Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority | Date: 28 April 2011, 04:33
|
Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority
By Lucian W. Pye
* Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
* Number Of Pages: 430
* Publication Date: 1988-03-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0674049799
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780674049796
Product Description:
In a major new book, Lucian Pye reconceptualizes Asian political development as a product of cultural attitudes about power and authority. He contrasts the great traditions of Confucian East Asia with the Southeast Asian cultures and the South Asian traditions of Hinduism and Islam, and explores the national differences within these larger civilizations.
Breaking with modern political theory, Pye believes that power differs profoundly from one culture to another. In Asia the masses of the people are group-oriented and respectful of authority, while their leaders are more concerned with dignity and upholding collective pride than with problem-solving. As culture decides the course of political development, Pye shows how Asian societies, confronted with the task of setting up modern nation-states, respond by fashioning paternalistic forms of power that satisfy their deep psychological craving for security. This new paternalism may appear essentially authoritarian to Western eyes, but Pye maintains that it is a valid response to the people's needs and will ensure community solidarity and strong group loyalties. He predicts that we are certain to see emerging from Asia's accelerating transformation some new version of modern society that may avoid many of the forms of tension common to Western civilization but may also produce a whole new set of problems.
This book revitalizes Asian political studies on a plane that comprehends the large differences between Asia and the West and at the same time is sensitive to the subtle variations among the many Asian cultures. Its comparative perspective will provide indispensable insights to anyone who wishes to think more deeply about the modern Asian states.
Summary: Full of knowledge, judgement, and precision of thought
Rating: 5
Books on regions and hence on plural cultures often turn into drivel. As a protection from or over-reaction to drivel others protect themselves by narrowness of model or approach. I get tired of both the drivel books and the tiny narrow rigid ones.
This book is full of breadth, comparison, judgement, wisdom, balance, precision and feeling out the boundaries of how ideas mean different things in different contexts and what to do about that.
If you live and work in East Asia or have done so, like myself, for 26 years, you rarely find anyone writing who is not taking a few beloved pieces mistakenly for the whole. Pye does not do this. He is careful, very professionally careful, to not mistake pieces for wholes. He has balance and judgement where others have bias and narrow approach.
You will get, quickly, in passing when reading particular of his sentences, insights that link phenomena in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Bali, Tonga, in powerful ways that suggest all sorts of implications and changes in action and strategy for government, business, or career building. Entire books could be developed from single such of his sentences.
This is a wonderful book by a person with a wonderful mind. A hundred years from now, it will still tell those generations about East Asian forces, drives, motives, capabilities, and trends.
Summary: logic in this work is twisted
Rating: 4
A lot of the logic in this work is twisted and convoluted (without historical or empirical evidence). For example:
"Asian countries have unity because they share similar hopes for the future." "Japan manifests the essence of the world culture." "Confucianism led to a bold, risk-taking style among the Koreans." "Confucianism led to a sense of nationalism among the Vietnamese."
Also, he argues that scholars do not have the right to impose their own culturally limited definitions of power on Asians. But how can we gain knowledge, if precision in terminology is considered ethnocentric?
Most of his arguments have no source. He makes broad and sweeping statements, without referring to historical documents. For example, "Most Asians respect authority to much to share the Western distrust of authority and power."
He argues that "power" in Asian society resided in successfully performing elaborate rituals. However, I would argue that power resided at the tip of a! samurai sword. But he would say my definition of power is ethnocentric, I suppose. Basically, he needs to throw out all his wishy-washy references to "myth and ritual" and focus on the reality of political life -- which was heavily influenced by conflict. For evidence of conflict in Japanese history see: Najita, Tetsuo and Koschmann, Victor J., Editors. Conflict in Modern Japanese History -- The Neglected Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982
He plays "semantic games" by arguing that in "in China power was defined by the ability to select the propitious moment for action. But in the West, this was not the case." Well, he who forms the question wins the argument; of course "good timing" was important in the West -- it just went by a different name.
Pye impresses me as a typical psychologist or anthropologist -- definitely not a mainstream sociologist or political scientist.
|
DISCLAIMER:
This site does not store Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority on its server. We only index and link to Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
|
 |
|
Comments (0)
All
