Tadao
"The claim to absolute distinctness, either by an individual or a group, establishes a psychological bifurcation leading to intense existential anxiety: those others, them, by definition alone, are out to challenge the claim. Honor requires that I substantiate the claim -- and I must do so with purity and perseverance. Otherwise, the dualistic structure I have created in my psyche will be crushed. I must always, therefore, be on the defense, on the lookout for possible threats -- for anything that could possibly be construed as a threat. I could not live under the circumstances of a successful penetration of the barriers I have erected, of course. My psychological structure would have been shattered. So there is constant thrust and counter-thrust, as claim and counter-claim parry one another in a psychosocial war-to-the-very-end that is ritualized in the community as the offering of favors and the repaying of obligations.""But what does this have to do with self-organization?" asked Derek again, in growing impatience.
"It is not simply that all Japanese experience a blurring of identity distinctions. There is a hierarchy of distinctnesses and blurrings: a nested set of ingroup and outgroup relations. Identity interfaces exist in the society. The identity-interface pattern experienced by each individual is unique. His existential battlefield has a unique topology which he must learn to traverse so as to minimize giri-ninjo conflict. There are preferred routes of translation across this topological space. You might imagine all these individual topologies stacked on top of one another. The resultant would be the giri-ninjo topology of the whole of contemporary Japan. This very convoluted surface (the resultant of the total stack) would be an index of identity transparency for the society. The inverse of the amount of giri-ninjo conflict, implied by the genus, let's say, of this hypersurface, would be a measure of the self-organizing potential of the society." Tadao beamed as if he had just executed a conceptual Fosbury flop at eight feet.
"What?" said Ilse, in disbelief, her glare copper-colored like a trogon's tail.
"If self-organization arises as a result of the potential generated by part-whole transparency, then giri-ninjo conflict (contradiction between the 'exterior' necessities of the whole and the 'interior' necessities of the part) would be an expression of failed transparency and a measure of the loss of that potential. Is there, or is there not, an inordinate amount of giri-ninjo conflict in contemporary Japan?"
"But part-whole transparency does not mean the loss of the individual in the group," protested Derek.
"That's just the point, isn't it?" replied Tadao. "Prevailing Asian concepts of collectivity are baseless: they relate to no principle in nature, have no authentic psychological concomitants, are an expression of no spiritual achievement. What once had validity is no longer understood and was long ago transformed into an oppressive instrument of elites. You don't walk fire through a collective identification: that's a bully's interpretation. The collectively identified person finds himself sitting on the coals and dehydrating. Real transparency means the submergence of the whole in the part, no less than the part in the whole. The necessities of the individual are just as much the necessities of the whole, as the necessities of the whole are the necessities of the individual. That's spontaneous social order!"
"BE POLYVALENT; THINK NONLOCALLY; ACT MULTIPLY-CONNECTED!" Derek blurted forth.