•  
  •  
 

Keywords

antisemitism, cognitive foundations, nationalism, existential envy, Japan

Abstract

This paper explores the gap between civilizations in the forms antisemitism takes and the cognitive modes on which it is based, given its significance for comparative civilizational analysis. Antisemitism is characterized by two features — the expressive nature of violence and an orientation toward the elimination of an entire group — which are particularly salient compared to other forms of anti-sentiment familiar in the age of nationalism. In the first section of this paper, I argue that antisemitism exhibiting these features has not been present in Japanese history. The subsequent sections, building on Greenfeld’s theory of civilization, examine existential envy as a constitutive element of antisemitism and attempt to explain its absence in Japan through differences in cognitive modes across civilizations. It argues that existential envy presupposes an essentialist conception of the human soul, as well as of immutable historical agency as its extension. These conceptions have not been widely accepted in Japan due to the prevalence of a manifestational mode of cognition. I term tropes grounded in an essentialist mode of cognition attributive tropes, and those grounded in a manifestational mode diffusive tropes, and show that the latter remain observable even among contemporary Japanese youth.

Download

Share

COinS