In this installment, I will summarize Fujiwara’s arguments in their original order and then add commentary at the end.
Main point: “logic” alone cannot lead to a good society.
Four reasons supporting his thesis:
1) Limits to logic
A. Students at American universities have terrible English. They spell “professor” with two f’s. A lot of people were surprised when Dan Quayle made the spelling error with “potatoe” but Fujiwara wasn’t. “It reminded me of old times.” (懐かしく思いました。）Why is their English so bad? Because instead of learning English, they learn how to type. This is exactly the kind of solution that logic leads to.
B. Elementary school students learn about the stock market in America. “It is not necessary for kids to check the newspaper’s financial column.” Kids should learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. “They don’t need to think about economics and society.” This stock learning scheme is also a product of American elite’s logical thought process.
C. Japanese elementary school students should not learn English. “If you want to destroy Japan, this is the most sure method.” Japanese must learn Japanese to become international citizens. When Fujiwara was at Cambridge University, he was asked by a fellow professor “Is there a connection between the suicide of the teacher in Natsume Soseki’s ‘Kokoro’ and Mishima Yukio’s suicide?” The foreign elite will ask Japanese questions like this, so the Japanese must be prepared. A Japanese in the financial sector was asked by his boss, “What was the difference between the two Mongol invasions?”
D. The Japanese lack of English ability used to make them look like quiet types “with something deep in their hearts.” All these young kids who speak English destroy the image of the Japanese by having nothing to say. “So much that I want all those who can speak fluently but have nothing to say to shut up when they are overseas.” There is no time in the first years of the educational process to learn English. Kids must learn Japanese culture, literature, and history. This makes them “international.”
E. The only thing that the public accepts is “one-step” logic. People want to make kids international, so they propose learning English. 86% of the population supports English learning in elementary schools. This is just a logical response to wanting to make people more international. We see the limits to logic in the fact that people keep wanting to wage war, even though every generation realizes how terrible it is. “I think you can call logic a goblin.”
2) You cannot explain the most important things with logic.
A. The world cannot be explained in just in mathematical, logical terms. Godel’s incompleteness theorems prove this mathematically.
B. You can’t prove that murder is bad just through numbers. The old prefecture of Aizu-han taught seven things:
1. You must not disobey the orders of your seniors.
2. You must bow to your seniors.
3. You must not tell a lie.
4. You must not behave in a mean way. (卑怯)
5. You must not bully those weaker than you.
6. You must not eat outside.
7. You must not exchange words with women outside.
Fujiwara thinks these are all right, except for the last one. And written along with these seven lessons is “You must not do what you must not do.” This kind of thing cannot be explained with logic.
C. Teachers and parents should push these values onto their kids. “Japanese schools in the post-war have become where they only teach things through logical explanation. It is because they are reflecting upon the excessive teaching of irrational things in the pre-war, like ‘The Emperor is a living God’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon brutes.'” But in a bout of over-reflection, they now fail to teach important things.
“The British-American thought makes everything go through logic. Firmly teaching those parts that cannot be explained by logic is part of Japan’s national character and was a great source of the high morality of the Japanese people.”
3) The start-off point for logic is crucial.
A. The way you choose hypotheses for a logic chain is through feeling/emotion (情緒) — a word that encompasses religious emotion as well as a person’s ability to synthesize (総合力), a person’s upbringing, opinion of artworks, and all experiences in love. This determines someone’s starting point for logical analysis.
B. For example, if a hungry man steals bread, someone who sees Japan as a nation of law will look upon the that person as a criminal. Someone else may ignore him out of sympathy. These are both decisions dictated by logic, with different starting points and different conclusions.
C. “The Worst is Logical People who Lack Emotional Ability.” Even if logical smart people start with a false preconception, their final conclusion will be false. Smart people who cannot use emotion to pick their starting point are frightening.
4) The chain of logic cannot be very long
A. Logic only works if statements are true or false, 0 or 1. But there are no 1s and 0s in real life — not black and whites, only shades of grey. (Omitted from the summary: a page-long argument using an old kotowaza to explain how deduction with percents doesn’t work.)
B. Long logic chains are dangerous. For example, everyone wants to make Japanese children into “international people” (国際人) — who will even be respected as humans overseas. So, they believe that if they teach them English, they will learn to speak, and become international. But Fujiwara estimates the chances of becoming international at 10%, as only about 10% of Americans can be called “international.” This makes the chance of the whole logic chain to be 0.01%. However, if the logic chain is “Strengthening Japanese teaching at elementary schools —> Enriching people’s internal content —> Becoming international,” then there is a much greater chance of it working.
C. Why are Indians so good at being software engineers? Because they learn multiplication tables up to 19 x 19 in elementary school — not because they use computers. If you want to make a generation of software engineers, you teach basic math better.
D. A logical person would solve bullying by putting school counselors into schools, but they have done this and it has not helped. The way to stop bullying is to teach the moral idea of 卑怯 — meanness.
1. The most obvious flaw in Fujiwara’s argument is that a vast majority of people in the English-speaking world do not consider logic to be the sole decision-making criteria. Yes, there is an attempt to use science and research for things like child-rearing, but I think it is a bit far-fetched to believe that ethics and morals are the sole possession of the Japanese nation. Confucianism — and its Bushido offshoot — does provide nice non-religious codes of conduct that fit well into civil education, but I am not convinced that Westerners believe that all morality comes down to 1s and 0s. Most of his criticisms seem to have come from the Cliff Notes of Philosophy 101. Again, I think he would have a hard time finding people to disagree with his arguments. It is his linkage of these arguments to conclusions that is problematic.
2. A lot of the math/deductive reasoning explanation used in the chapter is not necessarily wrong, but strikes me as “smoke and mirrors” type argument, where he is trying to use his specialty knowledge to “prove” something that may or may not have anything to do with his final conclusions. Saying that “something cannot be explained with numbers” and then un-ironically assigning 10% to the “chance of a Japanese person becoming international” seems a bit contradictory.
3. I love how erudite the British come off. Asking about “the difference between Jomon pottery and Yayoi pottery” is not a Japanese 101 type question. They seem to be a good model for “internationalism” — being knowledgeable in your own culture and that of the outside world.
4. Also, none of his solutions seem to be new: teach the basics, children should learn their native language first, teach morals in the schools. Sounds identical to conservative Americans who want to abolish the Department of Education.
5. Is that really why Indians are better software engineers? Because they can do the multiplication of large numbers in their heads?
6. Eating outdoors is morally reprehensible.