Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and The Sword: Chapters 1–3

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Ruth Benedict's study of Japanese culture, wartime behavior, and social hierarchy in The Chrysanthemum and The Sword.

Ruth Benedict

An American cultural anthropologist assigned in June, 1944, to study Japan from a distance using anthropological techniques, cultural comparisons, and Japanese informants in the United States.

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

A dual symbol representing the stark contradictions of Japanese culture, which encompasses both refined aestheticism (the chrysanthemum) and warrior militarism (the sword).

Suye Mura

The only anthropological field study of a Japanese village available to Ruth Benedict in 1944, authored by anthropologist John Embree.

Tanaka San

The colloquial Japanese counterpart to the American "man in the street," representing an average person whose internalized habits and judgments reflect national cultural patterns.

Tough-mindedness

The anthropological stance that accepts, respects, and studies cultural differences rather than attempting to view all human societies as fundamentally uniform or like-minded.

"Proper Station"

The foundational Japanese principle of social order and international affairs based on an explicit, accepted hierarchy rather than Western notions of equality and absolute sovereignty.

Greater East Asia Policy

Japan's wartime concept of establishing a regional international hierarchy in which Japan, as the "elder brother," would lead and guide other Asian nations like China.

General Araki

A Japanese militarist and former Minister of War in the 1930s who insisted that Japan's primary mission was to spread the Imperial Way, emphasizing faith in spirit over material strength.

Kamikaze Corps

Japanese suicide pilot units named after the "divine wind" that dispersed and destroyed Genghis Khan's invasion fleet in the thirteenth century.

Dai Nippon Physical Culture Society

An organization that broadcast body-warming calisthenics during World War II, claiming that physical discipline and spiritual willpower could substitute for heating, bedding, and food.

Takamori Saigo

A nineteenth-century Japanese warrior whose maxim on creating opportunities during times of great difficulty was cited in the Diet by the Navy Minister during World War II.

Imperial Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors

Sacred precepts delivered directly by the Japanese Emperor to the armed forces, which troops ritually chanted every morning and evening even while enduring enemy bombardment.

Imperial Rule Assistance Association

Japan's totalitarian wartime party whose leaders and former Diet members held panels discussing civilian morale, war policy, and the suppression of free speech.

"Damaged Goods"

A Japanese conceptual view applied to damaged equipment, rescued ships, the sick, and prisoners of war, reflecting a cultural disdain for salvage, safety precautions, and surrender.

Colonel Harold W. Glattly

The former chief medical officer of the Philippines who observed during his internment on Formosa that Allied prisoners received superior medical treatment compared to Japanese soldiers.

No-surrender Policy

The rigid Japanese military ethos that bound honor to death in combat or suicide, causing captured soldiers to consider themselves irrevocably disgraced and dead to their former lives.

North Burma Campaign Casualty Ratio

A military engagement demonstrating the no-surrender code, in which the ratio of captured Japanese soldiers to dead was $142$ to $17,166$, or approximately $1:120$.

Hollandia

The Pacific battle site where, for the first time in the war, an appreciable group of Japanese soldiers surrendered to Allied forces at a ratio of $1:5$.

Tripartite Pact of 1940

The alliance between Japan, Germany, and Italy whose preamble explicitly stated that lasting peace required enabling every nation of the world to receive its "proper station."

Respect Language

The grammatical system of vocabulary, prefixes, and verb stems in Japanese utilized to express exact degrees of social distance, relative status, and hierarchal deference.

Inkyo

The formal retirement of a Japanese household head, before which grown children and heirs cannot execute major transactions without the elder's consent.

Kuge

The hereditary court nobles surrounding the Emperor in Kyoto who possessed ritual status but lacked secular political and military power during the feudal centuries.

Shogun

The hereditary military generalissimo (literally "Barbarian-subduing Generalissimo") who held actual administrative and military rule over feudal Japan in the name of the Emperor.

Yoritomo Minamoto

The twelfth-century military leader who defeated rival feudal lords, consolidated rule, and established the title of Shogun as a hereditary office in the Minamoto family.

Tokugawa Ieyasu

The first Shogun of the House of Tokugawa, who ended endemic civil wars in 1603 and established two and a half centuries of centralized, rigid feudal governance.

Outside Lords

Daimyos who fought against Tokugawa Ieyasu in the civil war; permitted local autonomy in their fiefs but excluded from central government vassalage and administrative posts.

Inside Lords

Daimyos who had supported Tokugawa Ieyasu during the civil war and were entrusted with high administrative offices and the formal status of direct vassals.

Eta

The hereditary outcast group in feudal Japan who worked in ritually defiling trades such as tanning, butchering, and burial, regarded socially as untouchable and legally uncounted.

Sword Hunt

The late sixteenth-century decree by Hideyoshi that disarmed peasant farmers and made the wearing of swords the exclusive caste prerogative of the samurai.

Complaint Box

A secure receptacle instituted by Tokugawa Shoguns into which commoners could drop petitions against feudal abuses, accessible only by the Shogun's personal key.

Sacred Chief

An anthropological concept found in Pacific island cultures and Japan describing a sacrosanct, inviolable monarch whose divine person is preserved apart from active secular administration.

Adopted Husband

A marital and legal mechanism in Japan where a man joins his wife's family registry, often enabling wealthy merchant households to acquire samurai status for their heirs.

Isshin

The nineteenth-century Japanese rallying cry meaning "to restore" or turn back to the past, popularized during the movement to restore the Emperor and expel foreign powers.