"The Intellectuals"

"(T)he entrepreneur himself ... must be an organiser of the 'confidence' of investors in his business, of the customers for his product, etc."(Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, London, p.5)

The educator should be an organiser of the 'confidence' of parents in his business, of the students for his classes.

"All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say; but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals." (ibid, p.9) So, "although one can speak of intellectuals, one cannot speak of non-intellectuals, because non-intellectuals do not exist." (ibid, p.9) Thus an educator is suppose to grow an sich intellectuals into fuer sich ones, not to make intellectuals out of nothing. "The problem of creating a new stratum of intellectuals consists therefore in the critical elaboration of the intellectual activity that exists in everyone at a certain degree of development," (ibid, p.9)

A Farewell to Japanism. The geopolitical concept Japan is too large to bundle the cultures and climates within her border. Decoding activities should not be based on the concept.

When we decode local or regional information, surmounting Japanism is essential. Otherwise, our information would be stereotyped. We must be, in other words, a realist.

Decoding areal information is to contribute to area studies. That is, decoding areas in Japan is to contribute to Japanology. When we do decoding in Japan, however, we have to be careful not to fall into the pitfall Japanism.

Japanism is a pitfall, which we must carefully avoid when we do decoding to contribute to Japanology abroad.

Gramsci once argued, "in Old Europe, where there exists a whole series of checks ... which ... give to every initiative the equilibrium of mediocrity". (ibid, p.20) Even in today's Japan, there exists a whole series of checks which give to every initiative the equilibrium of mediocrity, “diluting it in time and in space.” (ibid)

"In Protestant countries the difference [between the intellectuals and the people] is relatively slight (the proliferation of sects is connected with the need for a perfect suture between intellectuals and people, with the result that all the crudity of the effective conceptions of the popular masses is reproduced in the higher organisational sphere)." (ibid, p.23)

Gramsci seems to have thought Protestant countries played a rather innovative role at his time of history. If I could put it in an adverse way, as far as a country wants to be innovative, it should have relatively slight difference between its intellectuals and its people, and its sects should proliferate, which connect perfectly suture the intellectuals and the people, with the result that all the crudity of the effective conceptions of the popular masses is reproduced in the higher organisational sphere.

Existence is nothingness, and nothingness is existence. Existence is absence, and absence is existence.