Northeast Asia's Difficult Past |
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Editor:
| Kim, Mikyoung Schwartz, Barry |
Series title: | Palgrave MacMillan Memory Studies |
ISBN: | 978-1-282-91102-4 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2010 |
Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan
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Book Format: | Ebook |
List Price: | USD $105.00 |
Book Description:
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Asia's 'Memory Problem' is unique. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans assign great significance to their national pasts; disagreements about one another's history and commemorative practices are heated and affect diplomatic and economic relationships. Honour and shame societies teach their members to think about the past differently than do societies of dignity and guilt. In Northeast Asia, the events judged most negative reveal weakness or incompetence, and they induce shame. For this...
More DescriptionAsia's 'Memory Problem' is unique. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans assign great significance to their national pasts; disagreements about one another's history and commemorative practices are heated and affect diplomatic and economic relationships. Honour and shame societies teach their members to think about the past differently than do societies of dignity and guilt. In Northeast Asia, the events judged most negative reveal weakness or incompetence, and they induce shame. For this reason, the Western 'politics of regret', which include practices based on violations of dignity and a sense of collective guilt, cannot be directly generalized to Northeast Asian cultures. These cultures are, thus, privileged sites for the study of memory. In no other regional setting is the interdependence of history, commemoration and belief so significant and problematic. In no other setting is the Memory Problem so acute.