The Construction of Collective Identity

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The construction of collective identity

Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen

European Journal of Sociology / Volume 36 / Issue 01 / May 1995, pp 72 - 102DOI: 10.1017/S0003975600007116, Published online: 28 July 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003975600007116

How to cite this article:Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen (1995). The construction ofcollective identity. European Journal of Sociology, 36, pp 72-102 doi:10.1017/S0003975600007116

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S H M U E L N O A H E I S E N S T A D T& B E R N H A R D G I E S E N

The construction of collective identity

Introduction

S O C I O L O G I C A L theory has only reluctantly responded to thechallenge of new historical agenda which converge in the theme of'collective identity' (i) : the breakdown of traditional cleavages betweenpolitical camps as well as between class formations, the increase ofinternational migration, the rise of new social movements, the revival ofnationalism and ethnic conflicts but also the growing public attention toissues of citizenship, civility and otherness. The 'Grand Theories' ofmodern society rarely focused on the construction of collective identityin the same way as they did on themes like functional differentiation andequality, rationalization and market exchange, bureaucratization and thelegitimization of authority. Instead, collective identity was frequentlyconsidered to be a side effect of basic social structures or as a remainderof traditional lifeworlds which would dissolve on the road to modernuniversalism and global inclusion.

Although the recently renewed interest in nationality and ethnicityengendered a broad range of comparative and historical studies andsome stimulating constructivist theoretizations, attempts to bridge thegap between comparative historical research on collective identity andthe theoretical discourse on modernity are still rather limited (2). We

(1) Notable exceptions are: A. PIZZORNO, bridge, 1990); P. ALTER, NationalismusIdentita e interesse, in L. SCIOLLA (ed.), (Frankfurt/M., 1985); R. BRUBAKER, Citizen-Identitd (Torino, 1983); E.O. SHILS, Society ship and Nationhood in France and Germanyand Collective Self-Consciousness, unpublished (Cambridge, Mass, 1992); L. GREENFELD,paper (Chicago, 1993), 61 p.; C. CALHOUN, Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity (Cam-The Problem of Identity in Collective Action, bridge Mass, 1992). For an almost classicalin J. HUBER (ed.), Macro-Micro Linkages in analysis cf. R. BENDIX, Nation-building andSociology (London, 1991), 51-75; A. MELUCCI, Citizenship (Berkeley, 1964) (also includes aNomads of the Present (London, 1989); R. comparison between Germany and Japan);MUNCH, Das Projekt Europa (Frankfurt, 1993). also K.W. DEUTSCH, Nationalism and Social

(2) Cf. E. GELLNER, Nations and nationalism Communication (Cambridge, Mass, 1966);(Oxford, 1983); B. ANDERSON, Imagined C.J.H. HAVES, Nationalism. A Religion (NewCommunities (London, 1983); E.J. HOBSBAWN, York, i960); M. HROCH, Social Conditions ofNations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cam- National Revival in Europe: A Comparative

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SHMUEL N. EISENSTADT, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem).Bernhard GIESEN, European University Institute (Florence).Artb. Mrop. soiiol., XXXVI (1995), 72-102 0003-97S6/93/0000-648 $7.50 per art. + $0.10 per page 199) A.E.S.

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

will suggest a general theoretical model which tries to account for thefundamental status of the problem, but also gives way to a range ofhistorical case studies (3). Guided by the Weberian conception of idealtypes, a typology of symbolic codes of collective identity is presented(chap. 1) and used for the interpretation of German and Japanesenational identity. The theoretical approach is macro constructivist andtries to combine the Weberian tradition with structuralist elements ofthe Durkheimian heritage. In both authors the sociology of religionprovides a paradigmic orientation for a theory of collective identity:Weber's sociology of religion focused on different symbolic ways tosolve the problem of salvation and related world-views to the life-worldof particular social groups. Durkheim explained symbolic systems asclassificatory grids bridging the gap between society and nature andpresented religion as a model of coping with the requirements of socialintegration.

Although relating symbolic culture to social structure, neitherDurkheim nor Weber explained religion as the planned and intentionaloutcome of rational action. This holds true also for Durkheim'sconception of 'conscience collective' and Weber's notion of Gemein-schaftsglanben, which may be regarded as classical paradigms of collec-tive identity. Both refer to symbolic constructs which are objectified andwhich are hardly viewed as contingent on instrumental reasoning. Likereligion, collective identity can also fulfill its 'function' only if the socialprocesses constructing it are kept latent. In this respect the constructionof collective identity differs from the rational choice of solidarity groupsand requires a different theoretical model of analysis (4). Instead, col-lective identity represents a reference by which costs and benefits aredefined and within the framework of which preferences are constructed(Pizzorno 1983). Attempts to question it and to lift the veil of latency areusually rejected by pointing to its naturalness, sacredness or self-evidence. Sociological analysis, of course, has to reconstruct the processby which latency is achieved and by which the fragile social order isconsidered to be the self-evident order of things.

Analysis of the Social Composition of special The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford, 1986);Groups among smaller European Nations W. CONNOR, Ethnonationalism. The Quest of(Cambridge, 1985); C. TILLY, Coercion, Understanding (Princeton, 1994).Capital and European States AD ggo-jg8o (3) For a more detailed presentation of this(Oxford, 1990); J. BREUILLY, Nationalism and model cf. B. GIESEN, Die Intellektuellen unddiethe State (Manchester, 1982). Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).

For the anti-constructivist primordialist (4) e.g. M. HECHTER, Principles of Groupposition cf. J.A. ARMSTRONG, Nations before Solidarity (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1987).Nationalism (Chapel Hill, 1992); A.D. SMITH,

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S. N. EISENSTADT & B. GIESEN

I. A general model for the analysis of collective identity

1. Collective identity is not naturally generated but socially constructed: it isthe intentional or non-intentionai consequence of interactions which intheir turn are socially patterned and structured. Membership of, andpartaking in, a collective identity depends on special processes ofinduction, ranging from various rites of initiation to various collectiverituals, in which the attribute of 'similarity' among its members, asagainst the strangeness, the differences, the distinction of the other, issymbolically constructed and denned (5). Therefore, constructing socialcollectivities requires the construction of equality among the insiders:the members of the collectivity have to view each other as equals in acertain respectotherwise trust and solidarity will not develop in thecollectivity.

2. Collective identity is produced by the social construction of boundaries.These boundaries divide and separate the real manifold processes ofinteraction and social relationships; they establish a demarcation be-tween inside and outside, strangers and familiars, kin and akin, friendsand foes, culture and nature, enlightenment and superstition, civiliz-ation and barbary (6). Constructing boundaries does necessarily entail aprocess of inclusion and exclusionand of what in sociological parlancewas often designated as 'in-groups' and 'out-groups'. Any such processof inclusion and exclusion entails the designation of the differencebetween insiders and outsiders, or of the strangers, as against themembers of the inside community.

Such a distinction also poses the problem of crossing boundaries: thestranger can become a member, and a member can become an outsideror a stranger. Religious conversion and excommunication representobvious illustrations of this process of crossing boundaries (7).

3. Constructing boundaries and demarcating realms presuppose symboliccodes of distinction, which enable us to recognize differences in thefluidity and chaos of the world (8). These codes are at the core of the

(5) See DOUGLAS, M., Natural Symbols. Boundaries. The Social Organization of Cul-Explorations in Cosmology (New York, 1982). tural Difference (Boston, 1969).See also with special emphasis on the different, (7) GENNEP, A. van, The Rites of Passagemedia-dependent modes of collective remem- (London, i960).bering ASSMANN, J., Das kulturelle Geddchtnis. (8) COHEN, A. P., The Symbolic ConstructionSchrift, Erinnerung und politische Identita't in of Community (London, 1985); BOON, J. A.,fru'hen Hochkulturen (Miinchen, 1992). Other Tribes, Other Scribes. Symbolic Anthro-

(6) See BARTH, F. (ed), Ethnic Groups and pology in the Comparative Study of Cultures,

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construction of collective identity. Without them no boundary couldexist on an intersubjective level. In order to understand the logic ofconstructing collective identity, we have to deconstruct, i.e. analyse andreconstruct the most elementary differences and distinctions presup-posed by the basic codes of collective identity.

The basic codes of distinction are constructed around the spatial, thetemporal and the reflexive dimensions of coding. References to thespatial dimension include the differences between above and below, leftand right, inside and outside; references to temporality include thedifference between past and future, or the difference between thesimultaneous and the non-simultaneous; and references to the reflexivedimension center around the difference between a center and theperiphery and this difference coincides frequently with the differencebetween the sacred and the profane, the transcendental and the mun-dane (9).

Referring to the world by this categorical framework emphazisesdichotomic distinctions. A closer look reveals, however, thatat least inoccidental thinking, if not universallythis seemingly dichotomicdimension contains hidden trichotomies. Between inside and outside liesthe boundary, between left and right is the center, between past andfuture is the present, and between God and the world is the humansubject (10). Even on the most elementary level, codes exhibit a tri-chotomic structure inserting a mediating and separating realm 'in be-tween'. This mediation and separating realm is the phenomenal focus ofidentity: the center, the present, the subject. The 'here', 'now' and 'I ' areunquestionable and self-evident starting points for exploring the world,for interacting with others, remembering the past and planning thefuture (11). Constructing a world means starting at this given andimmediate identity and extending the construction from this center tofurther and distinct realms, from the present to the past and the future,from the subject to God and the world (12).

Histories, Religions, and Texts (Cambridge, Strukturale Anthropologie I (Frankfurt/M.,1982); ZERUBAVEL, E., The Fine Line. Making 1971), 148-180; SPENCER-BROWN, G., Laws ofDistinctions in Everyday Life (New York, form (New York, 1979); PEIRCE, C. S., Pha-1991). There are some interesting parallels nomen und Logik der Zeichen, edited andbetween these sociological perspectives and the translated by H. PAPE (Frankfurt/M., 1983);distinction-based calculus of indications by G. DUMEZIL, G., L'ideologie tripartite des Indo-SPENCER-BROWN, Laws of form (New York, Europeens, Collection Latomus, vol. XXXI1979). (Bruxelles, 1958); GIESEN, B., Die Intellek-

(9) GffiSEN, B., Die Entdinglichung des tuellen und die Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).Sozialen. Eine evolutionstheoretische Perspektive (11) See SCHUTZ, A., Der sinnhafte Aufbauauf die Postmoderne (Frankfurt/M., 1991). der sozialen Welt (Vienna, 1932).

(10) See LEVI-STRAUSS, C , Gibt es duali- (12) This logic of construction which lo-stische Organisationen?, in LEVI-STRAUSS, C , cates the identity in the mediating realm, has

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Codes of distinction refer in all human societies to some basic givensof social and cultural life. The differences between parents and children,male and female, between kin and akin, the raw and the cooked, hi-erarchy and equality, cooperation and independence, are among thesesoriginal references of codes, and even after a long series of evolutionarytransformations, cultural codes can never escape entirely from themeaning of these original references (13).

The core of all codes of collective identity is the distinction betweenwe and others, but this constitutive distinction has to be reinforced byand related to other elementary distinctions (14). Collective identitiesdiffer in the special way they combine and interfuse the 'them and us'distinction with other distinctions like 'sacred and profane', 'parents andchildren', etc. These special combinations are central for a typology ofcodes of collective identity. The primacy of one of these original dis-tinctions defines different types of codes.

The major codes of the construction of collective identity are those ofprimordiality, civility, and culture or sacredness(i5). These codes haveto be seen as ideal types, while real codings always combine differentelements of these ideal types. Therefore concrete historical codings ofcollective identity are not homogenous. They contain various compo-nents, the importance of which varies in different situations.

4. The construction of boundaries and solidarity is not, however, a purely'symbolic' affair, unrelated to the divisions of labor, to the control overresources and to social differentiation. Obviously, solidarity entails conse-quences for the allocation of resources, above all for structuring theentitlements of the members of the collectivity as against the outsiders (16).

an important implication if we believe in a change the past, the world outside is notcertain parallel between the logic of entirely to be trusted, etc. See PIAGET, J.,construction and the evolutionary genesis of Genetic Epistemology (London, 1970); SHILS,constructions. It implies a certain and limited E., Center and Periphery. Essays in Macro-analogy, or close homology, between the order Sociology (Chicago, 1975).of the center, the present and the subject on (13) See LEVI-STRAUSS, C , Strukturalethe one hand, and the order of the far distant Anthropologie I (Frankfurt/M., 1971).realms, of the past and the future, of God and (14) See KRISTEVA, J., Fremde sind teir tinsthe world, on the other. Transferring the selbst (Frankfurt/M., 1990).structure of the known to the unknown, of the (15) See SHILS, E., Center and Periphery.familiar to the unfamiliar, of the present to the Essays in Macro-Sociology (Chicago, 1975),past and the future, imaging God according to 111 ff.the human subject, etc., are well-known strat- (16) For the concept of entitlements cf. SEN,egies of understanding and observation. The A., Poverty and Famines (Oxford, Clarendonanalogical coding of the world, of course, does Press, 1981); DAHRENDORF, R., The Modernnot wipe out the fact that there art fundamental Social Conflict. An Essay on the Politics ofdifferences between past and present, center Liberty (Berkeley / Los Angeles, University ofand distance, subject and world: we cannot Cal. Press, 1988).

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Such entitlements refer not only to the different resources distributedwithin the collectivity but also to access to public goods, and to majorinstitutional markets or arenas.

Societies may differ with respect to what resources are distributed inthe name of the collectivity to its members; they differ with respect tothe nature of public goods that are instituted within them and to thelegal mode of this institution; they differ with respect to the mode ofdistributing entitlements (hierarchical v. egalitarian) among the variousgroups within a society and they differ in their capacity to back theinterests and ambitions of particular subgroups within a collectivity.Therefore particular codes of collective identity are affiliated to particularsocial groups who are the carriers of a symbolic code and function asconstructors of collective identity.

But the structure of distribution, the availability of resources and thepower relations between social groups, in their turn, influence theconstructive operation of codes: there is an elective affinity betweencodes on the one hand and the structure of power and allocation on theother. The analysis of this elective affinity between the social structureand the codes of collective identity is at the core of the research programoutlined in the following pages. This research program views collectiveidentity as a social construction produced by social carrier groups which actin a particular situation and within a framework of symbolic codes.Before we outline some case studies of collective identity, we have toreturn to the distinction between primordial, civic and cultural codesand to point to their particular dynamics of construction.

5. Primordiality is the first ideal type of collective identity (17). It focuseson gender and generation, kinship, ethnicity and race, for constructingand reinforcing the boundary between inside and outside. Primordialcodes obviously link the constitutive difference to 'original' andunchangeable distinctions which are by social definition exempted fromcommunication and exchangemainly because they are attributed tostructures of the world which are given and cannot be changed byvoluntary action. The occidental term for this realm is 'nature'. Byrelating collective identity to nature, codes of primordiality provide afirm and stable basis beyond the realm of voluntary actions and itsshifting involvements. Primordial types of collective identity appear to

(17) See SHILS, E., Center and Periphery. ution: Primordial Sentiment and Civil PoliticsEssays in Macro-sociology (Chicago, 1975); in the New States, in GEERTZ, C , The Inter-EISENSTADT, S.N./ROKKAN, S. (eds), Building pretation of Cultures (New York, Basic Books,States and Nations, 2. vols. (Beverly Hills, 1973), 255-310; GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen973); GEERTZ, C , The Integrative Revol- unddie Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993).

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be 'objective' and unquestionable; the boundaries cannot be moved, andcrossing the boundaries seems to be extremely difficult. Any chance ofcrossing the boundary between inside and outside would obviously blurthe distinction and weaken the control over the members of the col-lectivity. However, sometimes a limited crossing of the boundary issometimes necessarywhether to oust members from the community inorder to avoid internal crisis, or to adopt new members from outside.This procedure of crossing the boundaries of primordial communities,however, is never simply determined by and entrusted to naturalprocesses like birth and death, breeding and parenthood; instead, highlyelaborated and important social 'rituals of passage'(i8) control andconstruct the crossing of boundaries: consecration and funerals, mar-riage and inauguration, expulsion and inclusion. Instead of neglectingthe boundaries, these very rituals construct and reaffirm them.Even more important than these rituals of passage are rituals ofpurification by which the traces of the outside in the members of theprimordial communities are extinguished: rituals of baptism, of silenceand isolation 'purify' the members and ensure the homogeneity of thecollectivity.

Thus, in fact, primordiality does not emerge out of natural givenness,but is an essentially fragile social construction whichlike every socialconstructionneeds special rituals and communicative efforts in orderto come into existence and be maintained.

Defining and demarcating a boundary by a primordial code impliesnot only a special way of constructing the inside, but also a particularway of mapping others outside the collectivity. The relationship ofprimordial collectivities to their environment is not a missionary one:the 'others' cannot be converted and adopted, they are not guilty forcommitting a wrong choice, they cannot be educated, developed or evenunderstood, every effort to instruct them will fail, because they simplylack the essential preconditions of understanding. Primordial attributesof collective identity resist by their very mode of social construction anyattempt at copying them successfully; they seem to be fundamentallyexempted from communication between, or reflexivity by the membersof the primordial community, they are simply unalterably different, andthis difference conveys inferiority and danger at the same time.Strangers are frequently considered as demonic, as endowed with a

(18) See GENNEP, A. van, The Rites of tinguish between the performance of ritual as aPassage (London, i960); TURNER, V. T., The duty and theater as a choice. See WAGNER-Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure PACIFICI, R. E., The Moro Morality Play.(Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell U.P., 1969). For Terrorism as Social Drama (Chicago, Univer-modern societies it seems to be useful to dis- sity of Chicago Press, 1986).

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strong and hostile identity which threatens the existence of primordialcommunities.

Mapping the environment to primordial codes results therefore in apressure to keep a certain distance of security, or, if this is impossible, toprepare for war. This distance can rely on physical separation, but alsoresults in a lack of trust, and consequently in a restricted range ofinteraction and communication. The boundaries of primordial com-munities consist of strong lines separating incommensurable insides andoutsides.

But in fact, as is the case with all such codes, sometimes even theseemingly unquestionable primordial boundaries of collective identitymay be questioned and negotiated; their social importance may bedebated. Their latency is also in principle, given the basic ambivalenceof social codes, open to questioning. Hence even primordial construc-tions call for a distinct mode of intellectual reflexion and justification.

Here, primordial types of codes rely on naturalizing the constitutiveboundary between inside and outside (19). Kinship and gender, eth-nicity and territoriality are explicitly located beyond the realm ofcommunication, definition and construction: any attempt to question thevalidity of 'natural boundaries' (and obligations) will fail because theyare by definition exempted from social definition and alteration (20).Obviously, the naturalizing mode of achieving latency presupposes thedistinction between the realm of history, action and human conventionson the one hand, and the impersonal realm of nature, governed byeternal and objective principles on the other. If a society conceives ofnature in this special way, the fragility of social constructionswhich isfundamentally brought out and emphasized by distinguishing betweennature and historycan be concealed by ascribing the structure inquestion to the opposite realm, to nature. Here, by describing thecollective identity as naturally given one guarantees the latency of itssocial construction. The unity of the collectivity itself is seen as a basicnatural similarity of its members. There is no personal representation ofcollective identity apart or above this natural similarity; primordialcodes reduce the identity of the whole to the sum of its elements andthese elements are conceived as similar and equal. Therefore primordialcodes question hierarchies and entail a tendency toward egalitarian

(19) See BARTHES, R., Mythologies (Paris, especially within the realm of modern aes-957); DOUGLAS, M., HOW Institutions think thetics see KOHLER, E., Je ne sais quoiZur(Syracuse / New York, Syracuse University Begriffsgeschichte des Unbegreiflichen, inPress, 1986), p. 48. KOHLER, E., Esprit und arkadische Freiheit

(20) For a general account of this discour- (Frankfurt, 1966), 230-286.sive strategy which became predominant

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distributions of entitlements. This egalitarian tendency and the sharp anddistinct boundaries of primordial collectivities have an elective affinity tothe structural properties of modern nation states (21).

They foster the institution of relatively wide package deals ofresources and access to public goods to all members of the communityand any such access and entitlements to 'strangers'.

6. The second major code of construction of collective identity is the 'civic'one. This code is constructed on the basis of familiarity with implicitrules of conduct, traditions and social routines, that define anddemarcate the boundary of the collectivity (22). It links the constitutivedifference between 'us and them' to the difference between the routineand the extraordinary (23). This type of coding collective identity maybe called 'civic' (or civil). Civic codes do not consider collective identityas representing an 'external' reference like nature or the sacred; instead,the routines, traditions and institutional or constitutional arrangementsof a community are regarded as the core of its collective identity. Herecollective identity refers to temporal continuity, to the recurrence ofsocial practices, and the constitution of the community (24). Theseroutines and rules are on the one hand difficult to separate from thepraxis of acting and the participation in everyday life, while on the otherhand, especially but not only on the scale of the macro order, the tidesare embedded in the institutional practices of the public arena. On thedaily level they tend to be exempted from argumentation, communi-cation and debates, while most attempts to question them, to ask forinstructions with respect to proper behavior, or even to justify them andto mark the boundary, can be made mostly from the insideotherwisethey mark the outsider.

The insider is familiar with the rules, even if he is unable to nameand explicate them. In contrast to cultural codes (to be discussedshortly), there isexcept for civic ritualsno particular ritual of ini-tiation, commitment or confession demarcating the boundary, but onlyan undefined and diffuse frontier; the only chance to be accepted as amember of a civic community and to partake in its collective identity is

(21) DUMONT, L., Homo Hierarchicus. The chapter II. 1; for Bourdieu's concept of 'habi-Caste System and its Implications. Complete tus', see BOURDIEU, P., La distinction. CritiqueRevised English Edition (Chicago, University socialedujugement (Paris, 1979).of Chicago Press, 1980), Appendix D: Nation- (24) This of course is due to the fact thatalism and Communalism, 314flf. tacit and formal knowledge are not of the same

(22} SHILS, E., Tradition (Chicago, 1981). order. Cf. POLANYI, M., Personal Knowledge.(23) For the conception of habitualization Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago,

see BERGER, P.L./LUCKMANN, T., The Social University of Chicago Press, 1962), 87ff.Construction of Reality (New York, 1966),

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to participate in the local practices and institutional arrangements andslowly to adopt the local customs and routines and even the modes ofreflexive criticisms thereof. Time, patience, and a certain cautiousness toavoid anything extraordinary are indispensable for this endeavour.Breaking the rules, challenging the existing practice or establishing newpatterns of routines guided by some culture external to the communityare as incompatible with this code as is missionary expansion. Consider-ing the implicitness of most of the rules and routines, any specialinstruction and education will failexcept civil socialization whether themore informal daily or more organized civic education to participationin civic life. Civic codes of collective identity maintain the boundary bynot mentioning it.

They conceive of inside and outside in a symmetrical way and depictthe outsider as the stranger who is simply different and extraordinarywithout attributing particularpositive or negativecharismatic qual-ities to him. Because the stranger is unfamiliar and different, his actionsare difficult to understand and his behavior is difficult to account for;the logic of interaction itself requires a certain cautiousness and distance.

In a sense the civic code of collective identity can be regarded as themost fundamental and constitutive one of any such constructions. Itrefers to its own continuity and has some similarity to Weber's conceptof 'tradition' (25). But as already alluded to above, such forms of col-lective identity also have built in elements of fragility and reflexivityespecially in macro situations, and in which particular strategies forrestoring latency are requiredabove all collective civic rituals. Oncetacitly observed traditions are now declared and elaborated, the com-petence of participation is explicitly formulated by the praise of par-ticular virtues, the constitutive rules of the collectivity are written downand commented upon. In particular the distinctive virtues which accrueto the members of a community become the focus of ritual celebrationand artistic praise. In its more sophisticated versions, as in ancientGreece, reflections about civic virtues can even become the issue of majorintellectual debates and of ritual celebration. Here, however, the con-struction of collective identity gives up its roots in everyday routines andmay gradually approach the realm of cultural and transcendental ideas.

Even more important than intellectual reflections or virtues arecommemorative rituals and the representation of continuity, routine andtradition in particular persons, places and events. Traditions arereconstructed and related to mythical origins, to founders or historicalevents, like revolutions or migrations.

(25) Cf. SHILS, E., Tradition (Chicago, 1981).

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Here the particularity of a person, a locality or a historical eventprovide the core of the construction of collective identity. It is notsufficient simply to know about the myth of origin; instead the membersof the community have to visit the mythical place and to partake in thecommemorative ritual. Although commemorative rituals construct andcontinue the traditions of a community by particular patterns of socialpractice, these traditions are rarely questioned by the members of thecommunity; instead they are defended against outsiders who attempt tochallenge them by universalistic arguments. Therefore the discourseacross the boundaries of civic communities frequently shifts towards the'cultural' mode of constructing collective identity.

Civil codes of collective identity usually engender hierarchical dis-tinctions between the bearers of traditions and new members slowlyapproaching the core of the collectivity. Therefore they entail a tend-ency to unequal distributions of entitlements and to restrict egalitariandistributions to particular spheres or social arenas. This has a certainaffinity to the separation of the political from the economic sphere, witha sharp distinction between, on the one hand, the rights to entitlementand access to public goods, and on the other hand, access to variousgoods and commodities exchanged in economic markets. The formerare restricted to members of the community, while access to the lattermay also be permitted to strangers. The range of public goods andentitlements distributed to all the members is smaller than in primordialcommunities and a distinction between private and public arenas isfostered under these circumstances.

7. A third type of code links the constitutive boundary between 'us andthem' not to natural conditions, but to a particular relation of thecollective subject to the Sacred. This mode of constructing collectiveidentity may be called cultural in a specific sense. (Of course, primordialand civic codes are also 'cultural' in the general meaning of the term. Allof them consist of symbolic distinctions, but it is only the 'cultural' codein the narrow sense, which has the special dynamics of universalism).These constructions of collective identities overcome the problem of thefragility and fluidity of social boundaries by relating the collectivity toan unchanging and eternal realm of the sacred and the sublimebe itdefined as God or Reason, Progress or Rationality (26). Constructing aclose relationship to the realm of the sacred is obviously a product ofhuman activity, but it extends beyond mere conventions and alterabledefinitions to a supernatural source of identityand it is often presented

(26) TENBRUCK, F. H., Die kulturellen Grundlagen der GeseUschqft (Opladen, 1989).

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as a human construction in accordance with some divine command-ment. Such cultural codes can be found either as the dominant or thesecondary ones in various preliterate and above all historical 'archaic'societies, but the purest illustrations of such collectivities are the re-ligions which developed in the Axial civilizations (27).

Admitting the constructive function of communication engenders aradically different stance toward the problem of crossing the boundaryand of depicting the others outside of the collectivity. The boundariesbetween inside and outside can be crossed by communication, educationand conversion, andat least in principleeveryone is invited to do so.Therefore, cultural types of collective identities imply a universalisticorientationin a latent (as in most archaic societies) or manifest (as inthe Axial civilizations) manner (28). If this universalism is brought outexplicitly, cultural codes engender a missionary attitude towards others.The difference between those who have a close relationship to thesacred, and those who do not, is certainly a hierarchical one, buteverybody is capable of overcoming his inferiority, his emptiness and hiserrors, by converting to the right faith, adopting the superior culture,and crossing the boundary. The missionary zeal of 'culturally'constructed communities, however, not only opens up the boundaries toinclude the outside, but also exerts a certain pressure to overcomedistances and differences. Outsiders are inferior. Those who resist themission are not only different and inferior, but mistaken and erring; theyhave to be converted even against their own will, because they are notaware of their true identity. Here, outsiders are considered as emptynatural objects requiring cultural formation and identity (29).

However, crossing the boundary between nature and culture, bet-ween the demonic and the sacred, between superstition and reason,requires particular social mechanisms reinforcing and emphasizing theboundaries, and counteracting the missionary zeal of the center. Themain institutional mechanism protecting the center of the collectivityfrom the too intensive penetration of the periphery, is cultural or sacralstratification. The openness of boundaries is compensated for by agraded and stratified access to the center and by complicated rituals ofinitiation; the toils and inconveniences of learning and education have tobe overcome in order to approach the sacred center of a culturalcommunity; only the chosen few, the 'virtuosi', who have endured all

(27) See EISBNSTADT, S. N. (ed.), Kulturen The Emergence of Transcendental Visionsder Achsemeit. Ihre institutionelle und kulturelle and the Rise of Clerics, Archives EuropeetmesDynamik, 2 vols. (Frankfurt/M., 1987). de Sociologie, XXIII, 1982, 294-314.

(28) In the Weberian tradition see EISEN- (29) See GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen undSTAOT, S.N., op. cit., 1987 and The Axial Age: die Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993), 61 ff.

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the hardships and are radically committed to the service of the sacred,are finally accepted to enter the center and to see the unveiled secrets.Between the virtuosi and the laity, there is an internal boundary withinthe community. The very fact that the cultural attributes can be easilydiffused and communicated requires social barriers to communicationand particular taboos to protect the sacred from profanization. Theexpansive movement at the periphery of cultural collectivities is there-fore counteracted by a defensive blockade of the center, and thecombination between these two movements can result in an elaboratedstratification and internal ranking of the collectivity, and constitutes oneof the major poles of the dynamics of these civilizations (30).

Cultural codes achieve latency by another strategy, which may becalled a certain type of 'categorization'. Categorization presupposes adistinction between the transcendental level of eternal values, principlesof reason or divine commandments on the one hand, and the historicallaws, conventional rules and worldly communities on the other. Thisdistinction also emphasizes the fragility of social constructions andchallenges the stability of collective identity. Categorization meets thischallenge by linking the seemingly constructed and historical identity tothe transcendental realm: behind the surface of a perishable communityits hidden core, its foundation in the transcendental realm, can bediscovered. Therefore, the 'cultural' construction of collective identity isbased on a privileged access to the sacred, on a divine mission, on aparticular representation of universal reason and progress. In contrast tothe civil orientation to tradition, myth and the continuity between past,present and future, the cultural code presupposes a rupture betweenpast and future; it has a tendency to devaluate past experience and toopen up the future for Utopian orientations.

Yet another tensionbut inherent in the cultural code itselfis thatbetween relative emphasis on hierarchical as against egalitarian criteriaof distribution of resources and access to the major arenas of social life.

II. Case studies

The following two case studies focus on the national identities ofGermany and Japan. Both countries are among the leading modernindustrialist societies, but differ considerably from the classical front-running nation-states like France, Great Britain or the United States.Both were late-comers (Bendix) in the process of political modernization

(30) See EISENSTADT, S. N. (ed.), op. cit., 1987.

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and produced an authoritarian imperialist regime on their road tomodernity, but they differ fundamentally from one another in their codeof collective identity and in the historical embeddedness of these codesin social carrier groups.

i. Germany: the Kulturnation

Germany is frequently regarded as the historical paradigm of thelate-coming European cultural nation: in contrast to France or Englandwhere the political formation of the nation state in early modern historypreceded the cultural construction of national identity during the'classical' period of art and literature, the German national identitystarted as such a cultural construction (31). Its architects were not kings,princes or politicians but intellectualswriters, philosophers or othermembers of the Bildungsburgertum, i.e. an educational class comprisingalso higher state officials, lawyers, professors, engineers or armyofficers (32).

In the second half of the eighteenth century this educated class grewin demographic size and social importance. Its members could rely onnew entitlements for public offices generated by the administration ofenlightened princes striving for modernization. It was no longer feudalprivilege or simply money, but education and professional qualificationwhich opened the access to higher positions in public administration orin new public enterprises in agriculture or the manufacturing industries.Most members of this new modernizing elite obtained their position byspecial state privileges and were appointed to locations far away fromtheir region of origin; there, it was difficult to get a close connection tothe local bourgeoisie or the local nobility. This situation of localuprootedness and disembeddedness fostered an emphatheticidentification with the enlightened absolutism of the Prussian KingFrederic the Great and in general with the project of modernity andenlightenment. In Germany the modernizing elite never had thatpronounced distance to the royal government and the monarchic state aswas so typical for the French enlightenment. But it differed from the

(31) PLESSNER, H., Die verspatete Nation 18. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1987), 167-182;(Stuttgart, 1959). LEPSIUS, M. R., Zur Soziologie des Biirger-

(32) MEINECKE, F., Weltburgertum und turns und der Biirgerlichkeit, in: KOCKA, ] .Nationalstaat (Munchen-Berlin, 1908); KOHN, (ed.), Burger und Biirgerlichkeit im 19. Jah-H., The Idea of Nationalism (New York, 1944); rhundert (Gottingen, 1987), 79-100; CONZE,for newer approaches to the German type of W. et al. (eds), Bildungsburgertum im IQ.'Bildungsbiirger' see VIERHAUS, R., Umrisse Jahrhundert, Vol. 1-4 (Stuttgart, ig85ff.);einer Sozialgeschichte der Gebildeten in GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen und die NationDeutschland, in: VIERHAUS, R., Deutschland im (Frankfurt/M., 1993).

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Anglo-Saxon enlightenment too. The rationality of the Germanenlightenment did not come out of the particularities of commercialinterests, but from the praxis of administration, education, jurisdictionand science. The main opposition didn't run between state andmodernizing elite but between state and Bildungsburgertum on the oneside and the traditional and local bourgeoisie on the other (33). There-fore, primordial and civic codes such as locality and traditional classdistinction couldn't provide an appropriate construction of collectiveidentity for the Bildungsburgertum. A new cultural code was needed inorder to reflect the situation of this new class and to establish tiesbetween the participants of the expanding network of public communi-cation in the second half of the century.

1.1 This rapid expansion of public communication is one of the moststriking developments in Germany during the enlightenment. It pro-vided the basis for a particular German national culture and united theGerman society on the level of culture in a marked contrast to thescattered political map of the small German principalities and kingdoms.Germany's eighteenth century revolution was a revolution of reading. Itsconception of modernity was not the political or the economic but thecultural liberties: the society as a reading public (34).

This expanding and accelerating communication via written andprinted texts addressed to a wide-spread anonymous public whoseattention was caught by appealing to morals and virtue instead of localand regional issues.

The organizational basis for the revolution of reading was the newinstitution of Leseverein (reading association) (35). These readingassociations spread rapidly during the second half of the 18th century;

(33) RUPPERT, W., Burgerlicher Wandel Mittel- und Unterschichten, 2, enlarged edition(Frankfurt, 1983); ENCELHARDT, U., >Bil- (Gottingen, 1978), 112-154; WELKE, M.,dungsburgertunf. Begrtffs- und Dogmengeschich- Gemeinsame Lektiire und friihe Formen vonte eines Etiketts (Stuttgart, 1986); RUSCHE- Gruppenbildungen im 17. und 18. Jahrhun-MEYER, D., Bourgeoisie, Staat und Bildungs- dert: Zeitungslesen in Deutschland, in:biirgertum. Idealtypische Modelle fur die DANN, O. (ed.), Lesegesellschqften und burger-vergleichende Erforschung von Biirgertum liche Emanzipation-Ein europdischer Vergleichund Biirgerlichkeit, in: KOCKA, J. (ed.), Burger (Miinchen, 1981), 29-53.und Biirgerlichkeit im ig. Jahrhundert (Got- (35) DANN, O., Einleitung, in: DANN, O.tingen, 1987), 101-120. (ed.), Lesegesellschqften und burgerliche Etnan-

(34) HABERMAS, J., Strukturwandel der zipation -Ein europdischer Vergleich (Miinchen,Offentlichkeit-Untersuchungen zu einer Kate- 1981), 9-28.; NIPPERDEY, T., Der Verein alsgorie der burgerlichen Gesellschaft (Neuwied, soziale Struktur in Deutschland im spaten 18.1962); ENGELSING, R., Der Burger als Leser und friihen 19. Jahrhundert, in: NIPPERDEY,(Stuttgart, 1974); ENGELSING, R., Die Peri- T., Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Gottingen,oden der Lesergeschichte in der Neuzeit, in: 1976), 174-205.ENGELSING, R., Zur Sozialgeschichte deutscker

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they provided a modern institutional pattern of social life and communalassociation for the enlightened Bildungsburgertum of the cities. Incontrast to courtly sociality, but also to membership in traditionalcorporations or in modern organizations, interaction in these associationsis based on shared convictions and morality. Communication and ac-tivities have to give proof of common sense and the right commitmentto moral and reason. Set free from external restrictions and practicalconsiderations, the conversation is stimulated by a focus on the moralconstruction of public welfare.

Membership is based on free individual decisions, but privateinterests and personal considerations are not accepted as reasonablemotives for membership: the focus is on universal morality and not onindividual utility. A strong emphasis on morals and virtues promotedextreme rhetoric and radical commitments to the moral ideal; those whofailed to show the necessary zeal, were excluded.

The expanding public communication and the moral zeal of theassociations in Germany prepared the soil for a construction of anational identity based on patriotic virtue and moral commitment.Communication processes in the Bildungsburgertum thus generated apattern which could easily be transformed into a cultural code for thecollective identity of the total society. This code was Patriotism (36).

Patriotism provided the integrative tie for an anonymous and vastpublic regardless of descent and region. The primordial basis forcommunity and collective identityregion, kinship and class mem-bershipis replaced by morals and reason, thus expanding collectiveidentity to the whole societyalthough it is unmistakenably shaped bythe life-world of the enlightened Bildungsburgertum and its ideas of civilvirtue.

The moral integration of society and the collective identity of Patriotssurpass the differences of region and rank; collective identity is

(36) VIERHAUS, R., Patriotismus, in: VIE- zum Problem der Sakularisierung (Frankfurt,BHAUS, R., Deutschland im 18. Jahrkundert 1973); KAISER, G., Klopstock als Patriot, in:(Gottingen, 1987), 96-109; GIESEN, B. / JUNGE, WIESE, B. V . / H E N B , R. (eds), Nationalismus inK., Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus. Germanistik und Dichtung, Dokumentation desZur Evolution der uDeutschen Kultumation* Germanistentages in Muncken vom 1J.-22.in: GIESEN, B. (ed.), Nationale und kulturelle Oktober ig66 (Berlin, 1967), 145-169; PBIGNIZ,Identitdt. Studien zur Entwicklung des kollck- C , Vaterlandsliebe und Freiheit, Deutschertiven Bewufitseins in der Neuzeit (Frank- Patriotismus von 1750-1850 (Wiesbaden,furt/M., 1991), 255-3o3; BRUNNER, O., Die 1981); SCHMITT-SASSE, J., Der Patriot und seinPatriotische Gesellschaft in Hamburg, in: Vaterland. Aufklarer und Reformer im sach-BRUNNER, O., Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und sischen Retablissement, in: BODECKER, H., E.Sozialgeschichte, 3. Aufl. (Gottingen, 1980), et al. (ed.), Aufklarung als Politisierung-335-344; KAISER, G., Pietismus und Patriotis- Politisierung als Aufklarung (Hamburg, 1987).mus im literarischen Deutschland: Ein Beitrag

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decoupled from its seemingly natural and personal roots, society isimagined as an anonymous public and the stage is set for the modernidea of unpersonal inclusion of abstract individualsabstract by refer-ence to equality, moral and virtue.

1.2 At the turn of the century, this cultural code of patriotism couldno longer be regarded as a powerful idea transforming social relationsand establishing a new level of societal integration. Instead a new socialcarrier emerged promoting a new idea of collective identity: the romanticintellectuals and the aesthetic idea of Volk and nation. The social situationand practical problems of these intellectuals were entirely different fromthose of the enlightened Bildungsburgertum (37).

Scattered all over the country and separated from other intellectuals,most of them lived a lonely life in the small cities of the Germanprovinces. This inferior position contrasted sharply to their self-respect,their education, intellectual ambition and frequently also to theirexperience. It is no surprise that most of them despised the bourgeoisworld of money, administration and professional narrowmindedness.Their relation to the new and modern center of society was determinedby distance and dislike (38).

In compensation for their modest situation in the bourgeois world,they thought themselves endowed with a superior perspective on theessence of things; they aspired to a new and deeper foundation of thecharismatic center beyond the world of money and politics. In additionto this distance from the bourgeois society of the enlightenment, whichcould not offer professional positions, the romantic intellectuals had tocope with a generational problem. The preceding generation of theGerman classics had been extremely successful in the literature market.

The esoteric attitude of these romantic intellectuals excluded the broadpublic and its bad taste. Their literature was not published in the large

(37) KIESEL, H. / MUNCH, P., Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1976); SCHULTE-SASSE, J., Dasund Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert, Vorausset- Konzept biirgerlich-literarischen Offentlich-zungen und Entstehung des literarischen Markts keit und die historischen Griinde seines Zer-in Deutschland (Miinchen, 1977); HAFERKORN, falls, in: BURGER, C. et. al. (eds), AufkldrungH. J., Zur Entstehung der biirgerlich- und literarische Qffentlichkeit (Frankfurt/M.,literarischen Intelligenz und des Schriftstellers 1980), 83-115; for the widespread role of theim Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800, in: Hauslehrer see FERTIG, L., Die Hofmeister.LUTZ, B. (ed.), Deutsches Burgertum und lite- Befunde, Thesen, Fragen, in: HERMANN, U.rarische Intelligenz iy50-1800, Literaturwis- (ed.), Die Bildung des Burgers. Die Formierungsenschajt und Sozialwissenschaften 3 (Stuttgart, der burgerlichen Gesellschaft und die Gebildeten1974), 113-275; for more details see GIESEN, im 18. Jahrhundert (Weinheim-Basel, 1982),B., Die Intellektuellen und die Nation, op. cit., 322-328. Most of these arguments can already130-162. be found in GERTH, H., Burgerliche Intelligenz

(38) BRUNSCHWIG, H., Gesellschaft und urn 1800 (Gottingen, 1976).Romantik in Preufien im 18. Jahrhundert

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

patriotic press but in special journals, which were usually shortlived andhad an extremely restricted circulation (39).

Obviously the patriotic association with its straightforward moralorientation was not the appropriate forum for this exclusive and esotericform of communication. Instead, the institutional pattern of intellectualcommunication was the clique, the small informal group based on personalfriendship and personal communication (40).

These cliques of romantic literates however were not merely informalnetworks of personal communication but they cristallized around atranscendental idea of superiority: the 'religion' (Schleiermacher),'absolute poetry' (Novalis) or 'romantic irony' (Schlegel) (41). Theprogrammatic obligation of esoteric and demanding forms of discourseconveyed an exclusive and superior self-image and offered opportunitiesof detachment from mundane and ordinary life, that is from the worldof money and politics.

But this aesthetic detachment had political implications. The strictobservance of aesthetic principles and the aesthetic education of thenation was thought to be a cultural remedy to political problems (42).

The center of this aesthetic integration is the transcendental idea of'Volk' and Nation. The romantic idea of nation did not refer to the'superficial' reality of state and economy, but located the collectiveidentity in the transcendental realm of sublime essences and forces ofhistory. Because Volk and Nation are conceived as the eternal and sacredcenter beyond the fluidity of modern communication, these processes ofcommunication cannot touch them: an entirely new and detached formof communication is required in order to penetrate the opaque surface ofmodernity and to reveal the hidden core of history: the nation (43).

The nation is considered to be the sublime collective individual ofhistorical action, and by definition individuality cannot be compared

(39) HOCKS, P. / SCHMIDT, P., Literarische (Opladen, 1983), 174-209; HAHN, A., Kon-und politische Zeitschriften 1789-1805 (Stutt- sensfiktionen in Kleingruppen. Dargestellt amgait, 1975). Beispiel von jungen Ehen, in: ibid, 210-232.

(40) HESELHAUS, C , Die Romantische (41) HOFFMANN-AXTHELM, I., Geisterfami-Gruppe in Deutschland, in: BEHLER, E. (ed.), lie Studien zur Geselligkeit der FruhromantikDie europaische Romantik (Paderborn, 1974), (Frankfurt/M., 1973).44-161; GIESEN, B. / K. JONGE, Vom Patrio- (42) NIPPERDEY, T., Auf der Suche nachtismus zum Nationalismus. Zur Evolution der Idenn'ta't: Romantischer Nationalismus, in:Deutschen Kulturnationa, in: GIESEN, B. NIPPERDEY, T. Nachdenken uber die deutsche(ed.), Nationale und kulturelle Identildt Geschichte (Munchen, 1990), 132-150.(Frankfurt/M., 1991), 255-303; NEDELMANN, (43) Cf. e.g. AST, Fr., Mythologie alsB., Georg SIMMEL, Emotion und Wechsel- Nationaldichtung, in: KLUCKHOHN, P. (ed.),wirkung in intimen Gruppen, in: NEIDHARDT, Die Idee des Volkes im Schrijttum der deutschenF., (ed.), Gruppensoziologie. Perspektiven und Bewegung von Moser und Herder bis GrimmMaterialien, Sonderband 25 der Kolner Zeits- (Berlin, 1934), p. 63.chrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie

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and communicated on a general level. The individual essences of nationsare exempted from ordinary and mundane communication and it is thisvery fact that conveys to the nation a singular position: the categoricaland ultimate center of history (44).

This construction of a transcendental center allowed for a remarkableparallel between national and personal identity. In the same way as theeconomic situation of the romantic intellectuals didn't match theireducation and intellectual ambition, the political situation of the smallGerman states didn't correspond to the importance of Germany as aKulturnation. In the same way as the identity of intellectuals wasconstituted by their education and by their distance from the realm ofmoney and official careers, the German national identity was not to bebased on the particularities of political and economic interests but on theuniversalism of art and culture (45).

Beyond the surface, beyond the idle talk and the vain affairs a deeperand imperishable ground was proposed to guarantee the unity of society andthe identity of individuals. The transcendental identity was contrasted tothe mundane order, to the worldly affairs of politics and economy.

Both realms were irreconcilable spheres which nevertheless urgedforward to unity and synthesis. This synthesis was to be based on a pureand simple fundamental and it was to be accomplished by aestheticeducation overcoming the narrowmindedness of the economic ration-ality and political bargaining.

1.3. At first this transcendental conception of the nation was anexclusive code of the romantic intellectuals, but during the 'war ofliberation' against the French occupation the romantic idea of Volk andnation broke out of the intellectual ghetto and mobilized large parts of themiddle classes to join the rebellion against Napoleon. The follow-upperiod, between 1815 and 1848the restaurationprovided a new andexpanded social-structural basis for this idea of the nation. Not only theeducated public or esoteric cliques of intellectuals but also the petitebourgeoisie was inspired by this idea of the nation (46).

(44) For more details see GIESEN, B./ Kriegen bis zum 3. Reich (Frankfurt/M.-Berlin,JUNGE, K., op.cit., 1991, z86ff. 1976); DUDING, D., Organisierter gesellschaft-

(45) NIPPERDEY, T., PreuBen und die licher Nationalisms 1808-1847. Bedeutung undUniversitat, in: NIPPERDEY, T., Nachdenken Funktion der Turnerund Sdngervereine fur dieuber die deutsche Geschichte (Miinchen, 1990), deutsche Nationalbewegung (Miinchen, 1984);169-188; NIPPERDEY, T., Probleme der DUDING, D./FRIEDMANN, P./MUNCH, P. (eds),Modernisierung in Deutschland, in: ibid, 2-70. Qffentliche Festkultur. Politische Feste in

(46) MOSSE, G. L., Die Nationalisierung der Deutschland von der Aufkla'rung bis zum ErstenMassen. Politische Symbolik und Massenbewe- Weltkrieg (Hamburg, 1988); DANN, O.,gung in Deutschland von den napoleonischen Nationalismus und sozialer Wandel in

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In contrast to the romantic intellectuals (47) some of them likeGorres and Arndt were ardent leaders and supporters of the broadnational movement culminating in the big ceremonies of the HambacherFest and Wartburg-Festa new generation of writers, the jfungesDeutschland were repulsed by the beer-drinking and chanting national-ism of the petite bourgeoisie (48). (This group included Heine, Borne,Gutzkow, Biichner, Herwegh). They used irony and satirical poems todistance the preceding generation of romantic literates as well as the dullnationalism of the petite bourgeoisie and the authority of the restaurativestate, its censorship and repression. More important even than thisgroup of literates were the left Hegelian philosophers whose critical dis-tance from the social and political establishment was not basedon subjective and aesthetical detachment but on a 'scientific philos-ophy of history'. By applying dialectics, the fundamental forces and inevi-table stages of historical progress could be discovered behind the superficialviews and illusions of public and administrative reasoning (49).

Viewed from this situation of exile and distance, the clamour of thenational movement in Germany could only be the target of mockery andsatirical commentaries. German national identity should not be left to themiddle class and its trivial rituals, instead it had to be founded on thegenuine 'Volk'. Influenced by the French socialists, the critical intel-lectuals of the German restauration considered the lower classes to be the'Nation'a nation without language and national consciousness,oppressed by the state and waiting for intellectual advocates (50).

However, the lack of political resonance on the part of the lowerclasses didn't weaken the collective identity of these intellectuals; it evenreinforced this identity by maintaining the essential tension between thecultural critique on the one hand and the realm of politics and econ-omics on the other.

Deutschland 1806-1850, in DANN, O. (ed.), (49) LOWITH, K. (ed.), Die Hegebche Linke.Nationalisms und sozialer Wandel (Hamburg, Einleitung (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt, 1962),1978), 77-128. 7-38; MEYER, G., Die Anfange des politischen

(47) GIESEN, B., Die Intellektuellen und die Radikalismus im vormarzlichem PreuBen, in:Nation (Frankfurt/M., 1993), p. 168. MEYER, G. (ed.), Radikalismus, Sozialismus

(48) HOMBERG, W., Zeitgeist und Ideensch- und burgerliche Demokratie (Frankfurt/M.,muggel. Die Kommunikationsstrategie des Jun- 1969), 7-107; EBBACH, W., Die Junghegelianer.gen Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1975); KOSTER, U., Soziologie einer Intellektuellengruppe (Mvin-Literarischer Radikalismus. Zeitbewufitsein und chen, 1978).Geschichtsphilosophie in der Entwicklung vom (50) WENDE, P., Radikalismus im Vormarz.Jungen Deutschland zur Hegelschen Linken Untersuchungenzur politischen Theorie derfruhen(Frankfurt/M., 1972); KOSTER, \J.,Literaturund deutschen Demokratie (Wiesbaden, 1975). ForGesellschaft in Deutschland 1830-48. Dichtung the theorists of the'Weltgeist'in search of a his-am Ende der Kunstperiode (Stuttgart, 1984). torical agent see EBBACH, W., op. cit., 1978.


However, failing to mobilize the masses didn't mean that there wasno audience at all. On the contrary the new and growing group of teachers(of elementary schools) provided an eager followership to the project ofa democratic nation suggested by the writers oijunges Deutschland andthe left Hegelian intellectuals (51). These teachers found themselves in asituation similiar to the romantic intellectuals: economic misery contrastedwith high intellectual ambition. This time however the gap was notbridged by aesthetically referring to a transcendental realm; insteadpedagogical action was considered as the prime road to salvation.

Throughout the different historical scenarios outlined above, Ger-man national identity was constructed mainly by a cultural code. Thiscode is based on an essential tension between the profane sphere ofpolitics and economy and the sacred sphere of morals, aesthetics andculture. German identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is acontrafactual and transcendental one: an invisible nation is sharplyopposed to the mundane level of particular and superficial interests.Although this code of the German Kulturnation represents the culturalmode of constructing collective identity in an exemplary way, it has someelements of primordialty too. National identity is rooted in a particularmoral commitment or in a particular access to the transcendental realm,but this access cannot be easily transferred to anybody willing to acquireit. There are primordial limitations to the missionary zeal of theromantics to immerse the world into the depth of German thinking.Partaking in the spirit of the nation is based on education (Bildung) butthis is not achieved by simple pedagogy, but by referring to a languagelike a cultural home which cannot be substituted by another, by living inan ultimate reality of primordial myth and symbols, by a particularreference to a tradition, to ties which cannot be exchanged (52). Eventhe left Hegelians who admired the French nation for its revolutionarypolitics, considered the spirit of philosophy and reflexion to be a pri-mordial German property. Thus the cultural construction of Germannational identity is stabilized by tacitly assumed primordial elements.

Later constructions of German collective identity could refer to thisand change the focus from culture to primordiality: after the unificationof the German Reich by Bismarck some intellectuals constructed a

(51) NIPPEHDEY, T., Volksschule und dominated by the pluralistic vision of Herder,Revolution im Vormarz. Eine Fallstudie zur but in the different processes of trivialisationModernisierung II, in: NIPPERDEY, T., developed the much discussed 'germanism'.GeselUchqft, Kultur, Theorie (Gottingen, See KOHN, H., The Idea of Nationalism (New1976), 206-227. York, 1944).

(52) The discourse of the intellectuals was

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

collective identity of the Germans by a code of primordiality mixing upaesthetics and biology: 'Volk und Rasse' (53). Again this construction ofnational identity was carried by intellectuals and again it was opposed tothe 'superficial' and profane reality of the 'Kaiserreich' against indus-trialism and the expanding urban centers. The focus however shiftedfrom cultural to primordial constructions, the moral vision of societyproposed by the enlightened German patriots is entirely dismissed andreplaced by the post-moral idea of ethnic purity and racial distinction.Here the exclusion of strangers and outsiders is enforced and culturalinclusion is sacrificed. The very concept of culture is 'primordialized'and confined to the 'undeniable' roots of the Germanic 'Volk' whichwere to be defended against the polluting impact of the modernindustrial world. Cultural pessimism and antiindustrialism continuedthis particular blinding of cultural and primordial codes even incontemporary German thinking. In contrast to cultural and primordialcodes, civic codes have never been prevalent in the constructions ofGerman identity.

2. Japan: principled primordiality

2.1 The Japanese collective identity is markedly different from thatwhich developed in either Europe or the United States (54). It is aboveall characterized by principled primordiality, in combination with someweaker elements of civility.

This conception of collective identity crystallized relatively early(probably in the 8th century) out of Japan's encounter with othersocieties or civilizationsespecially the Chinese one, but to some extentalso the Korean oneand with Axial civilizations (Buddhism andConfucianism) with their universalistic premises.

The strong impact of these 'external' universalistic religions orcivilizationsalready of Confucianism and Buddhism in the 8th cen-tury, of Neo-Confucianism in the Tokugawa period, and of Westernideologies from late Tokugawa throughout the modern and contem-porary erashas continuously loomed large and provided a continuouschallenge to the definition of the Japanese collectivity, especially inrelation to other collectivities and broader civilizational frameworks (55).

(53) MOSSE, G.L., The Crisis of German (54) The following analysis is based on S.N.Ideology (New-York, 1964); STERN, F., The Eisenstadt's Japanese Civilization-A Compa-Politicsqf Cultural Despair. A Study in the Rise rative View (University of Chicago Press,of Germanic Ideology (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1995) (forthcoming).1961). (55) KITAGAWA, J.M., On Understanding

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However, the outcome of Japan's encounters with Axial civilizationswas a code of collective identity which was certainly distinct, for in-stance, from the Korean or Vietnamese onesboth of which also cameunder heavy Buddhist and Confucian pressure. Unlike in the lattercases, where the 'local', identities were, in principle at least, subsumedunder the broader Confucian and Buddhist ones, Japan reacted to thisencounter by a principled denial of these universalistic orientations, andthe concomitant principled emphasis on primordial elements (56).

2.2 The first encounter of Japan with Buddhism, in about the 7th or8th century, already transformed the older kingship into a particularisticliturgical community rooted in the older 'Shinto' conceptions. Thesubsequent reformulations of the nature of this community have onlystrenghtened the core conception. This conception of collective identitycrystallized into what Joseph Kitagawa has described as an imma-nentist-theocratic model in which the idea of a liturgical community(which to some extent could also be found in China) became combinedwith strong soteriological-immanentist components, and with theconception of sacral kinship. This sacrality was markedly different fromthe sacrality of universalistic cultural codes; it was confined to and tiedto a particular person.

The formulation of such conceptions already entailed the relati-vely early formulation, in the Heian period, which had combinedsuch definitions of the national community with a view of Japan as adivine nation (Shinkoku)a nation under the protection of the de-itiesa conception which developed in close relation to the elaborationand promulgation of what could be defined as Shinto and of Imperialritual.

This conception of a nation under the protection of the deitiesdiffered from the Jewish conception of a chosen nation, for instance, andits later transformation in Christianity. This conception of a divinenation, while it obviouly emphasized the sacrality and uniqueness of theJapanese nation, did not characterize its uniqueness in terms of atranscendental and universalistic missionas was the case in themonitheistic religions and civilizations. In Japan, such particularity didnot entail the conception of a responsibility to God to behave accordingto precepts or commitments (57).

Japanese Religion (Princeton N.J., Princeton sity Press, 1991). See also J.M. KITAGAWA, OnUniversity Press, 1987). Understanding Japanese Religion, op. cit.

(56) ROZMAN, G. (ed.), The East Asian (57) WAIDA, M., Buddhism and theReligion, Confucian Heritage and its Modern National Community, in: REYNOLDS, F.E. /Adoption (Princeton N.J., Princeton Univer- LUDWIG, T.M. (eds), Transactions and Trans-

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The Japanese conception of collectivity also stands in rather markedcontrast to the way in which tendencies to the sanctification of Sri Lankahave developed in Buddhist terms. As Michael Carrithers has put it: '...In other words, no Buddhism without the Sangha, and no Sanghawithout the Discipline. And indeed Sinhalese historians, who werealways monks, tended to addno Sri Lanka without Buddhism' (58).

The development of this particular Japanese conception is one of themost important illustrations of the 'nativization' of Confucianism andBuddhism in Japana nativization which entailed the immanentizationand particularization of the strong transcendental and universalisticorientations of Buddhism and Confucianism (59).

2.3 A very interesting manifestation or derivative of this Japaneseconception of particularity was the very strong tendency in JapaneseBuddhism to sanctify locality, as can for instance be seen in the way inwhich a specific mountain or region in the Kunisaki peninsula, 'tex-tualized' in the interpretation of the Lotus Sutra in the nineteenthcentury (60). In most such cases the sanctification of any locality was

formations in the History of Religions (London,E.J. Bailly, 1980). See also BLACKER, C , TWOShinto Myths: The Golden Age and theChosen people, in HENNY, C. and LEHMAN,J.-P. (eds), Themes and Theories in modernJapanese History (Atlantic Highlands, N.J,Athlone Press, 1995), 64-78; and WERBLOWSKI,J.R., Beyond Tradition and Modernity (AtlanticHighlands, N.J, Athlone Press, 1976).

(58) CARRITHERS, M., They will be Lordsupon the Islands: Buddhism in Sri Lanka, in:BECHERT, H. / GOMBRICH, R. (eds), The Worldof Buddhism (London, Thames & Hudson,1984, 1991), p. 11; see also KAPFERER, B.,Legends of People, Myths of State-Violence,Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lankaand Australia (Washington D. C , The Smith-sonian Institute, 1984), esp. part I.

(59) NAKAMURA, H., Ways of thinking ofEastern people (Honolulu, East-West CenterPress, 1964).

(60) A. Grappard's analysis is very perti-nent here: 'Of the many techniques that wererecommended for copying the Lotus Sutra,that which was called nyobokyo, or 'Naturaltext', enjoined one to refrain from using ananimal-hair brush and to use instead grass andplants as brush, stones as ink, and to bow aftereach graph was copied, so that the naturalcharacter of the tools that were used would fitthe natural character of the scripture that was

copied. These epistemological directions ledthem to postulate that natural sounds were thesermon of the Buddha, and that the naturalworld was the body of Buddha. This 'epistemeof identity' led them to manage a natural areain accordance with a vision which held that theLotus Sutra was embodied in the mountain,and that the mountain was a 'natural discourse'expounding the Lotus Sutra. In other words,their perception of the world was already asophisticated interpretation that was doctri-nally related to the Tendai motto to the effectthat 'all animate and inanimate beings possessthe buddha nature', and to the proposition that'inanimate beings can expound the doctrine ofthe Buddha'. '... Foucault stipulates that theworld, by means of this interplay of resem-blances and likenesses, was as if forced toremain "identical", in an identity in which"the same remains the same, riveted ontoitself. The world was filled with "signatures"in which similitudes could be recognized ... Asystematic study of combinatory cults supportsthis claim, and Kunisaki is a case in pointbecause of its relation to the Hachiman cult. Itis important to note that the apparent lack ofdistinction between religious and politicalrealms in Japan means simply that Japanesesociety had a mythical vision of itself: firstexpressed in the Kojiki and in the Nihogi in theeighth century, it served as a structuring

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usually limited to that locality as the bearer of the more general, uni-versal values. In Japan it was often extended to the whole country.

The sanctification of distinct places also developed within Buddhism,as in other countries, for instance in India where the Kailari, the sourceof the four rivers, was considered to be Mt. Meru, or in Tibet where allsnow mountains were sacred. In Japan such a tendency moved easilyinto the identification of any such sacral place with the country as such.The sanctification of Mt. Fuji, especially in later medieval Tokugawaand to some extent also in the Meiji period, not only as a symbol of Japanbut also as the symbol of overcoming the foreign, is very indicative.

2.4 This conception of particularity was closely related to some ofthe characteristics of the major Kulturtraeger in Japannamely theirbeing relatively non-autonomous, embedded in frameworks and co-alitions defined in some primordial (often kinship) terms.

Many cultural actorspriests, monks, scholars, and the like, and inthe modern age, specialists and scientistsparticipated in such coali-tions. But with very few exceptions, their participation was defined inprimordial or liturgical terms; in terms of achievement set within suchsettings and of social obligations according to which these coalitionswere structured. Only secondarily was such participation structuredaccording to any distinct, autonomous criteria rooted in or related to thearenas of cultural specialization in which they were active. Or, in otherwords while many special social spaces and frameworks, in which thespecialized cultural activities were undertaken, were continuouslyconstituted and reconstructed, the overall cultural arenas were notdefined as distinct ones, autonomous from the broader social sec-tors (61).

device of the sacred geographies that devel- relating the birth of fire, in which all the kamioped thereafter. In that vision, society and the born before the birth of fire belong to theworld were conceived of as single sociocosm in realm of nature whereas all the kami born afterwhich the pantheon of kami and its hierarchy belong to the realm of culture'. A. G. GRAP-were a mirror-image of the social construct PARD, The Textualized MountainEnmoun-and a mirror-image of the Buddhist pantheon. tained Text: the Lotus Sutra, in: TANABE, S.J.Furthermore, the world in which people lived and TANABE, W.J. (eds), The Lotus Sutra inwas thought to be impacted by symbolic forces Japanese Culture (Honolulu, U. of Hawaii(such as those of stars or of diseases believed to Press, 1984), 159-191.originate in symbolic realms). In such a (61) F. Hsu, Iemoto (New York, ] . Wiley,scheme the position of ritual was central, 1973); NAKANE, Ch., Japanese Society (Lon-because people used it as an effective means to don, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970); Y.act over symbols. What one could qualify as MURAKAMI, The Society as a Pattern ofthe cosmonatural aspect of the sociocosm was Civilization, Journal of Japanese Studies, 10, 2the definition of nature according to myth- (1984), 279-364; R.J. SMITH, Japanese Society,ology. That definition is clearly, though in- Self and the Social Order (Cambridge, Cam-directly, given in the Kqjiki in the myth bridge University Press, 1981).

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Accordingly, the religious and intellectual elites, while often engagedin very sophisticated cultural activities and discourse, evinced littleautonomy in the social and political realm, i.e. as actors upholdingvalues and orientations not embedded in existing social frameworks, butenunciated and articulated by them, and according to which they arerecruited.

It was this embedding of the cultural elites in broader social settings,defined in primordial and often hierarchical terms, that made it verydifficult, as can be seen in the mode of Japanization of Confucianismand Buddhism, as well as of Western influences, for universalisticcriteria based on a transcendental vision, stressing the existence of achasm between the transcendental and mundane orders, or on func-tional specialization, to become predominant in the major arenas ofaction. Such orientations and criteria tended to become subsumed underthe various primordial ones.

It was because of these characteristics of the major Kulturtraegerthat the particularistic conception usually held its own even whenconfronted with universalistic ideologiesbe they Buddhist, Confucian,or, in recent times, various modern onesliberal, constitutional, pro-gressivist, Marxist, or the likeall of which seemingly called for aredefinition of the symbols of collective identity in some universalisticdirections.

Of course Japanese intellectuals sometimes attempt to redefine theJapanese collectivity in more universal terms and to imbue it withuniversalistic and transcendental dimensions, but such redefinition didnot strike roots in the Japanese collective consciousness. There was littleresponse from wider sectors of society where some version of theliturgical, primordial, 'natural' collectivity ultimately prevailed.

A similar closely related pattern developed with respect to thedefinition of the relations of the Japanese collectivity to other collec-tivities. Many Japanese intellectuals, elites or influential also acutelysensed the necessity to define the relation of the Japanese nation tootherespecially the Chineseand later in the nineteenth und twen-tieth centuries to the Western civilizations and to religious and culturalmovements. The conceptions of the Japanese collectivity that developedin such periods entailed very intensive orientation to 'others'China,India, the West, and an awareness of others, encompassing civilizationsclaiming some universal validity. This awareness constituted a centralcontinuous focus of Tokugawa Neo-Confucian discourse (62). Such

(62) Nosco, P., Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (Princeton, Princeton University Press,1984).

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orientations, however, did not give rise to a conception of the Japanesecollectivity as part of such broader civilizational frameworks, structuredaccording to the universalistic premises prevalent in them. Japan wasnot seen as one, even if possibly a central, component of such a uni-versalistic framework. At most, these orientations entailed the assertionthat the Japanese collectivity embodied the pristine values enunciated bythe other civilizations and which were wrongfully appropriated by themor attributed to them.

Thus for instance many Japanese scholars claimed that it is inJapanor at least not in Chinathat the pristine Confucian vision ofthe sage (as promulgated by Confucius and Mencius) was realized. Theyshowed that the very institutionalization of Confucianism in a state-bureaucratic mold could perhaps be seen as a perversion of this original,pristine idealwhich was to some extent also to be found among someof the Chinese Neo-Confucians.

Such claims about the superiority of Japan, claims that the Japanesecollectivity embodies the pristine virtues proclaimed by 'foreign' uni-versalistic religions were promulgated especially under the Meiji, oftentogether with claims for Japanese hegemony on the: East Asian scene.But again these claims did not entertain the possibility that Japan wasonepossibly the leadingcountry in terms of the transcendental anduniversalistic orientation in which all the others could equally partici-pate. Rather, these claims were based on the assumption thatas wasalready promulgated by the schools of nativistic learning under theTokugawait was the primordial character of the Japanese collectivitythat represented these universal pristine values (63).

This conception of particularity provided the background to thedifferent 'schools' of Japanese uniqueness as they developed in themodern periode.g. in the emphasis on the uniqueness of Japaneselanguage, race or culture in the later development of Nihonjiron litera-ture.

This conception veered even between on the one hand a strongemphasis on the incomparable uniqueness of Japan, often in thedirection of rabid nationalismand on the other hand the claim that theJapanese people or culture embodied the pristine values promulgated byall humanity (64).

(63) K. Wildman NAKAI, The Naturaliz- Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (Prince-ation of Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan: The ton, Princeton University Press, 1984).Problem of Sinocentrism, Harvard Journal of (64) A very interesting illustration of theAsian Studies, Vol. 40 (1980), 157-199; P. persistence of such conceptions of the JapaneseNosco, Introduction: Neo-Confucianism and collectivity can be found in the attitude toTokugawa DiscourseAn Idea, in: P. Nosco, Marxism of some very distinguished Japanese

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One crucial derivative of such a definition of the Japanese collectivitywas the impossibility of becoming Japanese by conversion. TheBuddhist sects or Confucian schoolsthe most natural candidates forchannels of conversioncould not serve as such in Japan. True enough,in the pre-Heian period and in later times Koreans as well as othergroups became assimilated into the different regional Japanese settings.But these earlier experiences of assimilation did not entail a 'conversion'or principled acceptance into a common collective entity sharing aspecific transcendent vision. When more articulated conceptions of suchcollective consciousness developed in modern times, they tended toexclude even the possibility of such assimilationas the fate of Koreansin contemporary Japan attests.

2.5 Civility constituted the second component of the Japanese col-lective identity. But the emphasis on civility did not entail the recog-nition of civility as an autonomous dimension, but rather in term of itscontribution to the collectivity denned mostly in primordial terms. Thecentral focus of civility that developed in Japan was that of loyalty. Itwas closely related to that of the legitimation of political authority andaccountability of rulers as they developed in Japanboth of whichentailed a far-reaching transformation of the Confucian conceptionsthereof.

The 'original' Confucian conceptions of political authority, of itslegitimation and of the accountability of rulers, prevalent in China andlater transferred also to Korea or Vietnam, underwent a far-reachingtransformationvery much in line with the conception of kingship andimmanentist theocracy analyzed above (65). One of the central foci ofsuch transformation was the encounter with the Chinese concepts ofauthority, especially with the concept of the 'mandate of Heaven', whichbecame a focus of very intensive intellectual and ideological discussionin the Tokugawa period. This discourse touched on the central core ofpolitical ideology, on the conceptions of legitimation, of rulership, and

leftist intellectuals in the 20th century. In or essence. Cf. HOSTON, G.A., A 'Theology' ofcommon with many Chinese intellectuals of Liberation? Socialist Revolution and Spiritualsuch disposition, the Japanese ones like Regeneration in Chinese and Japanese Mar-Kotuku or Kawakawi Hajime attempted to xismt in: COHEN, P. A. and GOLDMAN, M.de-emphasize the 'materialistic' dimension of (eds), Ideas Across Cultures-Essays on ChineseMarxism and infuse them with 'spiritual' Thought in Honor of Benjamin J. Schwartzvalues, with values of spiritualistic regener- (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,ation. But while most of such Chinese intel- 1990), 165-194.lectuals tended to emphasize the transcen- (65) See also ROZMAN (ed.), The East Asiandental and universalistic themes of 'classical' Region, Confucian Heritage and its ModernConfucianism, the Japanese ones emphasized Adoption, op. cit.the 'kokutai', the Japanese national community

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of the accountability of rulers, minimizing the principled accountabilityof rulers and the transcendental and universalistic dimensions orprinciples of legitimation, emphasizing instead loyalty to the Em-peror (66).... If one were to sum up in a single statement the main quality of loyalism in its firstthree phases, one would say that loyalists used the figure of the emperor rather tojustify than to undermine the institutions under which they lived. The emperorsymbolized the legitimacy of the state, and hence national unity, continuity, andstability. Furthermore, he symbolized the morality of subjects, without regard for thespecifics of an individual's moral duty. More and more he became to connote themoral duties that transcended particularistic bonds of obligation between persons.When the loyalist message was addressed to ordinary people, the result was to affirmthe primacy of that highest particularism, the loyalty of a man to his country (67).

The full impact of this concept of loyalty in Japan can be bestunderstood in the discussion about the relation between loyalty to one'sfather on the one hand and to one's lord on the other. The problem ofthe relative priority of filial piety as against loyalty to one's lord indeedconstituted one of the major problems of intellectual debate among theneo-Confucian scholars in their confrontations with the 'nativistic'school, as well as with Chinese Confucian scholars. In both countriesthere were far-reaching disputes around this problem and differentopinions were voiced, but among the Neo-Confucians in China thetendency was to emphasize filial duty.

Some Japanese scholars opted for the classical Chinese-Confucianemphasis on filial pietywhich was justified in terms of a transcendentalevaluation of the place of the family. But most of them stressed thepriority of loyaltyto the family, to the head of the family, to the lord,and ultimately to the Emperoror, in other words, to the existing socialnexus. This emphasis on loyalty to one's lord was also closely related tothe acceptance in Japan of non-agnatic adoptioni.e. of the possibilityof adopting as sons people who had no blood or kinship relation to theadopting family (68). While the practice of such adoption seems to havebeen rather widespread in various sectors of Chinese society, it was on

(66) As P. Nosco has put it: 'For example, era', in: Introduction, op. cit. (1984).in a Confucian-inspired history of Japan, (67) Hsu, F., Filial Piety in Japan andHayasi Razan's (1583-1657) son, Hayuashi China: Borrowing Variations and Significance,Gtraho (1618-1680) cast Tokugawa Yesaka in Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Springthe classical guise of the newly appointed 1971, 57-74; WEBB, H.F., The Japaneserecipient of the mandate of heaven, equipping Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Periodhim both morally and spiritually for the task of (New York, Columbia University Press, 1968).human rulership. However, the obverse side of (68) MCMULLEN, I.J., Rulers or Fathers? Athis issuethat heaven might withdraw its Casuistical Problem in early modern Japanesemandate from any specific regimewas of Thought, Past and Present, No 116, Aug.necessity skirted by all Tokugawa Confucian 1987, 56-98.thinkers until the very last years of Tokugawa

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the whole seen by Chinese Neo-Confucian scholars as wrongun-dermining the very basis of the conception of Chinese family andkinship and of ancestor worship.

At the same time such loyalty, focused on the 'lord'up to theEmperorand on the group or collectivity of which individuals formeda part or with the fate of which they were embroiled, could not bequestioned, contrary to what was the case in China, in terms of someuniversalistic principles borne by a higher, transcendental authority; norwas the lord's authority legitimized by such principles. The nativisticscholars presented the very possibility of such questioning as anathemato the Japanese spirit or culture (69).

True enough, this very reformulation of the concept of loyaltycontained within itself strong p

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