The Role of Mass Consciousness in the Formation of the Japanese Adherence to National Traditions

Abstract

The author aims to answer the question of what presently contributes to the preservation of the national uniqueness of the Japanese culture and why one of the characteristic features of the Japanese is their adherence to traditions, and also to point out the importance of considering the mental attitudes of the mass consciousness, which are generated by the traditional understanding of the world and a person’s place in it. Mass consciousness is understood as a depersonalized consciousness of the vast majority of the members of a society. The researchers of mass consciousness believe that it begins to form in ancient times, with many of its components preserved in the collective subconscious of society for a long time.

The formation of the psychology of the Japanese, their religious outlook, and aesthetic ideal also took place in the 4^th – 7^th centuries. In subsequent periods, the previously formed specific features of the Japanese culture were further developing in the same way. This suggests the existence of a conceptual constant in the mass consciousness of the part of society in which the basis of the Japanese culture was formed. Gradually, it spread to all segments of society. The functioning of the mass consciousness manifests itself as universally accepted norms: customs, ideals, ethical and aesthetic values, etc.

Works of literature and art, research by foreign and Russian Japanologists make it possible to single out worldview components that, being imprinted in the mass consciousness of society, form a “code” for preserving the specifics of the Japanese culture in the broadest sense of the word. The worldview of the Japanese was formed on the basis of the Shinto-Taoist-Buddhist syncretism, the components of this code being: a person’s perception of themselves as an integral part of the Universe; conviction in the universal interconnectedness of things and, as a result, focus on maintaining harmonic interaction of all elements of the world; belief in the spirituality of everything.

This article traces the influence of these components on the formation of value orientations that determined the peculiarities of Japanese culture and have not lost their relevance to this day.