Japan is known as a very conservative and homogenous nation. For instance, only 1% of the population in Japan is immigrants, which means the majority of people (98.5%) are racially and ethnically categorized as Japanese. Furthermore, approximately 84 % of the population is Shinto and Buddhist (O’Neil, 2013, pp. 260-261). Such Japan’s homogeneity is a legacy of the closed policy or xenophobic isolation. Since the late seventeenth century, Japan took the closed policy over 200 years because Japanese political elites had fear of Christian missionaries’ influence from the West; Christianity was not compatible with Japan’s political aim to concentrate power at the top. This closed policy led to Japan’s extremely limited interaction with other countries and non-Japanese people (O’Neil, 2013, p. 261). In other words, such a peculiar policy helped Japan to create its homogeneity and the unity based on strong blood-tie. Furthermore, developed the caste system beginning in the Edo era (Benedict, 1946, p. 57). Japanese people were divided into four social classes of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants in the Edo period. The outcaste group’s people called Burakumin” also “the should be mentioned. Burakumin” were forced to engage in detestable works such as “The burying the executed dead bodies and skinning dead animals. They were treated and discriminated against in the similar way as in India, and they are still suffering “untouchables” from severe discrimination even today (Howell, 1996, p. 179). The existence of different tribes such as the Ainu and Okinawan, and the ingrained caste system including the outcastes, created a primitive sense of superiority in the Japanese people. This primordialism led to the strong sense of supremacy and blood ties between pure Japanese people. The myth of racial supremacy played a key role in creating Japan’s exclusive social system based on the blood-tie. Shintoism and its Emphasis on Blood-Tie
Japan is known as a very conservative and homogenous nation. For instance, only 1% of the population in Japan is immigrants, which means the majority of people (98.5%) are racially and ethnically categorized as Japanese. Furthermore, approximately 84 % of the population is Shinto and Buddhist (O’Neil, 2013, pp. 260-261). Such Japan’s homogeneity is a legacy of the closed policy or xenophobic isolation. Since the late seventeenth century, Japan took the closed policy over 200 years because Japanese political elites had fear of Christian missionaries’ influence from the West; Christianity was not compatible with Japan’s political aim to concentrate power at the top. This closed policy led to Japan’s extremely limited interaction with other countries and non-Japanese people (O’Neil, 2013, p. 261). In other words, such a peculiar policy helped Japan to create its homogeneity and the unity based on strong blood-tie. Furthermore, developed the caste system beginning in the Edo era (Benedict, 1946, p. 57). Japanese people were divided into four social classes of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants in the Edo period. The outcaste group’s people called “the Burakumin” also should be mentioned. “The Burakumin” were forced to engage in detestable works such as burying the executed dead bodies and skinning dead animals. They were treated and discriminated against in the similar way as “untouchables” in India, and they are still suffering from severe discrimination even today (Howell, 1996, p. 179). The existence of different tribes such as the Ainu and Okinawan, and the ingrained caste system including the outcastes, created a primitive sense of superiority in the Japanese people. This primordialism led to the strong sense of supremacy and blood ties between pure Japanese people. The myth of racial supremacy played a key role in creating Japan’s exclusive social system based on the blood-tie. Shintoism and its Emphasis on Blood-Tie
WPSA%20Conference%20Paper%202017.docx