日本の調和主義社会は、法で規制される社会ではない。もちろん法治国家の体裁を取っているが、付け焼き刃。『日本人の法意識』（川島武宣著・岩波新書）で分析されているように、根は浅い。
　先日、中央高速道路を車で走ったが、制限時速は80キロ。周りを見ても、法（80キロ）を守る人は皆無。内緒だが、私も最高140キロで飛ばした。 日本人の意識は、いまだに法治国家から、かけ離れている。

PART TWO:
How do we achieve and maintain harmony? (1)

By Shun Daichi

2. “Hamonism” and Japan (2)

l. We place harmony as the number one priority.
"To keep harmony with others" is the only one fundamental rule we have in our society. Anything else has less value. This is common sense to the Japanese and we are conditioned from childhood to believe it. Thus, no one questions its validity.

You better know the rule that maintaining of harmony among the people and the society is more important than right or wrong.

2. Discourage Debate
"It is very interesting to know, Shun, that in the Japanese language there are only a few swear words and the meaning of the swear words are very simple compared to English".

"Is that right?"

"Yeh, you know. . . . "Baka" means a horse and a deer and "usunoro" means being slow, and "manuke" mean just a stupid fellow.

"Do you know more swear words, Shun?"

"Not much, I am afraid."

"It is really curious. Can you tell me why your language does not have many swear words?"

She was an American and studying Linguistics at the University of Tokyo as a postgraduate student. And at that time I couldn't give her any answer. However, I have an answer now.

It is true that in the Japanese language there are only a few swear words. We don't need them because in the society of Harmonism we discourage people to use any swear words. We discourage argument and even debate.

In the history of Japan we were importer of ideas from other countries most of the time. The Japanese have been imitators for most of its history. We had imported Chinese characters to write our speaking language.

Art, music, constitution, Buddhism, Confucian ideas and other things were all imported from China and Korea. Recently we have copied imperialism, technology, capitalism, democracy and rock music from the Western countries.

However some ideas and skills were never imported nor copied.

And one of those is the "debating contest." Debating contests have been very popular in Western countries for quite a long time.

The debating contest of the Western world comes from ancient Greece and the Socratic method. We knew such a thing existed, though it was never really welcomed in Japan. Why?

The answer is simple. We discourage debate and encourage silence to maintain harmony in the society.

If you debate, it might become a seed for conflict but if people keep silent then we do not know the seed therefore there is more chance of keeping harmony with others.

We have proverbs like "Silence is Golden" or "Silence has a Golden Value. "So, in our society people tend to try to be quiet as much as possible even though there may be some need for someone to speak up.

A person who likes to argue is often expelled from the group and disliked as a "Giron Zuki" (Debate Lover). We also dislike "Rikutsu Zuki" (Logic Lover) who sticks to their logical correctness. Logical correctness has not much value in Japan compared to maintaining harmony.

The Japanese often tell the kids. "don't talk with logic! It's no good. You just listen to your seniors. O.K.!"

I raised my son Maana completely opposite way. We debate logically and if he wins I accept his way. I have been friends with Maana from when he was three years old.

(To be continued)