distribution in this world of archipelagoes. They strove to provide self-sufficiently within their own sphere of culture so that they didn't have to purchase from another sphere.
They have managed to create a self-sufficient economic zone.
In Europe, this movement is known as the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, in Japan, it can be called he "Industrious" Revolution, as labor force investment boosted productivity to a peak for the world. Europeans adopted the tendency to store valuables in the form of investment, to save rather than consume immediately, so that a sort of moral pressure was inevitably yielded in Europe. A similar theory can be applied to Japan. They found that the harder they worked, the more productivity was enhanced, encouraging a new moral sense that industriousness itself was profitable. Eventually, the production-oriented society was developed for the first time in human history about 200 years ago. Up to that period, he now of culture and economy had been from Maritime Asia to Briton and Japan. And the British and Japanese managed to perfect the adoption into their cultures. Once they mastered something, a copy of the same could flow outward, back to the original place - in this case.
Maritime Asia. Consequently, such regions were colonized.
Following the theory of Mr. Yamazaki, I think the entire modernization movement is not equal to Westernization and at least one other mode existed in Japanese as well as European modernization. What was then Europe was Situated at 50-degrees north latitude and northward. Even Southern France is at 50-degrees. As the rest of Europe was located north of that, their land was not fertile, they could only grow tropical farm products in their colonized America.
They had to migrate all that way to harvest sugar and cotton where the population was small but the resources were rich.
As a result, they justified pioneering a new frontier as being a good deed, a manifest destiny. In essence, however, what they were actually "accomplishing." was environmental destruction. After acquiring the new land, they had to protect this new territory with arms. Maintaining supremacy was essential. The relation between power and its counterpart had to be clarified by virtue of International Laws. They were the Laws of War and Peace. The laws of War and Peace were formulated in the 17th century. In reality, only the laws of war are stated, and a justified war was a war to defend the nation. In short, the laws were developed in order to justify war with military power. In order to prosper as a wealthy nation, a powerful military was the primary requisite to organize a stable nation. Japan, on the other hand, managed everything at home without having to go elsewhere. Everything was produced within the country, such as tea, sugar, cotton, raw silk, silk fabrics and ceramic ware.
Therefore no frontier existed, eventually making Japan a society dependent On recycling.
Looking at this society after Japan opened its doors to foreigners, Europeans said, "Japan no longer engages in agriculture. Everything is so neat that it is more like horticulture or gardening." Japan - the whole of Japan - seemed like a garden to them. Even a big city boasted some green; they could encounter morning glories and find the garden of a feudal lord with a tea field. Deeply impressed by the scenery, they called it "a garden city", This is what Japan used to be. We had made such a wonderful country.
Of course, it was not our intention but just a matter of consequence. However, this characteristic of Japan was completely cut away from our minds once Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa, whose face is printed on a current ten thousand-yen bill, ignored old Japan and encouraged adoption of European culture. He aimed to westernize Japan under the slogan, "Find the way out of Asia by following Europe". In this way, we started working on European-style modernization. As a result, Japan had to pay for it in World War II.
So what can we learn from such experience? One thing we shouldn't neglect is that modem Europe originates from Asia.
In other words, Europe is actually an adaptation of another society. Like Dr. Reid mentioned, there are certainly many things to learn from Europe, especially is modernity. Still what is more necessary is to learn the heritage of our own culture. It is also important to know that aside from Japan, no other country has more strongly yearned for European culture or more aggressively tried to adopt it. Europe has developed culturally as well as economically. The former colonies also adopted European lifestyles on their own accord and not entirely under compulsion. Even after adoption of European lifestyles, however, we didn't stop sleeping on tatami or futon, using chopsticks or eating rice in a bowl.
The past 150 years of Japanese history proves it is impossible to switch to a foreign culture completely, and one culture can never subsume another entirely even if we try to absorb every element of that culture.
From this point of view, as I mentioned at the beginning, culture is becoming a current issue. How many cultures are there in the world? Mr. Tadao Umesao, founder of the National Museum of Ethnology, regards this aspect as most
