofar as it is directed toward God and heaven might have some lesser aim.
The danger can be acute. For Ghazali legitimates the use of a friend as a
kind of surrogate or stepping stone to the mystic's passionate love of God
- a practice fraught with risks of abuse, both of God's sanctity and of the
human surrogate taken in some Sufi poetry and practice as His image. 62
For humanism, there is a danger less insidious but more pervasive, in the
exclusion of simple human warmth as a legitimate, and primary focus of
human interests. If all our attachments are placed so directly in the service
of God, there may be little left of the original human motives for friendship.
Aristotle finds a noble, humanizing and ultimately divine aim (service of
the good for its own sake) within and behind the seeming anomaly of
disinterested friendship. Pietism, in seeking to retain the priority that is
God's due, creates a competition where humanism saw a complementarity.
But such efforts to redirect human warmth toward God exclusively, by
instrumentalizing even friendship, seem to undermine the very purposes for
which a humanistic theist would expect that God created us.
The difficulty parallels that of horizontal causality in Ghazali's radical
monotheism. And the line of response in behalf of humanism and
naturalism corresponds to the difficulties Maimonides raised against
Ash'arism and occasionalism: If proximate (natural) causes do not act
within the world, why did God bother to create them? Similarly here: Ifwe
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can serve God only by pursuing godliness, and not by the manifold culti-
vation of the human virtues, do we not fail in the very task of becoming as
like to God as humanly possible - which, in tenns of the Maimonidean
parallel, would mean, perfecting our Godgiven humanity in all its aspects?
Can Ghazali offer as adroit an answer here as he does to the question of
causality? The concern I want to raise is that he cannot. Specifically, I want
to raise the possibility that in very self-consciously removing the secular
and humanistic elements from Miskawayh's account of the virtues in
general and of friendship in particular, and in re-fonnalizing virtue ethics
in a Sufi pietist framework, to generate an explicit and thematically homo-
geneous prescriptive code, al-Ghazali has rigidified, denatured, and in
some measure dehumanized the core or basis of human fellowship, at the
very moment when he sought to render it most intense, and by the very
means that he had hoped would render it most effective morally, and
spiritually most satisfying.
We can see the strengths and weaknesses of al-Ghazali's approach,
perhaps most clearly in his account of the Duties of Brotherhood in the
Il,tyii' 'Ulum ai-Din. As Mohammed Ahmed Sherif ably explains, in keep-
ing with al-Ghazali's own description, the Il,tyii', is a work of devotional
praxis (mu'iimalah), not of mystical knowledge (mukiishafah). Its four
great divisions address outward and inner acts of worship (directed toward
God) and mores (of men with one another). Its second quarter deals with
interhuman relations, and the fifth of its ten books is on 'The Ethics (iidiib)
of Sociability, Brotherhood, Friendship, and Living with Diverse Sorts of
Human Beings. '
Ghazali opens this section by declaring, in the spirit of Aristotle and
Miskawayh - although citing more traditional authorities - that 'sociability
is the fruit of a wholesome character; and isolation, the fruit of a bad
character.'63 But as he moves forward in classifying the motives of friend-
ship, the illustrations he gives allow glimpses of the context that affords
their social setting: We are in a Sufi conventicle. Gazing on a fair face, as
one might gaze on flowers that please the eyes, may be forbidden or
pennitted, depending on the intent that motivates the gaze. But the love of
a disciple toward his guide is love of God, if it is stirred by love of the
supernal goods to which that guide's teaching gives access. And if a
disciple's love is mingled with a yen for worldly success, that is only
natural. For how can one be expected to long for wellbeing in the hereafter
who does not desire it in the here and now?64 Thus, the advice of one of the
sages, that one should seek out as a friend either a person from whom one
can learn or a person whom one can teach, and avoid all others. 65
The discussion places us not in an open society - not even in such
surroundings as we might have pictured when al-Ghazali mentioned
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making friends in school - but in a closed environment. This is not a rich

and multi-textured reality, but a rule-constituted system, whose all-defining
norms seem to reach out to every possible choice and motion and inclina-
tion of the eyes. Nothing is casual or spontaneous here. 66 The bond of
brotherhood, Ghazali writes, is like the marriage bond. For both entail
specific rights (l.zuquq).67 Brethren must share in good or ill fortune and
unselfishly share their wealth - minimally, as a master cares for his slave;
better, as equals; and ideally, in saintly fashion, placing the other's interest
first. Thus the Sufi counterpart to Damon and Pythias, 'Abu '1-I:Iusayn
al-Niiri, who rushed forward to take his brother's place before the execu-
tioner.'68 The ideal of self-sacrifice is preserved and heightened, its motive
fused with pietist zeal. Friendship is overlaid with the spiritual bond of Sufi
brethren. But the gilt encrustation of aretology removes the ideal even
further than in the ancient story from the immediacy of day-to-day altruism.
Some Muslims, Ghazali writes, reached so lofty a stage that 'they would
shun the fellowship of one who would say "my sandal'" - since such a
person had claimed the shoe as his own. 69 Here the ideal of fellowship rises
so high as to undermine itself. For what can we make of an altruism so
exalted and so spiritually exclusive that it refuses to reach out to a fellow
human being simply on the grounds that he is no more than mortal?
The same tendency to substitute hagiography for moral immediacy is
found in Ghazali's discussion of meeting others' needs. He cites several
sources who say that one should count as dead a fellow Muslim who refuses
needed help; he tells that in the glory days of early Islam a Muslim would
support his dead brother's wife and children for forty years. He quotes
Ja'far b. Mul)ammad as saying: 'I make haste to satisfy the needs of my
enemies, for fear that if I reject them they will find that they can get along
without me.' Ghazali ignores the wit in the remark and its accompanying
show of ego, commenting simply, 'ifthis is the attitude towards enemies,
how then towards friends?,70
Reversing the fields of his initial modelling of duties to brethren on the
marital bond, Ghazali argues that brethren should be dearer to us than kin.
Did not al-I:Iasan use to say, 'our families remind us of this world; our
brethren, of the hereafter'? Plainly the needs of brethren should be as
compelling to us as our own - or more so. Such circularities and reversals
- predicating altruism on a love of self that is alternately presumed and
rejected - expose the whole discussion as mere rhetoric. But that effect is
an artifact of Ghazali's patchwork method. He does better when he gets
down to cases.
We have an obligation to our brethren, he argues, to keep silent as to
their faults, their private business, and their secrets. We must not contradict
them, say anything unpleasant to them, or criticize those whom they hold
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dear. Ifwe see any fault in brethren, we must remember that we too have
faults and try to excuse their failings and avoid suspicious or uncharitable
constructions oftheir acts: 'The least degree of brotherhood is to treat your
brother as you would wish to be treated; obviously you would expect him
not to expose your shame but to keep quiet about your faults and failings.'7l
Here the courtly virtue of discretion is applied not to the flattery of a prince
but to the consideration of a comrade. Pietism has slipped quietly into the
robes of courtesy. Accordingly we read: 'A cultured man (ba 'rju '1- 'udabii)
was asked, "How do you deep a secret?" He answered, "I am its grave."
And it was said, ''The breasts of the free are the tombs of secrets." And
again: "The heart ofthe fool is in his mouth, but the tongue of the intelligent
is in his heart." ... Another was asked, "How do you keep a secret?" and
answered, "I deny even knowing the source, and I give my oath to the one
who wants to know." Another said, "I conceal it and conceal as well the fact
that I am concealing it.",n
Here Ghazali draws freely on the sources of adab, and imbibes its values as
well: the free spirit is the role model now, taking the place of the spiritual guide
or the Prophet's companions. Prevarication or even a false oath seem justified
in defense of a friend's privacy and honor. The courtly values persist when AbU
Yazid is quoted as saying that a comrade should know as much of you as God
does, and keep just as silent; and, when AbU Sa'id al-Thawri recommends
testing a prospective friend by provoking him and then checking to see if he
has revealed your secrets. This is the stuff of farce and light opera, or perhaps
of tragedy, or heavy opera But al-Ghazali does not seem to mind.
Counterbalancing the duty of discretion is the obligation to speak out: to
express affection and concern, to greet a fellow Muslim warmly and
address him by his preferred names, to praise his good qualities, his
children and skills, to acquaint him with the praises of others, defend him
in his absence and vigorously rebuke the fault finder: 'How vile in a brother
to see you savaged by a dog, tearing your flesh, yet remain silent .. .'73 Part
of true Islam, Ghazali argues, is that what one hates for oneself one hates
for one's brother: 'AbU 'l-Darda' once noticed two oxen plowing, yoked
together. When one stopped to scratch itself, the other stopped too. Abu
'l-Darda' wept and said, "So it is when two brothers in God are doing God's
work: When one halts, the other does too ..."74 Here the secular ideal is
sublimated once again by Sufism. Glossing the ideal of concord mooted by
AbU 'l-Darda', al-Ghazali interprets the demands of fellowship in reference
to the pietist ideal of khalii~, sincerity of heart and purity of motive:
'Complaisance perfects sincerity, and to be a hypocrite means to be in-
sincere rather than wholehearted toward one's brethren.'75
In pietism sincerity is a material rather than a purely formal virtue. It
betokens not merely internal consistency, meaning what one says, but
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yearning and striving for the good. Part of the Stoic reconstruction of Cynic
ethics was the supplying of a good intention where the Cynics idealized
sheer candour, unaffectedness, scorn for convention and outspoken open-
ness about one's natural feelings, whatever they might be. The idea that the
formal virtue of sincerity entails a material virtue of good will is preserved
among deontological philosophers down to the ethics of Kant, where the
only thing that is unqualifiedly good is a good will. 76 Wholeheartedness
(khalii:j) then, entails love as well as candor, and only benevolence can
guide the choice between speaking out and keeping silent.
Accordingly, Ghazali argues, one must speak out not only in praise and
defense of one's brother, but also by way of instruction, advice and admo-
nition. As in the Rabbinic construal of the Biblical obligation of reproof,
public disgrace is not what is called for, but the use of private moments to
hold a mirror to a brother's flaws - just as God will admonish the faithful
on the Judgement Day, 'under His wings, in the shadow of His veil,'
although He will publicly shame the despicable. 77 'The difference between
censorious reproach and sincere advice is that between the public and the
private, just as the difference between tact and flattery lies in the motive of
one's indulgence. 78 Here Ghazali offers genuine moral counsel. For the
differences in question are subtle and rest on the intentions of the speaker
and the one whom he might aid or alienate by a word: 'If you are indulgent
out of religious scruples and because you judge it to be for your brother's
own good, that is tact. But if you do so in your own behalf, to serve your
own desires or avoid discomfort, you are a flatterer. Dhu 'I-Nun said: 'In
fellowship with God, only complaisance; with man, only candor; with
oneself, only criticism; and with the devil, only hostility! '79
Just as friends have a right to tact and candor, so they have a right to
forgiveness. Abu Dharr advised one to break with a friend who obstinately
persisted in wrongdoing: 'Hate him as you used to love him!' But Ghazali
prefers the advice of AbU 'I-Darda'; 'Do not desert him ... For your brother
might be crooked now and straight anon.'80
As many a badith teaches, a friend might be moved to repent, and a slip
does not dissolve the bond of friendship. So AbU 'I-Darda's is the subtler
and more effective, albeit the riskier advice. Ultimately, fellowship, like
kinship, is not a bond to be lightly abandoned. If it demands material aid, a
fortiori does it demand moral and spiritual support for those who need it
most. Ghazali's argument leans on the fact that fellowship is called brother-
hood: Like kinship, it is an existential bond, not a mere convention, like
some purely contractual relationship.
Friendship is a relationship like blood kinship, and one cannot simply
abandon a kinsman when he does wrong. That is why God told His

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prophet, as to his kin, 'If they disobey you, say, "I'll have nothing to
do with your actions'" (Qur'tin 26:216). He did not tell him to say,
'I'll have nothing to do with yoU.'81
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
In the interest of piety, Ghazali again subverts the ground he builds on,
arguing that only a spiritual brother is a real brother, and that the brother-
hood of faith is stronger than that of kinship, on which, only lines before, it
was predicated. He even turns the secular scripture of proverbs to use in
behalf of spiritual fellowship, by pressing into service the worldly remark:
'Kinship needs affection, but affection does not need kinship. '82 His thesis:
that spiritual brothers have a claim on us that does not dissolve even when
they stray. But in fact, kinship has a more basic claim, only rhetorically
denied. For, as Ghazali acknowledges, we are free to avoid fellowship with
reprobates, but we may not reject our obligations to our kin.
If spiritual failings and moral faults are to be forgiven, personal dis-
appointments must be dealt with even more leniently: If one who feels no
offence when provoked is an ass, one who takes no comfort when conci-
liated is a devil. Ghazali carves out a pietist mean when he follows
al-Shiifi'i in urging us to be neither. As the poet said, we must forgive the
noble out of humility and the base out of nobility. The Prophet's advice: Be
quick to anger and quick to forgive. An injury to the heart is not less painful
than one to the body, and no more possible to ignore. 'One cannot simply
pluck it out. But one can curb and suppress it and countermand its dictates.
For it demands redress, revenge, and recompense. But one need not act on
these demands. '83
We must pray for our brethren, as we do for ourselves, in life and in
death, and hold steadfast to them, even - or especially after death. Death
here is a test of moral purity, like aid to the helpless in the Mosaic morality,
or support for the elderly in Confucianism. For the dead offer no requital.
The fact that friendship transcends interest is appropriately signalled in the
argument that it transcends death: 'The Prophet said, "Among the seven
whom God shades beneath His tabernacle are two men who love each other
in God, together or apart.'" The /:zadith here becomes the vehicle of
Aristotle's ideal of disinterested friendship, its orientation toward the good
itself, translated into the technical phrase, 'in God. '84
Ghazali cites a /:zadith about the warm welcome Mul)ammad once gave
an old woman, and the Prophet's explanation: 'She used to visit us in
Khadijah's time, and honoring old ties is part of religion.' Here religion
pays deference to the purely human worth of human warmth, as the Prophet
of Islam is pictured remembering the friendships of the days of his young
manhood, during his marriage to his first wife. But al-Ghazali's demand for

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 Friendship East and West

focus cannot leave the matter there: 'Lasting affection is that which is in
God. That which has some other object passes with the passing of that
object. '85 Ghaziili avoids contradicting his claim that true friendship sur-
mounts even death (and thus endures despite its focus on the friend rather
than on the hereafter) by stipulating that the only true friendship is in God.
Friends have a right to generosity, support, even indulgence from one
another, but they should not make demands. For friends also have a right
not to be burdened, embarrassed or encumbered. It is not contradictory of
al-Ghazali to argue that we have rights but should not demand their imple-
mentation. In the case of friendship, all one's rights rest on consideration
and regard. They are no longer the rights of a friend when they must be
exacted or extracted, let alone enforced. Only when freely given do they
have their proper meaning. The point can be generalized, and it relates to
one of the core differences between modem and pre-modem ideas of rights,
an area in which the old texts can be informative to us, although their
authors are in no position to profit from our instruction. For although rights
may presuppose corresponding duties, the idea that those duties are not real
unless they are enforced as formal obligations is a product of the litigious-
ness that a societal (as opposed to communal) model of human relations
fosters. The Talmudic Rabbis address the point when they say, with a touch
of seeming paradox, that Jerusalem was destroyed because its people
insisted on their rights. A stable society needs generosity as well as formal
fairness, and the same is true of the marriages and other friendships and
fellowships that are molecular to the stability of a good society.
Ghaziili's point is simply that friends do not impose on one another. Not
in a sound friendship. They do not make one another uncomfortable or give
one another constant reason to apologize for their actions. The asymmetry
of human desires lies at the root ofGhazali's thought here and links it to his
pietist theme. For in God's eyes my flaw or merit or desert is no less nor
more than yours. But individual human perspectives are myopic: 'Why
beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own?' (Matthew 5:3). Applying the idea broadly to
issues of tact, discomfort, and ease, Ghaziili writes:
Ja'far b. Muhammad al-Sadiq (may God be pleased with him and
with his father), used to say, 'The heaviest of my brethren for me is
one who is artificial with me and with whom I must be reserved. The
lightest on my heart is one with whom I can be just as I am when I am
alone.'
A certain Sufi said, 'Do not become close with people, unless their
respect for you will not be augmented by your devoutness or
diminished by your sins. That way your actions will be your own, for

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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

better or for worse, and you will be the same in your friend's eyes,
regardless.' The only reason he said this was because he thought it
would provide a means of escape from artificiality and unnatural
reserve ...
Another said, 'Do not make friends with anyone unless he will
repent for you when you sin, make excuses for you when you do
wrong, bear your soul's burden and not expect you to bear his own.'
But the person who said this drew the course of brotherhood too
narrowly for people. That is not the way things are. On the contrary,
one should seek to be the brother of any intelligent religious person,
resolved to keep these conditions oneself but not imposing them on
others. Then you will have many brethren. For you will be a brother
for the sake of God. Otherwise, you will be one only out of self-
interest.
Thus a man said to Junayd, 'Brethren are scarce these days. Where
can I find a brother in God?' Junayd turned away three times without
answering, but when the man persisted, he replied: 'If you want a
brother to take care of you and carry your burden, that kind is scarce
indeed. But if you want a brother in God whose burden you can carry
and whose hurts you can endure, I have a whole host to introduce to
yoU.'S6
Peeking out from the Sufi latticework here, we see not just the pietism of
the Sermon on the Mount but the Cynicism of Diogenes, searching for a
man, and the Stoics' response to their Cynic forebears, couched in the
language of duty and concern. The Cynic's cardinal, existential virtue of
candour, naturalness, or sincerity, is preserved as well, transmuted from the
mere rejection of convention, to a positive focus on God and devotion.
Aristotle's distinction of interested from disinterested friendship is made
canonical, as brotherhood in God. And Aristotle's central theme, that
enlightened self-interest seeks the good for its own sake and that short-
sighted self-interest is not genuine self-interest at all,S? has also been
preserved, by substituting action for the sake of the hereafter for the secular
ideal of altruism, disinterest, or action for the sake of the good.
In his rejection of artificiality, Ghazali, following the lead of the great
Sufi Junayd, seems to try to puncture the encircling dome of formalism,
which his own work does so much to complete. He asks his disciples, now
that they have learned the code of friendship, to recognize that freedom is
the only real basis of friendship, and not to break that code but to break
through its artificiality, so that their actions may be their own and they may
relate to one another as adults and not as prigs or children. The construct he
has helped to build, for all that it does in behalf of piety, does not make that

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 Friendship East and West

breakthrough easier. But, to Ghazali's credit,just as he found a quiet corner

in his philosophy of nature to acknowledge not only the causality that flows
from God but also the causality it engenders among events, so he found a
place, in the heart of the Revival of the Religious Sciences to acknowledge
the precious liberty of friendship.

NOTES
Encyclopedia of Islam (New) Leiden, Brill, 1960 1.326. Walzer and Gibb
write: 'Miskawayh was fully excepted (sic) by such an influential theologian as
al-Ghazali and in this way was integrated with religious tradition.' The sub-
stitution of'excepted' for 'accepted' may be a Freudian slip; it is certainly more
accurate, if less syntactical, than the intended phrasing.
2 Muhanunad Abul Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghaziili: A Composite Ethics in
Islam Published privately in Petaling Jaya, Se1angor, Peninsular Malaysia,
1975 and 'Al-Ghazali's Rejection of Philosophic Ethics.' Islamic Studies 13
(1974) 111-27.
3 Mohamed Ahmed Sherif, Ghazii/i's Theory of Virtue Albany, State University
of New York Press, 1975.
4 L. E. Goodman, 'Ethics and Social Philosophy in Islam,' in I. Mahalingam and
Brian Carr, eds., The Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy London, Routledge,
1996.
5 Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics VIIl I, 1155a 3.
6 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 8, 1159a 28.
7 Nicomachaean Ethics IX 4, 1166a 32.
8 G. Vlastos, 'The Individual as Object of Love in Plato,' Platonic Studies
Princeton, Princeton UP 1981.
9 W. D. Ross,Aristotle London, Methuen, 1966; fIrsted. 1923. fIfth ed. rev. 1949
231.
10 For a different but more detailed response to Vlastos, see A. W. Price, Love and
Friendship in Plato and Aristotle Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989.
11 D. 1. Allan, The Philosophy ofAristotle Oxford, Clarendon 1952.
12 Nicomachaean Ethics IX 8, 1168b 12-33; see Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical
Theory Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988; first ed. 1968325-28.
13 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII II, 1161a 35 - 1161b 5: 'Qua slave one cannot be
friends with him, but qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice
between any man and any other who can share in a system of law or be a party
to an agreement'; VIII 10 1160b 28.
14 See Robert Littman, The Greek Experiment, London, Thames and Hudson,
1974 16-20,36.
15 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 12, 1162a 16-27; cf. 1160b 32-36. Hardie gives
prominence to these lines, I think rightly sensing that the complementarities
Aristotle speaks of are not merely generalized gender differences but individual
differences. Hardie's wife, for example, was a physician.
16 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII I, 1155a 5-6.
17 Aristotle, Politics II 5, 1263b 27-37.
18 Politics 1263b 15-20,37-41. Cf. my On Justice New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1991, esp. chapter 5.

188
 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

19 Nicomachaean Ethics IX 5, 1166b 30 - 1167a 3.

20 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 9, 1159b 25-30
21 Nicomachaean Ethics VII 10, 1242a 19-30.
22 See Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 9, II and 7, 1158b 30--33.
23 Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics V 5, 1132b 22 - 1133a 1.
24 Nicomachaean Ethics 1133a 2-5.
25 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 5, 1157b 31-34.
26 Maimonides, Guide II 40.
27 See Guide II 40.
28 Maimonides, Perush le-Masechet Avot, ed. M. D. Rabinowitz Jerusalem,
Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1961 13-14; the translation is my own. Maimonides'
quotation from Aristotle is, of course, a paraphrase of his dictum that a friend
is a second self.
29 Spinoza, Ethics IV Prop. 18, Scholium, ed. Gebhardt, 4.222-23.
30 Spinoza, Ethics IV Prop. 35: 'Only insofar as men live according to the
guidance of reason must they always agree in nature.'
31 Spinoza, Ethics IV 70: 'A free man who lives among the ignorant strives, as far
as he can, to avoid their favors.'
32 Maimonides, Guide II 36, ed. Munk 2.79b.
33 Maimonides, Guide II 38.
34 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah XIV, Kings and Wars, xii 1.
35 See Sanhedrin 27b, etc.
36 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 14, 1163b 13-18.
37 Nicomachaean Ethics IX l.
38 Hardie, 322.
39 Eudemian Ethics VII 2, 1237b 30--34.
40 See Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Mary Gregor Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1991 210--32.
41 Ibn Tufayl, lfayy Ibn Yaq?an, tr. Goodman Los Angeles, Gee Tee Bee, 1984;
fIrst ed. New York, 1972 161-62.
42 Al-Farabi, The Principles behind the Belieft ofthe People ofthe Virtuous State,
tr. R. Walzer as AI-Farabi on the Perfect State Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985
287-239.
43 King Fahd Holy Qur 'an Medina, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, Jfta'
[issuance of authoritative rulings or Fetwas], Call and Guidance [that is, Propa-
gation of the Faith], no date given; ca. 1990,302:
44 See Richard Walzer and Sir Hamilton Gibb, 'Akhlaq' in Encyclopedia ofIslam
(Leiden: Brill, 1960).
45 Al)mad Ibn Miskawayh, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq Beirut, Hayat, 1961; tr.
Constantine Zurayk Beirut, American University of Beirut, 1968. Cf. The
annotated French translation by Mohammed Arkoun: Traite d'Ethique Institut
Franl;ais de Damas, 1969, his L 'humanisme arabe Paris, Vrin, 1982 and
Contribution a l'etude de l'humanisme arabe au IV/Xe siecle.· Miskawayh,
philosophe et historien Paris, Vrin, 1970; and M. A. H. Ansari, The Ethical
Philosophy ofMiskawayh Aligarh, 1964.
46 Tahdhib,35.
47 Tahdhib,14.
48 Tahdhib, 118, 123, cf. 64.
49 Tahdhib, 25-26, 139; cf. Saadiah Gaon, ED X 4.
50 Nicomachaean Ethics VIII 9.

189
 Friendship East and West

51 Tahdhib, Arabic, 128.

52 Tahdhib, Arabic, 128.
53 Tahdhib, 123-24.
54 Tahdhib, Arabic ed., pp. 130--31. The translation here is my own.
55 Tahdhib, 125-28.
56 Aristotle, Politics III 9, 1280b 35-39. The passage reads as though it were a
source for Miskawayh. But the Politics was not translated into Arabic. The
parallel in the Nicomachaean Ethics, a seemingly interpolated reference to
'religious guilds and social clubs,' which exist, 'respectively, for the sake of
offering sacrifice and for companionship' (N.E. VIII 9 1160a 19-25), is less
explicit for our point than the Politics. For the emphasis in the Ethics passage
is on pleasure and the general enhancement of life; but the Politics text
identifies social motives in religious associations and activities.
57 For al-Ghazali's appropriation of Miskawayh's ethics, see Richard Walzer's
Greek into Arabic Oxford, Cassirer, 1963220--35; but cf. M. Abul Quasem,
and M. A. Sherif, Ghazali's Theory of Virtue Albany, SUNY Press, 1975, Ibid.
58 Ibya' (Cairo, 1346 A.H. = 1927/8) 3.62-64; cf. Abul Quasem, 98.
59 Ibya' (Cairo, 1346 A.H. = 1927/8) 3.225-27, with 210--22; cf. Abul Quasem,
130.
60 Ibya' (Cairo, 1346 A. H.) 3.241-48, with 238-39, 259, 292-93, 298-99,
304-06; cf. Abul Quasem, 132, 137.
61 Ibya' (Cairo, 1346 A. H.) 3.2142-46, 150--52; cf. Abul Quasem, 212.
62 Cf. Ibn Abi Hajala and the discussions in J. N. Bell, Love Theory in Later
Hanbalite Islam Albany, SUNY Press, 1979 183, etc., and my 'The Sacred and
the Secular: Rival Themes in Arabic Literature, the Halmos Lecture of 1988,
repro in M. Mir, ed. The Literary Heritage ofIslam: Studies in Honor ofJames
Bellamy Princeton, Darwin Press, 1993287-330.
63 Ibyii', Cairo 19672.200.
64 Where then, is Ghazali' s critical stance ofthe Munqidh, where he confesses and
condemns the worldly motives that tied him to his post, when spiritually he
needed to leave Baghdad? See The Faith and Practice of al-Ghaziili, tr. W.
Montgomery Watt London, Allen Unwin, 1963,56.
65 Ibyii' 2.219.
66 Cf. the closed world reflected in the glosses of Abravanel, Yonah, et al. on
AvotI 6.
67 Ibyii' 2.220. Al-Ghazali consistently refers to rights in discussing these inter-
human relations. Scholars who deny the relevance of the idea of rights in a
medieval context must, if they are to make their point, derme the term so
narrowly around the great declarations of 1688 and 1789 as in effect to beg the
question. Muhtar Holland, who translated Ghazali's 'The Rights of Brother-
hood' as On the Duties of Brotherhood London, Latimer, 1975, consistently
avoids rendering buquq in Ghazali's text as 'rights', preferring to shift the
perspective, to 'duties'. The two notions are interconnected; but avoiding the
term rights is artificial and misleading. For more on the topic of pre-modem
rights, see my essay, 'The Basis of Rights in Saadiah and Maimonides,' in D.
Elazar (ed.) Mishpat ha-Melukhah and Halaklah.
68 Ibyii' 2.221.
69 Ibyii' 2.221.
70 For this line I quote Holland's rendering, 31. Il)yii'.
71 Ibyii' 2.227.

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 Friendship in Aristotle, Miskawayh and al-Ghazali

72 I/:Iya' 2.228
73 Tr. Holland, 51.
74 I/:Iya' 2.231.
75 I/:Iya' 2.231.
76 For more on khala!f, see my 'Judah Halevi,' in O. Leaman and D. Frank,
History ofJewish Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 188-227.
77 Ghazali's imagery here is Midrashic.
78 I/:Iya' 2.232.
79 I/:Iya' 2.232.
80 I/:Iya' 2.233-34.
81 I/:Iya' 2.235.
82 I/:Iya' 2.235.
83 I/:Iya'2.236-37.
84 I/:Iya' 2.238.
85 I/:Iya' 2.238.
86 I/:Iya' 2.241.
87 This was the thought in which Aristotle summed up what he had learned from
Plato in calling him, 'the only man or the first to show clearly by his own life
and by the reasonings of his discourses, that to be happy is to be good'.

191
 5

Friendship, Equality and Universal

Harmony
The universal and the particular in Aelred of
Rievaulx's De Spiritali Amicitia
Julian Haseldine
'How beautiful it is that the second human being was taken from the
side of the first, so that nature might teach that human beings are
equal and, as it were, collateral, and that there is in human affairs
neither a superior nor an inferior, a characteristic of true friendship.' 1
This remarkable claim for equality in human affairs, based on nature, and
related directly to friendship, was made by the English Cistercian abbot
Aelred ofRievaulx in the 1160s. 2 A doctrine of social equality, particularly
one articulated through the example of a woman, Eve, and one derived not
from God but from nature, is not one of the ideas more readily associated
with medieval monasticism. The treatise in which Aelred makes the claim,
De Spiritali Amicitia (On Spiritual Friendship), gave expression to an ideal
of friendship (amicitia) which had figured increasingly in the letters and
other writings of a generation of monks, nuns, bishops and clerks - the latin
authors associated with the twelfth-century renaissance - and which had as
its chief inspiration Cicero's treatise De Amicitia (On Friendship).3
Cicero's ideal of friendship as a disinterested bond cultivated among the
virtuous to the public good found a receptive audience in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. His treatise conveyed to writers who did not know
Aristotle, and whose access to the rich classical tradition of friendship was
relatively limited, a theory of human relations in which personal bonds
could be set in a broader moral context and linked to Christian ethics. 4 It
was a theory based on virtue, not private emotion, one which had the
authority of classical antecedent and one which, being concerned primarily
with what we would term political or public applications, provided a
language for the formulation and expression of a wide range of social and
political bonds and allegiances.

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

The context and purpose ofAelred's treatise

Aelred of Rievaulx set out to formulate, concisely and definitively, the
Christian version of this ideal, and more precisely, the Christian version of
its chief exemplar, Cicero's De Amicitia. He says, relating his discovery of
Cicero's treatise:
' ... tom between conflicting loves and friendships, I was drawn now
here, now there, and not knowing the law of true friendship, I was
often deceived by its mere semblance. At length there came into my
hands the treatise which Tullius [i.e. Cicero] wrote on friendship ...
I was grateful that I have discovered a formula for friendship
whereby I might check the vacillations of my loves and affections.'5
Aelred's close adherence to Cicero's model is well established;6 he
followed, to a large extent, Cicero's style and form, and returned repeatedly
to Cicero's principal defmition of friendship at crucial points in his argu-
ments. He produced, likewise, a model of friendship as a bond transcending
private human sentiment and emotion, philosophically linked to concepts
of universal harmony, connected in its aims and ends to a higher moral
good, occupying a central role in human affairs, and preserving most of the
ethical characteristics of his exemplar. It is a fine example ofthe Christian-
isation ofa classical test; the smooth adaptation ofa system of public ethics
to Christian theology. The Christian God, and specifically divine love,
takes the place of natural virtue as the origin of friendship. A concept of
Christian unity takes the place of a notion of public good, for a society
where religious values were not held to pertain to the sphere of private
choice, and in which human history was seen as the progress towards
salvation. Indeed, the reference in the opening quotation to 'human affairs'
is a clear indication that, while Aelred has been studied largely for his
considerable contributions to meditative and theological literature, and to
the theology of love, in which the Cistercian Order played such a signi-
ficant and creative role, 7 he never departed from Cicero's belief that friend-
ship had a public and political application. It is true that friendship was, in
the monastic tradition, and explicitly in Aelred's treatise, an aspect of
divine love, but it was a particular aspect - one which could even be called,
without departing too far from the spirit of medieval amicitia, the appli-
cation of divine love to human affairs.
The classical notion of friendship which Cicero conveyed did however
present Christian interpreters with a significant problem, and one too easily
dismissed by modem commentators as a minor issue. True friendship,
Cicero was absolutely clear, was limited to a very few: ' ... this thing called

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 Friendship East and West

friendship has been so narrowed that the bonds of affection always unite
two persons only, or at most a few'. 8
Only a few could ever be sufficiently endowed with natural virtue to
partake in friendship, and to benefit the public good as a whole thereby.
This is not a conceptual problem for Cicero, indeed it is almost self evident
from the high standard of virtue applied; he was clear that ' ... friendship
cannot exist except among good men'.9 For the Christian world it did
present a problem. Friendship, as a force for good in society, derived its
moral justification from being an aspect of divine love. Divine love was
universal, and Christians were enjoined to love all equally, as Christ had
said: 'But I say to you, love your enemies, do good to them that hate you.' 10
Not only this, but the early church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles,
was seen as a united community of equals, without particular favouritisms or
exceptions. Aelred interpreted this model community explicitly in terms of
friendship, using Cicero to expound Scripture, in a passage which is illustrative
of his elegant fusion of classical and Biblical ideas:
'Were they not, according to the defmition of Tullius, strong in the
virtue of true friendship, of whom it is written: "And the multitude of
believers had but one heart and one soul; nether did anyone say that
aught was his own, but all things were common unto them" [Acts 4:
32]? How could they fail to have complete agreement in all things
divine and human with charity and benevolence [Cic. de Am. vi, 20]
seeing that they had but one heart and soul?' .11
The Rule of Saint Benedict added its own injunctions for monks, making
clear the conflict between particular associations and the good of the
community as a whole. Chapter 54 forbids any monk to receive' ... letters,
devout tokens, or any small gifts whatsoever, from his parents or other
people or his brethren, or to give the same, without the abbot's per-
mission' Y As far as relations inside the cloister were concerned, chapter 69
states that, 'care must be taken that no monk venture on any ground to
defend another monk in the monastery, or as it were to take him under his
protection ... ' .13 The monks were to be equals in obedience and humility,
not in familiarity or in status.
Thus the Christian west inherited a tradition which idealised universal
love and the equality of all believers, and saw a tension between this ideal
and the particular friendships of the type envisaged by Cicero. Friendship
implies a relationship based on equality; friendship as an aspect of divine
love, consequently, must carry some implication of universal equality - and
this is reflected in the opening quotation, above (see n. 1). What effective
place can a notion of universal equality in love have in human affairs, as a
code for public activity and conduct? This would be a valid question in any
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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

society, let alone one which placed as high a value on a strictly ordered
hierarchy as that of the medieval west did. 14 How, in short, can the useful
ethical concept of classical friendship be reconciled to a Christian ideal
which stressed universal love, without losing the privileged status, as a
concept central to human affairs, which Cicero had accorded it.
One solution is simply to limit its application to the spiritual sphere, to
an imagined spiritual community which is not reflected materially in the
world. There is much scope for this, and friendship, as we shall see, was
held to exist independently of personal affection, or even of personal
acquaintance. It could be enjoyed with strangers and even with the dead;
that is to say, it existed as an external force in which humans partook, rather
than a subjective reflection of private sentiment. This was indeed an
important idea, and Aelred certainly saw ascent to God, and so participation
in what for him was the highest external good, as the final end of true
friendship for the individual. 15 However, Aelred never lost sight of the
practical question of the application of friendship to human affairs.16
That friendship had a spiritual dimension, by which it transcended the
common human experience of personal sympathies and emotional attach-
ment, was, then, by the time Aelred wrote, a widely-understood concept,
expressed time and again in the letters and other writings of the twelfth-
century renaissance. It was the basis upon which Aelred's treatise was
predicated. That this divinely created friendship should be connected
directly to human affairs was similarly not an unusual idea in the twelfth
century; since the pontificate of Gregory VII and earlier appeals to friend-
ship had been a regular and important part of political vocabulary, and a
tradition of friendship as part of the sphere of public or political life had
persisted since the time of Cicero and Seneca. In producing a theoretical
exposition, Aelred was faced with the problem of resolving these two facets
of friendship.
If friendship was to have any application in the world, to stand as an
ideal of public ethics, it had to be able to address the reality of particular
personal, social and political bonds, obligations and allegiances, and yet at
the same time retain the universality without which it would cease to have
a respectable and justifiable place in Christian ethics. This was an issue
addressed specifically and at some length in the De Spiritali Amicitia. An
examination of the way in which Aelred answered this crucial question, and
tried to reconcile these two requirements, can illuminate the full signi-
ficance of friendship in his philosophy, explain how he was led to develop
the doctrine of social equality cited at the beginning, and demonstrate to
what extent ideas of social equality had any real place in the world as he
saw it.

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 Friendship East and West

Political Friendship
Friendship in the western middle ages presents the historian with two broad
areas of inquiry. In the first place, it represents a significant instance of the
reception and adaptation of classical ideas in the sphere of Christian ethics.
Secondly, it poses the question of the reality, nature and extent of the social and
political obligations, bonds and allegiances which the vocabulary of friendship
was commonly used to fonn and articulate. The latter issue has received some
attention from historians recently. From the eleventh century the tradition of
friendship, which had never been extinguished entirely, and which had
flourished at the Carolingian court, in the circle of Alcuin,17 was revived and
given a new prominence in political life, particularly in the circles of corres-
pondence of leading ecclesiastics. Bonds of friendship were entered into
formally, often being requested of complete strangers, and carried with them
obligations of mutual support and allegiance. Explicit adherence to a common
ideal provided a source of identity and an expression of common interests for
these erudite and literate groups whose allegiances frequently crossed tradi-
tional boundaries oflocal political loyalty.
It is certainly no coincidence that this resurgence of friendship, and the
renewed relevance of the ideal to political life, came at a time when the actions
of the papacy were opening up new distinctions between regnum and sacer-
dotium and threatening traditional loyalties across western Europe. A new
sense of European identity, focused on Christianity and ideals of Christian
unity, was emerging in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, motivated and given
force and focus by a newly militant papacy challenging for supreme authority
over the Christian world. The crusading movement, the emergence of the papal
curia as the largest jurisdictional centre in Europe and the unprecedented
importance of Rome in western politics, testify to a significant realignment of
identities and challenges to traditional patterns ofloyalty in the west. It was not
a simple question of church versus state, nor did it present ecclesiastics with
clear-cut choices, but henceforth they had, within their intellectual and political
arena, a language with which to articulate a greater sense of common identity
beyond the ambit of traditional, regional loyalties to emperor, king or count. IS
Gregory VIII, whose challenge to imperial power was the most overt and
radical, created, ' ... a friendship network which seems to have extended to all
the major regions of Western Christendom ... the purpose of which was the
implementation ofrefonn against local opposition' .19 Few examples of friend-
ship are so dramatic or aggressive, but in a society which idealised unity and
abhorred schism, friendship provided a viable expression of political alle-
giances. The language of party politics, with its implicit assumption that a
diversity of competing opinions within a body politic is healthy, or at least
inevitable, was alien to the medival west. Instead, each side claimed an

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absolute monopoly of the truth. If, in theory, any group could depict them-
selves as united in common friendship, partaking thereby in God's grace, and
pursuing his cause in the world, then their allegiances became ethically
acceptable and intellectually respectable. A number of recent studies have
demonstrated how, within circles and networks of correspondents, expressions
of friendship, the exchange of ideas on friendship and the transmission of texts
can be correlated with political activity, such as cooperation between
institutions and individuals, and reciprocal ties and obligations, bearing on
patterns of allegiance in major political disputes. 2o
Aelred was not a political writer in this sense. His discussions of
friendship in contemporary political contexts, regarding either papal
schism or ecclesiastical preferments, take the form of warnings against the
undue influence of affection as against reason. 21 In addition, at the openings
of books two and three of his treatise, he makes pointed and ironic
references to instances of friendship in the world, at odds with the tone of
the rest of the work. 22 However, this is quite different from saying that he
gave no consideration to the role of friendship in human relations. He links
friendship explicitly to the general good and to human affairs, and, as we
have seen, associates it particularly with the community of the early church
in ActS. 23 Before considering how Aelred resolved the question of the place
offriendship in this world, it is worth taking a closer look at his model.

The influence o/Cicero 's model

Cicero's De Amicitia was the most authoritative and definitive text on
friendship for the twelfth-century renaissance. Apart from Aelred himself
and his adaptor, Peter of Blois,24 the most influential monastic leaders
relied heavily on Cicero. Leclercq said ofSt. Bernard:
'The most important idea that he [St. Bernard] received from Cicero,
and which is to be seen continually in his works, is precisely that of
friendship which asks for nothing back in return, a love which has no
other result except love itself' .25
Constable said of Peter the Venerable:
'Above all, through the de Amicita, which was the most widely read
treatise on friendship in the Middle Ages, Cicero influenced the
contents as well as the style of Peter's letters ... the overt philo-
sophical basis of Peter's correspondence, such as it was, was thus
drawn from Cicero's ideas on friendship' .26
Cicero described a model of friendship which was disinterested, was
pursued among the virtuous to the public good, and which was based on the
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 Friendship East and West

attractions of virtue, not on personal sentiment. It is far from the modern

notion of friendship as the development of personal sympathies. At the
heart of this body of ideas lies the concept of a true form offriendship (vera
amicitia), which is eternal, and has a separate existence of its own which
transcends the affections and interests ofthe individuals involved. This can
be distinguished sharply from false forms of friendship on the basis of
motive: need or material gain are the motivations of false friendship, love
of virtue that of true friendship.27
Cicero's treatise addresses three broad areas. Firstly, the philosophical
status of friendship, the place of human relations in the harmonious balance
of universal forces. Secondly the ideal and defmition of true friendship, its
relation to natural virtue, and the qualities of true friendship which follow
from this. Finally the practicalities of the application of friendship to public
life; the recognition and selection of true friends, and the qualities and
conduct of friends.
For a Christian interpreter, the fIrst and third of these areas pose few
problems. The Christian God replaces natural virtue as the source of
friendship, by simple substitution, and friendship retains its central role in
the universal balance. Ethical concerns related to the qualities and conduct
of friends are also readily incorporated into a Christian system. It is in the
second area, that of the defInition of terms and concepts describing true
friendship itself, where differences appear. The clearest way to illustrate the
similarities and differences between the two bodies of thought is to select
those features of Cicero's treatise which are most relevant to the central
defInition of true friendship.28
i. Friendship is related to a concrete philosophy of universal harmony. It
transcends human life and the vicissitudes of human sentiment, and is
connected to the primary force for harmony in the universe: ' ... in nature
and the entire universe whatever things are at rest and whatever are in
motion are united by friendship and scattered by discord. '29 Human
relations are part of the forces which maintain the harmonious order of the
universe, not local subjective contingencies played out against the back-
drop either of a deity with a greater purpose to which they are irrelevant, or
of a silent universe.
This encompasses the fIrst broad area of concern, the philosophical
status of friendship, establishing the area of inquiry in the realm of natural
philosophy rather than subjective psychology, and Cicero accords friend-
ship a central role in this sphere. This leads on to the area of the ideal and
defInition of true friendship:
ii. The root of true friendship is virtue: '. . . virtue is the parent and
preserver of friendship and without virtue friendship cannot exist at all'.30
Following on from this:
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 Friendship. Equality and Universal Harmony

iii. True friendship is eternal. Its root is virtue and not personal gain
(utilitas). Virtue is not transient like human needs, but eternal, as a part of
nature. Thus the eternal quality of friendship is derived from an argument
about the unchangeability of nature, of which virtue is an aspect:
'For on the assumption that advantage is the cement of friendships, if
advantage were removed friendships would fall apart; but since
nature is unchangeable, therefore real friendships are eternal.'31
iv. Since friendship is connected to real forces external to individual
human affections and needs, it does not require personal presence to be
maintained, or even personal acquaintance to begin with. We love the
virtue, not the person, and so can love strangers:
'For there is nothing more lovable than virtue, nothing that more allures
us to affection, since on account of their virtue and uprightness we love
in a certain sense, even those whom we have never seen' .32
The derivation of friendship from virtue, which gives it its eternal
quality, and allows it to transcend personal concerns, has two important
consequences. Firstly, friendship can only exist among the good. 33
Secondly, it is relevant to both the public and the private spheres:
'Still such is my enjoyment in the recollection of our friendship that
I feel as if my life has been happy because it was spent with Scipio,
with whom I shared my public and private cares'. 34
v. The form which friendship takes is a union of souls and minds:
'Again he who looks upon a true friend looks, as it were, upon a sort
of image of himself. Wherefore friends, though absent, are at hand;
though in need, yet abound, though weak, are strong; and harder
saying still, though dead, are yet alive' .35
The friend is half of one's soul, or another self.36 From these concepts of
the eternal nature of friendship and the complete identity which it
engenders between friends, Cicero derives his chief definitions of friend-
ship: 'that wherein lies the whole essence of friendship [is] - the most
complete agreement in policy, in pursuits, and in opinions' ,37 and again:
'For friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and
divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection. '38
The implication of this identity and accord is equality: 'But it is of the
utmost importance in friendship that superior and inferior should stand on
an equality' .39 Cicero, however, does not explore the area of equality in
great detail; as an aspect of friendship, it is limited to the few and so does
not have significant social applications. 40
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 Friendship East and West

vi. From this model of true friendship, considerations relevant to the

third broad area of inquiry follow. It is possible to produce laws governing
the distinction of true friendship from false, and its cultivation and appli-
cation. There is one important guiding principle to this area, consequent
upon the derivation of friendship from virtue rather than affection: 'There-
fore let this law be established in friendship: neither ask dishonourable
things, nor do them if asked' .41
Friendship is not a romantic ideal, which should come before morality,
so that one will go to any lengths for its sake. Rather as soon as a demand
is made which puts personal gain before public morality, the friendship is
betrayed and has ceased to be, or rather has been exposed as never having
been, true friendship. A range of issues is then discussed relating to the
qualities and conduct of friends, the rules for choosing friends, the import-
ance of maintaining friendships once entered into and related ethical
concepts such as fidelity and stability.

Aelred's use of Cicero

Like Cicero, Aelred begins with the assumption that there are ethical laws
governing friendship, and that there is a true form of friendship which
transcends private and sentimental concerns. Like Cicero, he stresses that
this friendship is disinterested, and has its own nature separately from
personal emotion:
'For spiritual friendship, which we call true, should be desired not for
consideration of any worldly advantage or for any extrinsic cause, but
from the dignity of its own nature and the feelings ofthe human heart,
so that its fruition and reward is nothing other than itself. '42
He introduces the notion of a 'law of true friendship'43 at the very
beginning of his treatise and refers to Cicero as his model. As well as
following the form and style of Cicero closely, Aelred is concerned with the
three basic issues which Cicero was concerned with, discussing in tum, in
the three books of the treatise, the origins, the ideal form and finally the
limits and practical difficulties of friendship. As he himself put it:
'Now, then, we have divided the work into three books: in the first,
we study the nature of friendship, its source or cause; in the second
we propose its fruition and excellence; in the third, we explain, to the
best of our ability, how and among whom it can be preserved un-
broken even to the end' .44

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

He incorporated large amounts of Cicero's treatise into his own, and

repeated Cicero's central definition of friendship time and again at crucial
points in his own arguments.45
The central points of Cicero's theory of true friendship, outlined above,
can be found reflected, with varying degrees of stress and reinterpretation,
in Aelred:
i. Aelred links friendship to a philosophy of universal harmony. Friend-
ship pervades and guides the nature of the whole of creation, transcending,
and originally external to, subjective human concerns. It has a central role
in the preservation of universal peace and harmony:
'And thus Sovereign Nature has established all natures, has arranged
all things in their place, and has discreetly distributed all things in
their own times. He has willed, moreover, for so his eternal reason
has directed, that peace encompass all His creatures and society unite
them; and thus all creatures obtain from Him, who is supremely and
purely one, some trace of that unity. For that reason He has left no
type of beings alone, but out of many has drawn them together by
means of a certain society'.46
The mediator of this balanced system is friendship, and Aelred goes on
to describe a scheme of universal order in which all things, from the angels
down even to inanimate objects, partake to some degree in friendship.47
Thus the crucial role of friendship in the order of the universe, established
by Cicero, is maintained by Aelred.
ii. Moving from the general role of friendship in the universe to its
precise derivation and formulation, an important difference between Cicero
and Aelred is immediately apparent. For Aelred, love, not virtue, is the
basis of true friendship: 'The fountain and source of friendship is love.
There can be love without friendship, but friendship without love is
impossible' .48 Virtue is reduced to equality with friendship: 'It is evident,
then, that friendship is natural, like virtue, wisdom, and the like, which
should be sought after and preserved for their own sake as natural goods' .49
Once this important substitution has been made, however, the same
qualities of friendship which one finds in Cicero, appear in Aelred:
iii. True, as opposed to false, friendship is eternal:
'Even the philosophers of this world have ranked friendship not with
things casual or transitory but with the virtues which are eternal [cf.
Cic. deAm ix, 32]. Solomon in the Book of Proverbs appears to agree
with them when he says: "He that is a friend loves at all times"
[Proverbs 17: 17], manifestly declaring that friendship is eternal if it

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 Friendship East and West

is true friendship; but if it should ever cease to be, then it was not true
friendship, even though it seemed SO'.50
Having derived the eternal nature of friendship from its origins in eternal
realities (divine love), Aelred draws the same conclusion as Cicero regard-
ing the relationship between true friendship and human need and gain:
'For although friendship, sure of its blessings, brings many great advant-
ages, nevertheless we are certain that friendship does not proceed from
the advantage but rather the advantages proceed from it'.51
iv. The next consequence of the connection of friendship with eternal
verities, that it does not require personal presence, or acquaintance, is given
less emphasis by Aelred. He does not appear to be interested in Cicero's
idea that one can be a friend of a complete stranger, although this idea was
clearly very important in the twelfth-century tradition. 52 He does, however,
quote Cicero on the continuation of friendship after death:
'In every action, in every pursuit, in certainty, in doubt, in every event
and fortune of whatever sort, in private and in public, in every
deliberation, at home and abroad, everywhere friendship is found to
be appreciated, a friend a necessity, a friend's service a thing of
utility. "Wherefore friends", says Tullius, "though absent are present,
though poor are rich, though weak are strong, and - what seems
stranger still- though dead are alive" [Cic. de Am. vii, 23]' .53
Furthermore, he goes on to explore similar consequences of the
dependence of friendship on external good rather than private sentiment,
i.e. that it is restricted to the good and that it is applicable to the public as
well as to the private sphere, e.g.: 'For this is well-ordered friendship,
namely, that reason rules affection, and that we attend more to the general
welfare than to our friends' good humour' ,54 and, 'Ivo: ... I am convinced
that true friendship cannot exist among those who live without Christ' .55
v. The form which friendship takes is a union of souls and minds, a
complete identity of wills. The concept of a friend as half of one's soul or
as another self recurs throughout Aelred. Unity and identity characterise the
ideal relationship, e.g.: 'Friendship, therefore, is that virtue by which spirits
are bound by ties of love and sweetness, and out of many are made one' ,56
and, 'Gratian: ... I believed friendship was nothing else than so complete
an identity of wills between two persons that the one would wish nothing
which the other did not wish .. .'57
Like Cicero, Aelred derives a notion of equality from this: 'But what
happiness, what security, what joy to have someone to whom you dare to
speak on terms of equality as to another self [cf. Cic. de Am. vi, 22]' .58

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

However, as we shall see, his concern for the universality of friendship

forces him to explore the implications of this equality a little further than
Cicero had.
vi. Aelred's discussion of the practical problems involved in friendship,
the selection and preservation of friends, the qualities and conduct inherent
in true friendship, are based largely on Cicero. He advances the same
governing principle: '. . . any action, we believe, should be altogether
denied a friend which brings about the death of the soul, that is sin, ... ' .59
Where Cicero spoke of dishonourable actions, Aelred speaks of sinful ones.
Aelred's work, then, shares with Cicero's the same appearance, the same
broad philosophical assumptions, the same elements and words, the same
practical ethical considerations. The substitution of the Christian God and
his love for natural virtue as the motivating force appears to be a tidy one.
Where Aelred departs from Cicero in this model, it is to replace classical
terms of reference with Christian ones, to tum friendship into spiritual
friendship by simple substitution. Cicero holds public good to be the end of
friendship, and natural virtue to be its source. Aelred sees Christian unity
and the ascent to God as the end of friendship, and divinely ordered nature
as its source: ' ... friendship is a stage bordering upon that perfection which
consists in the love and knowledge of God, so that man, from being a friend
of his fellow man, becomes the friend of God' .60
Friendship remains as central to Aelred's philosophy as it was to
Cicero's. Aelred, however, has to reconcile the particular and limited
nature of friendship to the universality of divine love, of which it is a part,
if he is not to sacrifice its central role in the philosophy of universal
harmony. It is this question which leads Aelred to formulate and investigate
the crucial distinction between love and friendship, the very area where the
tension between the universal nature of love and the particular nature of
friendship is most manifest.

Friendship and love: Aelred's solution

One form oflove (amor), as we have seen, is the source of friendship (cited
above, see n. 48). Concepts of love could be conveyed by the terms amor,
dilectio and caritas, which can be rendered, rather inadequately, as 'love',
'affection' and 'charity'. The actual usage of these terms in medieval texts
suggests a range of emphases across a spectrum rather than discrete and rigidly
defined concepts. Amor is the stronger word, either in its erotic context, or, as
here, in its spiritual context. Dilectio is also emotional, and often used of the
love for God (see e.g. n.60, above), while caritas is closer to notions of the
more dutiful aspects oflove, such as the love for one's enemies. It is this which
Aelred contrasts specifically with friendship.61

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 Friendship East and West

Aelred's interlocutor in the first book of the treatise, Ivo, introduces the
problem, obliquely at first, despairing of the possibility of attaining the
high standards of virtue required for true friendship:
'Ivo: Since such perfection is expected of true friendship, it is not
surprising that those were so rare whom the ancients commended as
true friends. As Tullius says: "In so many past ages, tradition extols
scarcely three or four pairs of friends" [Cic. de Am. iv, 15]. But if in
our day, that is, in this age of Christianity, friends are so few, it seems
to me that I am exerting myself uselessly in striving after this virtue
which I, terrified by its admirable sublimity, now almost despair of
ever acquiring.'62
Aelred exhorts Ivo to strive in this direction, for the Gospel promises
acquisition of virtue ('Ask and it shall be given you', Matthew 7: 7; John
16: 24); he then cites as examples of Christian friendship the community of
the early church (SA I. 28-29, cited above, see n. 11) and the martyrs
(citing in support John 15: 13, 'Greater love than this no man has, that a
man lay down his life for his friends '). The essential difference has now
been highlighted between generallove,63 expressed in sharing and sacrifice,
and the heights of particular friendship, with its equality and reciprocity.
Ivo is made to put the question directly, and Aelred explains the difference:
'Ivo: Are we then to believe that there is no difference between
charity [caritas] and friendship?
Aelred: On the contrary, there is a vast difference; for divine
authority approves that more are to be received into the bosom of
charity than into the embrace of friendship. For we are compelled by
the law of charity to receive in the embrace of love not only our
friends but also our enemies [Matthew 5: 44; Luke 6: 27] But only
those do we call friends to whom we can fearlessly entrust our heart
and all its secrets; ... '64
This leads to a discussion of true and false friendship in the course of
which Aelred suggests, as a possible benefit of false friendship, that 'the
beginning of this vicious friendship leads many individuals to a certain
degree of true friendship' .65 This increases the possibilities for the ultimate
transformation of worldly friendship, but still falls considerably short of
universal and perfect love.
To answer the problem of love and friendship, Aelred moves the argu-
ment on to the level of origins, to look at friendship in the broadest possible
context. He has Ivo ask 'how friendship first originated among men' .66
Aelred begins by describing how God, as the sovereign nature,67 estab-
lished the order of the universe, and giving an indication of the central role
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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

which friendship has in this harmonious balance [SA I. 53-54, cited above,
see n. 46]. He then he goes on to explain the place offriendship at the very
creation of Eve, as part of the natural, divinely instituted order, inherent in
the human condition from the very moment where there was more than one
human being [SA I. 57, cited above as opening quotation, see n. 1].
Thus the distinction between love and friendship, between all-
embracing charity which obeys the commandment to love one's enemy,
and selective friendship which appears restricted, is a result ofthe Fall, not
of the original and perfect state of the world:
'From that time [i.e. the Fall] the good distinguished between charity
and friendship, observing that love ought to be extended even to the
hostile and perverse, while no union of will and ideas can exist
between the good and wicked. And so friendship which, like charity,
was first preserved among all by all, remained according to the
natural law among the few good' .68
Friendship is thus the true remnant of universally mutual love, and charity
that aspect of love which is altered to take account of enmity and wickedness.
It is friendship which will be restored to all at the end of the age, as the
concluding words of Aelred's treatise stress: ' ... and this friendship, to which
here we admit but few, will be outpoured upon all and by all outpoured upon
God, and God shall be all in all [c.f. I Cor. 15: 28]'.69 This is important, because
it implies that whereas general love for all, including enemies, is only neces-
sitated by the fallen state of humanity, and urged by Christ's injunction,
friendship, rather than being something which merely mitigates the evil effects
of the Fall (which it does) is also part of the original, natural and perfect state
of humanity as created and intended by God. Aelred makes its superiority quite
clear in his third book when, as an introduction to the practicalities of friend-
ship, he distinguishes between different sorts oflove.
Love (amor), he says, is the source of friendship (SA III. 2, cited above,
see n. 48), but can itself arise from a number of sources: from nature, as a
mother loves her child; from duty alone, as when men are joined in
affection by giving and receiving; from reason alone, when one, of
necessity, obeys the precept to love all, including one's enemies; from
affection alone, as a consequence of attraction, and:
'From reason and affection simultaneously, when he, whom reason
urges should be loved because of the excellence of his virtue, steals
into the soul of another by the mildness of his character and the charm
of a praiseworthy life' .70
This final, superior form is declared to be that most advantageous to
friendship. Reason and love of virtue combined give rise to a love (amor)
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 Friendship East and West

which itself gives rise to friendship. This is better than that love (also am or)
which arises only from reason, the rational obedience to obey Christ's
commandment to love ones enemies.
Friendship, then, is part of the lost state of perfection and of the perfect
world to be, at the end of the age. Its universal nature is thus assured. It is
only separated from love, and so made particular, in the short term, i.e. for
the duration of the world. It has a real force as a remnant and a precursor of
the perfect society lost and to come. This puts into clearer perspective the
question of the implications of equality, which form an integral part of the
argument aboutthe role of friendship in the perfect society. This is an issue
on which Aelred is explicit:
'It is also a law of friendship that a superior must be on a plane of
equality with the inferior [c.f. Cic. de Am. xix, 69]. For often, indeed,
persons of inferior rank or order of dignity or knowledge are assumed
into friendship by persons of greater excellence'. 71
This, it is now clear, is not a social doctrine in any practical sense. It is
not a universal rule for the present world (Aelred uses the more limited term
'often '). It affects the relations between pairs or groups of friends, not their
relative standing as regards the rest of society. The general ideal of human
equality, suggested by the opening quotation, refers to the perfect state,
when all can partake in true friendship, not to the fallen state of humanity
in this world. But Aelred goes further yet; even on this spiritual plane
friendship is not a force for absolute equality, or the equality of rights
which notions of equality are used to articulate today. Rather it acts to
preserve the ordained hierarchy peacefully, and is more akin to the equality
of obedience within a hierarchy that the Rule of Saint Benedict suggests
(see above, and n. 12 and 13). Applying friendship to the angels, Aelred
concludes: 'Assuredly, since one seemed to be superior, the other inferior,
there would have been occasion for envy had not the charity of friendship
prevented it' .72
Friendship, then, is superior to caritas, to that love for all enjoined by
Christ. While the latter is required in the fallen state, friendship is part of
the perfect state of humankind. It is an aspect of true, divinely instituted
order, and, on the grandest scale, is portrayed as absolutely central and
universal. It came into being at the creation and will characterise the perfect
world to come when it will embrace all. As such, it is the fullest expression
of divine love and is thus set at the very centre of the Christian philosophy.
The problem for Aelred, of course, is to reconcile this universality to
practical ethics. Can friendship be a realistic force for good in the fallen
world, where it is necessarily limited and particular, when its very
centrality as a moral force depends, as it did not for Cicero, on its universal
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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

application. One solution would have been for Aelred to take friendship as
a mere derivative aspect of love, alongside caritas and the other forms
listed in book three (cited above, see n. 70) - as a force for good like
caritas, applicable to this world but ultimately to be transcended by a purer,
spiritual union at the end of the age. His entire treatise, then, would have
been not about a centra.l aspect of Christian philosophy, but rather about
one particular, pragmatic ethical concept. But, as we have seen, this is just
what he does not do, nor would it have made for a faithful rendering of
Cicero's vision of friendship as that by which all things 'in nature and the
entire universe ... are united' (cited above, see n. 29).
Rather, Aelred employed the idea of friendship as a remnant and pre-
cursor of the perfect state of humanity, giving it at once a central role in the
divine plan for creation, and a powerful historical continuity. From its
origin in Eden to its fulfilment and realisation in Heaven, at the end of the
age, friendship occupies a privileged place in salvation history - history
viewed as the procession of humanity from the creation through the fall and
on to salvation, the prevalent view of history in Aelred's society. It is by
locating friendship in history in this way that he was able to reconcile its
particular and universal aspects.
Instead of drawing a distinction between friendship, as a practical force
for good in this world, and love, as a state of universal harmony in the
spiritual world, Aelred portrays friendship as that realisation of universal
love in which, temporarily, only a few may be able to partake, but which is
a part of a real universal bond. That which appears, in this world, to be
particular, and which is, as such, open to practical analysis as a code of
human conduct, is not something separate from, but a temporarily limited,
yet genuine, manifestation of that in which all will ultimately participate.
It is the notion of friendship as a historical continuity in this sense, rather
than as a derivative oflove which came into being after the fall, and is to be
transcended at the end of the age, which leads Aelred to consider the
implications of universal equality in human affairs. This equality, sug-
gested in the opening quotation, and implicit in friendship, had to be
reconciled with the concept of the practical benefits of friendship as a code
for conduct among the virtuous few. It is this which led him to discuss, in
depth, human equality, angelic equality and natural society, and to set them
in relation to human society and history, in the ways considered above.
This still leaves the question of why, rather than simply how, Aelred
went to such lengths to reconcile the particular nature of earthly friendship
to the universal nature of divine love. Other forms of love, such as loving
one's enemies, can only be applicable to the world in its fallen state - there
can be no enemies in a state of perfection. It would be easy to set friendship
in this category, and to avoid the entire question of the universal application
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 Friendship East and West

of equality. Aelred, as a writer on friendship, had to find a Christian

expression of Cicero's code of ethics. What he did not have to do, but what
he chose to do, was to show that it is friendship, of all the forms of love,
which has eternal continuity, was ordained by God as part of human order,
and which will unite all at the end of the age. Aelred thus maintained for
friendship, expressed in Christian terms, the same centrality in the vision of
the universe as Cicero had accorded it. He is, it would seem, a more subtle
Ciceronian than he has frequently been given credit for.

NOTES
Ae1red of Rievaulx's De Spiritali Amicitia is ed. in Aelredi Rievallensis Opera
Omnia i, opera ascetica, ed. A. Hoste and C. H. Talbot Turnhoult, Corpus
Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis I, pp. 279-350 (hereafter SA). English
translation, Aelred of Rievaulx. Spiritual Friendship, trans. M. E. Laker
Kalamazoo, Cistercian Fathers 5,1977 (hereafter SF).
This quotation is SA I. 57, pp. 298-9, (SF p. 63): 'Pulchre autem de latere
prirni hominis secundus assurnitur, ut natura doceret omnes aequales, quasi
collaterales; nec esset in rebus humanis superior ue1 inferior, quod est amicitiae
proprium'.
2 De Spiritali Amicitia was written between 1158 and 1163, se SA, p. 281.
3 Cicero's De Amicitia is ed. in Cicero xx. de Senectute, de Amicitia, de Divina-
tione, trans. W. A. Falconer, London Loeb Classical Library 154, 1971, ftrst ed.
1923), pp. 10 1-211, (hereafter Cic. de Am.). On the concept of friendship in
Cicero, see P. A. Brunt, 'Arnicitia in the late Roman Republic', Proceedings of
the Cambridge Philological Society" new ser. ii, 191 (1965), pp. 1-20.
4 Aristotle's views on friendship, expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics, books 8
and 9, did not appear in latin translation until, at the earliest, the end of the
twelfth century, and then only incompletely. A complete version was not
available before c. 1250, when Grosseteste made his translation. For a brief
account of the latin translation of Aristotle, and further references, see L. D.
Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: a guide to the transmission
of Greek and Latin literature, 3rd. ed. Oxford, Clarendon, 1991, pp. 120 &
269-70 and R. Hyatte, The Arts ofFriendship, Leiden, Brill, 1994, p. 16.
5 SA, Pro!' 2-3, p. 287, (SF p. 45-6): ' ... inter diuersos amores et amicitias
fluctuans, rapiebatur animus huc atque illuc et uerae arnicitiae legem ignorans,
eius saepe sirnilitudine fallebatur. Tandem aliquando rnihi uenit in manus, liber
ille quem de arnicitia Tullius scripsit; . . . gratulabar tamen quamdam me
arnicitiae formulam reperisse, ad quam amorum meorum et affectionum
ualerem reuocare discursus'.
6 Ae1erd's sources are discussed in SF, pp. 29-35, and Aelred de Rievaulx,
L 'amitie spirituelle, ed. and trans. J. Dubois, (Paris, 1948). See also P. Delhaye,
'Deux adaptations du De Amicitia de Ciceron au XIIeme siecle', Recherches de
theologie ancienne et medievale, 15 (1948), pp. 304-31, discussing Aelred and
Peter of Blois. The apparatus criticus to SA identifies Aelred's speciftc
borrowings.
7 Aelred's treatise on divine love, De Speculo Caritatis, is ed. in Aelredi Rieval-
lensis Opera Omnia i, opera ascetica, ed. A. Hoste and C. H. Talbot Turnhoult,

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis 1, pp. 3-16l. On Ae1red's life

and thought, see also A. Squire, Aelred ofRievaulx: a study, London 1981, (see
ch. 5, on friendship, pp. 98-111) and A. Rallier, The Monastic Theology of
Aelred of Rievaulx: an experiential theology, Shannon, Cistercian Studies 2,
1969. On another influential Cistercian, see also E. Gilson, La theologie
mystique de Saint Bernard, Etudes de philosophie medievale xx, Paris, 1934.
8 Cic. de Am. v. 20, pp. 128-9: ' ... ita contracta res [amicitia] est et adducta in
angustum, ut omnis caritas aut inter duos aut inter paucos iungeretur'.
9 Cic. de Am. v, 18, pp. 126-7: ' ... nisi in bonis amicitiam esse non posse'.
10 Matthew 5: 44, 'Ego autem dico vobis diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his
qui oderunt vos' (Vulgate; trans. Douai-Reims). See also Luke 6: 27, 'Sed
vobis dico qui auditis, diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his qui vos oderunt'.
II SA I. 28-9, p. 294, (SF p. 57): 'Nonne, secundum Tullianam diffinitionem,
uerae amicitiae uirtute pollebant, de quibus scriptum est: "Multitudinis
credentium erat cor unum et anima una; nec quisquam aliquid suum esse
dicebat, sed erant illis omnia communia". Quomodo non inter eos "rerum
diuinarum et humanarum cum caritate et beneuolentia" fuit summa
"consensio", quibus erat "cor unum et anima una"?'
12 The Rule ofSt. Benedict, trans. J. McCann, London, 1970 c. 54, p. 59. The Rule
is ed. in La regie de Saint Benoj~, ed. J. Neufville and A. Vogue, 7 vols, Paris,
Sources Chretiennes 181-186, 1972; this passage is at vol. ii, p. 616:
'Nullatenus liceat monacho neque a parentibus suis neque a quoquam hominum
nec sibi inuicem litteras, eulogias uel quaelibet munuscula accipere aut dare
sine praecepto abbatis'.
13 Rule, ibid., c. 69, p. 76, and Neufville and Vogue, op. cit. vol. ii, p. 664:
'Praecauendum est ne quauis occasione praesurnat alter alium defendere mona-
chum in monasterio aut quasi tueri'. See also c. 63 enjoining strict order of
precendence within the monastery, and c. 71 enjoining obedience as the media-
tor of relations among the monks. Familiarity of all kinds is forbidden.
14 See SA I. 56, cited below, n. 72.
15 See SA II. 14, cited below, n. 60.
16 A related, but not identical, problem is that of the scale of medieval friendship
networks, in which the number of recipients of letters addressed in terms of
friendship was often far greater than Cicero allowed (see n. 20, below).
17 This topic is addressed in the forthcoming Ph.D. thesis by M. Garrison, Univer-
sity of Cambridge.
18 For an introduction to the whole question of the growth of Christian identity
and the expanding vision of Christendom in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
see e.g. K. J. Leyser, 'The Ascent of Latin Europe', in his Communications and
Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian centuries, ed. T.
Reuter, (London, 1994), pp. 215-232; R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe:
conquest, colonization and cultural change 950-1350, (London, 1993); I. S.
Robinson, The Papacy 1073-1198, continuity and innovation, (Cambridge,
1990). The complex pattern of overlapping and conflicting loyalties and ideals
which the Gregorian refonn engendered or highlighted cannot be encompassed
by a notion so simple as that of the conflict between church and state; some idea
of the issues and their complexity is presented in K. J. Leyser, 'The polemics
of the papal revolution', in his Medieval Germany and its Neighbours
900-1250, (London, 1982). pp. 138-160.

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 Friendship East and West

19 I. S. Robinson, 'The Friendship Network of Gregory VII', History, 63 (1978),

p.2.
20 See e.g. 1. S. Robinson, 'The Friendship Network of Gregory VII', History, 63
(1978), pp. 1-22; J. McLoughlin, 'Arnicitia in practice: John of Salisbury
(c.1120-1180) and his circle', in England in the Twelfth Century: proceedings
of the 1988 Harlaxton symposium, ed. D. Williams, Woodbridge, 1990, pp.
165-181; 1. P. Hase1dine, 'Friendship and Rivalry: the role of amicitia in
twelfth-century monastic relations', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44
(1993), pp. 390-414. A work concerned principally with the personal aspects
of friendship, but with a lengthy bibliography, is B. P. McGuire, Friendship
and Community: the monastic experience 350-1250, Kalamazoo, Cistercian
Studies ser. 95, 1988.
21 See SA, 11.41 and III. 115-8, but note that affection and friendship are not the
same thing; true friendship is based on a combination of reason and affection,
not sentiment alone (see SA, III. 3, cited below, n. 70).
22 At the beginning of book 2, in response to the complaint of his literary
interlocutor Walter that Aelred has spent too much of his time dealing with
material affairs, and the 'agents of Pharaoh': (SA, II. 3, p. 302, SF p. 69), 'But
we must show kindness to such people, too, for either we expect benefits from
them or we fear their enmity', ('Et illis quoque gerendus est mos, quorum ue1
optamus beneficia, uel maleficia formidamus'). This is close to Cicero's defini-
tion of false friendship, i.e. that motivated by desire for gain or by need (see
Cic. de Am. xiv, 51,pp.162-3).
At the beginning of book 3, when Aelred points out to Walter that the other
interlocutor, Gratian, is more friendly to Walter than he himself had believed,
he has Walter reply: (SA III. 1, p. 317, SF p. 91), 'How could he fail to be my
friend, since he is everybody's friend?', ('Quomodo mihi amicus non esset, qui
nullius non est?'). These are not substantial contributions to the debate, nor do
they affect Aelred's theory of true friendship, but their tone, and their
occurrence at crucial points in the structure ofthe treatise, make them stand out.
23 On the general good, see SA, III. 118 (cited below, n. 54); on human affairs,
see SA, I 57 (cited above, n. 1); on the community in Acts, see SA I. 28-9 (cited
above, n. II).
24 Peter of Blois wrote a treatise, De Amicitia Christiana, between 1185 and 1195,
based largely on Aelred's De Spiritali Amicitia. It is ed. in J. P. Migne,
Patrologia Latina CCVII, cols. 871-896 (Paris, 1855) and a French translation
appears in M. M. Davy ed., Un traite de I 'amour du XIIeme siecle, Pierre de
Blois, (Paris, 1932). On the relation of both this treatise and Aelred's to
Cicero's De Amicitia, see P. Delhaye, 'Deux adaptations du De Amicitia de
Ciceron au XIIeme siec1e', Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale, 15
(1948), pp. 304-31.
25 J. Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France, (Oxford, 1979), p. 63.
A detailed analysis of St.Bernard's borrowings from Cicero's De Amicitia
appears in R. Gelsomino, 'So Bernardo di Chiaravalle e il "de Amicitia" di
Cicerone', Studia Anselmiana, 43 (1958),180-186. For a similar sentiment in
Aelred, see SA I. 45, cited below n. 42. J. Leclercq's notable contribution to
this field includes 'L'amitie dans les lettres au moyen-age', Revue du Moyen
Age Latin 1 (1945), pp. 391-410, and L 'amour des lettres et Ie desir de Dieu
Paris, 1957, English Trans. C. Murashi, The Love of Learning and the Desire
for God, New York, 1982.

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

26 G. Constable (ed.), The Letters of Peter the Venerable, (2 vols, Cambridge

Mass., 1967), ii. p. 39. Cicero was not the sole source for ideas on friendship in
the twelfth century; other influential sources include Seneca, Augustine and
Cassian. Cicero, however, provided the most popular and widely used model,
and was the overwhelming influence on Aelred. On the importance of Cicero
above all others as the authority on friendship for the twelfth century, see E.
Gilson, La theologie mystique de Saint Bernard, (Etudes de philosophie
medievale xx, Paris, 1934), and especially p. 2l.
27 See Cic. de Am. xiv, 51, pp. 162-3.
28 Cicero and Aelred both used the discursive dialogue form. Neither the three
broad areas of discussion mentioned above, nor the six general points selected
below, represent systematic stages in the presentation of the arguments in either
treatise, but rather a selection of some of the more central points, in order to
illuminate the relations of the various arguments to one another.
29 Cic. de Am. vii, 24, pp. l34-5: ' ... in rerum natura totoque mundo constarent
quaeque moverentur, ea contrahere amicitiam, dissipare discordiam'. Cicero is
citing Empedoc1es. See also vii, 23 and xiii, 47.
30 Cic. de Am. 20, pp. 130-1: ' ... virtus amicitiam et gignit et continet, nec sine
virtute amicitia esse ullo pacto potest'. See also xxvii, 100.
31 Cic. de Am. 32, pp. 144-5: 'Nam si utilitas conglutinaret amicitias, eadem
commutata dissolveret; sed quia natura mutari non potest, idcirco verae
amicitiae sempiternae sunt'.
32 Cic. de Am. viii, 28, pp. l38-9: 'Nihil est enim virtute amabilius, nihil quod
magis alliciat ad diligendum, quippe cum propter virtutem et probitatem etiam
eos, quos numquam vidimus, quodam modo diligamus'. See also xiv, 48.
33 See Cic. de Am. v, 18 cited above, n. 9).
34 Cic. de Am. iv, 15, p. 124-5: 'Sed tamen recordatione nostrae amicitiae sic
fruor, ut beate vixisse videar, quia cum Scipione vixerim, quocum mihi
coniuncta cura de publica re et de privata fuit'. See also xi, 39.
35 Cic. de Am. vii. 23, pp. l32-3: 'Verum et iam amicum qui intuetur, tamquam
exemplar aliquod intuetur sui. Quocirca et absentes adsunt et egentes abundant
et imbecilli valent et, quod difficilius dictu est, mortui vivunt'. See also xiv, 50
and xvii, 6l.
36 See Cic. de Am. xxi, 80, pp. 188-189: ' ... est enim is qui est tamquam alter
idem'.
37 Cic. deAm. iv, 15, pp. 124-5: ' ... id in quo omnis vis est amicitiae, voluntatum
studiorum sententiarum summa consensio' .
38 Cic. de Am. vi, 20, pp. 130-1: 'Est enim amicitia nihil aliud nisi omnium divinarum
humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio'. This and the above
quotation (Cic. de Am. iv, IS) appear frequently in medieval authors.
39 Cic. de Am. xix, 69, p. 178-9: 'Sed maximum est in amicitia superiorem parem
esse inferiori'. See also xx, 71-73.
40 Friendship itself has significant social implications, being conducive to, and
indeed essential to, the public good. However, since it implies equality among
the few virtuous, and not the entire community, this equality has only a very
limited social application.
41 Cic. de Am. xii, 40, pp. 150-1: 'Haec igitur lex in amicitia sanciatur, ut neque
rogemus res turpis nec faciamus rogati' .
42 SA 1. 45, p. 296, (SF p. 60): 'Amicitia enim spiritalis quam ueram dicimus, non
utilitatis cuisque mundialis intuitu, non qualibet extra nascente causa, sed ex

211
 Friendship East and West

propriae naturae dignitate, et humani pectoris sensu desideratur; ita ut fructus

eius praemiumque non sit aliud quam ipsa'. See also Cic. de Am. ix, 31.
43 SA, Prol. 2, p. 287, (SF p. 45): ' ... uerae amicitiae legem ... '.
44 SA, Prol. 7, p. 288, (SF p. 47): 'Opusculum igitur istud in tribus distinximus
libellis. In primo quid sit amicitia, et quis eius fuerit ortus uel causa com-
mendantes. In secunda eius fructum excellentiamque proponentes. In tertio
quomodo et inter quos possit usque in finem indirupta seruari, prout potuimus
enodantes' .
45 In particular, he cites De Amicitia 6: 20 frequently, at crucial junctures; e.g. SA
1. 11,1. 13,1. 29, I. 46, III. 8.
46 SA I. 53, p. 298, (SF p. 62): 'Ipse itaque summa natura omnes naturas instituit,
omnia suis locis ordinauit, omnia suis temporibus discrete distribuit. Voluit
autem, nam et ita ratio eius aeterna prescripsit, ut omnes creaturas suas pax
componeret, et uniret societas; et ita omnia ab ipso qui summe et pure unus est
quoddam unitatis uestigium sortirentur. Hinc est quod nullum genus rerum
solitarium reliquit, sed ex multis quadam societate connexuit'.
47 See SA, I. 54.
48 SA, III. 2, p. 317, (SF p. 91): 'Fons et origo amicitiae amor est, nam amor sine
amicitia esse potest, amicitia sine amore numquam'.
49 SA, I. 61, p. 299, (SF p. 64): 'Manifestum proinde est amicitiam naturalem esse
sicut uirtutem, sicut sapientiam, et caetera quae propter se, quasi bona naturalia,
et appetenda sunt et seruanda ... '.
50 SA, I. 21, p. 292, (SF p. 55): 'Vnde ipsam amicitiam non inter fortuita uel
caduca, sed inter ipsas uirtutes quae aeternae sunt, etiam mundi huius philo-
sophi collocarunt. Quibus Salomon in Prouerbiis consentire uidetur: "Omni",
inquiens, "tempore diligit qui amicus est"; manifeste declarans amicitiam
aeternam esse, si uera est; si autem esse desierit, nec ueram fuisse cum
uiderentur existere'. He goes on to cite a favourite passage of Jerome, 'A
friendship which can cease to be was never true friendship' (,Amicitia quae
desinere potest, numquam uera fuit'), Jerome, letter 3, Patrologia Latina xxii,
col. 335. On the eternal nature of true friendship, see also SA, III. 6 and III. 44.
51 SA, II. 62, p. 314, (SF p. 85): 'Nam cum multas et magnas utilitates pariat
amicitia fida bonorum, non illam tamen ab istis, sed ab ilia istas procedere non
ambigirnus', (cf. Cic. de Am. ix, 30). See also SA, II. 64.
52 St. Bernard (to give just one example, but one from one of the most influential
figures ofthe twelfth century) was explicit: 'Although you are not known to us
personally, although you are far away in the flesh, yet you are a friend, and
friendship makes you known to us now, and here with us' ('Etsi facie ignotus
nobis, etsi corpore remotus a nobis, amicus tamen es, et amicitia notum iam
nobis, et praesentem te facit'; letter to a Cictercian monk, William, in Sancti
Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, (8 vols, Rome, 1957-77), vii,
p. 259, no. 103).
53 SA, II. 13, pp. 304-5, (SF p. 72): 'In omni actu, in omni studio, in certis, in dubiis,
in quolibet euentu, in fortuna quaiibet, in secreto et publico, in omni consuitatione,
domi forisque, ubique amicitia grata, amicus necessarius, utilis gratia reperitur. Quo
circa amici, ut ait Tullius, et "absentes adsunf' sibi "et egentes abundant, et
imbecilles ualent; et, quod difficilius dietu est, mortui uiuunf" .
54 SA, III. 118, p. 345, (SF pp. 125-6): 'Haec est enirn amicitia ordinata, ut ratio
regat affectum, nec tam quid illorum suauitas, quam quid multorum petat
utilitas attendamus' .

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 Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony

55 SA, I. 16, p. 291, (SF p. 54): 'Iuo: ... Quod autem uera amicitia inter eos qui
sine Christo sunt esse non possit, mihi fateor esse persuasum' .
56 SA, I. 21, p. 292, (SF p. 55): 'Amicitia igitur ipsa uirtus est qua talis dilectionis
ac du1cedinis foedere ipsi animi copulantur, et efficiuntur unum de pluribus '.
57 SA, II. 28, p. 308, (SF p. 77): 'Gratianus: ... ego aliud nihil amicitiam esse
credidi quam inter duos uoluntatum identitatem, ut nihil ue1it unus quod alter
nolit .. .'. See also Ill. 6, where the friend is described as another self, III. 48,
and 11.21, where friendship is linked to spiritual ascent.
58 SA, II. 11, p. 304, (SF p. 72): 'At quae felicitas, quae securitas, quae iucunditas
habere "cum quo aeque audeas loqui ut tibi" , . See also III. 90, cited below, n.
71.
59 SA, II. 69, p. 315, (SF p. 87): ' ... hoc ornnino negandum censemus amico,
quod mortem inferat animae, quod nihil aliud est quam peccatum ... '.
60 SA, II. 14, p. 305, (SF p. 73): ' ... quidam gradus est amicitia uicinus per-
fectioni, quae in Dei dilectione et cognitione consistit; ut homo ex amico
hominis Dei efficiatur amicus ... '. The concept of human friendship as a stage
leading to ascent to and friendship with God comes from Augustine. On the
influence of Augustine on Aelred, see J. McEvoy, 'Notes on the Prologue ofSt.
Aelred of Rievaulx's "de Spiritali Amicitia" with a translation', Traditio 37
(1981), pp. 396--411. On the Patristic contribution to friendship see C. White,
Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge UP 1992.
61 A systematic study of the uses ofthese terms would be illuminating, but would
run the risk of imposing falsely rigid distinctions among them. Caritas and
dilectio are used almost interchangeably at times (e.g. see below n. 63).
62 SA, I. 25, p. 293, (SF p. 56): 'Iuo: Cum tanta sit in amicitia uera perfectio, non
est mirum quod tam rari fuerunt hi quos ueros amicos antiquitas commendauit.
"Vix" enim, ut ait Tullius, "tria uel quatuor amicorum paria" in tot retro
saeculis fama concelebrat. Quod si nostris, id est christianis temporibus, tanta
est raritas amicorum, frustra, ut mihi uidetur, in huius uirtutis acquisitione
desudo, quam me adepturum, eius mirabili sublimitate territus, iam pene despero' .
63 Caritas, but also, in the quotation from John 15: 13, dilectio. The terms applied
to love were frequently interchangeable.
64 SA, I. 31-32, p. 294, (SF p. 58): 'Iuo: Ergone inter amicitiam et caritatem nihil
distare arbitramur?
'Aelredus: Immo plurimum. Multo enim plures gremio caritatis quam
amicitiae amplexibus recipiendos, diuina sanxit auctoritas. Non enim amicos
solum, sed et inimicos sinu dilectionis excipere, caritatis lege compellimur.
Amicos autem eos solos dicimus, quibus cor nostrum, et quidquid in illo est,
committere non formidamus'.
65 SA, I. 44, p.296, (SF p. 60): ' ... huius amicitae uitiosae principium quosdam
plerumque ad quamdam uerae amicitae prouehit portionem'.
66 SA, I. 50, p. 297, (SF p. 61): ' ... unde primum amicitia inter mortales orta est' .
67 Aelred's treatment of notions of nature and natural society is an important area
of study in its own right.
68 SA, I. 59, p. 299, (SF pp. 63-M): 'Tunc boni quique inter caritatem et
amicitiam distinxerunt; animaduertentes quod etiam inimicis atque peruersis
impendenda sit dilectio; cum inter bonos et pessimos esse non possit
uoluntatum uel consiliorum ulla communio. Amicitia itaque quae sicut caritas
inter omnes primum et ab omnibus seruabatur, inter paucos bonos naturali lege
resedit' .

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69 SA, III. 134, p. 350, (SF p. 132): ' ... cum haec amicitia ad quam hie paucos
admittimus, transfundetur in omnes, et ab omnibus refundetur in Deum, cum
"Deus" fuerit "omnia in omnibus" '.
70 SA, III, 3, p. 317, (SF p. 92): 'Ex ratione simul et affectu, quando is quem ob
uirtutis meritum ratio suadet amandum, morum suauitate, et uitae laudioris
du1cedine, in alterius influit animum'. Note the shift in the meaning of reason
in the couse of this passage, from rational obedience to Christ's command to
love all, to reason urging love of virtue; a shift between a purely Biblical and a
more Ciceronian emphasis. The whole passage paraphrased here is SA III. 2-3.
71 SA, III. 90, p. 336, (SF 114-5): 'Est praeterea uis amicitiae, "parem esse
inferiori superiorem". Saepe enim quidam inferioris gradus, uel ordinis, uel
dignitatis, uel scientiae, ab excellentioribus in amicitiam assumuntur'.
72 SA, I. 56, p. 298, (SF p. 63): ' ... ne cum alter superior, inferior alter uideretur,
locus pateret inuidiae, si non obstitisset caritas amicitiae' .

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 6

Friendship in Confucian China

Classical and Late Ming
Whalen Lai

From the classical Greek period, friendship had become an ideal of social
relationships that could be applied in a number of different arenas of social
action. Whereas it had originally defined a relationship between equals, it
could also be applied (since Aristotle's time) to relations between unequals,
such as in benefactions. By the Roman period, the notion was taken into the
Latin amicitia. However, the concept field was broadened substantially, so
Roman forms of political and economic patronage (patrocinium) could be
expressed in the technical language of friendship. Thus, the semantic fields
for the social conventions of patronage, hospitality, and letters of recom-
mendation, as well as of consensual contracts and commercial exchange,
had come to intersect and converge in practical application. One often
fmds, then, that the code word for the moral paradigm is the over-arching
category of friendship.
-L Michael White, 'A Paradigm of Friendship in Philippians,'
(Balch et ai., 211)
Everybody has friends and every society has known the good that comes
with friendship. To study friendship in Confucian China is therefore to
study the particular cultural form that friendship takes there. It is also
tracking the histoire de mentalite as that affects the nature of friendship in
different periods in China. Space however will limit our coverage. We will
be focusing on Confucian not Buddhist friendship, and only in passing on
the Taoist varieties.
From the start, friendship is problematical for Confucian China which
counts five basic human relationships but rates friendship fifth. According
to Mencius, the mythic ruler Hou Chi, after teaching humanity how to grow
the five cereals (satisfy the physical needs), instituted the five human
relationships in order to distinguish humans from beasts. Henceforth says
Mencius,

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 Friendship East and West

between father and son, there should be intimacy;

between ruler and minister, righteousness;
between husband and wife, gender distinction;
between elder and younger, ranking by age; and
between friends, trust or trustworthiness
(Mencius 3A.4)
Traditionally, what regulates the proper conduct of these human relation-
ship is said to be rites or ceremonies.
Listed last, friendship is valued least. So unlike the West where there is
a tradition of regarding kings to be the beloved of the gods and God as
being friendly towards all men, China never adopted, or popularised the
rhetoric of friendship to cover relationships in general. Heaven, though
benevolent, is never called friend. And no Confucian would feel com-
fortable with saying, as Jane Austen would, 'Your family is your friend.' In
China, Heaven, ruler, father, and husband simply do not befriend man,
minister, son, and wife. Elder brother does or can yu (befriend: be kind to)
the younger brother, but not the other way around. That would be too
presumptuous.
The relative neglect is understandable. As a general rule, the more
importance a society places on family and kinship (hsiieh-yiian ch'in-shu)
as China did, the more it would discourage its young from freely forging
friendship (to be t'ung-tao p 'eng-yu or fellow travellers ofthe Way) outside
home and hearth. The Confucian ritual classics warned sons against pledg-
ing their lives to friends when their parents are still alive. And a youth must
break off with a friend of whom his father or elder brother disapproves. In
fact Confucian orthodoxy since the Han had followed an earlier lead of the
Legalist Han-fei. It has remade the fIrst three relation- ships into the Three
Pillars or Three Bonds. Instead of the reciprocity Confucius himself would
underline, Han emperor Wu had sponsored the general discussion at the
White Tiger Hall which made ruler, father and husband the 'pillar' for
minister, son, and wife to lean on. In demanding unilateral compliance with
authority, the Three Bonds left out of con- sideration the more open love
between brothers and the still more equal trust among friends. (On
Orthodoxy, see Liu 1990 and forthcoming)
Chinese culture was not stagnant and social attitudes could change. Of
interest to us is a development in seventeenth-century or Late Ming China:
a notable interest in the theory and practice of friendship. The philosopher
Li Chih (1527-1602) devoted 10 chapters in his Ch'u-t'an-chi (1588) to
this topic. He also wrote a piece in memorium ofHo Hsin-yin (1517-1579)
who was known for 'abandoning the other four human relationships' (as his
accuser would put it) 'and placing himself solely in the company of

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teachers and friends, sages and worthies.' Ho died in jail, a heretic for so
rating friendship highest. The seventeenth century was somehow ripe for a
further look at friendship, so much so that when Matteo Ricci composed his
short tract 'On Friendship' (Chiao-yu-lun) (1595), it would become the best
received and most reissued of this Jesuit's works. Many Chinese were
drawn to the seventy-seven passages on friendship from Aristotle's Nicho-
machlan Ethics, Plato's Republic, Cicero's De Amicitia, plus other Greek
and Latin writings. This interest in friendship was however more than
academic. It informed the political platform of the 'reform party,' the
Tung-lin Academy which was then opposing the abuse of power by the
eunuchs at court (McDermott 1992).1
The present essay will take a long-range philosophical look at this issue
of friendship in Confucian China, first by looking at and probing the roots
of Confucius' teaching on friendship. It will then trace the way of friend-
ship among the Confucian scholars through the Han and down to the
Wei-Chin era before the Buddhist period, i.e. China's 'Late Antiquity.'
Skipping the medieval Buddhist period, we will pick up the story with the
Neo-Confucian Renaissance in Sung, and set as the terminus of our dis-
cussion, this flowering of friendship ideology in Late Ming.
Nowadays we consider friendship to be one of the most open and
gratifying of personal relationships that we can have. To some extent, that
must have been true at all times. But we will need to question some modern
preconceptions in order to retrieve the cultural forms of friendship in a
different era. For example, though conducive to equality, most traditional
friendship accepted hierarchy. In dynastic China, people exchanged infor-
mation on name, home village, and the date of birth (in that order) at their
flTSt meeting. The dates were needed to ascertain seniority and set the
proper form of address. In spite of such hierarchic forms, great friendships
flourished.
Now friendship can vary in depth, from mere acquaintance to heart-to-
heart companionship. At both levels it can be inclusive or exclusive. Two
acquaintances may be united by an interest in stamp collecting not shared
by a third. Two best friends might be bonded by a privileged, mutual
self-disclosure not meant for any third party. The 'best friend' is a friend at
all times but a person can have two 'best (sic) friends' who are not friends
with each other. Expansion of all dual relationships to include more is in
theory possible but in practice, always by small increments. 2
As modern people we may lament how unfortunately we cannot pick our
parents but how happily we do choose our friends. That is because we do
enjoy a freer and more open friendship. Being a family person first, a
Confucian would always say that the most gratifying of relationships is that
offather and son. Now in the privacy of each other's company, friends may
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loosen ties and kick off shoes and just relax. If a third party comes calling,
though, they might put them back on for etiquette's sake. On paper, the
Confucian does not allow any such relaxing of the ritual rule even in
private. In reality, he does, or rather such gentlemen would conveniently
adopt a Taoist posture on those occasions. A Confucian gentleman in
public office is routinely a Taoist on weekends or in retirement.
Nowadays when we say we treasure friendship for what it is, namely as a
personally most gratifying relationship, we have in effect bought into a
Romantic notion of friendship. If we accept Kant's premise that we must never
treat another person, least of all a friend, as a means to an end, we too buy into
the idea of the sacredness of the individual. Confucianism works with a
differently constructed model of humanity. No man is an island, just an
individual. And friendship is always more thanjust an 'intrinsic good' (a good
in itself); it always serves an 'extrinsic good' (a means to a higher end) which
is the good of a pre-established, natural community or Gemeinschaft.
Friendship has thus three functions. Aristotle names them as Virtue,
Pleasure and Utility. For Confucius, it seems that Virtue will always come
before Pleasure and Utility. This led to his assumption which Aristotle
shares that only good persons can be friends. A gentleman befriends other
gentlemen. When their opposite, the hsiao jen or inferior people come
together, they congregate only into gangs (tang). Since the gentleman does
not mingle with the inferior person, he does not even befriend inferiors: the
unlettered and vulgar; a servant and woman in general (17:25). None of
these lesser people were deemed capable of moral, gentlemanly friendship.
We need to question that assumption, but first we will have to explain how
that classical standard rose and then how and why as Public Virtue (of the
Han gentleman) incorporated Private Pleasure (of the Wei-Chin Neo-
Taoist) and took in Political Utility (by the Late Ming), China herself
changed her classical understanding of Friendship.

An Exposition of Analects 1:1

We begin with Confucius. But a statistical analysis of the Analects of
Confucius would tum up less than a dozen or so passages describing
friendship, scant when compared with the many more devoted to filial
piety, 'the root of all virtues' (Yu-tzu). Mark Anthony might mourn
Caesar's death by appealing to 'Friends, Roman, and Countrymen.' (The
words are Shakespeare's but the sentiment would concur with Cicero.) No
such implication of friendship upon citizens or nationals could be made in
China. Friendship simply was not a central concept in China.
Not only does the Analects not speak explicitly of five human relations,
it is also not possible for Confucius to intend an inclusion of friendship in
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his formula for the 'Rectification of Names.' Grammatically he could say

'ruler (be) ruler; minister minister; father father, son son.' (12:11) The
compound for friends, p'eng-yu, does not permit a similar splitting of the
word/so That should not be surprising. Since friendship could not have been
a part of the Chou feudal ranking system, it would not have been part of
Confucius' project to revive the Chou name and rank. Though the clan laws
would have something to say about how sons should or should not make
friends, friendship could not have received separate treatment.
That is also the reason why it would be wrong to infer that just because
the actual reference to friendship in the Analects is scant, friendship is
tangential to Confucius. Quite the contrary. Friends surely existed before
Confucius, but Confucius apparently reconstituted it to go with his new
community of scholars. We can infer that from the etymology of the words.
P'eng meant people of the same class or alike in character; yu was deri-
vative of chiao for 'crossed arms' and meant just any acquaintance. Neither
had originally any specific ties to scholarship.
Although Confucius himself had contrasted the gentlemen's sociability
against the inferior people's tang (gang, faction, partisanship), the General
Discussion at the White Tiger Hall already said 'p 'eng means tang; yu
means yu for having (friends).' A later Han commentary by Cheng Hsuan
then read p 'eng as those sharing the same teacher and yu as those having
the same aspiration. This effectively tied friendship to being friendship
among students. A subcommentary by Chia Kung-yen in T'ang further
stated, 'Concerningp'eng, there are always many; butyu (true friends) are
few.'3 And indeed yu is the term preferred over p'eng for designating close
friends. When we speak of a friend's love, it is always given as yu ch 'ing.
The Analects, however, opens with a reference to friends as p 'eng.
These opening lines afford us one of the most incisive insights into what
friendship meant for a Confucian scholar.
To emulate and to habituate oneself (to the proper deportment-
what joy!
To have a friend (p 'eng) visit from afar - what pleasure!
To be content with (living in) anonymity - is he not a
gentleman? (1.1)
The first line is usually read as 'to learn and to practice frequently what
is learned.' I have intentionally rendered it more literally as 'to emulate and
habituate' in order to make a point. The standard reading gives the impres-
sion that a Confucian scholar studies books and does exercise (home work).
That might describe what being a scholar eventually meant but at the time
of Confucius and at the heart of that formula is something still more
fundamental. The classics we call Songs and History existed in some form
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at the time of Confucius. But when Confucius used these 'books', it was to
find models of proper behaviour for his students to emulate. The Songs
taught how 'not to have deviant thought' (2:2). And History written as a
record of acts worthy of 'fame and blame' was meant to teach men what to
emulate and what not to emulate. In both texts, what was being taught was
proper behaviour. Proper behaviour was Ii, rites or good deportment. And
habituation to such good forms was how a gentleman would acquire the
good of Jen (humaneness).
Aristotle saw the Good as being acquired by 'habituation': a person
emulates and gets used to the good form. Honesty is therefore just the habit
of not telling lies. Confucius could not agree more; he too operated on the
same principles. When asked as to whatJen is, he simply said (it is the habit
of) 'not speaking, not seeing, not listening to what is contrary to propriety'
(12: I). The assumption there is that man is affected by what he hears and
what he sees. A voiding announcement of evil (like a radio advertisement
for a forthcoming gory film), one would not have the urge to witness evil
(go watch the movie); having avoided such sights (of sex and violence on
the screen), one would have refrained from emulating the talk and the
boasting of the villain. No talk, no action. (On why that is so, see discussion
below.)
Whether Confucius regarded human nature to be good or evil is irre-
levant here. Confucius was not into an ontology ofthe good as he was into
the pedagogy of getting people to do good. He saw how we are often
influenced by our environment. 'At birth, men are much alike; it is through
habituation (to good or evil) that men subsequently distinguish them-
selves' (17:2). Culture can civilize a barbarian into a gentleman. So habi-
tuating into the form of the good can make that good a growing child's
'second nature'. Confucius taught 'culture and performance; loyalty and
trust' (wen, hsing; chung, hsin) (7:24). The first line in Analects 1:1 is about
culture and performance. A person is acculturated into the performance of
the good form.
The second line is about loyalty and trust, two qualities that are often
associated with intercourse with people and with friendship. For example,
Confucius has said elsewhere, concerning the gentleman or scholar,
He holds loyalty and trust as his principle. He does not have friends
lesser (in moral standing) than he (1 :8).
The reason for avoiding 'lesser' friends is that by their very proximity, they
might influence a man's character - for worse:
Confucius said, 'Of beneficial friends, there are three types (the
upright, the sincere, and the knowledgeable): or harmful friendship,

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there are three also (the crooked, the slippery-tongued, the glib)'.
(16:4)
You can tell a person by the company that he keeps. Why? Because 'he
becomes the company that he keeps' (4:7). The Family Sayings of
Confocius notes how that can come about unknowingly:
He who lives with the good man is like one who lives long among the
orchids being unaware of its aroma; he who lives among evil men is
like one who lives long among dried fish becoming insensitive to its
odour.4
Such judgement is common to classical traditions. Only in the nine-
teenth century when conscience and consciousness (once the same word;
still so in French) conflicted would a decadent romanticism deem befriend-
ing the Marquis de Sade (once unconscionable) socially redeeming because
it exposes us to one more oflife experiences (expands our consciousness).
The gentleman can love the (good) man and hate the (evil) man (4:3). He
does not believe in repaying injury with kindness (14:36) as Lao-tzu would.
That is not to say he cannot walk with and learn from bad companions. 'Of
a trio walking abreast, one will be my teacher. I will select the good quality
to emulate and the evil quality to avoid' (7:21).
A friend being a companion in the Good, his visit is a natural joy. But
why the reference to 'from afar'? Aside from 'distance making the heart
grow fonder', it is also meant as a contrast to those living close by. Most
Chinese villagers live in a highly localized culture of relatives and neigh-
bours. But a scholar by his education knows the affairs of the world
'without stepping outside his room' and at some point in his life, he does
venture out and meets up with other like minds whom he counts as his
friends. (Friends include the ancients, the Sages and the worthies kept alive
in texts; both types of friends can be called leu jen 'ancients of acquaint-
ances of old'.) For the gentleman, relatives are necessary and neighbours
are fine. But a visit from a like-mind from afar - that indeed is a rare treat.
It is also a reminder that 'within the Four Seas, all men are brothers' (12:5).
The last line about a noble soul unconcerned with being unknown to the
world is or should be seen as a description of Confucius in his old age and
of any future scholar in the same situation. The Master had high hopes of
transforming the world but in the end, he retired to teach and lived in
relative anonymity, unknown to the world at large but for the regard of his
seventy disciples. Confucius was describing himself when he said else-
where, 'a gentleman is more concerned about knowing others (i.e. be able
to form proper judgements of others) than about being known by others
(being famous)' (1: 16). But he would grieve ifhe was not known to or was

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being misunderstood by his friends. Having ruled out 'living among birds
and beasts,' Confucius thrived amidst his circle of disciples from whom he
'kept no secret' (7:23). In the Analects, Confucius indeed showed little
anxiety except on two occasions: once when his disciples misconstrued his
intent in serving a lord of ill repute and once when Heaven took away so
prematurely Yen Hui (II :8,9), his most gifted and favourite student.
Analects I: I speaks of pleasure, joy, and feeling at peace. There is the
joy of learning; the pleasure of company; and peace with oneself. The joy
comes when habituated to learning, learning becomes no longer a tedious
task (as it must be at first; any lazy child knows that). Learning becomes a
joy when a person truly becomes a scholar. Confucius would want himself
to be remembered just for that uncommon 'love of learning' (5:27). The
pleasure of friendship comes with human company, with being among like
minds. The peace or freedom from anxiety comes with knowing that he had
lived up to his calling. Aristotle had set happiness or eudaimonia up as a
standard to measure the Good. What is moral for Confucius has also to do
with this overall sense of well-being, of mind (of learning), body (of
friendship), and soul (of Heaven).
That standard of joy was later tied to benefits by Mo-tzu; privatized by
the egoist Yang Chu; preserved as duty by Kao-tzu; subdued by Lao-tzu;
brought under the good will by Mencius; and restrained with rites by
Hsun-tzu. Perception of friendship changed accordingly. Mo-tzu looked to
benefiting his fellow men. (Mo-tzu did not use the term 'friends.') Yang
Chu shunned human contacts that might harm his self. Kao-tzu obliged his
friends. Lao-tzu kept his desires minimal ... None of these classical
thinkers operated with the individual-based premise of modem Western
ethics. Yang Chu was no Hobbes. And Mencius would not understand why
Duty would rub against Inclination in Kant.
Admittedly friendship has developed more openly in the West. The three
factors contributing to that has been its Kingship, Religion, and the City. In
Athens, Democracy, the Cult of the Hero, and the City State had nursed
Greek friendship. At Rome, the emperor as a friend of the gods, the gods as
friends of men, and the general patron-client relationship had supported
Roman friendship. In medieval Europe, it was the brotherhood of knights,
the patronage of saints, and the fraternity of the monks and the guilds. In a
modernizing Europe, it was the chartered cities, the Reformation, and the
modem nation state. They worked together to liberate the individual by
granting him eventually that freedom of association, of marriage and of
friendship we now take for granted. If we measure China by that standard,
China would of course fall short. The Chinese state, philosophy, and city
did not seem to promote friendship. Confucianism does not even observe a
law common to Athens and Jerusalem, namely 'Be kind to strangers.' For
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all its high ideal of jen jen (loving all men), the rites in practice do not
prepare the locals well for making friends with even men from a different
village. But a century before the French discovered liberte, ega lite,
fraternile in 1789, Matteo Ricci found a China more cosmopolitan than the
Europe he left behind. He made friends easily enough and on an equal
footing too. We need to see why.

Honour Among Declasse Knights

Perhaps the most promising line in the Analects pertaining to friendship and
its universal import is this one from Tseng-tzu summing up the means and
end of friendship:
The gentleman comes together as friends on the basis of culture (wen)
and he furthers (the striving for) humaneness on the basis of friend-
ship (12:24).
The statement is not meant to preclude moral friendship from the un-
lettered. Rather it places a noblesse oblige on the guardians of high culture
to guide the people to the Good.
Friendship is here seen as what mediates the foundation of society (its
culture) and the highest good (universalJen or humaneness). By drawing a
substantial link between the intrinsic good of friendship and the extrinsic
good of humaneness, the statement alludes to the possibility of generalizing
an ethics based on friendship for the whole of society. That this is not
developed by the classic Confucian text on politics, the Great Learning
which links the 'cultivation of the self' to the eventual 'pacifYing all under
Heaven' primarily through the family and filial piety, is perhaps un-
fortunate. But still the potential was present and in time would grow.
But before moving ahead, we need first to attempt a genealogy of
morals. Confucianism does not associate love with friendship as the Greeks
with their philia would, and as Mo-tzu would too. Confucianism has always
designated 'trust' as the virtue among friends. But this choice is as obvious
as it is problematical. Trust is such a foundational virtue that it could serve
as the basis of all virtues. The graph hsin ('man' plus 'speech') always
denotes 'truthfulness' to words spoken or promises made (1 :7). Since no
society can operate if everybody lies and no one ever keeps promises, the
Analects has devoted many passages to demanding this need for 'deed' to
match 'speech.' A gentleman should be heedful of his speech; work hard to
live up to it; for he is only as good as his words; so much so that it is better
that he be reticent; or he acts before he speaks (See 2:13, 18; 424; 13:3;
14:29). But since this virtue is required of all men in all social dealings
(2:22), it is not qualitatively unique to friends. One can even presume that
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among friends, hsin is there to begin with. Mencius must have felt uneasy
with considering it as a distinct virtue; he did not count hsin as one of the
'four beginnings' of virtue.
, of hsin as Truth writ large can be
In time, of course, the importance
blown up to metaphysical proportions. And that did happen. The Book of
Rites, in the section on 'the Vessel of the Rites' says:
When the former kings institute the rites, there is the basis and the
cultural form. The basis is loyalty and trust; the cultural form is the
principle of righteousness. Without the basis, the rites cannot be
instituted; without the cultural form, they cannot be implemented.5
The Lii Chronicle ofSpring and Autumn goes even further and has the four
seasons circulating in faithful compliance with it. 6 The word hsin is a
synonym for ch 'eng (sincerity, integrity) and the Doctrine ofthe Mean says
the same of this metaphysical principle. Ch 'eng (what brings to complete-
ness what has been said) is the arche of man's mind and the telos of Heaven
and Earth. Everything perfect is ch 'eng.
But that metaphysical reading could not have been the original, the
earlier or the plain reading. The pair of virtues called loyalty and trust were
once social virtues. In that sense did Tseng-tzu use it in the Analects:
Tseng-tzu said: Thrice a day I examine myself. In my dealing with
men, have I been loyal? In my relation with friends, have I been
trustworthy? (With regards to my teacher) have I practiced what has
been taught (transmitted to) me? (1 :4).
But even before Tseng-tzu made it a personal virtue for all gentlemen, the
two virtues in the Chou feudal context seem to best describe the loyalty
owed, say, by a knight to his lord and the task owed, say, by a servant to his
master. That usage is still preserved in later discourse. And it denotes a
subordinate trait. Loyalty and trustworthiness are never said to be the
virtues of a master. A minister must be loyal to the ruler; a ruler needs not
be loyal to him (3:19). A servant must make himself worthy of his lord's
trust; but the lord is not required to trust and employ him.
That Confucius should make these two virtues of subordinates a gentle-
man's virtues is, on closer scrutiny, not that ironic. The Confucian scholars (ju:
Weakling) were declasse knights (shih) who took up the pen instead of the
sword. These knights were the lowest of the nobles and just one rank above the
common people. They were inculcated into a life of rituals as the commoners
were not. They were not privileged to be exempted from punishment as the true
nobles would. Given their low noble - or 'near serf - status, it is not hard to
see why they made 'loyalty' and 'trustworthiness' to superiors their own
virtue. A Nietzsche might even deem this as a (near) slave morality.
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Still, Confucius never gave up on the idea of virtue or nobility. He had

opened up the education of nobles to everyone irrespective of class (15 :38).
In so doing, he changed hsin into a virtue among friends. Hsin is now a
self-imposed virtue since the Confucian gentleman always aspires high
(14:24) and demands more of himself (15:20). The inferior person aspires
low and always blames others for his own failings. But hsin remains at the
same time an other-directed virtue, so that instead of saying as Polonius did
to his son Horatio in Hamlet - 'And above all, to thyself be true' - a
Chinese father would say, 'Better it is to fail yourself than to fail others.'
The Chinese father is being prudent, because 'it is better to sin against a
gentleman (because he can be forgiving) than to ever offend a petty soul
(who would exact his pound of revenge).' But more is involved here. The
Chinese word for 'to fail' also means 'to bear, to carry, to shoulder' such
that the expression tzu-jU pi-fan does not mean 'defeating oneself ... ' but
'holding oneself up high above the crowd.' In that sense, it is always easier
to 'fail oneself' than to 'fail others.'
The Confucian gentleman is self-demanding but also other-deferring.
He is humble before his own ego ideal but steadfast and proud in his moral
standing. This is what Confucius taught: a nobility not of birth but of
character. In the process, loyalty and trust were redefmed. Loyalty eventu-
ally became a devotion to all tasks as trustworthiness became a mark of
personal integrity. Meanwhile as the scholar gave up the sword for the
brush, he also gave up certain heroic (i.e. military) virtues that civic Greeks
never totally did. Gone from China but not from Greece were the physical
closeness of comrades in arms; the exhilaration of combat; the desire to die
in glory and young; as well as the riotous eating and drinking following any
hard-won battle. In their place, a new set of virtues modelled after the
Master himself arose: a disregard for wealth and comfort, an acceptance of
anonymity and poverty (4:2,5; 8:13; 6:9; 11:18), and a general aloofness
from intrigues and strife (15:21).
Most of these virtues the Christian West can also appreciate, but there is
something about the Chinese ideal of friendship that Cicero might find hard
to comprehend. Cicero recognized that 'a friend's praise can do more harm
than an enemy's flattery' (Ricci cited this), but even a Stoic might not see
why it is that the 'the friendship between inferior persons is as sweet as
honey; but that between gentlemen should be as insipid as water.' To
understand that Chinese sentiment (or lack of sentiment), we have to
contrast the Greek political being and the Chinese 'asocial animal.'
Ricci began his treatise on friendship with a line from Aristotle: 'My
friend is not another person but my other half, my second self.' This is
admitting that a man is not whole if he is alone. China knew such close
friendship too. Wang Ch'ang-shih said of his friend Liu Yin: 'He knows me
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better than I know myself.' (New Account 8:109) But precisely because
Confucian China often reduced the individual person to his role, Taoist
China prized the life of a recluse - not unlike the sannyasin seeking his
escape from being homo hierarchus. 8 The Chinese Emperor - the one free
man for Hegel - prized his 'unique' or 'widowed' status; he referred to
himself thus. Even the Confucian gentleman 'treasures his solitude'
(Doctrine of the Man, The Great Learning). Solitude tests his metal. He
learns to stand upright and alone.
The Sage that so stands alone is the Great Man. A sinitic Purusa, he
concourses - in the Han mythopoeic language - with the Sun and the Moon.
To the extent that all Confucian scholars subscribe in some degree to this
vision of a Harmony between Man and Heaven, ultimate friendship is not
human but cosmic. The sixth of the ten chapters on friendship complied by
Li Chih is devoted to 'Mountains and Waters'; therein, Li Chih produced
famous descriptions of hills and streams. Aristotle might fmd his other half
in the city, but as Tsung Ping the landscape artist would put it, the daemon
(spirit) in man resonates with the daemon of Nature itself. Alone in nature,
a man might find his most lasting friend.

The Many Faces of Friendship

To see what friendship is like in real life, we now tum to actual narratives.
This from the biographical section ofSsu-ma Ch'ien's Historical Records
(scroll 31) shows what hsin or trust truly meant. In paraphrase:
Chi Cha was a roving ambassador who visited Prince Hsu. The prince
admired Chi Cha's sword but was too modest (too much ofa gentle-
man) to ask Chi Cha for it. Chi Cha sensed it but could not part with
his ceremonial insignia that he needed in his official role. Upon
learning on a later visit that the prince has passed away, Chi Cha hung
the sword on a tree next to the grave. "What for?" someone asked.
Because, Chi Cha explained, he had thus promised the Prince the
sword in his heart.
Chi Cha kept his (unspoken) word. Though this is a story supposedly of
friendship, it is really about honour. By our standards, Chi Cha and Prince
Hsu were probably not even close friends. Otherwise he should have
known of the prince's death earlier. The two still observed the same code
of conduct and that was what p'eng once meant - people of the same class.
The Prince as prince could not bring himself to ask outright for the sword
though he would have liked to. Had he asked, Chi Cha the ambassador
would be unable to refuse. Etiquette dictates it: a guest could hardly tum
down a host's request. Such codes of conduct are objective. Subjective
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emotion might impede or promote its exercise, but it is not quintessential to

its operation. A French nobleman would defend his wife's honour - even if
the couple had not been on speaking terms. He had to because the name of
his house was at stake.
Honour is linked to class; friendship is between persons. Honour is yen
(speech, reputation) and is tied to I (rightness as standard). So Kao-tzu was
right to characterize it as 'outer. '8 Had Chi Cha cried at the prince's grave,
apologized, but then decided to keep the sword, the tears would accord with
human emotion (Mencius) and the decision with practical reason (Mo-tzu)
but the act would not accord with honour.
The Shih-shuo hsin-yii (A New Account of the Tales of the World) tells of
this similar tale under 'Virtuous Conduct' (1:44) retold in paraphrase below:
Wang Ch'en visited his friend Wang Kung who had just returned
from a trip. Seeing how he had brought a fine bamboo mat home from
the trip and assuming that he had acquired more than one, Wang
Ch'en asked ifhe might not have it. Wang Kung gave the mat to his
friend even though there was in fact only one. Learning of the facts
later, an astonished Wang Ch'en apologized, 'I only asked because 1
thought you had more.' Wang Kung answered, 'You do not know me
very well. 1 am not the type of person to own extra things.'
Wang Kung and Wang Ch'en were good friends but Wang Kung would
part with the mat even if the request had come from a lesser acquaintance.
The honourable Wang Kung was actually a bit piqued because the request
had come from a friend who should have known better.
Friendship being personal, we often do for friends more than what
honour would require. We indulge them as Tzu-Iu did:
(When asked by the Master to express his wish,) Tzu-Iu said, 'I
would like to share (entertain) my horses, my chariots, my light fur
gowns with my friends (on an outing) and should they spoil them, 1
would not complain.' . . . (When asked in turn what he wished)
Confucius said, 'I would like to give comfort to the old, trust [pledge
ofloyalty] to my friends, and tender care to the young.' (27:25)
Confucius' response shows him to be in a less indulgent mood. He put
virtue before pleasure. This is in one sense required of the teacher. So when
Tzu-Iu asked, 'To be a scholar, what is required?' Confucius said,
'Earnesty, urgency, and blandness. Toward friends, be earnest and urgent.
Among brothers, be bland' (13:28). On occasions, Confucius could be
more lighthearted.9
Though critical of friendship based on material benefit,1O Confucius did
not rule out the utility of friendship. Friends are happy to help one another.
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And since Tzu-kung has put forth the Master's Golden Rule (15:23) more
positively as follows -
The man of humaneness seeks to establish others as he wishes to
establish himself; he sees to it that others achieve what he himself
would like to achieve (6:28)
- it follows that a person should help to promote his friend or 'complete
what is beautiful in others' (12:16). This story below of Chang Yi and Su
Ch'in paraphrased from the Historical Records scroll 70 has always been
recounted as such a tale of aid:
Chang Yi and Su Ch'in were old friends. Su Ch'in became a minister
under the Chao while Chang Yi was still unemployed. Needing
someone to serve under the powerful Ch'in that would support his
diplomatic effort to build a certain type of alliance, Su Ch'in sent
secretly an agent to get Chang Yi come to him. Instead of offering
him a post, Su Ch'in so humiliated Chang Yi that the latter left in
anger. In secret, Su Ch'in sent another agent to support Chang Yi's
trip to fmd employment with Ch'in. Chang Yi was spurred to become
a minister at Ch'in - only to realize he was helped in his career by Su
Ch'in. Peace between the states was ensured.
Su Ch'in was a strategist who furthered the career of Chang Yi because he
recognized his talent and also because Chang Yi might support his strategic
plan. Confucians may question the deception employed and the utility
involved, but they themselves had praised similar acts of 'recommending
the virtuous.' One Confucian official feigned sickness so that a vacated
post would go to a more qualified friend. (A whole category covering such
'recommendation of friends to office' called ch 'en-yu is acknowledged in
the tradition).
Nowadays we tend to measure friendship by the depth of self-disclosure
involved. A close friend is one whom we can trust. And we trust that he
would not betray our confidences. Partners in a conspiracy, friends give
each other emotional support in this hectic world of ours where our friends
are often our best, unpaid psychiatrists. But that is not how friendship
would be understood in classical societies. Su Ch'in appreciated Chang
Yi's talent and Chang Yi reciprocated and appreciated Su Ch'in's. But
neither needed to know the other too intimately. Gentlemen then prized
their solitude and respected each other's privacy. Unlike us who sometimes
keep 'secret friends,' classical society intended all friendship to be public.
If a friendship cannot bear the light of public scrutiny, it is - like a secret
love affair - of dubious quality. Only women had secret friends.

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Tzu Kao visited the Chao area and befriended Tsou Wen and Chi
Chieh. As he had to return home, the two went a long way to see him
off. Three nights after, they had to say good-bye. The pair was crying
profusely; Tzu Kao only folded his arms in a high bow. When his
disciples asked about it, he said: 'I heard they were real men but I saw
how womanlike they were. Man is no deer or pig; he does not have to
always live in crowds.'
The above story, as told by Li Chih (scroll 20 under the heading 'Easy
to Part') is telling in several respects. First, a gentleman can stand by
himself; therefore he should be able to part with friends relatively easily.
Only women cry at partings, not stoic man. That is because private
emotions are not meant for public display. Second, it is the weaker sex that
would typically huddle together in some comer, pouring their 'little hearts'
out as they 'talk sorrow' (relate their suffering under uncaring men). In that,
women are like the inferior people who lean on one another for support.
That is why their friendship is as 'thick as honey,' while the gentleman's
friendship should be as 'insipid as water.'
I do not want to leave the simplistic impression that the true gentleman
did not cry. Confucius cried over Yen Hui's death. Gentlemen 'talked
sorrow' too, though such confidences were best trusted to a mentor friend.
We just do not have public records of such private 'confessions' but even
in the West, most confessions (Augustine's excepted) were private - until
the Puritans made a public show of it in their open-tent testimonials.
(Likewise, Buddhist monks in medieval China also kept silent about their
experiences until later Zen masters made much ado about their enlighten-
ments.) At all times we can assume that good friends knew each other's
public character and personal circumstance, as this exemplary legend para-
phrased from the Historical Records 62 can show:
Kuan Chung came from a poor family. Since childhood, his better-off
friend Pao Shu-ya knowingly let him take material advantage in
many matters. Knowing Kuan Chung'S filial duty, he forgave him for
running away from battle. He even saved Kuan Chung once from
prison. Recognizing his friend's talent and integrity, he recom-
mended him to a high post and did not mind serving under him. Kuan
Chung publicly thanked his friend by noting how he owed everything
to this one person.
Confucians were generally suspicious of friendship built on private
sentiments but there is one form of such friendship that the Confucian
tradition made special allowances for. It is the famed friendship among
painters, calligraphers, poets and musicians. To them is granted that artistic

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license, dramatized no doubt by myths of their rare resonance of souls. Li

Chih has devoted a chapter to such friends of music, the occult art of
intuition, calligraphy and painting. But the most celebrated story is this
ancient one from the Lii-shih ch 'un-ch 'iu 14:
Yii Pai-ya, one of the greatest harpists of ancient China, once played
for his friend Chung Tzu-ch'i.
'You are thinking ofthe mighty T'ai mountains, the noblest of all,'
said Chung.
When another piece was played, Chung remarked, 'How serene the
river is running through thousands of miles without losing its majesty.'
A few years later, Chung Tzu-ch'i died. Yii Pai-ya broke his flute
and never played again.
This pair became the model Chih-hsin (two heart-to-heart friends). When
one party dies, the music dies. But if music seems to play such an important
role in such friendship, it is because the wellborn of the Han period were
tutored in music. They loved the flute and the zither, in solos or in duets -
but never anything noisy or operatic. By the T'ang, poetry replaced music;
by Ming, other literary tastes.
With friendship being tied to scholarship and promotion to office, it is
only natural that we should have this remonstrative tale, from the Historical
Records scroll 120. Chia Kung hung this poem 'terminating friendship'
outside his gate after he regained his high office. To those false friends who
deserted him when he was temporarily disgraced, he had this to say:
True feelings are tested in a life-or-death crisis. True form shown
during fortune and misfortune. True are those who stood by me
through thick and thin.
But not all Confucians were that eager for office or for making friends
with those in office. This other famous case of openly 'terminating a
friendship' told in the New Accounts 1: 11 is enlightening. My paraphrase:
Kuan Ning and Hua Hsin were two friends. One day while hoeing the
ground, a piece of gold turned up. Kuan went on hoeing as if nothing had
happened. Hua picked it up and threw it away. On another occasion, the
two were sharing a mat while studying. Someone in a ceremonial gown
seated in a splendid carriage passed by the gate. Kuan went on reading
as before; Hua went out to take a look. Kuan cut the mat in two and sat
apart, declaring, 'You are no friend of mine.'
Hua probably made his first mistake by picking up the gold piece; he had
already distinguished gold from rubble. His friend did not even notice that.
(Zen told a similar story later II.) Hua running out to admire a passing 'rich
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and famous' person was the last straw for Kuan. The severed mat or broken
friendship was apparently not terminal, for we read that later Hua Hsin in
his post as the director of instruction would recommend Kuan Ning for a
post. True to his nature, Kuan Ning turned the offer down with a laugh:
'Hua always wanted to be an old bureaucrat. Let him have his glory but
why bother me with it?'

An Aside: On Non-Scholarly Friendships

The Confucian scholar gave up the sword. Other men did not. Some of
these swordsmen were once 'house guests' to the feudal lords who demon-
strated their diehard loyalty by becoming famous assassins. They persisted
into the Han but were disbanded by the state which regarded them a
liability. From the Three Kingdoms period (220-265) that followed the fall
of the Han came the story ofLiu Pei, Chang F ei and Kuan Yii. A fourteenth-
century Ming novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms popularized their
famous 'Righteous Pact at the Peach Orchard.' The pact became a model of
many sworn brotherhoods, including those within the Chinese Mafia or
other secret societies to come.
The story goes that Liu Pei was raising a local militia when he was
joined by Chang Fei. The two were met up later by Kuan Yii at a wine shop.
Typically, they met with no formal introduction, hardly the way of reserved
literati. But typical of such frank and open characters, the trio sealed their
friendship in a blood pledge the very next day at Chang Fei's orchard:
We-Liu Pei, Kuan Yii and Chang Fei - hereby make the pledge that
from now on we are blood brothers, even though our surnames are
different. We will help one another in rescuing the poor and support-
ing the weak; we want to bring about peace among the people and to
show off our gratitude towards our country. Even though we were not
born at the same time, we ardently hope that we shall die in the same
day, the same month, and the same year. Let Heaven and Earth
witness this pledge. If we violate the principle of righteousness and
betray one another, let Heaven or man put us to death (From chapter
1, translated by Li: 374).
Like other blood oaths of this type, 'sworn brotherhood' invokes a religious
sanction (,Heaven and Earth') and a oath to work for the Greater Good.
Whether that public-spirited oath ('aid the poor and the needy') be sincere
or not, it is what Heaven or God would require. After all no man ever swore
to be selfish.
Sworn brotherhood kept alive the warrior ethos but it was not approved
by the literati. But then in war, comrades do count more than kin, heroic
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death more than lasting life, present more than past or future, body more
than mind, will more than reason; and real deeds more than empty talk. This
ethic appeals to all kinds of minorities 'at war' with mainstream society.
Soldiers at war need to count on their comrades. The poor in need of dire
aid everyday look to one another. The wellborn gentlemen can afford to
mock friendship based on calculated material gain, but the lowborn who
live from hand to mouth would find any Kantian talk about good will
vacuous. Sympathy is cheap when a loan is what matters. Since a tiny sum
of money can tide a person over and can mean the difference between life
and death, a lifetime of indebtedness can be pledged to repay such casual
generosity. Such practical aid is the function of a 'mutual aid' society; it is
also the cause of lifelong debt owed to Sicilian Godfathers or the Hung
Brothers.
The Confucian elite would always teach loyalty to throne and filial piety
to parents; they had the ruler and the ancestors to thank. The downtrodden
had not. With no inheritance to inherit, the poor were not even obliged to
keep an ancestral tablet (related to land deeds). The ranks of the poor still
talked of Confucian jen-i but meant by one 'Treat me like a man - not a
dog' and the other 'Give each man a fair share - that is only right.' That
ethos of a just and righteous brotherhood is captured in the literary master-
piece Water Margin. The work captures the friendship among a marginal-
ized band of bandits. With no support from King or kin, they observed an
'honour among thieves.' They owed their life, their trust and their loyalty,
to one another. Take this summary of an episode:
Li K'uei had joined the rank of righteous brothers at Mount Liang and
decided to go home to fetch his aged mother so she might join him at
his new home. En route passing back through a forest, he lay his
mother down as he went to fetch water, only to discover upon return
that she had been eaten by a mountain tiger. He searched out and with
his bare hands killed the big cat. His friends celebrated his feat in a
grand feast when he returned and told them what happened.
The guardian of Confucian morality would be aghast by 'the more the
merrier' festivity. Should not Li K'eui be mourning for his deceased
mother? Did he even bury her properly? But Li K'uei who carried his
mother on his back - a filial posture - was hardly lacking in feeling. It is
just that the form of mourning among the wellborn might not be the
universal form of filial devotion meant to be observed by everyone under
heavenP
Ultimately the truest of friendship has little to do with class backgrounds
or cultural values. From New Account comes this case of which Jesus
would have approved:
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Hsun Chii-po had come from a distance to visit a sick friend. He came
at a time when the commandery was under attack by Hu bandits.
Instead of deserting his friend Hsun stayed by his bedside even as
everybody else left the besieged city. His friend wished he too would
seek refuge. The Hu bandits were astounded when he offered his life
so they might spare his friend's. They withdrew from the city, being
so shamed into recognizing their own lack of moral culture (1:9. my
paraphrase).

Family, Friend, and State in the Han

Ever since Han Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.E.) made Confucianism a state
religion, offering official posts to scholars of the Five Classics, the com-
munity of scholars and friendship among scholars had been a social fixture
in China. But Han literature would know no Oedipus, a son fated to revolt
against the father, nor an Antigone, a sister led by an unwritten law to defy
the king. The reason may be that Han learning was passed down largely
through certain lineages and only sons of magnate families could be
enrolled in the state schools or ('ai-hsiieh. Neither the family nor the state
would encourage independent friendship that might challenge these two
institutions of filial piety and loyalty 13
But the Han Confucian school system did carve out an area of inde-
pendence. A sixth human relationship, that of teacher and student, was
added. The teacher as a father figure generally became one more 'pillar of
authority' that men should lean on. But as upholder of Confucian authority,
the imperial counsel could - at some personal risk - stand up to the throne.
The 'Chapter on Learning' in the Book of Rites was probably compiled in
Han to put forth that claim. Like the claim that the 'state schools' were in
place in the Three Dynasties, this myth about the high standing of teachers
was pushed back to an idealized past:
There are two kinds of people from whom even the king cannot
expect obedience: people who temporarily play the role of spirits and
people who have become teachers. According to an ancient custom,
when summoned before a king, a teacher does not have to perform the
act of homage. This custom is maintained in order to show the
nation's profound respect for teachers. 14
This historical fiction later inspired Tang scholar Han Yii (768-824) to
write an essay 'On Teachers' where he pointed out how Sage-Kings once
heeded their advice and how all men should learn from anyone knowl-
edgeable. Even Confucius did that. By chiding his contemporaries who felt
ashamed to be a student or teacher because of their socioeconomic
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standing,15 Han Yii inspired the Confucian Revival in the Sung (960-1276)
and helped to remake the master-disciple relationship into a fellowship of
friends of the Tao (Way).

Aesthetic Friendship among Wei-Chin Neo-Taoists

If the Han family and the Han state did not leave much room for a separate
sphere of friendship, the collapse of Han rule opened up that possibility.
During the revival of Taoism under the Wei (220-264), there was a parade
of colourful characters, the like of which Confucian society had never seen
before. Only the Golden Age of Zen (ninth and tenth century) would
produce its own parade of colourful characters - albeit of a different style
and from a very different social class.
The most famous of these high born Neo-Taoists were the Seven
Worthies ofthe Bamboo Grove. Of the seven, a trio outshone the others:
The first time Shan T'ao met Hsi K'ang and Juan Chi, he became
united with them in a friendship 'stronger than metal and fragrant as
orchids' (New Account 14:11).
Shan Tao's wife, Lady Han, was so intrigued by the renown of her husband's
new friends that she asked to be allowed to peek at them through hole in a wall.
Being herself 'wellborn,' 16 she was gifted with the ability to judge characters.
She was so enamoured by the friends' deportment that she spent the night
behind that wall as the trio conversed through the small hours.
The episode is indicative of Neo-Taoist culture, for if there ever was a
time when friendship was built on conversation, this was it. These gentle-
men could talk for days; they even dragged little boys (no girls) into it,
walked freely into another man's bedroom, sat with legs sprawled, took
frequent powders, and stayed overnight in the host's bed if necessary.
Drunkenness being regarded then as one way to realize 'naturalness' (read:
freedom from social convention), they drank a lot in their weekend moun-
tain hermitages. One howled, undressed, and to get in crawled through the
door meant for dogs. They shared the wine freely with pigs who dropped in
for their sip. A drunk Wang Ch'en rode unclothed to visit his sick father-in-
law. A taboo-breaking Juan Hsien rode after and invited back home his
departing, widowed sister-in-law. And Liu Ling the nudist who regarded
Heaven and Earth to be his home and his hut to be his clothing chided his
visitors for intruding: What are you doing in my trousers? Great players or
admirers of music, some ofthese gentlemen would seek out artists, suspend
trips, make sudden stopovers, and play duets with a lowborn slave ... Such
tales of untrammeled freedom among friends can easily be multiplied. They
are especially well told in chapter XXIII (,The Free and the Unrestrained')
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in A New Account of the Tales ofthe World, a text that we have been citing
and to which we will return again later.
The tales however also reflect a tension between Confucian insistence
on propriety and aspiration for office and Taoist freedom from convention
and love of retirement. In that context we should review the friendship of
Kuan Ning and Hua Hsin as well as that of Wang Kung and Wang Ch'en.
Kuan Ning did not care for wealth and fame; Hua Hsin did. Wang Kung
was 'correct, honest, and overbearingly zealous' - a proper Confucian
gentleman and a convert to Buddhism to boot. Wang Ch'en was 'un-
inhibited, transparent and permissively relaxed' - a free-spirited, wine-
loving, convention-flouting Neo-Taoist. Wang Ch'en asked for the mat
impetuously as a free spirit was inclined to do; Wang Kung parted with it
as a proper gentleman would.
Wang Kung was at first extremely fond of Wang Ch'en, but the two
became estranged and mutually suspicious. Still, whenever either met
with an exhilarating experience, one would inevitably miss the other.
(8:153)
The estrangement was caused in large measure by factionalism at court and
an alleged machination by a third party.
Unfortunately politics was the reality lying behind such friendships in
this period. The antics of the Neo-Taoists once supported by the Wei
outraged the new Ssu-ma rulers of the Chin. Fathers and sons, relatives and
friends were divided by their individual political affiliations. Upholders of
the Confucian morality, the Ssu-ma clan looked upon such factionalism
with disfavour and they hounded the Neo-Taoist libertines to death. Of the
trio above, Shan T'ao, supposedly born poor (though that is a relative term)
went to serve under the Ssu-ma. Hsi K'ang (223-262) considered that a
betrayal and publicly terminated his friendship. (Since friendship was
always public, terminations of friendship should be just as public!) Juan
Chi (210-263) took to behaving like a madman. But placing himself above
the law did not save him from the sword. Hsi K'ang kept a low profile,
nurturing a life of simplicity (he wrote an essay on this) and kept his true
feelings well disguised. 'For twenty years, Hsi K'ang showed neither joy
nor anger.' But that did not save him from the gallows either. Hsi K'ang
died as he lived, in utter impassivity, playing on his lute. His last remark
was that the tune which he alone mastered would die with him. It did.
That precarious life of being a Neo-Taoist is seen in the career of Liu
Ling, the famous drunk and nudist. We remember him especially for a
poem, a prayer he composed after promising his wife that he would ask the
gods to help him stop drinking. She prepared the sacrifice. He said his
prayer:
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Heaven gave Liu Ling his life,

And 'Wine' for a middle name.
A jug he can down in one gulp
Five more and he's sober again.
An ignorant woman my wife is;
Dear gods, don't listen to her.
After that, he ate the meat and drank the wine meant for the gods. But his
biography in the Chin Shu 49 is careful to add this note: 'When drunk, he still
never erred when a quick response was required. And he never make a single
mistake in his dealing with the Ssu-ma rulers.' He could not afford to.
China should be forever grateful to these Neo-Taoists for infusing friend-
ship with an aesthetic individualism that was denied it before. Romanticism in
friendship was unleashed just as Classicism in music was being challenged by
Hsi K'ang. The classical theory in the Book of Rites argued that the musical
notes embody the very (proper) human emotions themselves. The musical
form is 'objective' like the genre itself, such that a song from a state about to
fall is naturally mournful; it cannot be otherwise and so on ... Not so, Hsi
K' ang argued. No song is by itselfhappy or sad. The notes can be (played) well
or ill, but whatever emotion there is is entirely 'subjective'; it is in the player
or the listener himself. This thesis ofHsi K'ang gave personal feelings a free
rein. It liberated aesthetics from mores. This move reflects well the Neo-Taoist
view than that each life must be lived fully, i.e. according to a person's nature
(hsing). Every mood (ching) being unique and not amendable to form, it should
be enjoyed as it is.
It is always a delight to read about such lives. But looking back, there is
something shallow about Neo-Taoist friendship. The Wei-Chin (220-420)
thinkers were fascinated by the issue of characterology, with talent and
innate inclinations. They were not so interested in the universal nature of
manP They wrote nothing lasting on friendship. Perhaps that is because
they built their friendship on aesthetics and on pleasure. Beauty seeks no
extrinsic goal; pleasure seems to be satisfied with the transient. On top of
that, the Neo-Taoists were socially well placed. Even the so-called 'poor'
among them were far from being in abject want. Thus their club was
exclusive. When drunk, in the market place, some of them might call the
riffraff their brothers. But when they were sober, they mingled only with
their own. Their salon did not even include their wellborn wives, some of
whom could be just as sharp-witted. (Hsieh An wanted to procure a con-
cubine and lectured his wife that the Duke of Chou who edited the Songs
included two that teaches women 'not to be jealous.' Lady Liu came back
with: It would have been different if the Duchess of Chou had edited the
work instead!)

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In short, the Neo-Taoists were proud, intolerant, and lacked general

empathy for the common lot. A hungry Liu Yin would tum down a
sumptuous meal kindly offered by an underling because he would not have
anything to do with any hsiao-jen (petty people). The snobbish attitude
observed in 5:51 of New Account is indicative. In fact, these 'Tales of the
World' collected by Liu I-ch'ing (403--444) are symptomatic of the culture,
the tales being the literate gossips of the day. Unlike the tabloid gossips of
our time which are popular expose literature and a relic of the puritan's
obsession with hypocrisy - the discrepancy between the public persona and
the private self-these 'Tales' are literature of the wellborn for the wellborn
by the wellborn. Hypocrisy as a vice was not recognized as such by Liu
I-ch'ing. Chapter XIV on 'Appearance and Behaviour' is not about the
discrepancy between outward appearance and actual behaviour. It is all
about outward department. Chapter XXVII 'Guile and Chicanery' has
many reports on the underhand dealings of Wei ruler Ts' ao Ts' ao. But none
of us could charge him with being a liar. Ts'ao Ts'ao never pretended to be
truthful; he was not ashamed of his guile. He had decided early on that ifhe
could not achieve the fame due to virtue ('fragrant for a hundred years '), he
would court the notoriety due to vice ('odourous for ten thousand years
more').
The Neo-Taoist gentlemen wore their virtue and their vice on their
sleeves. They strutted across the stage of their own making and were their
own voyeurs. Being the privileged wellborn, they hardly cared for the
opinion of the populace. We modem readers are amazed at how Tsu Ti
could be said to be 'simple and frugal' when his henchmen were known for
loading his house with jewels and ornaments obtained from another night
raid on a suburb of the capital (23:23). Yet among his friends, he was
deemed 'aboveboard and generous'! The officials did nothing about his
thievery. Liu I-ch'ing did not condemn it. Why? Because in the eyes of this
elite, even the early southward immigrants now living comfortably in the
suburbs of the capital did not count. Only they themselves did.
The ethos of that wellborn class is alien to most of us. Many of the
virtues and vices Liu used to title the thirty-six chapters of his book were
tied to a lifestyle long gone. At least half of the thirty-six has to do with
speech and deportment. That is because these gentlemen lived so much on
a daily diet of 'chewed words and munched phrases' that as masters of
praise, or rather, of character assassination, they could sum up a man in one
short line. Men had won posts or lost office on such recommendations. We
may consider as vice 'Rudeness and Contempt' (XXIV), 'Taunting and
Teasing' (XXV), and 'Contempts and Insults' (XXVI), 'Slander and
Treachery' (XXXII) or 'Crudities and Slips of Tongue' (XXXIV). But at
the time, a wicked wit was still counted as a wit and worthy of note. Dumb
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humility - that was truly a vice. We with a puritan hangover probably

would still decry more the sin of 'Extravagance and Ostentation' (XXX)
butthe wellborn then would judge' Stinginess and Meanness' (XXIX) to be
truly 'below class.'18

Singing the Simple Sentiments in the T'ang

A wind, carrying willow-cotton sweetens the shop.
A girl from Wu urges me to share the wine she pours
With my city comrades, here to see me off;
To each I say in parting as we drain our cup,
Go and ask the river rolling to the east
Can it travel farther than a friend's love?
Li Po, Parting at a Nanking Wine Shop
Buddhism contributed much to changing and enriching the character of
friendship in China. The Neo-Taoists were gregarious but they lived offwit
as much as they lived on it. Few of them could stand to be alone for long.
All of them loved public renown. Even the retiring would be proud to be
known for being retiring as Ts'ao Ts'ao was flattered when he was told he
detested flattery. If these men did not advertise their own virtues, who
would have known that Wang Hui-chih had made a long, midnight trip to
visit his friend only to tum back at the door? He must have make a point of
telling others about it, so he might drop a bon mot: 'On a whim I went; on
a whim I return' (23:47). It was a life of impulse which a China swarming
with barbarians soon could ill afford.
The character of Buddhist monks who survived that Dark Age was stronger.
They were also different. They truly could stand solitude; they did not mind
being nameless. And they reversed the proud premise of Juan Chi. In his
'Autobiography of the Great Man,' Juan Chi painted himself as a Sage united
to Heaven and Earth and with no need to comply with the conventions of the
'little people.' Not so the Buddhist monks. These 'poor men of the Tao'
befriended everyone. Metta (friendliness) is a part of their calling ... But we
can dwell no more on the Buddhist here. We need to attend to a comparable
impulse manifesting itself within the native tradition itself.
Unlike the Neo-Taoists who loved the city and who for all their talk
about being natural never truly paused to smell a rose or drink in the dew,
the poet T'ao Ch'ien (376-427) did. He resigned from a petty post, gave up
his stipend ('not worth bending my back for'), left the city, returned to his
home village, and truly mingled with the common folk. He became China's
first nature poet. The Neo-Taoists might have liberated the romantic
impulse from the old ritual restraints, but it is not they but this 'farm and

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orchard' poet who evokes the common, human feelings that both the
lowborn and the highborn could identify. Juan Chi might be one with
Heaven and Earth but it is the monk Hui-yiian who would truly call Mount
Lu his friend.
By the T'ang, the emotional life of the literati (and the common people
too) was being enriched by a poet like Li Po (701-762) who could, in very
simple words draw the reader into his world of sentiment.
A bottle of wine 'midst the flower
And alone, with no one about but
Cup in hand, I toast the moon - it
Me and my shadow making three ...
And for the while, would these friends
See me through yet another spring.
Confucian gentlemen might still not weep at partings, but they would have
enough T'angpoerns to cite (or to write) to give vent to their 'infinite sorrow.'
Considering how the Han Confucians once worked so hard to de-emotionalize
the love lyrics in the Songs - they did what the Church did to the Song of
Solomon, turned them into an allegory of some loyal minister pining for his
lord - T'ang poetry not only legitimized friendship but also gave private
feelings a public form. Feelings shared become genuine feelings.
In the poem 'Parting at a Nanking Wine Shop' cited above, Li Po also
draws us into the whole public arena wherein people once met: in cities, on
roads, at piers, on pilgrimage routes, during temple festivals, and in this
case, at a wine shop. These are places where highbrow and lowbom openly
rubbed shoulders with one another, doing so on an equal footing, and where
a wine-serving girl could jest with Li Po, a gentleman, and tease him about
his friends. People were writing these farewell poems, on scraps of paper or
leaving them on walls, poems that were then copied, collected and cir-
culated. Momentos of meeting and parting thus became a part of the
cosmopolitan and extrovert culture ofT'ang.
Li Po just happens to be a man of that hour. A swordsman at fifteen ('I
offended every prince I met'), Li Po travelled far. Li Po mingled widely. He
befriended the imperial courtesan Yang as easily as a sing-song girl; mixed
as warmly with high officials as with a lute-playing monk from Szechwan;
hobbled with a knight-errant as with a forest hermit. The romance ofT'ang
telling of such 'uncanny happenings' well captured that hao-fang spirit.
The hao or generosity half came from the culture of the wellborn. The fang
or liberated half came from this openness toward all men. (The eighth
century saw an upsurge of popular culture in T'ang.) The Sung Neo-
Confucians would later launch a campaign against what they considered to
be the un-Chinese customs of the T'ang, opposing the 'free mingling of
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class and gender' at Buddhist temple fairs and cutting back on the type of
public and private life allowed.

The Sung-Ming Confucian 'Friends ofthe Tao'

The civil examination system started in the late sixth century had by the
ninth undercut the domination of officialdom by the old magnate families.
The wellborn was yielding to the rising class of the gentry, i.e. medium-
sized landholding families who could then send their children to school in
hope oftheir eventual success at becoming officials ofthe state. But against
that common quest for office, the Neo-Confucians in Sung held out a higher
ideal: personal self-cultivation in quest for the Tao. Towards that end, Chu
Hsi (1130-1200) and others set up their own private academies. That
changed the character of friendship.
Typically situated away from the worldly city where the state-run
schools were located but not so far away as the abode of the otherworldly
monks, these semi-monastic schools replete with communal rules were
inculcating an 'innerworldly ascetic' lifestyle among the students. By
taking them in as boarders, the schools were also in effect pulling them
away from home and throne. For the first time in Confucian history, the
scholars had created for themselves an independent institution. Committed
to rebuilding the family and reforming the state, these Sung scholars also
now validated the communion of teacher and students as Friends of the
Tao. By the Late Ming, this is how Li Chih would conceive of the whole
enterprise. He closed his ten chapters on friendship thus:
... Anyone who studies the learning of the Sages and who deeply
enjoys the good that comes from having friends must, in making
friends, do so as Confucius did. Only so would he find compliance
from his following as Confucius found his in his seventy disciples.
Why? Because what the seventy wanted, only Confucius could offer
them. Others cannot. And what Confucius himself wanted, only the
seventy alone also wanted. Others did not. Thus it is that what was
desired is not something trivial (easy to get) and what the seventy had
to give up for it, even they did not fully realise. Thus I say: It is indeed
rare to meet one like Confucius, but it is even more rare to run into
the like of the seventy ...
No longer was the master made one more pillar for the servile disciples to
lean on. Teachers value students as much as students value teachers.
But before Li Chih could thus praise friendship, the rational asceticism
of Chu Hsi had first to be reversed. The architect of the Sung Neo-
Confucian movement, Chu Hsi was against indulgence in sentiment. He
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would rather his student learn Han Yii's prose than Li Po's verse. He
himself wrote poems but always in private and showing them to only a
selective few. He allowed himself that discretion for it is always the young
who are susceptible to romantic feelings (erh-nii ssu-ch 'ing) but not their
grown-up guardians. This project to keep feelings on a leash is reflected in
Chu Hsi's metaphysics which distinguished nonmaterial Principle from
material Ether. Principle is public, moral reason; Ether ends up being
private, particularized feelings. The latter though not evil is susceptible to
evil. In practical terms, moral learning meant henceforth letting public
Reason override private Emotion.
The result is that when Chu Hsi rewrote the classical rites (once the
prerogatives of the wellborn) for general adoption - first by the gentry,
eventually by all - he did not just simplify the classical rules. He added to
that goodness of ritual form a puritanical cult of self-control and of per-
petual vigilance. That when compounded with his revival of a family-
centered ethics inhibited the generous (T'ang styled) give-and-take among
men. A study of the 'conduct books' produced by later Neo-Confucians can
well reveal this frustrated desire for companionship. On the one hand, we
have proverbs like 'A know-thy-heart friend is hard to acquire; acquaint-
ances easily made are easily broken.' That shows a genuine longing for true
friends. Yet on the other hand, we have warnings like 'Do not open your
heart; guard well your tongue; you may know a person's face but you may
never know his heart.'19
The dualism of Principle and Ether, of Reason and Emotion, was basic
to Chu Hsi who could not avoid dividing man into a good and an evil half.
This was eventually challenged by Ming philosopher Wang Yang-ming
(1472-1529). Rooting the moral Principle in the sentiments of the mind-
heart, Wang advocated that little children should not be overly restrained
by rules. The 'innate good' in all men should be allowed naturally to effuse.
Evil is not due so much to the particularity of the Ether 'stuff' as it is due
to an emotional imbalance or excess. In this new anthropology Wang
substituted an inner principle-based ethics for the outer rule-prescribed one
ofChu Hsi. And once he thus questioned the separation of public Principle
from private Desire, Ho Hsin-yin could soon argue that Human Desires are
basically good and Li Chih could then say outright that the Heavenly
Principle is Human Desires. Chu Hsi had succeeded at getting the
Confucians to rebuild family life, clan, lineage, and village organizations,
but his attempt to keep sentiments rational was failing. 'Good manners';
gave way to 'natural sentiments' in Late Ming.
Montaigne saw how friends can be each other's conscience. Late Ming
friendship saw that too. Confucius understood remonstration between
friends already. Tseng-tzu cultivated such examination himself thrice daily.
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But Ming scholars now learned to keep personal diaries and moral ledgers
which they submitted to close friends for criticism and comment. Clubs for
'reflecting on each other's mistakes' were formed, as confessions were
being taken out of the cloisters and before Buddhas and placed now in
salons and before friends. 20 At the same time, a greater intimacy was
developing among these identifiably small circles of intimate friends. Some
'companion marriages' were also being formed. This upsurge of feeling
seems inevitable given the new literary taste.
We have seen how T'ang poems gave freer rein to emotions. By Sung,
the versified song; by Yiian, the theatre; and by Ming, the penny novel had
each carried that expressive tradition a step further. The Confucian Classics
talked only of managing or refining the four or the six emotions. But the
Yiian drama could reproduce life on stage. Now 'the tragic tears of separa-
tions and the happy laughters of reunions' once deemed vulgar by the elite
overcame the objections and were there to stay. The Ming novel, called
pornographic by the moralists but often bought in stealth and read in secret
by a widening readership, was turning people's hearts and heads. By its use
of pensive asides and its inclusion of unspoken thoughts, the novel was
opening up a private space or a communicable 'inner life' that historians of
Private Life now recognize as of epochal importance. 21 Tear-j erking operas
of true love and tales of heroic friendship, however formulaic and often
more wishful than real, were glorifying forbidden emotions. Even with all
the lip service paid to decency and morality, they were also masking many
a personal protest against the obstacles placed in the path of the lovers or
heroes. The unfeeling family and the scheming society were often blamed.
What popular literature was demanding, namely, personal freedom of
choice, some Late Ming ideologues of friendship were also recommending.

Ideologues of Friendship in Late Ming

Ho Hsin-yin came out of the left wing of the Wang Yang-ming school.
Some leaders of this T'ai-chou school had gone down to the illiterate
peasants and openly recruited the 'foolish (i.e. unlettered) men and women'
as potential sages endowed with the 'innate good.' This could not but help
change the ideal of Friends of the Way.
A scholar with a provincial degree, Ho Hsin-yin decided not to pursue
further careers. Instead he returned home, organized his lineage, and like
Confucius, devoted himself to teaching, travelling and spreading his
message of friendship. Seeing how Confucius in his time was a 'hidden
dragon (in the deep) emerging on to the field (among the people)' - the
reference is to the most potent hexagram in the I Ching - Ho also opted for

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working from 'below' to change society. In a letter to Ai Leng-hsi, he

spelled out his hope oflinking up the 'below' to the 'above'.
As far as my (plan of life and rule) is concerned, there are only
sovereigns and ministers above, like Yao and Shun . . . and only
friends below, like Confucius. The attainment of the Way begins with
the sovereign and the minister because that relationship belongs to
the sphere below ... Although father and son, brothers, husband and
wife are also (relationships that lead) to the Way succeeding under
heaven, it is difficult to (employ them to) unify all men ... Only
friendship can gather up all the talent under heaven and honour the
teaching of humanity so as to bring all under heaven spontaneously
to humanity. Is it not then friendship that can so unify all under
heaven? (Cheng 1993: 90; condensation mine).
Ho Hsin-yin associated warmth and intimacy with friendship at a time
when friends were routinely confiding in each other what they might not
tell their families. He judged the relationship between ruler and minister too
prone to abuse; that of father and son too warm and too intimate; and that
of husband and wife too fonnal. In other words, relationships based on
power, on descent, and on a marriage contract cannot match the openness
between friends. And since the ideal rule of heaven and earth requires such
warmth, Ho considered friendship the best means for relaxing that rule.
Though fully cognizant of the intrinsic good of friendship, Ho also
intended it to help realize universal humanity. He and other Late Ming
ideologues gave to friendship the pivotal role of being the basis of rule that
once went to filial piety. But in one sense, they were led to this by the twists
and turns of the Sung Neo-Confucian project. Chu Hsi had taught the
Tao-t 'ung theory which says that the Tao rested not with the kings but with
the lineage of scholars. Understandably, this led to the initial banning of
Chu Hsi's teaching by the state. But by Ming, Chu Hsi's philosophy had
been adopted as the new state ideology. A boon to Neo-Confucianism, this
also deflated its original message. Too many students were being lured
away from the quest of Sagehood by the promise of an official career. And
it was getting harder to tell the curriculum of official schools and that ofthe
private academies apart. With many more unsuccessful candidates by Late
Ming ending up as underpaid village teachers, this led to a person like Ho
Hsin-yin rediscovering for himself and for others the true vocation of the
Master himself: a 'hidden dragon' working from 'below' in hope of some-
how influencing the politics high 'above.'22
This agenda was made urgent in Late Ming by certain untoward
developments at court. The Ming dynasty, by coopting Chu Hsi's philo-
sophy, also stole its lightning. The state claimed the Tao along with power
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and demanded total loyalty from the ministers to the absolute monarch.
That was tolerable if the ruler who claimed a Sage status adopted a Sage's
responsibility. An energetic K'ang Hsi did later in Ch'ing and his exercise
of absolute authority actually accomplished a lot of good in a short time.
But when Ming emperor Wan-Ii shrugged off his duties and held no
audiences between 1589 and 1620, it proved disastrous. Following him,
Emperor T'ien-ch'i simply retired into the inner palace, indulged in private
pleasures, and left the rule of the outer court to the runners of the inner
court, i.e. the eunuchs. This unbearable situation prompted the Tung-lin
Academy to urge a reform ofpolitics. 23
So friendship became the radical means of restoring humaneness to
government. Ku Hsien-ch'eng headed the Tung-lin Academy in Wu-hsi
county where office holders and private scholars met and conversed. Ku
now proposed to extend the friendship current in academia to relations
among the office holders. But this went against tradition. Ministers were
supposed to be loyal to the throne, each taking a personal vow to that effect
upon taking office; and all henceforth were bound to observe the rankings
bestowed on them from above. To have ministers enjoy bilateral exchange
and instruct each other as 'friends of the Way' would amount to challenging
established procedure. This in fact happened. Officials affiliated with the
Tung-lin academy were lining up with the nonofficial members. Non-office
holders were not even supposed to talk about policies. But the two groups
were taking a public stand against the eunuchs.
This led to a charge of factionalism against the Tung-lin academy.
Faction is tang and Confucius had stated clearly that a gentleman does not
form tang as the 'inferior people' would. The idea of moral men joined
together in an organized protest went against the solitary ideal. Like the
bamboo, 'the gentleman among plants,' the gentleman should avoid all
entanglement. There was a good reason for it. Partisanship has a place in
adversarial democracy but it went against the whole idea of an ideal
monarchic rule based on a singular will.
Succeeding Ku at the helm of the Tung-lin academy, Kao P'an-Iung rose to
an impassioned defence of the virtue of tang for gentlemen. He reviewed
history to show how such parties of noble men had worked for the good. He
pointed to the contrary of Confucius' dictum that by Late Ming was just all too
obvious, namely, that common or inferior persons have friends. If so, the
gentleman should be allowed to form their share of tang. Both friendship and
partisanship are not good or evil in themselves; they can be noble or petty
depending on the people involved. Kao then argued that the distinction of a
gentleman's party is that it is of tang-lei (a like kind) while that of the inferior
person's party is always pien (lopsided, i.e. not upright or orthodox). A
believer in the eventual triumph of virtue, Kao trusted that in the debate at
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court, the party of petty men would be sufficiently converted to the party of the
gentlemen. Truth would win out in the end. Since the fmal decision lay with
the emperor, Kao also believed that the ruler would adjudicate the truth rightly.
But what if the emperor is not wise enough to make the right choice? Kao's
answer was simple. The emperor should have three good friends (all gentlemen
no doubt) who would advise him.
Huang Tao-chou provided this addendum. More of a realist, Huang
argued that most men cannot see the total picture as to know what is indeed
good for the whole. Even the party ofthe gentlemen might be flawed in its
judgment. But then he granted the emperor that impartiality that only
solitary (unaligned) kings would have. The king as kung - the word means
'ruler, king; public, impartial' - is somehow incapable of ssu, being selfish.
To ensure that the king would live up to his namesake, Huang also revived
the Han ideology about Sage kings having good 'teachers,' What Kao
P'an-Iung had hinted at earlier, namely, a trio of wise counsels, Huang
Tao-chou now explicates. Of the three, the ruler could count on a virtuous
friend to help carry out his policy; an older, mentor friend that he can
confide in; and a third friend with whom he could relax and share his joy in
music and the arts. Huang Tao-chou's trio turns out to correspond to the trio
of functions friends serve: Virtue, Pleasure and Utility. One friend is there
to promote virtue, the mentor friend; one is to be 'used' or employed to
carry out the policy; and one is valued for the pleasure of his company in
matters aesthetic.
The scheme may seem too good to be practical. But is it? To consider
Kao's or Huang's agenda here as self-serving and untenable is, I believe,
failing to heed what it might still say to us today. For when translated into
a postmodern discourse on virtue, what Kao Pan-lung said is no more than
this: that there is such a thing as the tang-lei or 'Shared Good among the
human kind' (the species) that is good for all men (the members). And if we
believe that there is such a communal Good upon which our community is
based (for if not, then there would be no good reason to live in this human
community), we should strive for this desirable or teleological good. We do
not live under kings anymore; the idea that kings are naturally kung (not
selfish) is indeed untenable. But that does not mean we cannot still believe,
in a democratic 'court debate,' that most men can come to some consensus
of what this Common Good is. If we can, we should also be able to
recognize a gentleman's party working for that general good and an inferior
person's party working only to protect their private interests. Whether it be
in the Houses of Parliament or in Washington D.C. that discernible debate
is still going on.24
Kao Pan-lung had hoped to bring friendship to bear on Ming monarchic
rule. Maybe that was not that far from the hope of the French citizens of
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1789 hoping to bring fraternite to bear on the new Republic. As far as China
was concerned though, that hope to fraternize politics and bring about a
Human Rule was dashed when the eunuchs in court moved against the
academy, murdered Kao and persecuted other Tung-lin leaders. So ended
this bold venture. 25 There was not another attempt to adopt friendship for
political rule until the Reform of 1898. During that short-lived con-
stitutional experiment in monarchy, the young reformer T'an Ssu-t'ung
(1863-1898) equated friendship with the human right to autonomy or
self-rule. He judged this most flawless of the five human relationships to be
the embodiment of 'equality, liberty, and fraternity' itself. With that, the
history of friendship as the story of an unfolding ideal, East and West,
began to converge.

In Retrospect: Of Friends, Sages and Kings

In one sense, the history of Confucian friendship narrated above is a history
of a repeated reinscription of a classical ideology concerning Sages and
Kings. The first Sage-Kings, Yao, Shun and Yii, were all friends of the
people. Their myths, told as history and as model informed Confucian
ethics since. The Han Confucians rewrote that 'Sage-and-King' into a
working alliance of 'King and Counsel.' Against the concentration of
Power and Authority in the emperor, the Sung Neo-Confucians as heirs of
the Tao of the Sage granted the throne only the power of Rule. When the
Ming despot usurped that Sagehood, these 'Friends of the Tao' at the
Tung-lin academy sought a redress by valorizing a new 'Friends and King'
ideology. At one level, the discussion above has traced those historical
shifts in the political paradigm.
At another level, the chapter is just retelling the stories of friendship,
showing how it matured in time. We began with Confucius who like
Aristotle sincerely believed that only good men can make good friends.
True in its day, that formula also proved inadequate in time. In the long run,
it is not so much that only good men can make true friends; it is more that
true friends alone can make men good. To humanize a classical friendship
based on virtue alone, there was needed this injection of Pleasure and of
Utility. To broaden the basis for friendship once reserved for a cultural elite
'above,' there was a need to inject inspirations - as Ho Hsin-yin might say
- from 'below.'
China needs the emotional self of the Neo-Taoists; she needs the
common sentiment of farm and orchid, the solace of mountains and waters,
in short the poets' voice; she also needs, in the end, the calculation of
material benefit, the charity of mutual aid, as well as a political vision to
bring about this tang-lei that is the Public Good.
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NOTES
1* The Late Ming being not my period of expertise, I am grateful for the help I
received from Professor K. C. Liu and his doctoral student Miss Chen Vii-yin.
For the contrast with the European tradition, I am indebted to Professor Lionel
Rothkrug.
McDermott's 1992 essay notes the paucity of studies on this topic. In Chinese,
a Ch'ing encyclopedic 'Collection of Books Past and Present,' Ku-chin tu-shu
chi-ch 'eng vol. 33, on manifestations of human relationships (ming-lun
hui-pien) has excerpted past treatises and discussion on friendship, including
Ricci's.
2 Remarks above and immediately following are in part responses to essays in the
volume on Friendship edited by Badhwar (1993).
3 As cited in Ku-chin tu-shu chi-cheng 33: 39860bc.
4 As cited in Ku-chin tu-shu chi-cheng 33: 39894c.
5 As cited in Chung-/aJo che-hsiieh tz'u-tien, 472b.
6 As cited in Chung-/aJo che-hsiieh tz'u-tien, 472b-73a.
7 Mencius in Mencius 2A:2 argue that it is 'inner' (sic).
8 My placing a stress on how this 'recluse' tradition in China affects negatively
friendship contradicts those scholars who see Chinese as being defined
primarily by their social relationships. See for example the conclusion of
Santangelo (1992). Only with a dialectical treatment like Dumont (1970) on
both caste and renunciation in India can we do justice to the two sides of any
culture in a East/West discourse.
9 In Analects 11 :25. Confucius was not thinking of careers as his disciples were.
He would like to go down to the river during the spring festival, with a few kids
in tow.
10 In Analects 4: 11, 16. This led Ou-yang Hsiu to say in an essay on 'Friendship
and Partisanship' that gentlemen always befriend for the sake of righteousness
whereas petty people always form gangs calculating on benefit.
11 About two monks, the purer of the pair had offered to carry a woman on his
back across a stream - and had forgotten about it while the other still carried
the incident in his head.
12 The tragic ending of Water Margins has a lot to do with the band's eventual
recruitment by the state to 'bring peace to the people and to demonstrate
gratitude to the ruler.' The infusion of orthodox values and hierarchic dis-
tinctions destroyed the original ethos of the brotherhood. This analysis of the
novel was made by Sa, Meng-wu (1976). This novel should be read alongside
the other literary masterpiece, Dream of the Red Chamber, which tells of the
other tragedy: how friendship forged in the innocence of childhood across class
lines and against good economic sense could not survive the harsh light of adult
family reality. Master and slave (Pao-yii and Hsi-jen) cannot be friends. Rich
boy and poor cousin (pao-yii and Tai-yii) cannot be wedded. See Lai (1992).
13 If there was any dramatic personal conflict in Han, it was over the 'incom-
patibility between filial piety and loyalty' itself. And the solution to that was
already set by Confucius who was proud that in his home state of Lu, a filial
son would conceal his father's crime from the authorities - quite unlike the
custom in Ch'u where a son would testify against his father for the theft of a
sheep (Analects 13:18). The Lii Chronicle of Spring and Autumn presents two
other variants to this dilemma: (a) A son in Ch'u told on his father but then

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offered to die in his stead. The ruler pardoned the son after he argued that in so
doing, he complied with the demands of both filial piety and loyalty. Confucius
supposedly still judged his truthfulness to tell on his father a betrayal. (b) An
official ofCh'u gave up his chase after a murderer when he discovered that the
man was his father. Reporting to the throne, he turned down the king's pardon
and asked to be executed for his sinning against both father and king. He is
judged both filial and loyal. In all cases, filial piety comes first. See Chung-kuo
che-hsiieh tz 'u-tien, 331 b-332a.
14 As translated by Dun J. Li (1967), 447.
15 Essay available in translation in de Bary ed (1960), 374-375.
16 The term 'wellborn' as well as part of the mode of analysis here is borrowed
from Peter Brown's discussion (19687) on 'Private Life in Late Antiquity' .
17 There was much ado then about child prodigies and prodigies in nature, the
latter collected by a Neo-Taoist into the Shou-shen-chi which to us are fairy
tales but to them is history.
18 Thus we have this tale of generosity . Wang Hui-chih visited his friend Chih Hui
and saw an Iranian rug he liked. Thereupon he had his henchmen haul it away
when Chih Hui stepped out for a moment When asked about it, he joked (by
citing Chuang-tzu) that 'A strong man had carried it away.' True to class, Chih
Hui did not mind - and was praised for it. (New Account 23:39).
19 I am sure there is a good reason for such caution. In dynastic China, there was
not a civic sphere mediating family and the larger society and thus little or no
protection of the young venturing beyond the security of his home and village.
But I am also sure that the strong precaution, the intentional contmst of 'warm
family and cold world' was contributing to the personal difficulties in fmding
meaning, and making friends. See Lai (1982). For a set of 100 Chinese
Proverbs by Mr. Tut-tut, see Lin (1942),1093-1101.
20 A consciousness of there being this 'conscience' or liang hsin in fact evolved;
for details, see Santangelo (1992); also entry on 'Repentance' and
'Conscience' in Eliade ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. By Ch'ing, the cult
of conscience began to show cracks. Consciousness then conflicted with (bad)
conscience and that can be seen in the new literary genre of the social satire.
21 See the five volumes on A History of Private Life now in English translation
from Harvard University Press.
22 For details on Ho Hsin-yin and other Late Ming ideologues, see Cheng (1993)
and McDermott (1992).
23 The usual reading, from Ou-yang Hsiu to Huang Tsung-hsi, is that the eunuchs
were intrinsically evil. The eunuchs fed on the ruler's private (sexual) indul-
gences. The irony I see is however this: As the conformity of moral manners
spread in the Sung, the gentry began to cultivate 'acquired taste' in a number of
aesthetic pursuits and formed clubs for that end. Within that, a life of private
leisure was being enjoyed by the gentry. McDermott (1992: 76) cites a con-
current moral critique of some of these Late Ming 'assembling of friends'
wherein the membeljl would eat, drink gamble, goof off, dance, sing, use foul
language, with no sense of etiquette. The ruler in his private (harem) indul-
gences was probably doing the same.
24 Of course, politics are not that simple; both parties might think they are doing the
nation good. But unless we accept the premiss that all politics serves only private
interest, we should be able to judge that, say, at Washington D.C. today, the
nonprofit 'Common Cause' group is fighting more for the Public Good than the

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many lobbies serving special interests (PACs). If Kao was naive to believe that the
fuller knowledge of the human species (humaneness) available to the party of the
gentlemen should in the end win, is that so different from us? Do we not still believe
knowledge is virtue and that virtue translates into power? Do we not still believe
that somehow a Good Society based on friendship is possible?
25 Ho Hsin-yin having retired to the countryside was untouched by this struggle
'above.' At the height of persecution, Chu T'ing-tan compiled his encyclopedic
'Treatise on Friendship' (Kuang-yu lu); See McDermott (1992) for details.
Chu's work marked a retreat from making friendship a basis for political
reform. By Ch'ing, I believe friendship among equals lost out to the
paternalism in the imperial Sacred Edicts then being copied by the local elites
even in their charitable activities.

SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badhwar, Neera Kapur ed. Friendship: A Philosophical Reader. Ithaca and
London, Cornell University, 1993.
Brown Peter 'Late Antiquity' in A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to
Byzantium, vol. 1: 235-312. Paul Veyne editor; translated from the French.
Cambridge, Harvard University, 1987.
Cheng, Yii-yin 'The Ethics of the Sphere Below (Hsia): The Life and Thought of
Ho Hsin-yin (1517-1519).' Chinese Studies 11:149-101, 1993.
[Ch'ing Imperial Collection] Ku-chin tu-shu chi-ch 'eng vol 33: Ming-Iun hui-pien.
Chung-hua shu-chu, Pa-shu shu-she, 1985.
de Bary, Theodore ed. Sources of Chinese Tradition. New York, Columbia
University, 1960.
Dumont, Louis Homo Hierarchus: The Caste System and Its Implications. Chicago,
University of Chicago, 1970.
Eliade, Mircea ed. The Encyclopedia ofReligion. New York, McMillan, 1987.
Gernet, Jacques China and the Christian Impact. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1985.
Lai, Whalen 'Popular Moral Tracts and the Chinese Personality.' Ching Feng,
25.1:22-31,1982.
- - 'Private Life and Political Culture as Seen in the Hung-lou-meng' in Family
Process and Political Process in Modern Chinese History. VoU: 163-200.
Taipei, Academia Sinica, 1992.
Li, Chih Ch 'u-t'an chi. (Collection at Ch'u-fan). Peking, Chung-hua, 1974. (This
contains 10 chapters on Friendship.)
- - 'Ho Hsin-yin Lun (On Ho Hsin-yin).' In his Fun Shu (A Book to be Burnt).
Peking, Chung-hua, 1975.
Li, Dun 1. The Essence of Chinese Civilization. New York, D. Ban Nostrand
Company, 1967.
Lin, Yutang The Wisdom ofIndia and China. New York, Random House, Modem
Library series, 1942.
Liu, I-ch'ing Shih-shuo Hsin-yii (A New Account of the Tales of the World) as
translated with the episodes numbered by Richard B. Mather. Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota, 1976.
Liu. Kwang-ching ed. Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, University of
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- - Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, University of California Press,

forthcoming.
McDermott, Joseph P. 'Friendship and Its Friends in Late Mind.' in Family Process
and Political Process in Modern Chinese History. Vol 1. 67-96. Taipei,
Academia Sinica, 1992.
Paola Santangelo 'Human Conscience and Responsibility in Ming-Qing China' in
East Asian History 4: 31-80. Translated by Mark Elvin, 1992.
Ricci, Matteo Chiao-yu-Iun (On Making Friends). Taipei, Taiwan Hsiieh-sheng,
1965.
Sa, Meng-wu hSui Hu Chuan yo chung-law she-hui. Taipei, San-min shu-chu,
1976.
Spence, Jonathan S. Emperor of China: Self Portrait of K'ang-hsi. New York,
Vintage, 1974.
Wei, Ch'eng-t'ung Chung-kuo che-hsiieh tz 'u-tien. (Dictionary of Chinese Philo-
sophy). Taipei, Ta-lin, 1980.
White, L. Michael 'A Paradigm of Friendship in Philippians,' in David L. Balch,
Everett Ferguson, and Wayne A. Meeks ed. Greeks. Romans, and Christians.
Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1990.

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 7

Secular Friendship and Religious

Devotion
Oliver Leaman

It is always difficult to know what to say about the relationship in the history
of philosophy between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. This is especially
the case in Islamic philosophy, where often it was difficult for those involved
to distinguish sharply between the two approaches. Not only were some
Neoplatonic texts identified with Aristotle, but more importantly the whole
philosophical curriculum was firmly built around aspects of Neoplatonism,
which meant that one had to use Neoplatonic terminology to refute Neo-
platonism. There are good examples of such approaches in the work of ibn
Rushd (Averroes) and al-GhllZiilLI One of the stylistic features of Islamic
philosophy is the apparent combining of Aristotelian with Neoplatonic views
without any indication that these may be incompatible. The frequent obser-
vation that much Islamic philosophy is highly eclectic has not increased the
respect in which it is held by philosophers, for while eclecticism may be
culturally interesting, it is generally rather boring philosophically. It indicates
that the thinker has collected a number of philosophical views which are
interesting in themselves, but he goes on to do little more then lump them all
together in an unanalysed and haphazard manner.
Let us take as an example here the work of Al,Imad ibn Mul:,1ammad
Miskawayh (d.l 030), one of the more systematic writers on ethics in
Islamic philosophy. He writes at some length on the nature of friendship,
which he identifies as a generic virtue. For Miskawayh, friendship is the
foundation of the institution of justice, and of society as such. Were we to
be perfect, it would be possible to attain our goals without the cooperation
of others, but since we are imperfect, we require the assistance of others to
help realise our ends. There are different forms of friendship which possess
varying levels of durability. Only friendship which is based upon virtue is
really durable, while those forms of friendship which are motivated by
pleasure or utility will vary in accordance with the relative feelings of the
people concerned. Virtue itself does not change, so the sort of friendship
which presupposes it is also unchanging. The only sort of pleasure which is
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appropriate as the aim of an unvarying friendship is that which results from

identification with God. The divine love of which we are capable consists
of the cleansing of our contingent features and a concentration upon the
pure and intellectual aspects of our soul, which then allows us to join God
in some sense. By concentrating upon the good, we are allowed to partici-
pate in the pure good of the deity.
In his Tahdhib al-Akhliiq (The Refinement of Character) Miskawayh
sees himself as presenting an account of friendship which basically follows
Aristotle. It does not read like Aristotle to us, though. For one thing, he
emphasises the durability of different kinds of friendship, whereas Aristotle
classifies them in terms of their ends. This could be put down to a
difference in emphasis. Aristotle would easily accept that certain types of
relationship are likely to be more durable than others as a result of the
nature of the relationship, and that nature is a function of the ends of the
relationship. For example, friendship for the sake of pleasure is defined by
Miskawayh as quick to develop and quick to end, and there is nothing there
which goes against Aristotle in any significant way. The feature of
Miskawayh's argument which does seem rather distant from Aristotle is the
account of what happens when one perfects oneself (or is perfected) and
unites with an aspect of the deity. We seem to have gone a long way here
from the sort of love which exists in Aristotelian forms of friendship to a
description of the passionate form of relationship which exists between
someone like the mystic and the object of his devotion. This does appear to
be a Neoplatonic accretion which intrudes rudely into the calm world of the
Aristotelian.
But is it? Comparing the terminology in Greek and Arabic is not very
useful here. Friendship (~adaqa) and love (ma/:tabba) are not sharply
distinguished by Miskawayh, but then philia covers a whole spectrum of
degrees of involvement, ranging from mild interest to passionate devotion.
Both the word philia and the term for the feeling of friendship, philesis,
have a wide range. Aristotle does argue that the best example of friendship
is self-love, philautia, in a passage which has been much discussed ever
since he produced it. 2 What he may well be wishing to emphasise here is
that friendship is a result of a matching of properties as between different
individuals, and this is only possible if those properties are present in the
individual. One can experience pleasure in observing those properties to be
present in oneself, and then in observing that the friend is another person
like oneself. Observing those properties to be present in oneself is a
paradigm of disinterestedness, since there is no one else who is going to
benefit the subject as a result of his possession of those qualities. When we
recognise others as friends we can enjoy their existence in the same way
that we can enjoy our own existence. Weare aware of, and made happy by,
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what is of value in our own lives, and similarly we can be conscious and
enjoy what is of value in the lives of others. Sharing the life of a friend is
an essential benefit to the good man, and is not something which he tries to
get in order to be advantaged in an egoistic sense. He is advantaged if the
friend's existence is desired for the friend's sake, but essentially and not
instrumentally.
This paradigm of friendship actually fits quite neatly into a Neoplatonic
view. When we are perfected, we become absorbed into the perfect good-
ness of the deity. Our love of God results in the possibility of union with
God, if the basis of our love is the right sort of basis. It has to be dis-
interested; it is impure if we are after a reward. In the Neoplatonic notion
of such union there is genuine reciprocity. We recognise that we have
attained a high level of perfection and so try to get into contact with the
highest possible level of perfection, while the sort of light imagery which
is so popular suggests that our efforts may be rewarded by being illu-
minated in direct response. When we perfect ourselves we recognise in the
other qualities which we also possess. When the other recognises us, those
matching qualities are illuminated and form the basis for the connection. 3
What we are describing here is very much in line with the sort of view
which Aristotle presents offriendship, albeit on a more rarefied level.
Perhaps, then, the Neoplatonic account of friendship is not so distant
from Aristotle after all. What is important about friendship for Miskawayh
does go beyond Aristotle, though, in that it directly relates to the practice of
religion. What is the rationale behind religious ritual? According to Miska-
wayh, ritual is based upon friendship. People come together in socially
enjoyable ways to carry out their religious obligations, and the social
framework cements the performance of those obligations. A successful
religion will work with what people like to do anyway, even before they
have accepted that religion, and a popular ritual will incorporate practices
which people enjoy performing. That does not mean that religion will leave
those practices in the same state in which it fmds them. In Maimonides we
fmd a very sophisticated doctrine of God's grace (lu!f) according to which
God institutes change gradually by working with human nature and custom
to wean people away from their previous habits and preferences. God
could, of course, miraculously change the way in which people think, but
there would be little merit in doing that from our point of view. We can, on
the other hand, use religious ritual to become different sorts of people.
What is the product which we try to attain? It is knowledge of God and a
virtuous life. What is significant is not just the product, but also the process,
and the process is one of gradually developing in the appropriate sort of
way. God works with, and not against, nature. Hence the importance of the
Neoplatonic emphasis upon the durability of the different forms of
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friendship. A religion will seek to develop those aspects of friendship

which are strong and longlasting, rejecting as transitory those which are
weaker. Even the weaker forms are useful to a degree in that they may serve
to attract people to ritual initially, and they may motivate people to adhere
to particular religious practices. But they cannot be relied upon to form a
constant and strong religious attachment. For this to be possible a relation-
ship must be established between the individual and the religion which is
solidly based upon an unchanging principle, in this case that of the good.
This variety of naturalistic explanation of the form of religion disgusted
thinkers such as al-Ghazali. It seemed to him to base religion on rather
weak and shaky foundations. For one thing, if a particular aspect of religion
has the form it does due to our nature, then if that nature were to change
presumably the practice would change also. An adherent might wonder
whether she should continue to observe the practice if she feels that her
nature is no longer like everyone else's. According to Maimonides, many
of the precepts of Judaism are there to eradicate the indolence of shirk or
idolatry on the thinking of the Jews, and they operate by setting gradually
to change the dispositions of the believers in a more appropriate direction.
Would it then be possible for a Jew to fail to observe such precepts because
she felt that she had escaped from the influence of idolatry? In such a case
it would no longer, perhaps, be appropriate for her to carry out the same
sorts of religious obligations as the rest ofthe community. One might argue
that it would be difficult to know enough about oneself to justify making
such a bold claim, but this seems a rather lame justification of religious
observance. Ghazali wants to insist that the justification of the religious
practice is that it is demanded by God, and its connection with anything
practical is entirely superficial. He even goes so far as to suggest that many
religious practices go against what is normally of utility to us, since their
purpose is to emphasise the way in which we must obey the word of God
regardless of our ordinary motives and interests. This makes us aware of the
immense gap which exists between us and God, and religion is all about
communicating the significance of that gap.
Miskawayh does not suggest that the sorts of social institutions which
support religion can be bypassed by the more superior individual. There is
a route to perfection, and it is by way of ritual. Most members of the
community find their faith entirely encompassed by ritual, and there is
nothing wrong with that. That represents their route to the understanding of
God and the good. Other individuals, those more gifted intellectually and
with great capacity for spiritual development, can go further and actually
come into contact with divine reality. Aristotle claims that 'No one would
choose to live without friends, even having all the other good things'.
(NEl155a5). Not even a person who can come into contact with the divine
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by dint of his natural advantages and individual intellectual effort? This sort
of person would traditionally be thought of as pursuing his religious obli-
gations in a more solitary fashion, or through following a range of practices
which are different from normal religious ritual in order to bring him nearer
to experience of the deity. Friends might distract him from concentration
upon his perfecting of himself. The traditional image of the mystic is of a
solitary individual, of a person who turns away from society in order to
draw nearer to God. An interesting feature of the account of the mystical
path which Ghaziili provides is that it appears to be far less orthodox than
Miskawayh's description of what is involved in coming closer to the
divine. Ghaziili wants to argue that God can permit anyone to come into
contact with him regardless of their background. God is free to bring his
light into the lives of whomsoever he pleases. Miskawayh is less sure. Only
some people are qualified to come into contact with God, and it would be
inappropriate for the deity to reward people at random by making his
presence directly known to them.
This issue was a hotly debated topic in the Islamic world for both Islamic
and Jewish philosophy in the middle ages. 5 Maimonides wonders whether God
could make anyone at all prophesy, regardless of the adequate preparation of
the putative prophet. There is a tendency to want to say that an omnipotent
deity can do whatever he wishes, within the bounds of logical necessity. But
one also wants to suggest that only particular individuals are really properly
qualified to be prophets. These are people who are capable of carrying out the
political role of the prophet, and they should have the sort of intellectual
understanding which merits others listening to them and observing their
message. The criteria of prophethood in Islam and Judaism were quite objec-
tive and did not depend upon a private communication between the prophet
and the deity. That communication takes place, but not through the arbitrary
decision of God. It is something which the prophet earns by dint of his efforts
and abilities, and through his natural constitution.
Another debate which raged through the middle ages was over the
comparative importance of different types of happiness. Some philosophers
argued that it was possible to attain the highest level of happiness by
following a special route, perhaps based upon intellectual work or mystical
training. Others insisted that the highest level of happiness is unattainable
without first achieving lower levels of happiness, through establishing
satisfactory social, political and economic relationships with others in the
community. Everyone would accept that there is more available than the
happiness which is experienced by the ordinary believer carrying out his
normal lifestyle. The ordinary believer is incapable of going any further due
to his very ordinariness. He is satisfied with what he finds in his religion
and community, and relaxes in the knowledge that he has settled his
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religious and social duties adequately. Those believers who are dissatisfied
with this level of happiness can try to develop their intellectual skills in
order to come closer to the divine. What is the relationship between what
Aristotle calls the 'secondary' virtues of social life and the higher levels of
happiness attainable by the more gifted? Some philosophers argued that as
a matter of fact it was easier to reach the higher levels of happiness if one
first of all achieved the lower levels. After all, if one is a blameless member
of a community, no suspicion falls upon the way in which one tries to
develop intellectually or mystically. In an even more mundane sense, it is
easier to do philosophy and mathematics if one is comfortably housed, fed
and on good terms with one's neighbours. But this does leave the possi-
bility, albeit perhaps entirely theoretical, whereby it would be preferable to
devote all one's time to more abstract and perfect forms of thought. One
might become so entranced by the prospect of contact with the divine that
one spends all one's time, or at least as much of one's time as possible,
working on the establishing of such contact, and the route to such contact
is certainly not the social route so familiar to the ordinary believer.
Miskawayh does not think that it is a matter of fact which obliges the
philosopher to establish social links on his way to the ultimate happiness.
That happiness can only be reached through the cultivation of virtues such
as friendship. This might seem rather surprising, since the description of
the ultimate happiness is very distant from those sorts of wellbeing which
we identify with social life. When fully perfected the individual immerses
himself in the divine, in abstract thought, in mystical experience, depending
upon the description which is felt to be most appropriate. These are not
social events. Even when we come into contact with the divine, this is very
distant from coming into contact with God as a person. The sort of account
of this contact which was most popular was a version of the Neoplatonic
doctrine according to which we come into contact with the active intellect,
which is of course some way down the hierarchy of reality from God
himself. What happens in all these cases is that the contents of our mind
become the same as the content of something else, something perfect and
untainted by the contingency of human existence. One might expect, then,
Miskawayh to stress the vast gap which exists between our ordinary lives
and the life of the perfected intellect, and he fulfils that expectation. Yet he
also insists that the perfected intellect will only be perfected if it starts off
by being ordinary, and the implications is that it returns to an ordinary state
in between the flashes of perfection. Certain exceptional individuals are
able to immerse themselves constantly in the knowledge of God, yet while
they remain alive and attached to their bodies they cannot be entirely thus
immersed. The demands of social life remain important, although not the
most important aspect of such lives.
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Suppose someone were able to live a solitary existence and as a result of

carrying on intellectual work perfect himself. He might well feel that his
social relationships, such as they are, with others are a distraction from his
main aim in life, and so seek to distance himself as far as possible from
other human beings. He chooses to develop his capacity for abstract
thought in preference to chatting to the neighbours, since, he says, the less
time he spends on the latter, the more he will have for the former. Miska-
wayh rejects this as a possible strategy. To be sure, it is important to
recognise that it is limiting to give oneself up entirely to social pleasures,
yet those pleasures should be cultivated if yet higher pleasures are to be
attainable. From a religious point of view it is important that Miskawayh is
right, since otherwise the majority of the community would be deprived of
the possibility of an authentic religious life. They would be condemned to
existence at a lower level of religious reality than is available to the elite.
From a theoretical point of view, they do know less about God than the
more intellectually advanced, but from a practical point of view they suffer
no disadvantage. They can behave virtuously, carry out their religious
obligations and live worthwhile lives. The whole point of religion is to
make it possible for the widest possible combination of individuals to come
closer to God in ways which are appropriate for them. A religion which set
out to be exclusive would be unsuccessful as a religion, according to both
Miskawayh and Maimonides.
This might seem to be rather inaccurate as a description of the views of
Maimonides, though. Does not Maimonides privilege intellectual knowl-
edge above all else? When he discusses Job and his complaints against
God, he famously comments that it is nowhere said that Job was wise. The
implication is that Job does not appreciate that the loss which he has
suffered in material terms is not really important. The important thing about
us is our capacity for intellectual thought, and this has not been hindered by
the travails of Job. Of course, poor Job is not bright enough to understand
this, and he regards his physical and social sufferings as significant. Such
an interpretation is not very plausible, although it does seem to fit in with
some of the text. 6 Clearly, Job's capacity for intellectual work is not helped
by his sufferings. The loss of wealth is perhaps not so serious, but the
illness, death of his children and utter penury into which he descends is
hardly conducive to abstract thought. One is far better off if one lives an
ordinary life, with a reasonable standard of living, normal family arrange-
ments and in a peaceful society, and not only materially. One would find it
much easier to carry out intellectual work in such a context. It is important
to appreciate that this is true for more than practical reasons. A crucial
object of contemplation for us is our very selves, and the way in which we
relate both to ourselves and to others. This is a way in which we work out
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who we are, how we are to behave and what we can expect. We cannot do
this unless we spend at least some time in a community in which we
experience a whole variety of relationships with different people and
institutions.
Now, it will be said that this is not really true for Maimonides, since he
puts the study of morality on a lower level than the study of more pure and
abstract topics. 7 Yet morality can itself be the object of pure and abstract
study, not in the sense that its nature and implications can be the subject of
an entirely formal enquiry. The premises of such an enquiry are of a lower
logical status than are the premises, of, say, mathematics and astronomy,
since the latter two subjects consist of necessary premisses, according to
Maimonides. We are not necessary but rather contingent. Once that is
accepted, though, the sort of reasoning which can be applied is just as
respectable from a logical point of view as is the scientific. From a religious
perspective, it is vital that this is the case. An ordinary believer can
contemplate her own situation, compare it with that of others and come out
with some important and valid conclusions. The subject matter here, our
relationships with others, is immediately accessible to her and can be the
subject of a rational reasoning process. Any religion which is capable of a
broad appeal will have to allow such an investigation, since otherwise it
would rule out those forms of religious enquiry which are part and parcel
of the life of the religious believer.
Perhaps the dichotomy which has appeared to bedevil Jewish and
Islamic philosophy, the distinction between theoretical and practical forms
of happiness, is not genuine at all. There is more excuse for believing in its
existence in Aristotle. After all, Aristotle could quite happily point to the
puzzle of discussing the competing claims of different notions of
eudaimonia, sometimes suggesting that it consists in a combination of
secondary and primary virtues, and sometimes emphasising the role of
theoretical thought as the highest human perfection. Islam and Judaism
cannot accept that such a dichotomy really exists. The ordinary un-
sophisticated believer must have access to God. Not only must there be
access, but there must also be full access. It is no good offering a second-
class version of what the more intellectually inclined can acquire. This does
not imply that everyone must follow the same route to God. The Islamic
philosophers suggested that a mark of the excellence of Mul;1ammad as a
prophet is the fact that he could speak to different people in ways which are
appropriate to their understanding and interests, and they will naturally
follow different paths in their approach to God. This is hardly surprising,
since God has created us all differently. This is very much how it is with
friendship. Weare different kinds of people, and we relate to each other in
varying sorts of ways. Some of us are interested in relationships which are
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relatively casual and have a particular purpose as its end. Some of us are
interested in more longlasting and deeper forms of relationship, and we all
combine in our lives a spectrum of different kinds of friendship. What is
important here is to understand the different varieties of friendship avail-
able to us, and not to confuse one type with another. By examining the aim
of the relationship, and its comparative durability, we can quite easily
describe the sort of friendship which is in question. Miskawayh emphasises
the significance of this enquiry, since it behoves the truly virtuous person
to understand what other types of relationship he may establish, and how
these differ from those relationships which are based upon the mutual
recognition of virtue.
The perfectly virtuous individual will seek to establish as many relation-
ships based upon goodness as possible, but not all our relationships can
have this character. As members of a community we are inevitably going to
be participants in shallower forms of friendship. Were our lives to consist
entirely of such shallow relationships, then we would be shallow ourselves,
but the converse does not hold true. If we seek to establish relationships
which are entirely based upon virtue we shall inevitably have to live a very
artificial life, one in which it is difficult if not impossible to combine with
others in society. Why is this? It is because the majority of our social
transactions take the form of quite casual relationships with others, and to
regard these transactions differently is to misunderstand them. I hope that
some people love me, and others still like me, but I could not expect the
bank clerk who asks me how I am to be concerned about my wellbeing in
any but a casual way. Why should she? If she really cared about all the
customers who deal with her she might have no room left emotionally to
care for those with whom she might be expected to have some more specific
kind of relationship. This is not to suggest that it is impossible to have deep
and lasting relationships with people whom one meets quite casUally. This
is possible. What is at stake here is the notion of the sorts of relationships
which the mature moral person, mature not necessarily in age but in
standing, can have. Like the shrewd investor, she might be expected to
possess a portfolio of different kinds of relationships, and to understand the
nature of those differences. To expect all one's relationships to be the same
is to be misguided.
This might appear to be a peculiar claim to make given the influence
which religion might be expected to have on this issue. We might expect
that religion would insist on the overwhelming importance of achieving the
highest possible happiness by coming close to God through a concentration
upon religious practices, and one might also expect an emphasis upon the
strongest form of friendship, that based upon the mutual recognition of
virtue. Judaism and Islam are far too sophisticated to make such demands.
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This discussion is dealt with in a pleasing way by Saadya Gaon when he

rejects the proposal that one should spend all one's time engaged in wor-
ship.8 Worship should certainly playa part in our lives, but given the sort
of creatures we are, other aspects of our lives are important also. The sort
of behaviour which ordinary people enjoy may encourage them in their
religious duties, and this is not to diminish the significance of those duties.
I may be more likely to attend prayers if! go in the company of my friends,
but it is not the company of my friends which establishes the necessity of
the prayers. At the end of the prayers I may return to my everyday life in
society, and spend the rest of the day thinking about entirely secular topics.
Another sort of believer may be so caught up in his prayers that he fmds it
impossible to tear himself away from them, and turns his back on the
mundane pursuits of commerce and society. This can also be an accept-
able approach to God, although it should be pursued with care in case it
leads the believer into an arrogant attitude towards his less openly fervent
coreligionists.
God could miraculously bring it about that we knew everything about
different kinds of relationships without actually being obliged to have
experience of those relationships. We could in that case concentrate
entirely upon the most stable forms of friendship, and not bother with the
more temporary and trivial forms. Barring miracles, though, Saadya
suggests that laws of nature are there to help us regulate our behaviour, and
they do themselves issue from God, and it is incumbent upon us to work
within their ambit. A life which is full of the experience of different kinds
of friendship is a valuable life. There are occasions on which we mistake
one kind for another, where what we perceive to exist in another person
does not actually exist in the way we think. There are also occasions when
we wish to have a relationship with another which goes only a little way
along the route to friendship, but where a growing realisation of their
character leads us to change our expectations. People may try to fool us,
and we may frequently go awry in our judgements concerning others. What
is important here is the process of discovering what other people are like,
learning from our mistakes and adding to our experience. Of course, as
Miskawayh shows, it is not enough to drift along in a vague way between
different sorts of relationships. We should get a grip on what we are
seeking, and be aware of the distinctions between different kinds of
relationship. This can only come about through experience, given the sort
of creature we are, and we should use that experience to change ourselves,
to alter our dispositions gradually to enable us to be more receptive to
authentic relationships based upon the mutual recognition of virtue. Yet
other and less deep relationships are important too. We live in society, and
we must live in society if we are to realise the highest happiness, and must
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accordingly carry out our social obligations. We should certainly seek to

establish deep relationships of trust and affection with those like ourselves
because they share our moral qualities, but this does not excuse us from
chatting to the postman about the weather. Nor does it suggest that we
should seek to have a different, and deeper, relationship with the postman.
The variety of relationships which we can achieve is a function of our
composite nature, and recognising the divine provenance of that nature
implies the necessity to fulfil ourselves by pursuing variety and not insist-
ing on just one type of relationship.
These might seem to be rather trivial remarks which give far more
importance to our relationships with others than is appropriate. Surely we
should be more concerned with our own characters, and how those
characters relate to God. To be happy, the suggestion goes, all we need is
the right sort of relationship to God. We should seek to attain the highest
possible level of virtue, and base our friendships upon this superior level.
But it is worth recalling that Aristotle comments 'Friendly relations with
one's neighbours, and the marks by which friendships are defined, seem to
have proceeded from a man's relations to himself (NEI166a). This
explains why friendship is such an important topic in philosophy. It does
not just refer to our relationships with others, but also our notion of
ourselves. Through interacting with others, we change and create our-
selves. We discover things about ourselves, and this can only take place as
a result of a whole series of piecemeal interrelationships, some of which
chaotically arise and some of which can be foreseen. Perhaps one of the
best treatments of this notion in Jewish philosophy is that provided by
Martin Buber in his The Way of Man according to the teachings of the
Hasidim. Many of the Hasidic stories which he quotes involve a person
discovering more about himself by concentrating upon others, and finding
more about God by concentrating on himself. The point is that we are
defined by our relationships with others, and it is problematic to set out to
define ourselves by avoiding those relationships. The more we seek to cut
ourselves off from trivial contact with others, the more likely we are to feel
pleased with ourselves for our behaviour, leading perhaps to our coming to
adopt an arrogant attitude to others.
We recognise certain qualities in ourselves, and we can see others share
them, which may be the basis to a relationship of friendship. It is not just a
matter of observing something in ourselves, and then observing it in others.
The process of friendship helps us to understand what the qualities we
possess actually are, and how to recognise them in others. The idea of a
hierarchy of friendships, which is shared by both Aristotelians and Neo-
platonists, is useful in that it shows how the aims and durability of such
relationships vary in accordance with the shared qualities they describe.
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 Friendship East and West

Although from a religious point of view just one sort of relationship, the
perfect relationship to virtue, may be regarded as the paradigm, it cannot be
treated as the only sort of relationship worth having. Indeed, many philo-
sophers argued that one could only attain perfection if at the same time one
achieved ordinariness. It has been argued here that this is an illuminating
suggestion, based as it is upon the idea that for the religious believer it is
not just the product of her life which is significant, but the process also.
When we look at the topic of friendship it may look as though variety is not
only the spice oflife, but it is also the essence of faith.

NOTES
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Incoherence of the Incoherence - Tahiifut al-tahiifut, ed.
M. Buoyges Beirut, Bibliotheca Arabica Scholasticorum, 1930
Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers - Tahiifut al-faliisifa, ed. M. Bouyges
Beirut, Imprimerie Catholique, 1962
2 Nicomachean Ethics ix. 4. 'Miskawayh', in History ofIslamic Philosophy, ed.
S. Nasr and D. Leaman, London, Routledge, 1996,252-57.
3 Leaman O. 'Philosophy vs Mysticism: An Islamic controversy', in Philosophy,
religion and spirituality, ed. M. McGhee, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1992, 177-88.
4 Leaman O. Moses Maimonides London, Routledge, 1990.
5 See n.3 supra.
6 Guide of the Perplexed III, 22; 487. Discussed in my Evil and Suffering in
Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995.
7 Leaman, O. Moses Maimonides, ch. 9 'Morality, law and explanation',
129-161.
8 Saadya Gaon, The book of beliefs and opinions tr. S. Rosenblatt New Haven,
Yale University Press, 1951. Treatise X.

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 8

Friendship in Indian Philosophy

Indira Mahalingam 1

Introduction
It is a commonly held opinion that Indian philosophy, be it orthodox2 or
non-orthodox,3 is a philosophy of life. In other words, the purpose of
philosophical enquiry is to alleviate human misery. An individual's distress
or misery can come about in a number of ways. For instance, it could be due
to his own psychological state of mind - that is, influences that are intrinsic
to an individual such as greed, anger, fear, hatred, love and desire. Or, it
could be caused by extrinsic influences such as the hatred, greed or anger
of those around him. The aim ofIndian philosophy is to help an individual
overcome these miseries and lead a perfect and happy life. It therefore seeks
to provide solutions to the many problems that man faces during his life
time. And it is this concern for alleviating human suffering that makes the
tradition intensely practical. As Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan notes in the
general introduction to A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy:
[a] characteristic view of Indian philosophy is the belief in the
intimate relationship of philosophy and life. This attitude of the
practical application of philosophy to life is found in every school of
Indian philosophy ... Every major system ofIndian philosophy takes
its beginning from the practical and tragic problems of life and
searches for the truth in order to solve the problem of man's distress
in the world in which he finds himself. 4
Since the focus of Indian philosophy is human happiness or the living of a
perfect life, it would be reasonable to expect Indian philosophy to concentrate
on the nature of the different types of social relationships including friendship.
After all, is not friendship an essential part oflife within a community? Is it not
an important virtue? Is it not a central part of a happy life? Is not a good
friendship worth cultivating? What would life be if one could not tum to
friends both at times of well-being and distress? As Aristotle observed:

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 Friendship East and West

[friendship] is a kind of virtue, or implies virtue, and it is also most

necessary for living. Nobody would choose to live without friends
even if he had all the other things . . . what is the use of such
prosperity to them ifthey are denied the opportunity for beneficence,
which is most commonly and most commendably directed towards
friends? ... In poverty too and all the other misfortunes oflife people
regard their friends as their only refuge. 5
It is however surprising that there is a marked lack of discussion about the
nature of friendship in Indian philosophy. This is not the case with other virtues
such as compassion and continence. But this is not to say that the Indians did
not possess the concept of friendship, or recognise it in their literature, or
regard it as an important social relationship. Sanskrit, the language of the
ancient Indian philosophical texts, possesses numerous words for friends. 6
There are also references to friendship in Indian literature. Manusmrtfl or
ManavadharmaSiistra (The Laws ofManu), an ancient Indian text on social,
religious and moral duties,S forbids betraying or killing a friend and imposes
severe sanctions in the event of transgression. Carnal knowledge of a friend's
wife is regarded as a major crime and attracts the sanction of ex-
communication. 9 Likewise, the killing of a friend is regarded as a major
crime. 10 The severity of the punishment - i.e. excommunication - for wrongful
acts towards friends goes a long way to indicate that friendship was not only
recognised as an important social relationship but also as an essential relation-
ship worth maintaining. These glimpses into friendship in Indian literature,
however, are insufficient to build an account of the nature of friendship in the
philosophical tradition of India.
The lack of an extensive analysis of friendship of the kind found in
Plato's Lysis or Books Eight and Nine of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
in the Indian philosophical tradition should not lead to the hasty conclusion
that friendship is not regarded as a moral virtue by Indian philosophy or for
that matter that there is 'no ethical philosophy within the frontiers of Hindu
thought.' I I As stated earlier, Indian philosophy is concerned with the
happiness of man. And in this context dharma (moral order, moral law,
righteousness) plays a central role in the tradition. If dharma is an essential
core ofIndian thought is it not possible that moral virtues such as friendship
are encapsulated within dharma? Could not an examination of dharma
provide the materials to construct an account of friendship within the Indian
philosophical tradition? Accordingly, I will examine dharma as expounded
in the Bhagavad Gita. I choose this text for a number of reasons. Firstly, the
Bhagavad Gila influenced and continues to profoundly influence Indian
thought and life to this day. And, secondly, the discourse that takes place
between the two characters - Arjuna and ~l)a - is set against a moral

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 Friendship in Indian Philosophy

dilemma to which we can relate without difficulty. Since the account of

dharma is based on the Gilii what follows applies only to orthodox Indian
philosophy and does not extend to Jainism or Buddhism which are non-
orthodox Indian philosophies, i.e. philosophies that do not accept the Vedas
as authority.

The Bhagavad Giti

The discourse between the two main characters - Arjuna and ~~a - takes
place on a battle field. Arjuna, has come to the battle field to regain the
kingdom that rightfully belongs to him from his cousins. The members of
the army he is going to face in battle consist of cousins, uncles, grand-
fathers, teachers, friends and companions. 12 Arjuna faces a deep moral
dilemma. On the one hand, he knows that the kingdom for which he is
going to fight is rightfully his. On the other hand, he loves the people he is
going to fight. How could he kill those with whom he played, from whom
he learnt for the sake of a kingdom? Should he kill those he loves and
respects for a kingdom? Would it be right to do so? In great mental distress
he turns to ~~a and says:
My limbs quail, my mouth goes dry, my body shakes and my hair
stands on end . . . I do not long for victory ... nor kingdom nor
pleasures. Of what use is kingdom to us, 0 ~~a, or enjoyment or
even life? Those for whose sake we desire kingdom, enjoyments and
pleasures ~ they stand here in battle, renouncing their lives and
riches: [t]eachers, fathers, sons, and also grandfathers, uncles and
fathers-in-law, grandsons and brothers-in-law, and other kinsmen.
These I would not consent to kill, though killed myself ... even for
the kingdom of the three worlds; how much less for the sake of the
earth? What pleasure can be ours ... after we have slain the sons of
Dhrtarii!?tra? Only sin will accrue to us if we kill these criminals. So,
it is not right that we slay our kinsmen . . . Indeed, how can we be
happy ... if we kill our own people?13
Arjuna's predicament is indeed a genuine one. Love and respect seem much
more worthy of protection than material riches. Of what use are material
riches and other pleasures if it is not possible to share them with friends and
relatives? How could one fmd pleasure in illgotten gains - that which has
been gained by killing those that are loved and respected?14
Other than the issue of whether he will enjoy that (kingdom) which he
has acquired by hurting those he loves, Arjuna is also overcome by fear that
he will lose the battle. ls In these circumstances he feels that the right thing
to do would be to walk away from the battle and renounce the world.
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 Friendship East and West

Kn;J).a offers a number of reasons ranging from the metaphysicaP 6 to the

moral and social to persuade AIjuna that he must fight this lawful war 17
(war of righteousness) regardless ofthe relationship that Arjuna has with
the members of opposing army. The moral reason offered by Kr~J).a is
closely connected to the intrinsic nature of an individual and the social
organisation of the community into the different varfJas (castes) - brahmin,
k:jatriya, vaisya and siidra. The right thing to do for AIjuna, according to
Kr~J).a is to perform his duty. This is derived from the intrinsic nature and
station of the individual. Accordingly, a brahmin's duties are serenity,
self-control, austerity, purity, forbearance and uprightness, wisdom,
knowledge, and faith in religion. Heroism, vigour, steadiness, resource-
fulness, not fleeing even in a battle, generosity, and leadership are the
duties of the k:jatriya. Agriculture, tending cattle and trade are the duties of
a vaisya and work of the character of service is the duty of a siidra. 18 A
perfect or happy life consists of doing that which is ordained by one's
intrinsic nature (svadharma). It is important that one follows one's
svadharma however imperfectly it may be done rather than following the
dharma of another for which one is intrinsically unfit. As Kr~J).a says:
Devoted each to his own duty man attains perfection ... Better is
one's own law though imperfectly carried out than the law of another
carried out perfectly. One does not incur sin when one does the duty
ordained by one's own nature. One should not give up the work
suited to one's nature ... though it may be defective, for all enter-
prises are clouded by defects as fire by smoke. 19
So, as a k:jatriya it is Arjuna's duty to fight the lawful war and not lay down
his arms and leave the battle field or renounce the world as he suggests. But
what of his feelings of attachment to his uncles, cousins, friends and
companions? How should he rate his duty as a k:jatriya against his personal
feelings? Is his duty as a k:jatriya such that he is to disregard his sentiments
and kill even those he loves and respects? In response, Kr~J).a tells Arjuna
that he must perform his duty, his social obligations as a k:jatriya, without
any thought about the results of his action. His duty should not be viewed
as a means to an end, as a means to attaining the kingdom, but as the end in
itself. In other words, Arjuna must do his duty for duty's sake. Arjuna must
not renounce the world but must renounce the fruits (pha/a) of his action
(karma) - that is, his actions must be done in a dispassionate and detached
manner. 20 He should not think about the personal benefits or personal
detriments - i.e. the consequences - that his actions may bring about for to
do so would only result in pain and more sorrow. Perfection or freedom
from human misery is achieved only by acting in a detached manner. 21

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 Friendship in Indian Philosophy

On the basis of the brief account of the discourse involving moral and
social reasons between Kr~l)a and Arjuna the following observations of a
general nature can be made:
Even though the GUa addresses Arjuna's particular predicament its
focus is on community directed social obligations.
2 The nature of an individual's social obligations is such that there is no
room to accommodate an individual's needs and desires.
3 An individual must perform his duty for duty's sake, and not for the
consequences that may flow from the performance of the duty.
4 Freedom from human misery can be achieved only by living in the midst
of society and doing one's duty in the right frame of mind and not by
living outside of it.
The above generalisations about an individual's conduct in society, at
flISt sight, do not contribute towards the construction of an account of
friendship for a number of reasons: (1) the obligations towards friends are
of a personal nature just as the obligations towards one's spouse and
children are and the Gita talks of community directed social obligations; (2)
the obligations are not caste specific whereas the social obligations of an
individual in the Gita are derived from his caste. Though not directly
related to personal obligations the principle on which the Gila is founded -
duty for duty's sake devoid of attachment - is a principle of right living and
hence of general relevance. And, in the context of friendship, one could say
that the Indian philosophical tradition would view perfect friendship as one
where friends do their duty towards each other without looking to the
consequences. In other words, according to such a view a friendship based
on utility - i.e. where individuals are friends for what each can get from the
other, e.g. monetary gain, professional advancement etc. - could not be a
perfect friendship. Similarly, friendship based on pleasure- e.g. where
friendship is formed in the pursuit of an activity that gives pleasure such as
chess, trekking and bridge, or where a befriender derives pleasure from the
befriended - would not constitute a perfect friendship.
This view is similar to the view of friendship developed in the Nico-
machean Ethics in that it is value-oriented and not consequentialist in
nature. According to Aristotle friendship based on utility or pleasure is not
perfect since the expectations in such friendships are aimed at oneself.
Perfect friendship, on the other hand, is found where a friend desires the
good of his friend for his friend's sake. As Aristotle says:
Only the friendship of those who are good, and similar in their
goodness, is perfect. For these people each alike wish good for the
other qua good, and they are good in themselves. And it is those who

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desire the good of their friends for the friends' sake that are most truly
friends, because each loves the other for what he is, and not for any
incidental quality.22

It is all very well to say that a friend should do his duty towards his friends.
But what is the content of this duty? When it comes to duty towards one's
community, the Gila provides clear guidance. For instance, the duties of a
~atriya, amongst others, are heroism, leadership and resourcefulness. But
what of a friend's duty? What are the duties of a man towards his friends?
Though the Gila does not address this issue specifically it does list the qualities
of godlike (or good) men which includes freedom from malice, good conduct,
uprightness, purity of mind, continence, sacrifice, forgiveness and com-
passion to all living beings.23 From the list of qualities of good men could we
not say that the duty of a perfect friend would be to exhibit these qualities in
his conduct towards his friends and come to the aid of his friend at times of
distress? And is it not the case that Kr!?l)a himself provides a role model for
friendship? Was he not a friend to Arjuna in his hour of need?

Conclusion
I have provided a sketch of a possible account of friendship that could be
constructed using the Bhagavad Gila as a foundation. This sketch is by no
means complete. Many details still need to be filled in. For instance, could
there be friendship between those who have godlike qualities and those
who do not possess godlike qualities? Is reciprocity central to friendship?
How does the obligation of friendship fit in the wider context of social
obligations to the community? How similar is this view of friendship to the
account of friendship in Aristotle? Nonetheless, I hope that this paper will
provide a platform for further discussions on the nature of friendship in
both the orthodox and non-orthodox Indian philosophical traditions.

NOTES
1 I would like to thank Brian Carr for his invaluable comments.
2 Orthodox Indian philosophy accepts the Vedas as authority.
3 Non-orthodox philosophy does not accept the Vedas as authority. Buddhism
and Jainism are non-orthodox Indian philosophies.
4 Princeton, Princeton University Press 1957 pp. xxiii-iv.
5 Book Eight, Chapter 1, 1155a3-24, The Ethics ofAristotle The Nicomachean
Ethics trs. J. A. J. Thomson revised ed., Harmondsworth: Penguin 1976 p. 258.
6 For example, salcha, mitra, hitkiiri, anuragi.
7 This text was probably compiled around 200 B.C.
8 There are a number of other texts on the social, religious and moral duties of
man. - e.g. Yajfiavalkyasmrti which is more liberal than the Manusmrti.

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 Friendship in Indian Philosophy

9 'If a man has shed his semen in ... the wife of his friend ... he should carry
out the vow for (violating) the guru's marriage-bed. (11.171) , ... violating a
guru's marriage-bed, and associating with those (who commit these acts) are
called major crimes.' (11.55) 'These miserable men - whom no one should eat
with, no one should many - must wander the earth, excommunicated from all
religion ... they should be abandoned by their relatives and in-laws and given
no compassion or greeting .. .' (9.238-9) The Laws of Manu trs. Wendy
Doniger with Brian K Smith, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991.
10 ' ... killing a friend ... are six (crimes) equal to drinking liquor.' (9.57) ' ...
drinking liquor ... and associating with those (who commit these acts) are
called major crimes.'(9.55) The Laws ofManu.
11 Farquhar Hibbert Journal October 1921: 24 cited in Radhakrishnan Indian
Philosophy London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966 Volume 1:52.
12 I.26-7. The Bhagavad-Gitii in A Sourcebook of Indian Philosophy Op.cit. f.n.
3. All quotations are from this translation.
l3 I.29-37.
14 'How shall I strike Bhil?ma Drolla, who are worthy of worship ... It is better to
live in this world by begging than to slay these honoured teachers ... by slaying
them ... , I would enjoy in this world delights which are smeared with blood ...
With my mind bewildered about my duty ... [t]ell me for certain, which is
better'. II 4-7.
15 II 3
16 On the metaphysical front Krl?lla tells Arjuna that the self is imperishable - it is
unborn, eternal, permanent and primeval. See II 11-30.
17 II 33.
18 XVIII 41-4.
19 XVIII 45-8.
20 'To action alone hast though a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits
of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction.'
II 47.
21 'He unto whom all desires enter as waters into the sea, which though ever being
filled, is ever motionless, attains to peace, and not he who hugs his desires. He
who abandons all desires and acts free from longing, without any sense of
rnineness or egotism - he attains to peace.' II 70-1.
22 Book VII, Chapter 3, 1 156b2-23, The Ethics of Aristotle, The Nicomachean
Ethics, op.cit. p. 263.
23 'Fearlessness, purity of mind, steadfastness in knowledge and concentration,
charity, self-control and sacrifice, study of the scriptures, austerity and upright-
ness, ... [n]on-violence, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquillity,
aversion to fault-finding, compassion to living beings, freedom from covetous-
ness, gentleness, modesty, and steadiness, ... [v]igour, forgiveness, purity,
freedom from malice and excessive prides ... these are the endowments ofhirn
who is born with the divine nature ... The demoniac do not know about the
way of action or the way of renunciation. Neither purity, nor good conduct, nor
truth is found in them.' Chapter 16, 1-7.

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 9

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Christian

Understanding of Friendship
Patrick Quinn

The Social and Theological Importance of Friendship

When we examine Aquinas' views on friendship, it is not too difficult to
detect immediately that his account follows closely on that of Aristotle as
set out in the eighth and ninth books of the Nicomachean Ethics. This is
especially true of those passages where Aquinas analyses the human
qualities that constitute friendly relationships although Aristotle's
influence is not wholly absent either from the Thomistic treatment of the
theological implications of friendship. But, though it could be said that
Thomas' account of human friendship is effectively no more than a repeti-
tion and development of Aristotle's views, what differentiates his view
from the latter is the theological context which Aquinas believes grounds
all authentic forms of friendliness. This might be summed up by saying
that, even though, like Aristotle, Aquinas clearly values friendship as a
supremely social virtue, he insists that it is ultimately rooted in the special
relationship which God has with human beings and, more fundamentally,
with Himself. This relationship is characterised by such qualities as good-
ness and love which, in tum, provide all authentic friendly relationships
with the kind of ontological basis that confers on them what Aquinas
perceives to be their distinctly theological character. Any account of the
Thomistic treatment of friendship must consequently take into consider-
ation this divine foundation which he believes grounds all authentic
manifestations of this relationship and which, in particular, according to
Aquinas, inspires the Christian formulation of friendship.
St. Thomas' treatment of the divine roots of friendship is therefore of
particular interest, not only for what it says about the nature of God's
relationship with human beings but, perhaps more notably, for what it
reveals of the Thomistic view of the inner dynamics of divine existence
itself. According to this, God's relationship with Himself can be primarily
defined in terms of friendship. This lies at the very heart of the divine life

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 Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of Friendship

and it provides Aquinas with a point of departure which will allow him to
understand something of the mystery of God although he may appear at
times to express this understanding in a somewhat anthropomorphic
fashion. l Thomas' theory of friendship, when applied to God, thus con-
stitutes a means for analysing the Christian doctrine ofthe Trinity. From
this point of view, God is said to be a primarily social being whose
friendship is manifested not only in terms of the divine-human relation-
ship but first of all in the divine life itself where it is disclosed in an
inter-personal divine distinctiveness that is somehow simple and one. This
is not to say, of course, that Aquinas can completely account for the enigma
of divine life and its inner dynamics but his treatment does arguably throw
some light, even if only from an anthropomorphic view, on the Trinitarian
doctrine which presents such difficulty to the Christian mind.
With regards to human friendship, God's goodness, which is expressed
through a wholly gratuitous creative and sustaining act, provides the basis
for the theological implications of human friendship. However, though he
sees fit to emphasise this divine basis as a foundation stone of this kind of
relationship, he does have a considerable amount to say also on the human
aspects of friendship and on the kind of mutuality that is intrinsic to it.
Aristotle serves as his mentor for much of this. At its best, however,
Aquinas believes that friendship is only fully realised in the ultimate vision
of God where the mind sees the divine essence, a climax that is brought
about solely by means of God's friendship and love. It is in this connection
that he remarks in Summa Contra Gentiles Book IV Chapter 22, that since
it is God's spirit that makes us love God, it must be this same divine spirit
that makes us contemplators of God.

Human Friendship
Aquinas is very insistent that friendship is indispensable for social life.
Human beings are social animals, he says,2 and friendship ensures an
ordered and harmonious network of human relationships. He identifies this
aspect in Summa Theologica 11-11.114.1 where he claims that friendship
structures and promotes human order. He argues that since virtue is
directed towards what is good, wherever there is a special kind of good,
there must be a special virtue corresponding to this. He goes on to state, on
the grounds that goodness consists in order, that human relationships
require order in mutual communication and behaviour and that there is a
need for a special virtue to regulate this. Aquinas concludes that it is
friendship (amicitia) or affability (affabilitas) which is the special virtue
that fosters the appropriate mutual dispositions which preserve and
promote goodness in the relationships that we have with one another.
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 Friendship East and West

Article 2 of Question 114 also underlines the social importance of

friendship, this time in the context of justice. Friendship is a part of justice,
insists Aquinas, and is linked to it as to a primary virtue. Like justice,
friendship is directed towards another but falls short of justice because it
lacks the quality of the relationship that exists between debtors and those to
whom they are in debt. Like Aristotle, what Thomas has in mind here is
that, for example, when someone is legally bound to pay back a debt owed
to another person or where a debt arises from a favour received, the debtor
is constrained to respond appropriately to the demands made. This kind of
necessity, however, does not apply to friendship since the latter relationship
is freely initiated and maintained. In this regard, as Thomas points out, we
can choose whether or not to behave pleasantly towards others and to
become friends with them if we so wish. This however does not give us
licence to behave in an arbitrary way towards our friends and to accept or
reject them according to whim since friendship demands reciprocity, most
fundamentally in terms of acknowledging the existence of the relationship,3
and in a more general way involves certain other obligations, such as
perhaps keeping up some sort of regular contact, for example. Thomas'
point, nonetheless, is that friendship is intrinsically free in a way in which
legally determined relationships are not. He agrees with Aristotle that the
notion of justice does not really apply to friendships since the mutual
sharing that is involved is based on the perception that a friend is one's alter
ego. 4 Undoubtedly, this quality of mirroring our regard for ourselves in the
way that we relate to our friends is another reason why friendship differs
from justice.
The importance of equality, which is constantly emphasised by
Aristotle, is likewise a defining characteristic of authentic friendship for
Aquinas. Permanent friendships, he insists, are based on equal and identical
give and take. s This criterion of measure for measure almost appears to be
quantitatively weighted in Thomas' mind, although when we examine the
examples provided we can see that he is simply striving to highlight the
importance of equality in friendly relationships. A firm friendship, he
states, not only requires repaying pleasure for pleasure but an ability on the
part of friends to share in the same pleasure in equal measure. He gives the
example of happiness in play where one person delights in the sport of
another and contrasts this with a couple making love who have different
perceptions of how to enjoy the experience. The latter, it is implied, are not
equally contributing to each other's happiness and consequently fall short
of the ideal which, for Aquinas, appears to consist of a relationship in which
all involved have a similar understanding of what constitutes a mutual
sharing in and enjoyment of activities common to both.

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 Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of Friendship

Enjoyment clearly constitutes an important facet of the nature offriend-

ship for Aquinas. He very sensibly agrees with Aristotle that we cannot
really make friends with people whose company and conversation we do
not enjoy. Those who are quarrelsome or backbiters fall into the latter
category as also do those whom Aquinas describes as cranky old men who
do not share their lives or rejoice in the company of their friends.
Thomas also believes that the harmonising effects of friendship and its
association with justice are particularly relevant to the monogamous
married state. 6 Since equality is a condition of friendship, he argues, poly-
gamous relationships would provide no equity for married women. If a
husband were allowed to have more than one wife, a wife's friendship for
her husband would not be freely given but expressed in a rather servile
manner and Aquinas claims that such a conclusion is borne out by experi-
ence. According to him, where there are several wives, they are treated like
servants.
Authentic friendship is also a form of unity that respects the distinctive-
ness of those who share it and this is particularly so in the kind of friendship
that is defined as love. Between those who love, there is a unity of
co-presence and of affection, states Thomas in 8.T.I-II.28.1 where he
explores the relationship between love (am or) and union. He concludes that
love is both the efficient and the formal cause of union, efficient in that it
moves us to desire and seek the presence of those we love, formal in that it
causes love and, in fact, is the union or bonding itself. The union of
co-presence can also be understood as a mutual indwelling both in terms of
apprehension and of desire, Thomas explains in S. T.I-II.28.2. The latter
aspect is specifically expressed in the way in which friends wish good for
each other. This mutuality is also reflected in the way that one may take to
heart the difficulties that one's friends experience or alternatively will share
their happiness when things are going well for them. Finally, there is the
aspect of reciprocity which shall be examined later.
The above list of qualities, most of which are gleaned from Aristotle's
analysis of friendship in the Nichomachean Ethics, represent Aquinas'
understanding of the importance of this relationship for human mutuality.
Its social role is clearly identified as a means of promoting better relation-
ships between people by making them more disposed towards being
cooperative with each other. On a higher level of selflessness, there is the
tendency of friends to give to each other without necessarily looking for
something in return although, as Thomas insists, there must be some
positive reciprocal acknowledgement of the relationship itself if the latter
is to survive.? Friendship indeed can be defined as a form of goodness
characterised by freedom. However, Aquinas is not content to leave the
discussion here but pursues his analysis until he can demonstrate that this
273
 Friendship East and West

relationship contains other much more profound and divine aspects to it. He
signals this development by replacing the term amicitia with caritas, an
example of which is to be found in S.T.II-11.23.1 ad I where Thomas
suggests that friendship in its fullest manifestation represents the structure
oflove.8

Friendship and Caritas.

In this part of the Summa The%gica, Aquinas investigates what kind of
relationship exists between friendship (amicitia) and charity (caritas) and
he asks whether caritas sit amicitia (S.T.II-II.23.1). He answers in the
affirmative though he is careful to qualify it. Using Aristotle's view as his
point of departure, Thomas declares that the sort oflove (amor) which can
be characterised as friendship (amicitia) is that which wishes good to
someone.9 He distinguishes between this and the kind oflove that describes
our desire for something good for ourselves and he cites as examples of the
latter the love of wine or horses. Aquinas uses the term concupiscentia to
denote personal desires of this kind 10 and remarks that it would be absurd
to say that we have friendship for wine or for a horse! Although animal
lovers might quarrel with the latter example, the general direction of
Thomas' thought seems clear enough, which is that friendship implies an
attitude of unselfishness with regards to the well-being of one's friends
whereas personal desires of the kind that he has outlined are centred instead
on one's own subjective state of well-being.
Aquinas continues his analysis in S.T.II-II.23.1 by making another
distinction. Wishing well to another is not enough, he adds, since friendship
involves mutuality and so there must be reciprocity. This implies communi-
cation which means that I cannot be friends with people who fail to
acknowledge my friendship with them by not communicating their accept-
ance in words or actions. This condition incidentally also signifies that
friendship constitutes a particular form of goodness specified by the recog-
nition that the friendly overture is acceptable. Thus, even though friend-
ship, in itself, implies some kind of selfless commitment to the well-being
of another, the relationship cannot be maintained without a positive
response from all the parties involved. This factor has obvious implications
for the human side of the divine-human relationship and Thomas addresses
this issue towards the end of the section. Although the divine-human
relationship is initiated and sustained by God's friendship for human
beings, on the principle already stated, we must, he says, acknowledge
God's efforts to befriend us if we are to remain friends with God. When we
do, our response is defined by the term caritas:

274
 Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of Friendship

'The love which is based on this communication is charity: wherefore

it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God.'
(S. T.II-II.23.1)
This is the response which also forms the basis of worship, both individual
and communal. There is another interesting twist to this kind of reciprocity
which emerges in Aquinas' reply to the second objection in S. T.II.-II.23.1.
This objection raised the question as to how it is possible to love one's
enemies since these do not reciprocate our overtures of friendship. This is
an issue of particular theological and practical significance to Christians
(though not exclusively so). In order to solve the dilemma posed, Aquinas
distinguishes in S.T.II-II.23.1 ad 2 between two ways of extending our
friendship to others. First, there is the direct route of proffering our friend-
ship towards those with whom we wish to be friendly and when this is
acknowledged, then mutual friendship exists. Since the latter condition is
excluded in the case of those who are hostile to us, Thomas accepts that,
from this point of view, friendship cannot be established with our enemies.
However, he identifies another way of showing friendship to others which
involves loving what our friends love and what belongs to them, like their
children or servants. This rather more indirect way of friendship is the kind
which is applicable to the case of loving one's enemies. Since even our
enemies are loved by God Who loves everyone, we must love them as the
friends of God if we ourselves claim to be God's friends. This is the
theoretical basis, as Aquinas sees it, which theologically justifies the
Christian exhortation to 'love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.' (Luke 6,
27-28). This transcendent aspect of the friendship defmed as caritas is
given an even more explicit emphasis in S. T.II-11.23.1 ad 3 when Thomas
rej ects the view that friendship is solely confined to those who are virtuous.
Instead, he maintains that it embraces everyone, including sinners, whom
we should love for the sake of God. Such is the theoretical justification for
the Christian obligation to love all, even one's enemies.
His answer to the fITSt objection posed in S.T.II-II.23.1 also reveals the
essence of how we can humanly come to relate to God, as Thomas sees it. Our
friendship for God is primarily mental, he tells us, not bodily or sensual (ad I),
and though imperfect in the conditions of present life, will be perfected in
heaven when God will be seen face to face. This emphasis on the noetic aspect
of one's relationship with God echoes Thomas' general view that, as its highest
level, the relationship between human beings and God is essentially non-
sensory and occurs at the level of pure thought which is wholly unimpeded by
bodily considerations. I I This is the point at which the beatific vision occurs
where human beings are introduced to the fullness of friendship with God.

275
 Friendship East and West

Caritas is regarded as a primary virtue by Aquinas because God is its

primary objective as the Being in Whom one can find rest (S.T.II-II.23.6).
This virtue is all-embracing and also includes one's neighbour
(S.T.II-II.25.1), not to mention one's enemies (S.T.II-II.25.8) and all
sinners (S.T.II-II.25.6). St Thomas makes a special point of including the
human body in this list (S.T.II-II.25.5) and he unequivocally declares that
the body is not naturally evil though it is corruptible. Finally, he identifies
the basis on which the friendship of caritas rests. This is God, the ultimate
source from which all happiness flows (S.T.II-II.25.12). Our friendship
with God evokes subjective rejoicing, claims Thomas, and we are com-
forted in all our hardships and worldly afflictions (S.C.G.lV.22).

Friendship and the Nature of God

However, although Aquinas regards our friendship for God as being of
paramount importance for our own general well-being, he sees an even more
profound dimension of friendship in relation to how central it is in the divine
life itself. He underlines this aspect in what he says about God not being alone
(solus) nor solitary (solitarius) in S.T.I.31.3 ad 1. God engages in an intense
social life which occurs at the very heart of divine existence. This is what
constitutes God's primary sociability so that even in the company of all the
angels and the beatified souls, God, according to Aquinas, would still remain
in absolute solitude were it not for the plurality of Divine Persons. The
implication is that interpersonal relationships, with all that they involve in
terms of mutual equality, are more desirable than solitude and that, in its
highest manifestation, this principle applies even to God Himself. 12 Unity in
plurality exists in its most perfect form in this divine Trinity and it is here that
God mysteriously gives expression to His own reality from which there
originates the divine spiritual bond of 10ve. 13 Aquinas is quite adamant that
these are real relationships in God (S. T.1.28.1), essentially divine and equal to
each other (S. T.1.28.2) while yet being distinct (S. T.I.28.3). Most importantly,
this network of interpersonal relationships denotes the existence of three
Divine Persons.14 On this point, he argues that as the term person (persona),
defined as a subsistent individual of a rational nature, signifies what is most
perfect in all of nature, God must have this perfection in a much more excellent
way than creatures do (S. T.1.29 .3). He admits to the difficulty of knowing how
to apply the term person to the Trinitarian God but claims that the problem is
resolved if we regard the distinct divine relationships that originate in God as
subsistent ones. IS Implicit in all of this, of course, is the aspect of rationality.
Such are the themes which form the background to Aquinas' discussion
of how God can be friends with Himself. On the face of it, it does seem as
if God is behaving in a somewhat narcissistic fashion when He is said to

276
 Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of Friendship

love Himself perfectly and express His goodness to Himself in a fully

complete manner. But Thomas seems to have been aware of this kind of
difficulty. He explicitly contrasts the imperfection of self-love with the
kind of divine love which manifests itself in the divine Trinity of Persons:
'But God cannot love supremely another who is not supremely lovable;
and one is supremely lovable that is not supremely good. Hence it is evident
that true charity cannot be supreme in God ifthere be but one Person in him.
Nor can it be perfect if there be but two Persons: since perfect charity
demands that the lover wish that what he loves himself be equally loved by
another. For it is a sign of great imperfection to be unwilling to share one's
love, whereas to be willing to share it is a sign of great perfection ... In God
therefore, since three is perfection of goodness, happiness and glory, there
must be a trinity of persons.' (De Potentia, 9.9)
The relationship between friendship and goodness are implied in the
passage which immediately follows this where Thomas argues on the basis
that goodness is self-communicative that the perfection of divine goodness
means that God communicates His perfections perfectly. This points once
again, he believes, to a Trinitarian God. If God were only one Person, He
would not communicate Himself perfectly since God cannot fully com-
municate Himselfto creatures. If there were only two Persons, the delights
of mutual divine love would not be communicated perfectly either because
of the need to share these delights fully with another. The latter conclusion
seems to be based on the principle that mutual love somehow needs to
express itself beyond the immediate relationship towards another. What-
ever we are to make of the latter, what is clear is that Thomas' speculations
on divine friendship and love in God's life suggest to him a way of
accounting for his Christian belief in God as a Trinity of Persons.

The Primacy of Friendship

It should now be clear that Aquinas thought of friendship as constituting a
relationship of the greatest importance, not just for human beings but also
for God Himself. As an expression of goodness, friendship inspires trans-
cendence in that it makes us reach out positively and unselfishly to others
and motivates us towards communion with our friends. This quality of
mutuality not only affects the lives of those directly involved with us in this
way but, more generally in an ontological sense, promotes order and brings
about harmony in the structures of human life while respecting the distinc-
tive individuality of each person.
At a higher level, friendship in the divine-human relationship is a
positive response to God, manifested in worship and expressed in a sensi-
tivity to the divine ground of all our genuine friendships. Even the divine
277
 Friendship East and West

life itself can be understood as a life of intense and perfect friendliness, as

we have seen. Its inner dynamics are depicted as a mysterious set of
interpersonal relationships which are dogmatically proclaimed for St.
Thomas, the Christian believer, in the doctrine of the Trinity. This teaching
that God is essentially and primarily a sociable being Who expresses the
fullness of friendship in the divine life itself is the model for human
mutuality. God's friendly relationships with humankind, which mayor may
not be reciprocated, are manifestations of this divine goodness and con-
stitute the theological basis, as we have said, of an attitude of friendliness
towards others, even our enemies. One might ask here how God's friend-
ship with human beings can ever manifest equality which, in other contexts,
signify for Aquinas an important feature of friendship. However, if one
follows the direction of St. Thomas' thinking on the subject, perhaps the
answer lies in the goodness of God Who not only gratuituously created
human beings but also provides them with the capacity to share in the
divine life itself by being destined to see God's essence in the beatific
vision.
All of this also indicates something of the distance between the thinking
of Aquinas and that of Aristotle on the subject of friendship while respect-
ing the evident strands of continuity linking them both. The distance is
definitively theological. It is St. Thomas' particular understanding of how
God is present through friendship that enables him to pursue the direction
his enquiries took, even into the most difficult area of Christian belief, that
ofthe Trinity. From a more contemporary point of view, perhaps Aquinas'
most valuable contribution to the analysis of friendship might be seen in his
constant efforts to provide a theoretical justification of its importance as a
supremely worthwhile social virtue which brings about self-transcendence
through concern for the other. In so doing, friendship also humanises the
networks of relationships in which we participate and arguably reveals to
us the possibilities of a more perfect state of communal co-existence than
that which we presently enjoy.

NOTES
See Summa The%gica, Part I, Question 31, Article 3, reply to Objection 1,
hereinafter S. T. 1.31.3 ad I.
2 S. T.II-II. 114.2 ad 1.
3 S.T.II-II.23.1.
4 S. T.I-II.28.1, S.T.II-II.l14.l ad 1.
5 S.C.G.III.l24.
6 Ibid.
7 See Note (3) above.

278
 Aquinas and the Christian Understanding ofFriendship

8 I have used the Latin term 'caritas' rather than 'charity' to avoid any connota-
tions of benevolent altruism which is often signified by the latter.
9 S. T.II-II.23.1
10 Thomas does accept, however, that concupiscentia is a legitimate part of love.
11 See S.C.G.III.51; S.T.I-IIo4.5. See also Quinn, Patrick (October 1993),
'Aquinas' Concept of the Body and Out of Body Situations', The Heythrop
Journal 34, 4: 397-400.
12 See also S.T.1.31.2.
13 S.T.1.27.3.
14 S.T.I.Q.29.
15 S. T.1.29 A.

279
This page intentionally left blank
 INDEX

Abu'I-l;lusayn al-Niiri 182 246,251-24,256,258,261-4,

Abul Qasern, M 164 267-8,270-3,278
adab 176, 183 arrogance 104
Adam 172 ascetics 177
admiration 107, 119 Ashigawa period 70
Adorno 71 Asia 98,117
Aelred 5, 192-214 Athens 156, 160,222
aesthetic 236, 245 Auden53
affabilitus 271 audience 38-9,49, 52, 56, 59, 63, 64,
affection 118, 169, 183, 185, 186, 67,81,100,104,108,113,118
195,197,200,202,261 authoritarian personality 69-73, 77,
Afrikaners 76 95,104
agape 18 authority, social 33, 69, 76, 77, 90,
agrarian 110 Ill, 113, 116,233,243,246
ai/aisura (love) 101 autonomy 4,33,58,62,66, 71 74,76,
Alcuin 196 80,246
Allan, DJ 165 A verroes, see ibn Rushd
Amae (the desire to be indulged) 34, awliya ' (protectors) 175
76,91-3
amai (sweet) 91 bad 21-3, 25, 59
ambition 117 bad faith 158
amicitia see Aelred 215, 271, 274 Bedouin 89
amor 203, 205, 273-4 Befu, Harumi 89
Ango,Sakaguchi60-1 Ben-Dasan, I 81
anxiety 60, 64 Benedict, R 37-8, 40, 42, 84, 113
apologizing 46 Bible 171, 174, 179, 184, 194
Aquinas 7, 270-8 Botchan 117
Arabic 252 brahmin 266
King Ardeshir of Persia 178 Braudel, F 79-80
arete 99, 162n.6 BritainIBritish 77-8, 93, 94, 97, 104,
Arjuna 264-8 105,112,120
aristocratic 33, 157, 160 brotherhood 182-5, 187
Aristotle 1,3,4,5,6,7,10,11,13-14, Buber, M 4,261
26-9,36,86,90,111,118,119, Buddhism 35, 76, 97, 215, 217, 229,
120,164-71,173,174-7,179-81, 235,238,240,242,265
185,217-18,220,222,225-6, bullying 111
281
 Index

burakumin (outcasts) 85 consensus 94

Burke, T 117 contamination 84-5
Bunnna,I40,60,98,102 contempt 64
courtesy, see manners
capitalism 79, 97, 107, 108, 113 cronyism 94,112
caring 165 cuckold 117
caritas (charity) 203--4, 207, 274, 276 culture 176
Casaubon 48,60, 63, 83 Cynic 184, 187
causality 181, 188
ceremony 94, 97, 216 daemon (spirit) 226
Chang Fei 231 Dale, P40
charity 159--60, 162, 194,205-6,275, damage 103
277 danger 64
chastity 103, 104 death 185-6, 202
Cheng Hsuan 219 deceiving 68, 84
ch 'eng (integrity) 224 decency 32, 34, 45, 46,58,61,65-9,
ch 'en-yu (recommendation of friends 75, 105, 107-8
to officials) 228 defensiveness 34
Chiakung-yen 219 deference 73, 76
Chi Cha 226-7 democracy (social) 76,77,80,244
ching (mood) 236 depravity 61
Ch'ing 244 deviancy 89
chi-hsin (heart-to-attack friends) 230 dharma (moral order) 264-5
China/Chinese 6, 79, 95, 98,108, dignity 65, 8, 73--6, 92, 99, 109
215--49 dilectio (affection) 203
chivalry 67-8, 80, 102 Diogenes 187
chosho (decision) 114 discomfort 60
Chou 219, 224 distress 60
Christian 5,97-8, 16, 117, 176, 187, Dodds, E39
192-4,196,198270-1,275,278 dogeza (prostration) 74
chu (loyalty-Japanese) 87,186, III Doi, Takeo 40-1, 42, 76,84,91
Chu Fei 240-1, 243 Don Peasant 99,109-110,112
chun-tzu (or kunshi) (cultivated dori (law) 78
person) 87 doryo (colleagues) 90
chung (loyalty-Chinese) 220 Dostoyevsky 60,61
Cicero 5,192-5,197-203,217-18,225 Dower, John 82
Cistercian 192-3
civilizing process 64, 66, 172 Eden 207
class 6, 227 education 168-9, 176,225,233
Cohen, D 85 egoism 165,253
community 85,170,179,195,218, Elias, N 34, 61-2, 65, 97
255--6,259 Eliot, George 47,52
competition 108, 166 Elster, J 96
concealment 72 Elvin, M 79
concupiscientia (personal desire) 274 embarrassment 32, 34, 37, 42, 60,
condescension 73-6, 94 61--4,68,72,75,88,94,98-9,
conformity 89, 100, 112, 114-15 107,174,186
Confucius/Confucian 6, 79, 94, 97, enemy 22-3,180,205,207,275--6,
102,105,115,121,185,215--49 278
conscience 274 EnglandlEnglish 34, 75, 95-7

282
 Index

ennoia (goodwill) 169 Goffinan, E 43

envy 34, 89, 103, 109, Ill, 112,206 good 21-3, 25, 26-7, 59,165,166,
Epicurean 174 171,174,177,185,187,189,218,
equality 56, 61, 89, 101, 192, 194-5, 220-3,241,244-6,267-8,271,
199,202-3,206-8,217,246,272 274,277-8
Emsmus 114 goma (grind) 74
erh-nii ssu-ch 'ing (susceptibility to gomasuri (unctuousness) 74
romantic feelings) 241 gonim-gumi Uoint responsibility
eros 13, 18, 166, 167 groups) 71
esteem 34, 85, 99 Greece/Greeks 1,99,100,167,171,
ethnic 81 225,252
ethos 170, 176 Gregory VII 195
etiquette (see manners) Gregory VIII 196
eudaimonia 3, 29-30, 222, 258 group 76, 89,90,95, 101, 104, 105,
Europe 97-8,100,102,223 110-12,114-115
Eve 192,205 guilt 37--40, 43, 46,71,98,108

face 71,83--4,91,93,105,118 habatsu (conically structured factions)

false consciousness 47 III
family 6,175,215-17,223,233,241, haji (shame) 41, 84
267 Hakuseki, Arai 82
al-Fiiriibi 175 hantai (impersonal opposition) 78
favouritism 94 hao-fang (generosity/liberation) 239
fear 39--40, 60, 64, 102, 103, 112, Han 217-18,230-1,233--4,239,245
119,263,265 Han-fei 216
fellow-feeling 34,107-8, Ill, Han Yu 233--4, 241
169-70, 182, 184-5 Hardie WFR 166,175
feudal 96, 10 1 harmony 89,111-12,116, 162n.6,
fidelity 200 177,193,198,201,203,205
Fmnce 101,223,245 hedonistic fallacy 165
freedom 65-6, 70, 79, 80-1,158,187, Hege1226
273 Heian 100
Freud 37, 39 Hendry, L 85
Friedrich 8 hierarchy90-1,95-6, 117, 195,206,217
Fukuzawa, Y 78 Hille1160
Furbank, P 61-2,64,73 Ho Hsin-yin 216, 241-3, 246
Hobbes 36, 51, 94,110,119,222
Galen 179 honesty 36, 103, 220
generosity 72, 179, 186,239 honour 3--4,32,33,34,44, 114, 183,227
gentleman 223-6, 229, 235, 239, 244-5 hospitality 89
Germany 114 Hsi k'ang 235, 236
al-Ghazali 4-5, 164, 174, 179-88, hsiao jen (petty people) 218, 237
251,254,255 Hsieh An 236
Gibb, Hamilton 164 hsin (trust) 220, 223--4, 225-6
gift 115 hsing (performance) 220, 236
Gilligan, C 120 Hsun-tzu 227
giri (duty) 40, 41,84,90,93,116 hsiieh-yiian ch 'in-shu (value of family
God 5,6,7,9,178-81,185-7,195, and kinship) 216
197,204,252-3,256-8,260-2, Hua Hsin 235
270-8 Huang Tao-Chou 245

283
 Index

Hudson, L 70-1 Joseph Karo 156

Hui-yuan 239 Joshua ben Perahiah 172
humanity 167,215,218,243 ju (scholars) 224
Hume 116, 121 Juan Chi 234--5, 238-9
humility 55, 67, 74, 75, 99, 101, 103, Juan Hsien 234
104, 109,225,238 Junayd 187
humiliation 3, 32, 34, 44, 56-61, 78, jusho (Confucian monks) 87
105, 117, 118 justice 78, 170,251,272-3
buquq (rights) 182
hyoban (reputation) 37, 103 kamaeru (adopting a posture) 99
hypocrisy 66,107,183,237 K'ang Hsi 244
Kant 175, 184,218,222,232
I (rightness) 227 Kao P'an-lung 244-6
ibn Bajjah 173 Kao-tzu222
ibn Rushd 251 karma (action) 266
ibn Tufay1175 kawaigaru (to love someone inferior)
ichizoku-roto (one family group and 101
its retainers) 110 Keen, M 67, 102
identification 62-3, 89 keiai (love) 101
idolatry 254 kejime (social flexibility) 84
ie (traditional family) 110 Kerferd, G 158
ijime (bullying) Ill, 115 ketto (blood) 85
Ikegami, 78,86,100 khalii~ (sincerity) 182-4
imagination 64, 69, 85, 88, 92, 96-7, 115 ki (matter) 90, also qi
independence 63, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, kikiawase (enquiry) 85
76,89-90,92,158,161-2 kindaichi 10 1
India 6-7, 263-8 kinship 184-5
individualism 80, 87, 96-7,218,236 knights 102, 222-4
innocence 69 knowledge 156-7,253
insiin (humanity) 177 ko (filial piety) 87
instrumental values 86, 158, 160, 179 k%yake (public) 81
integrity 68 kobun (person with the status of a
irrationality 34-6 child) III
Islamic 4--5,164,171,174,176, kohai (juniors) 90
182-3,251,255,258-9 kokutai (national polity) 95
Israe1174 Kolnai, A 77, 79
koteki shingi (public loyalty) 106
Ja'farb. MuJ;lRmmad 182, 186 koto (genuflection) 74
Jainism265 kotowari (excuse) 86
Japan 32-155 Kr~J;lll264-8
jealousy 102, 109 ~atriya (name of a caste) 266,268
jen (humaneness) 87,95,220,223 Kuan Ning 235
jeni-i (humane treatment) 232 KuanYu231
jen jen (loving everyone) 223 Ku Hsien-ch' eng 244
Jerusalem 186,222 kuchikiki (hearsay) 85
Jesus 232 ku jen (ancient acquaintance) 221
Jewish 5, 156, 160, 162, 174, 175, kung (ruler) 245
254--5,258-9,261 kutsujoku (humiliate) 117
Job 257
Joseph ben Judah 156, 160, 162 LadyLiu236

284
 Index
Lai, Whalen 116 metta (friendliness) 238
Lao-tzu 221, 222 Mill 80
laughter 50-6,59,63,113-14,167 Milton 80
law 33-4, 36, 77, 78,175,222 Ming period 79, 217-8, 230, 241-4
Levenson, J 108 Miskawayh4-5,6, 164, 176--9, 181,
Ii (essence) 90, 94,220; see re 252-6,259--60
Li Chih 216, 226, 229-30, 240--1 mitzvot (commandments) 159
liberties 79-80 Miyamoto, M 89, III
Lifton, R41 modernity 116--17
Lin I-ch'ing 237 modesty 103, 104, 109
Lin Ling 234-6 mokusatsu (kill with silence) 104
Lin Pei 231 monasticism 192
Li Po 239, 241 Montaigne 241
Liu Yin 237 Morris, I 77
Lodge, D 61 Morris-Suzuki, T 82
love, divine~, 7,193-4,202-3, Moses 173
206--7,252,271,277; secular 6,8, Mo-tzu 222-3, 227
19-20,23,26,43,61,64,68, mutawa/:l/:lid (solitary) 173
101-2,158,165,170--1,177-8, Mu'tazilite 176
180--1,184,204,205,207,216, mystery 8
219,223,242,253,263,265, mystic 5, 180, 252, 255--6
273-4
loyalty 90, 95, 102, 104, 105, 196, Nakane, C 77, 87-8, 95, 104, 110,
220,224-5,232-3,243 112,115,116
lutf(cunning) 253 nakodo (go-between) 86
Lynch, H 53 nepotism 94, 112
Neoplatonic 6, 251-3, 256, 261
Macauly74 neo-Taoist 6, 234-8, 246
MacFarlane 80, 96--7 neo-Confucian 34,86--91,95,97, 115,
Macmillan, Kirkpatrick 119 217,239,240-1,243
ma/:labba (love) 252 Nietzsche 117, 224
Mairnonides 4,6, 156, 159--63, 171-4, nihonjinron (discussion of Japanese
179,181,253-5,257-8 identity) 76, 81-2, 98, 135n.l72
malice 109 ninjo (feelings of affection) 90
Malinowski 107 nisyan (forgetfulness) 177
manners 34, 63, 65, 70, 74, 87-8, nobility (virtue) 165-6,170,185,225
94-5,99,115,117,171,175,178, non-authoritarian society 86
226 non-transitivity offriendship 14-19,
marriage 101, 167, 182,222,243 22-5,26,27-8
marugakoe (completely enveloped) 110 Nozick, R44
Mecca 178
medieval 70, 96,103,179,195,222, Oakshott, M. 108
255 obsequiousness 73-5
Mediterranean 34, 37, 75, 84-5, 93, occasionalism 180
103, 106, 109, 117 O'Hear,A 38
Meiji35, 77,87,110 omote (front/formal) 84, 99
meishi 95 on (sense of obligation to superiors)
meiyo(honour)37,117 90,93, 111, 116
menboku (keep face) 84 onshi (a teacher to whom one is
Mencius 108,215,222,224,227 indebted) 110, 111

285
 Index

oyabun (person with parental status) qi 89; ch'i or ki

III Qur'an 164, 174--6
oya koko (filial piety) III
rabbinic 159-60, 171, 184
paideia (culture/education) 176-7 Radhakrishnan, S 263
papacy 196-7 rank 90, 95, 115
patrocinium (patronage) 215 rationality 8
pedagogy 4, 156,220 Rav Joseph 160
p'eng yu (friends) 219, 226 Rawls, J 119
Peripatetic 179 Riizi 174, 179
perfectibility 6, 7, 251, 253-4, 256-7, re 220; see Ii
263,275 reciprocity of friendship 29,55,92,
persona 95, 115-16, 117, 120,237,276 204,216,253,272,274-5; in
personhood 15 Aristotle 15-20, 27-8, 170
Persia 164 recluse 226
Peter of Blois 197 refinement 176
Peter the Venerable 197 regret/remorse 41
phala (fruits [ofactionD 266 regnum (kingdom) 196
philautia (self-love) 252 Reischauer, E 71-2
philesis (feeling offriendship) 252 religion 8-9,10,62,87,98, 159,
philia (friendship) 13-31, 165-7, 178-9,254,255-7,259-62
169-70,252 Renaissance 103
Picasso 44 reputation 32, 34, 44, 47, 68, 83, 84,
pien (lopsided) 244 103-4
pietism 180--3, 185, 186 respect 34,57,62-3,64,69,76,81,
Pirandello 52, 59, 114 90,92,99,101,165,179
pity 63 responsibility 71, Ill, 120--1
Plato 3, 13-31,39, 156-8, 165-8, re'ut (fellowship) 171
171,179,217,264 revenge 117
pleasant 26,174,177,218,222,227, Ricci, Matteo 217, 223, 225
236,245,251-2,267,272 Ricks, C 53, 66, 68
polis 168 ridicule 34, 45,50-6,72, 113, 114, 118
pollution 84, 89 Riophe, K 61
pornai (prostitutes) 158 risk 75, 116
Pitt-Rivers, J 33, 34, 36, 116 rituals 3,6,11-12,88,97,116,218,
power 77, 101, 104, 105, 116, 119, 224,253,254
180,243,246 role 54-5
the Prophet 183, 185,258 romanticism 8-10,12,32,61,200,
prophets 255 218,221,236
praxis 2, 181 Rome 196,215,222
prestige 77 Ross, WD 165
pride 64-5, 103, 109 Runciman, W 120
privacy 66,81,118,183,199,202,
218,228,237,241 Saadya Gaon 260
Protestants 38, 75, 106 sacerdotium (sacred kingdom) 196
proton philon (first friend) 23-5 sacrifice 182, 204
public 81, 84,199,202,228,237,241 $adaqa (friendship) 252
punishment 224 Sage Kings 245-6
purification 60 Sanskrit 264

286
 Index

St Benedict 194, 206 shirk (idolatry) 254

St Bernard 42 shitau (to long to follow an admirable
Sakuta42 person or thing) 101
salvation 5-6,193,207 shiteki shingi (private loyalty) 106
Samuel 160 ~idq ( saintliness) 180
Samuel ben Ali 161 sin 275
Samule ibn Tibbon 162 sincerity 46,183--4,187,224
samurai 74,80,86-7,100,102 Smith, Adam 96, 120
saving face 3 Smith, Robert 94
scholars 6 Smith, Warren 95
Scheler, M 42, 57 Socrates 156-8, 160--3, 166, 168; see
school 114,233,243 Plato
second self 165, 173, 199 solitarius (solitary) 276
secularism 86 solitude 226, 228
self-admiration 96 salus (alone) 276
self-appraisal 58 sophists 157-8
self-assertion 33 Spinoza 162, 173
self-concept 4, 63 ssu (selfish) 245
self-confidence 118 Ssu-ma Chi'en 226,235--6
self-conscious 64 status 86, 115, 116
self-contempt 71 Steinhoff 83
self-control 66, 103, 116 Stendhal53
self-deception 10,47, 109 stigma 43-55
self-demanding 225 Stoic 97, 184, 187, 225
self-disclosure 217 subordination 106
self-esteem 34,60,61,79,83,102, sudra (a variety of caste) 266
108,111,118,119-21 sufi 5,164, 180, 181-3, 186-7
self-expression 56 suicide 71
self-image 60--1 Sung 217, 234, 239--40, 242, 243
self-interest 106, 165, 187 svadharma (intrinsic nature) 266
self-irony 34, 52-3, 92 symrnetryoffriendship 14-16, 18, 19,
self-love 166,252 20,25,27,28-9
self-respect 3,34,36,40,47,51, sympathy 28, 29, 55, 59, 71, 72,112,
53-5,58,68,74-6,79,87,99, 198,232
111,118,119-20,121
Seneca 195 ta'dib (discipline) 176-7
senpai (seniors) 90--1 T'ai-chou 242
sentimentality 70, 76, 93, 112 t'ai-hsiieh (state schools) 233
servility 73-5 Talmud 174, 186
sex 43, 103, 120 T'an Ssu-t'ung 246
al-Shafi'i 185 tang (gang) 218-19, 244
shame 32, 34-50 Tang 230, 239, 241-2
Shan T'ao 234-5 tang-lei (like-kind) 244--6
shari'a 174 Tao Ch'ien 238
Sherif, M 164, 181 Taoist 215,218, 226, 234-5, 240, 243
shilwatakushi (individual) 81 tatemae 41,94,99, 104
Shigetoki, Hojo 80 Taylor 42, 57
shih (knights) 224 teaching 4
shi'ite 176 tenko (thought-reform) 82
Shintoism 35, 95, 97 tenkosha (victims of thought-control) 82

287
 Index

tereu (bashful) 107 192,197,199,201,204,218,223,

Mrs Thatcher 76 225,227,237,245,251,253,
T'ien-ch'i (Emperor) 244 258-61,263-4,271,275-6,278
Tobin 84 Vlastos, G 165
Tokugawa60, 80, 83, 87, 100 voyeurism 65,66,68, 114-15
tolerance 112 vulnerability 103-4
Torah 4,156,159-62
torah lishma (study for its own sake) Walzer, R 164
159-61 Wan-Ii (Ming Emperor) 244
totalitarian 79 Wang Ch'en 234-5
tradition 87 Wang Hui-chih 238
tribe illusion 82 Wang Kung 235
Trinity 271, 276-8 Wang Yang-ming 241-2
trust 15,28, 106, 174,216,220, war 41-2
223-6,232,261 Watanabe 99,106,108-11
Ts'ao Ts'ao 223-4, 237-8 weakness of will 59
Tseng-tzu 223-4, 241 wealth 182, 225, 257
Tsu Ti 237 Weber 77, 80
tsumi (guilt) 40 Wei-Chin 217-8, 234-6
Tsung Ping 226 Weiss, R 162
Tung-lin Academy 217, 244, 246 welfare 5
t'ung-tao p 'eng-yu (fellow travellers wen (culture) 220,223
ofthe Way) 216 Western 78
tzu-jU pi-fan (holding oneself high White 89
above the crowd) 225 Williams, B 38,42,57,99
Tzu-kung 228 wisdom 22,157,159-61,201,257,
266
uchi (inside) 90, 95, 105 Wittgenstein 36
umorismo (humour) 59 Wollheim64
understanding 28 women 34, 37, 56-60, 65, 73, 100-3,
uniqueness 76-7, 82, 96, 98,107 108,120,229
uns (sociability) 177 worship 178, 181,260,275,277
ura (rear/spontaneous) 84 Wu 216, 233
utilitarianism 60, 100
utilitas (personal gain) 199 Xenephon 156, 157-8
utility of friendship 16-25,26,29, 167,
174,177,218,227,245,251,267 Yai)yii ibn 'Adi 177
United States 95, 105, 112 Yamatoists 81
uyamau (to respect) 101 YangChu222
yen (speech/reputation) 227
vaiSya (a variety of caste) 266 YenHui 222
vanity 45, 55 yu (befriend, be kind to) 216
Venetian 76-7 yu ch 'ing (a friend's love) 219
Vicar in Middlemarch (Mr Yuan 242
Farebrother) 69 Yukichi, Fukuzawa 98
vice 94,109,237
victim 60, 114 zaibatsu 82
virtue 5, 7, 26,115,157,161,165, zaldit (alms) 174-5
167,171,174-7,179,181,183, Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) 87, 89-90, 116

288