XXX. ARE THE JAPANESE IMPERSONAL?

Assertion of Oriental impersonality--Quotations from Percival
Lowell--Defective and contradictory definitions--Arguments for
impersonality resting on mistaken interpretations--Children's
festivals--Occidental and Oriental method of counting ages--Argument
for impersonality from Japanese art--From the characteristics of the
Japanese family--The bearing of divorce on this argument--Do Japanese
"fall in love"?--Suicide and murder for love--Occidental approval and
Oriental condemnation of "falling in love"--Sociological significance
of divorce and of "falling in love," 344


XXXI. THE JAPANESE NOT IMPERSONAL

The problem stated--Definitions--Remarks on
definitions--Characteristics of a person--Impersonality defined--A
preliminary summary statement--Definitions of Communalism and
Individualism--The argument for "impersonality" from Japanese
politeness--Some difficulties of this interpretation--The sociological
interpretation of politeness--The significance of Japanese
sensitiveness--Altruism as a proof of impersonality--Japanese
selfishness and self-assertiveness--Distinction between communal and
individualistic altruism--Deficiency of personal pronouns as a proof
of impersonality--A possible counter-argument--Substitutes for
personal pronouns--Many personal words in Japanese--Origin of
pronouns, personal and others--The relation of the social order to the
use of personal pronouns--Japanese conceive Nationality only through