Читать книгу Trust and Deception - Hannah K - Страница 15

The late Dr. Katuyosi Watanabe lamented this fabrication from the bottom of his heart. In his book, “Study on Chinkon-Sai,” he pointed out the crucial mistake that Origuchi made. Dr. Origuchi theorized, “Tama is a soul of the deity and belongs to the body of the Emperor.” In terms of Tama, I will discuss in detail in the later chapter, but the late Dr. Watanabe said that Origuchi misunderstood what Tama was, and the late Dr. Kamata agrees with the late Dr. Watanabe in this regards.

I would not totally deny the effort of Dr. Shinobu Origuchi as a researcher, and, at the same time, he himself admitted that his theory might be wrong because he suffered from a lot of contradictions that he could not describe at all in his theory regarding Shinto. That was why he asked his disciples to correct his Tama theory. Contrary to his remark, no disciples followed what he asked, only to worship Dr. Shinobu Origuchi. I do understand his effort to some extent. The lamentable fact was Dr. Shinobu Origuch did not understand how science works to analyze cultural phenomena clearly. This is true of a lot of Japanese historians. Dr. Shouji Kawazoe, a prominent historian on Kamakura Period, used to lament, “We can only collect historical data but I have no idea how to analyze the data scientifically.”

These days, Japanese media and academic researchers blame students for low motivation to study but I would like to question who is responsible for educating students at not only universities but also students in every level of schools. Though students pay high tuition to attend university courses, the level of knowledge that most of the students at PhD courses gain is lower than that of those who study something as a hobby.

The controversial researcher whose thesis was published in the famous scientific magazine, “Nature,” only to be deprived of PhD degree was a typical example. She did not even know that researchers should not copy other researchers’ works.

My grandmother, who loved literature, could read Chinese literature without Janapese-style-punctuated expressions. She enjoyed reading literatures both in classical Japanese and original classical Chinese. Without my grandmother’s love for reading anything about the world at hand, I cannot nurture my curiosity toward cultural phenomena. Without her it would have been impossible to write this book.