earticle

영어

As French philosopher Etienne Balibar had once defined, a principal origin of theracism is a caste‐based, descent one. This paper aims to summarize historicalbackground of buraku and the discrimination against buraku through the facts inmedieval to the modern period, with referring to analysis of folklore studies in Japanand anthropology in South Asia. Next, I will show how the caste‐based and descentdiscriminatory practices attached with modern racism. In order to the examination,I focus on a custom in Japanese political culture such as occasional expedients,‘hoben’ as Buddhist term in Japanese, which means an avoidance of absoluteprinciple of judgment but an application of temporal expedients. By referring tothe ‘hoben,’ I show how discipline‐power functions by activating ‘hoben’ in Japanesepolitical culture. The manner of hoben in Japanese political culture relativizesabsolute standards in moral and ethical principles based on Confucian or religions. Therefore it has prevented Japanese society from establishing political democracyand the political culture for cultural symbiotic customs as moral and ethicaldisciplines. Based on these arguments, I will show the necessary conditions forrealization of multicultural customs among minorities, and for the relationshipbetween minorities and majorities.