Culture or Bunka? What Is the Real Difference Between Japanese and Western Culture
What is the real difference between Japanese culture and Western culture? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, answers that bunka and "culture" are not equal: Japanese has neither subject nor copula, so bunka is action in everyday life rather than an object one makes, and there is no word for counterculture. Not a theory of national character: a reading from grammar, for readers in their 20s and 30s.
Bunka and culture are not equal
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Culture is something you do, not something you have, 2024-12-19): in Japan bunka and "culture" (karucha) are two quite different things; the imported concept came not from the English word but from the German Kultur.
Lately I have come to think that, in Japan, bunka and "culture" (written in katakana as karucha, カルチャー) are two quite different things.
Since 1868, when Japan's modernization began, the Japanese term bunka has been assigned as the translation for the imported concept of "culture," and has been used that way down to the present day. The source of that imported concept was not the English word "culture," however, but the German Kultur.
A language with no subject, no self
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Culture is something you do, not something you have, 2024-12-19): a language with no subject has no subjectivity, no ego, no "I", so it is difficult to discuss Japan solely through concepts that presuppose a subject.
For a language to have no subject means that there is no subject, no subjectivity, no ego, no self, no "I."
Bunka is action in everyday life
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Culture is something you do, not something you have, 2024-12-19): in culture, content is formed by the will of a subject; in bunka there is no context to begin with, and it is born from what everyone does in daily life.
In "culture," context is emphasized, and the content generated from it is regarded as something formed by the will of a subject. In bunka, however, there is no context to begin with, and therefore not even the concept of content generated out of it.
Here the Japanese who came before us on these islands created not "culture," but bunka—and naturally they had no subjective awareness that they were "practicing culture," for it was simply action in everyday life.
Because bunka is born from what everyone actually does in daily life, when we in later ages look back at history with our heads we can certainly point to specific techniques or ideas, yet doing so is never more than an arbitrary retrospective reading and cannot be generalized across history.
Borrowed forms, an older ground
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Borrowed culture, older ground, 2025-01-07): the Asuka period brought the deliberate Japanization of Chinese culture, and a millennium, however long it feels, is short against the whole of Japan's history.
Thus, during the Asuka period, a decisive current emerged: the deliberate Japanization of Chinese culture.
To put it in contemporary terms, much as people say that "when America sneezes, Japan catches a cold," a relationship of this very kind existed toward China since antiquity.
To us, a millennium feels like an immense expanse of time; viewed in historical perspective, however, the facts hardly support the notion that Japanese culture was overwhelmingly dependent on China.
The same difference in ink
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Subject culture, predicate culture (I), 2025-01-09): the Chinese tradition placed the brush at the center of a culture of the subject, and Japanese ink painters honed and radicalized the breakthrough toward a predicate culture.
By inverting this relationship, Japan opened the way for a purely predicate-oriented expression.
The key lies not in technical nuances, but in recognizing the divergence of underlying linguistic structures.
What a visitor can feel
Takahiro Mitsui's proposal (Culture is something you do, not something you have, 2024-12-19): look back on your experiences in Japan from this vantage point, and a new realm invisible until now opens.
If readers look back on their experiences in Japan once more from this vantage point, a new realm invisible until now will surely open before them.
My hope is that there you will discover Japan to the full.
Why does the folk craft movement feel hollow when you visit its museum?
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (Praise can erase what it praises, 2024-12-21): at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo he felt the contemporary condition of people searching for a lost heat, and read the mingei movement's defeat as a confusion of bunka with culture.
Not long ago, I went to the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. Even though it was a weekday and the museum sits some distance from the station, I was struck by the steady stream of visitors arriving one after another. Behind that crowd, I could feel our contemporary condition: people searching for a "lost heat."
Yet when you visit the museum Yanagi left behind nearly a hundred years later, it becomes clear that the mingei movement suffered a profound defeat.
Where did his theory of mingei go wrong? My reading is that he confused bunka (文化) with "culture."
What is wabi-sabi really about?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Praise can erase what it praises, 2024-12-21): mingei was created within the predicate-centered world of a language without a subject; bunka has no completion, it abides in an eternal instant, and what is lost along the way is simply lost.
True to the word muso, there is no fixed will of a subject there. Mingei was created within the predicate-centered world of the Japanese language, which has no grammatical subject. That is the essence of bunka, as distinct from "culture."
Bunka has no completion; it abides always in an eternal instant.
What is lost along the way is simply lost—and in that lies the heart of wabi-sabi (侘び寂び).
What happens to everyday crafts when they are put in a museum?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Praise can erase what it praises, 2024-12-21): because the theory imported the concept of culture, mingei was swallowed by the commodity market and reduced to exhibits cut off from human touch.
Tragically, because this became the foundation of mingei theory, mingei was swallowed up in no time by the commodity market. As a result, in direct contradiction to Yanagi's own argument, mingei objects were placed on display in museums, cut off from human touch behind glass cases, and reduced to mere exhibits stripped of their practical use in everyday life.
What existence can mingei possibly have when stripped of the grime of hands and the feel of touch?
How old is the idea of tradition in Japan?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Praise can erase what it praises, 2024-12-21): the concept of tradition came into general use in Japan only in the 1920s and has nothing to do with bunka; the mingei movement was shaped by the climate of Taisho democracy.
To begin with, the very concept of "tradition" in Japan was a new word that came into general use only in the 1920s, and it has nothing whatever to do with bunka.
Behind his effort to seek an equal footing between the official and the popular through mingei lay the influence of "Taisho Democracy," a major current in Japan at the time.
Who was Serizawa Keisuke and how did he differ from Yanagi Soetsu?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Praise can erase what it praises, 2024-12-21): Yanagi's argument sees neither place nor the people living there; the one who broke through his limit was the stencil-dyeing artist Keisuke Serizawa.
There lay Yanagi's limit; the one who broke through it was the stencil-dyeing artist Keisuke Serizawa (1895–1984), who was close to Yanagi.
Yanagi's argument does not stand on the side of bunka; it sees neither place nor the people living their lives there.
Essays to read
- Culture is something you do, not something you have — Why is Japan so different? Culture is not an idea made by a subject but something done each day, Takahiro Mitsui holds: Japanese has neither a subject nor a copula, and no word for counterculture.
- Borrowed culture, older ground — What are the roots of Japanese culture, and did it come from China? A borrowed culture rests on ground older than the borrowing, Takahiro Mitsui holds: what arrived from China, who received it at court, and what Japan did with it.
- Subject culture, predicate culture (I) — What is the difference between Chinese and Japanese ink painting? In China the brush serves a culture of the subject, in Japan ink serves a culture of the predicate, Takahiro Mitsui argues of the two traditions.
- Control by polite request — How does Japan control people without force? Mutual watching and polite requests keep Japan orderly without force, Takahiro Mitsui explains, and one misstep can be the end.
- Praise can erase what it praises — Why does the folk craft movement feel hollow when you visit its museum? For anyone who admires folk craft, Takahiro Mitsui visits Tokyo's Folk Crafts Museum and finds that praise can feed the power that erases what it praises.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday