The Idea Of A Japanese National Culture - Essay Example

The Idea Of A Japanese National Culture The Japanese culture is characterized by a common religion or the aspects of communism, and individualism. The former is attributed to China awhile the later is attributed to India. These aspects work together to identify the people of the Asian community as a people who are united and bonded together by the cultural fundamentals. On a similar note, it is realizable that the Asian community integrated well under the auspice of their original art and art language which identifies the community among other races.

This notion or set of beliefs finds Okakura in an inappropriate position of agreeing with the sentiments and instead Okakura in his opinion believes that the unity embraced by the Asian community is associated with the foreigner’s colonization and not the Asian beliefs. He finds it hard to accept that the Asian unity is of purpose and not circumstantial. The Japanese idea of unity attributed to the religion and art is relative to the whole Asian community however Okakura believes that at no single moment the Asian community practiced the natural relative to the fundamental values.

They only came together because they needed to protect interests. Whereas the Japanese National culture is immensely attributed to the sense of self and collective creativity in all sectors which has made it grow to its present state, Okakura believes that Japan and its people depend on the products of imitation. In term of language the people of Japan have imitated the western languages and adopted them in their daily lives. In addition, the Japanese and Asian art is slowly loosing meaning since the western attributes such as design; texture and sense of communication among others have been integrated into the original Japanese culture and this has neutralized the originality of Japanese and Asian culture at large.

This integration makes Okakura thinks and perceives the relationship between the national culture of Japan and Asia at large as imitated and not original as the people of Japan claim. In his opinion Okakura believes that the Confucianism in China and the Toyotomi and early Tokugawa period in Japan formed the originality of the National Japanese and Asian culture and not religion. On the other hand, the aspect of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere which was perceived by majority of the Asian community as a weapon of trouncing modernity which was attributed to the modern state and industrialization (Kakuzō, 34).

However, according to Okakura, this front came as an instrument that could see majority of the Asian nations lose their independence. This ideology was able to wash away the Japanese imperialism which is believed as an attribute of Japanese’s national culture. Work citedOkakura, Kakuzō. The Ideals of the East: With Special Reference to the Art of Japan. Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2007. Internet resource.