Why Do Humans Reason Sometimes and Avoid Doing It Other Times?: Kotodama in Japanese Culture

Abstract

After reading Mercier and Sperber's article (2011), I have two questions in mind: Why do humans reason sometimes, and why do they avoid doing it other times? Let me critically examine Japanese culture as a case in point within two questions. Mercier and Sperber assume that humans reason, but I suspect that humans sometimes do reason and avoid doing it other times. To begin with, authors are right in their agreement with Dawkins and Krebs. Mercier and Sperber directly quote Dawkins and Krebs: Reasoning enables people to exchange arguments that, on whole, make communication more reliable and hence more advantageous .... For communication to be stable, it has to benefit both senders and receivers; otherwise they would stop sending or stop receiving, putting an end to communication itself. (as cited in Mercier & Sperber, 2011, p. 60) Following their own logic, where arguing is considered unbeneficial by senders and receivers, it might function to prevent us from producing reasonable beliefs based on critical reasoning. Given 2011 Greater East Japan Earthquake, I want to think about why Japanese sometimes reason and other times avoid doing so. Arguing or engaging in critical reasoning is a modern act, but old traditions die hard. One such example is kotodama: [A] belief, reflected in earliest Japanese sources, that a sacred power or spirit dwells in of traditional Japanese language. Particularly when expressed in certain forms, such as norito (ritual prayers) or waka poetry, it was believed that of Japanese language could exert a special influence on people, gods, and even course of world. Extreme care thus needed to be taken with to utilize their power properly, for good or for ill. Although notion is similar to beliefs in magical power of found in most traditional societies, it has been employed by some modern Japanese thinkers to explain what they believe are special characteristics of Japanese language and culture. (Campbell & Noble, 1993, p. 834) Although kotodama is a pre-modern concept, it still influences or even controls Japanese people. Izawa (1995) explains that in world where kotodama rules, there is no freedom to choose since they are divided into words inviting good and words inviting bad (p. 24). In such a world, to use a word is to realize what it means at same time. It is called kotoage, or realization of what mean. We are supposed to pray (or wish) for good results to come true not because everything will come true. Therefore, only good kotoage shall be permitted, and bad kotoage shall not be. I do not mean to argue that there are no English expressions against bad or fallacious reasoning. But phrases are rather caveats regarding uncritical reasoning or unsupported claims. For instance, wishy-washy means not having clear and firm ideas or beliefs. Crying wolf indicates frequent lying would decrease speaker's credibility. Whereas doomsayer is a pejorative against person whose perspective is overly pessimistic, self-fulfilling prophecy could have a positive connotation to make one's desire true. They do not serve a social role to discourage or hinder argumentation per se, and, thus, they are qualitatively different from kotodama notion. As a result, Japanese are not trained to argue and reason (Suzuki, 2008). For example, so-called power village, or genshiryoku mura, constructed safety myth of nuclear power plants. According to Daily Yomiuri, it is the nickname for a tight circle of government entities, utilities, manufacturers and others involved in promotion of nuclear power who believe nuclear plants are safe and reject out of hand any opposing views (Nuclear, 2011, p. 1). Thus, despite 1979 Three Mile Island accident in United States and 1986 Chernobyl accident in Soviet Union, nuclear power village maintained that Japanese power plants are fail-safe. …

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