1. An anthropologist visiting Japan, after spending some time with a
Japanese family, interviews the daughter. He asks her, "Why, in Japan, do
you respect the father?" The daughter answers, "But in Japan, we do not
respect the father." The anthropologist says with surprise, "You don't
respect the father? But, when the father comes home, you take his coat, he
sits at the head of the table, you serve him first...." The daughter
responds, "Oh! In Japan, we _practice_ respect."
2. The mentor I refer to was Gregory Bateson, the son of a long line of
English aristocracy, and fifth generation atheist. When it was time for him
to go to "public school" (equivalent to a private Christian academy here in
the States, I was told), his two older brothers took him for a walk
(collecting beatles - their father followed in the tradition of
Darwin-plus-Lamarck) and said, "Now see here, Gregory. When it is time to go
to bed, all of the boys at school will get down on their knees beside the
bed and say their prayers. When it is time for you to go to bed, you, too,
get down on your knees beside the bed, and say the alphabet about six times.
That should be enough."
These lessons about deferring to tradition without imagining oneself
confined to it are important for children of the West who believe that what
they think is what they are and to act otherwise is a lie, etc. But they
also seem especially relevant to the work implicated in the epithet re:
Confucious, "Someone who does what she/he knows cannot be done." It is
impossible to do such work (the work of social change) by damming (damning?)
the tide (which keeps on rolling right along). One has to embrace the
opponent one wants to persuade. I realize that I am using stories from
different contexts to make a point about yet another context. I hope I have
not washed out the meanings of Confucious....
Also, I worry about straying from the purposes of this conference and would
certainly appreciate it if a thread from these associations found its way
into activity theorizing.
- Judy