$Unique_ID{COW01991} $Pretitle{230} $Title{Japan Chapter 2B. Climate} $Subtitle{} $Author{Emma Louise Young} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{japanese social japan group areas individual population development society higher} $Date{1981} $Log{} Country: Japan Book: Japan, A Country Study Author: Emma Louise Young Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1981 Chapter 2B. Climate Lying in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere, Japan is generally a rainy country with high humidity. Its climatic range is often compared to that of the east coast of North America, from Nova Scotia to Georgia. Tokyo is located at about 36 degrees north latitude, comparable to Tehran, Athens, and Los Angeles. The generally humid, temperate climate exhibits marked seasonal variations justly celebrated in art and literature, as well as regional variations ranging from cool in Hokkaido to subtropical in Kyushu. Climate also varies with altitude and with location on the Pacific or on the Sea of Japan. Two primary factors influence Japanese climate: location off the Asian continent and the existence of major oceanic currents. Spring and summer are marked by hot, wet weather brought by tropical airflows originating over the Pacific Ocean and in southeast Asia. These airflows are full of moisture and deposit substantial amounts of rain when they reach land. There is a marked rainy season, beginning about the first of June and continuing for about a month. It is followed by hot, sticky weather. Five or six typhoons pass over or near Japan every year in August and September, sometimes resulting in significant damage. Annual precipitation, which averages between 1,000 and 2,000 millimeters, is concentrated in the period between June and September. In winter a high-pressure area develops over Siberia, and a low-pressure area over the northern Pacific Ocean. The result is a flow of cold air eastward across Japan, which brings freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls to areas on the Sea of Japan of the central mountain ranges, but clear skies to areas fronting on the Pacific. Two major ocean currents affect this climatic pattern. The Kuroshio or Black Current flows northward on the Pacific side of Japan and warms areas as far north as Tokyo. A small branch, the Tsushima Current, flows up the Sea of Japan side. The Oyashio Current (Parent Current), which abounds in plankton beneficial to cold-water fish, flows southward along northern Pacific Japan, and cools adjacent coastal areas. The meeting point of these currents is a bountiful fishing ground. Japanese flora and fauna are much the same as those of the temperate zone elsewhere. Maples, Japanese beeches (fagus crenate), and magnolias (magnolia lilifluer) are common; pines, willows, and bamboo play important roles in myth and ritual. The variety of natural environments in the country supports many different species of wildlife, and the seas around Japan abound with fish, including native cold and warm water migratory species. Earthquakes A tenth of the world's active volcanoes are found in Japan, which lies in a zone of extreme crustal instability. Many earthquakes also result; more than 1,500 are recorded yearly. Minor tremors occur almost daily in one part of the country or another, causing a slight shaking of buildings. Major earthquakes occur infrequently, the most famous in this century being the great Kanto earthquake of 1923, in which 130,000 people died. Because of the danger they pose, Japan has become a world leader in research on causes and prediction of earthquakes. The development of advanced technology has permitted the construction of skyscrapers even in earthquake-prone areas. Extensive civil defense efforts focus on training in protection against earthquakes, in particular against accompanying fire, which represents the greatest danger. Undersea earthquakes also expose the Japanese coastline to danger from tidal waves. Pollution In recent decades much of Japan's natural beauty has been destroyed or defaced as a result of overcrowding and concentration on industrial development at the expense of the environment. Individual health has sometimes been adversely affected by environmental pollution. For example, in the 1960s, many inhabitants of a small town on Minamata Bay were found to be suffering from degeneration of the central nervous system after eating mercury-poisoned seafood taken from the bay. Other examples included photochemical smog from automobile exhaust, noise from trains and airplanes, and debris left on mountainsides and in national forests. In Japan sunlight plays an important role in heating homes in the winter, drying clothes, and powering solar water heaters, but in many neighborhoods tall buildings close off the sun from much of the area. Opposed to those Japanese who are apathetic on environmental matters are others who have organized themselves into pressure groups in local areas concentrating on single environmental issues. Pollution and other defacement of the environment is viewed as a public injury (kogai) (see Consumers' and Citizens' Movements, ch. 6). The principle has been established in court that the industry that has created the pollution must pay for its effects. The national government has been slow to respond to environmental issues, but once it has responded, it has been effective. Strict auto emission standards have reduced photochemical smog, and Tokyo residents can now enjoy views of Mount Fuji that were obscured in recent years. Electronic billboards report sound levels and proportions of common air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide. Environmental pollution will continue to be an issue in coming years, and efforts to control it will result in the further development of new technology. Population Having a population of 118 million persons in 1981, small and mountainous Japan was the most densely populated of the world's leading industrial nations. Its population had more than tripled between 1872 and 1975, rising from 34.8 million to 111.9 million, although since World War II its growth rate has been declining. The annual rate of growth averaged 1.3 percent in the 1970-76 period, as compared with 0.6 for Europe and 2.2 percent for all countries combined in the same period. Two aspects of the country's population structure are likely to continue to exert significant influence on future social and economic development. The first is its density; the second its age structure. Density for the country as a whole was more than 300 persons per square kilometer in 1981. Actual density in many populated areas was actually considerably higher. The population per square kilometer of arable land in 1980 was 2,256 persons, compared to 1,019 in Indonesia, 820 in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), 103 in the United States, and thirty persons per square kilometer of arable land in Australia. Three-quarters of the population lived in urban areas in 1981, particularly on the eastern and southern coast between Tokyo and Osaka. Population density in some areas of Tokyo has exceeded 20,000 persons per square kilometer. Consequently urban dwellers have been confronted with high prices for crowded housing, residential land far from urban centers, long commutes, and a lack of parks and other natural green spaces. In 1981, more than one-fifth of the commuters in Tokyo lived more than an hour from their work place. Japan's largest cities average one-tenth the ratio of parkland to inhabitants that is found in major cities in Europe and the United States. The adverse effects of such conditions on family life are counter-balanced in densely populated urban areas, however, by efficient transportation systems and an active urban life-style. As people come to demand social amenities in return for the sacrifices they have made to economic development, plans for reduction of overcrowding are likely to become more and more prevalent. Recognition of existing problems has already led to the creation of "New Towns"-owner-occupied new developments in rural areas-and to national plans to disperse concentrated populations by developing industries, social services, and educational institutions to make regional towns and cities more attractive. The second problematic aspect of the population has been its age structure. Both birth and death rates have been declining, resulting in an aging population. The birthrate dropped to 14.3 per 1,000 in 1979. Family planning, primarily through use of contraceptives, was entirely accepted and was supplemented by abortion, legally available on a fee-for-service basis. The death rate declined from over fifteen per 1,000 through 1945 to 5.9 per 1,000 in 1979. Tuberculosis, once a major cause of death, has been superseded by diseases characteristic of urban, industrialized societies-cerebral hemorrhage, cancer, and heart disease. Life expectancy has increased dramatically and, at seventy-eight years for women and nearly seventy-three years for men, was the longest in the world in 1978. As recently as 1935 it had been less than fifty years for both men and women. The sharp increase has resulted from a decline in infant mortality and better health care. These changing patterns of fertility and mortality have resulted in an age pyramid with successively fewer numbers of young people and greater and greater percentages of the aged. This change has already had an effect on the industrial sector where young, unskilled workers were in short supply. Caring for the aged would pose a major challenge to the social and political system in years to come. Japan has already undergone the experience of massive urban migration characteristic of industrializing nations. In the 1970-75 period migration to urban areas accounted for only about 2 percent of the overall 10.2 percent increase in population in large cities. This overall rate of increase compared with 15 percent in the 1960-65 period. In the late 1950s migration had accounted for some 86 percent of overall urban growth. Suburban areas were growing, while inner cities and peripheral rural areas were declining in population. Major universities and many less well known institutions of higher learning are located in the large urban centers, attracting thousands of high school graduates from rural prefectures each spring. Having completed two or four years of higher education, some of these students have remained in the urban metropolitan areas. Others, however, have returned to their birthplaces or have settled in regional towns and cities, a pattern termed the "U-turn" or "J-turn" phenomenon. National policy has given some of the regional towns and cities the resources to attract the graduates. In the late 1970s external migration was not a significant demographic factor. Permanent emigrants numbered only 5,000 to 6,000 persons annually. A total of about 1 million Japanese have emigrated in the past century, but 70 percent of this total occurred before World War II. Through 1920 most emigrants went to Hawaii and the mainland United States; later the majority went to South America. In contrast to permanent migration, which has declined, travel by Japanese to foreign countries has increased enormously since the 1970s. Other countries in East Asia, Western Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia have been the principal destinations. Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific islands have been favorite destinations of honeymoon couples. Extensive travel and longer residence in foreign countries have not been encouraged unless the individual is sent by an employer. Foreign-educated high school and university graduates have had difficulty finding employment commensurate with their educational achievement. Ethnic Japanese, speaking the Japanese language, have constituted the vast majority of the population for more than a thousands years. By the ninth century A.D., Korean and a few Chinese immigrants and nonrelated indigenous tribes had been absorbed into the basic Japanese stock, which is thought to have developed during the Jomon period (see Early Japan, ch. 1). In the contemporary period three minority groups can be identified: outcast peoples (burakumin), who although they are in fact ethnically and culturally Japanese, are discriminated against more than any other group; the indigenous, but ethnically distinct, Ainu; and among immigrant peoples, the Koreans. Some members of the Korean community are descended from Koreans brought to Japan as long ago as the sixteenth century; nonetheless the Japanese treat Koreans as resident aliens and as inferiors. The burakumin, numbering about 2 million persons, are the largest minority group. Their minority status stems from their historical association with trades involving blood and death, such as butchering, tanning, and shoemaking, and is passed from generation to generation. Burakumin are physically indistinguishable from Japanese, but their social status remains that of an outcast group and social intercourse with the rest of the Japanese population is precluded by barriers erected by the majority, who tend to see the burakumin as contaminated by inherent moral defects. Some burakumin have tried to "pass" as members of the ethnic majority by moving away from the segregated communities and ghetto slums where they were born or by taking up other occupations and severing ties with relatives and friends. Every inquiry into a person's background, however-and such inquiries are common when an individual seeks education, employment, or a marriage partner-threatens to reveal the burakumin origin. Being thus stigmatized often leads to lack of educational achievement, economic deprivation, and social deviance. Liberation movements and government policy have not yet erased this negative image. Persons of Korean ancestry, numbering about 675,000 in 1981, constitute the second largest minority group. Many are laborers or descendants of laborers brought in from Korea between 1930 and 1945. Others were born in Japan and speak Japanese as their native language; nevertheless they continue to be officially regarded as alien residents. Koreans in Japan have experienced discrimination in education, marriage, and employment. In the early 1980s "pure" Ainu numbered about 16,000 and were confined primarily to a small area of the island of Hokkaido. They are the descendants of an indigenous population, having its own language and culture, which occupied the northern part of Honshu as late as the Nara period. A nomadic hunting and fishing people, the Ainu were unable to compete with an expanding Japanese civilization and, suffering a fate that closely parallels that of the American Indians, were forced to leave Honshu for the more rigorous climate on the island of Hokkaido. Japanese in general have considered the Ainu and their culture one of quaint primitiveness, but young Ainu have been awakened to their heritage and wish to restore its pride. Persons who are different for one reason or another are considered "polluted" and not suitable as marriage partners. As anthropologist Harumi Befu notes: "The notion of pollution and attendant discrimination and refusal to marry are indigenous to Japanese culture." Such persons may include those of mixed ancestry and the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hibakusha, whose offspring, scientific evidence to the contrary, have been considered to be especially susceptible to rare diseases. The Social Setting The homogeneity of Japanese society, in which order and harmony are prime virtues, has been emphasized by specialists in Japanese culture. According to this view, not only is the society ethnically homogeneous, but its members are unified by common language, history, culture, and a shared body of concepts about human life. Local, regional, and occupational diversity exists, but the nation is intrinsically far more unified than any other industrial nation. Language is first among the sources of unity. Although modern Japanese has been influenced by a variety of sources (it is encoded in a writing system imported from China, and its vocabulary includes many words from English, West European and Indian sources), its use has been confined almost entirely to the Japanese islands. Japanese has played no part in international discourse. Hence the language has both united people who live in Japan and has isolated them from the rest of the world. The language supports a rich literature and common culture. The country has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Students throughout the country have used the same government-endorsed textbooks; and newspapers, radio, and television programs have been prepared for a nationwide, Japanese-speaking audience. The common culture arises from a history marked by long periods free from foreign invasion. There have been no large influxes of foreign populations for more than 1,000 years. The perception of common identity among Japanese is bolstered by a mythology that presents all Japanese as the descendants of the mythical creators of the land itself. Compatible with this view of contemporary Japanese society as a harmonious, homogeneous entity is the notion that modern Japanese have tended to rank themselves on a hierarchical scale of status positions rather than in terms of a sharply defined system of social classes. The ranks of hereditary nobility were decimated by the policies of the government under the Meiji Restoration (1868), and the 1947 Constitution abolished them entirely, with the exception of the members of the imperial household. Since then, the tendency has been for nearly everyone to be seen as an ordinary person, and according to opinion surveys, 90 percent of Japanese perceive themselves as belonging to a great middle class. In the early 1980s Japanese neighborhoods presented an appearance of relative equality. Loose zoning regulations ruled out the strictly demarcated areas of wealth or poverty, and the executive's mansion was often adjacent to his employee's cramped apartment building. This does not mean that status differences have not, in fact, existed. Males have been ranked higher than females; older persons higher than younger ones; and persons having permanent membership in a group over those having temporary membership. More education improves one's status. Employment in a large, prosperous, nationally known firm conveys greater prestige than working at a small, marginal, local one. The president of a company is addressed more respectfully than is a section head. In marriage negotiations it has been important to avoid alliances with those whose families contain outcast, foreign, or diseased elements (see Social Values, this ch.). Those persons in lower status positions, however, have explained this as a result of their own individual failure of will, not as an ascribed position in a rigidly stratified class structure. The "new religions" that appeal to persons in the less prosperous segment of society promise not alteration in the economic structure of society, but greater success through overcoming obstacles by determined individual striving. The Japanese ideal is that each individual (or, perhaps more accurately, each man) is endowed at birth with equal abilities. What he makes of himself-his success-is dependent on whether he cultivates his abilities and takes advantage of the opportunities presented to him by applying himself and working hard. In theory, each person has an equal opportunity, and in fact, education and occupation have become vehicles of upward social mobility in the post-World War II period. As economic growth has slowed, however, and as the competition to enter elite institutions has increased, wealthier parents may find it easier, and less wealthy parents more difficult, to give their sons the supplementary schooling necessary for success. In this case the ideal of equal opportunity based on hard work could be discredited to the detriment of the national unity created by the perception of equal opportunity. The emphasis on achievement also shows that in reality social relations can be as competitive as harmonious. In the past a married couple and their children were submerged in the ie (a household, usually comprising a group of lineally related males, their wives, and children), which participated as a corporate entity in the economic, social, and political life of the community. Throughout much of rural Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, related households were organized into dozoku. Structurally the dozoku was hierarchically arranged under the domination of a core household, its member households held together by a set of compelling social values and by economic need. The forms of Tokugawa society and the concept of the family in that traditional era were somewhat altered during the early modernization under the Meiji emperor. After World War II and the social reconstruction that ensued, the concept of the family was radically transformed. In rural areas the family shifted from its primary role as a unit of production to that of a unit of consumption. Household composition also changed from the traditional three-generation type prevalent before modernization to the nuclear family, consisting of a husband, his wife, and their children. Social Values Japan is a secular society, and religion plays a much less obvious and direct role as the source of social values than is the case in many other countries. The proper fulfillment of social roles and an ethic of obligation and reciprocity are far more prominent than any notion of the individual's relationship to a transcendant God, existing apart from society. Order, harmony, and individual development are three of the most important values in contemporary Japan. Order The concept of order is one that originates in Confucianism, a system of ethics and body of political thought brought from China, which has exercised a formative influence on social values for many centuries. A phrase in The Great Learning, one of the basic Confucian texts, reads: "Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy." This philosophy suggests that social welfare is dependent upon the proper ordering of individuals and families. This order is supported by a system of hierarchy. Each person occupies a rank subordinate to the one above it. Differing ranks and statuses are natural and inevitable. Social harmony is achieved when each person sincerely acknowledges and acts on the requirements of his or her appropriate rank. What is appropriate or inappropriate is common social knowledge, manifested in appreciative or critical comments that a person is acting "like a professor" or "not like a woman." It is assumed that persons who fill their roles properly will achieve greater success than those who do not. The requirement that individuals observe their proper ranks is found in the concept of giri, the "duty or obligation of a person to behave in certain prescribed ways toward another, to whom he is indebted." Social roles have been defined in part by the flow of benefits downward from the higher to the lower ranks, as in the relationship between parents and children, teacher and student, or employer and employee. These benefits have created an obligation that binds the inferior to the superior in an unequal but reciprocal relationship. The form these obligations take is fidelity to one's social role. Failure to fulfill its requirements can result in strong feelings of shame, a sentiment which has had a central place in the dynamics of interpersonal relations. Two sources of hierarchy, the qualities by which one determines which individual is deemed superior to another, have been sex and age. Males have been ranked higher than females, and older persons have been superior to younger ones. The relationships between men and women have continued to be unequal, although less so in contemporary than in prewar society (see Women, this ch.). Ranking by age is pervasive, and there is an awareness of minute distinctions based on seniority. Persons in the same company are ranked according to their year of entrance, and two alumni of the same school will determine who graduated first to see who has senior rank. In a hierarchical society one has basically two choices in regard to another person: one can display respectful, formal behavior or familiar, informal behavior. When two unknown persons meet each other, they exchange meishi. Meishi are essentially business cards that list a person's name, address, position, and the firm to which he belongs. They are important for more than mere identification because they indicate a person's rank within a firm and hence the degree of deference one assumes. The Japanese language employs special forms of speech (keigo or honorific language) that convey recognition on both sides of status differences between speakers. In Japanese, verbs express a relationship of superiority or of inferiority. The language has a luxurious vocabulary of expressions that indicate a person's status. There is even a special vocabulary formerly used only in speaking of the emperor and the imperial family. In talking with a person one must decide, first, whether he or she is superior in rank or not, and, secondly, whether he or she is a relatively unknown person or an intimate member of one's own group. Different verb forms must be used in talking with a higher ranking stranger, a lower ranking stranger, a higher ranking familiar or a lower ranking familiar. Men and women employ somewhat different ways of speaking, even to using different words for the same concept. Women's speech tends to concentrate in the formal/honorific corner; men's in the intimate/humble quadrant. Women professionals who wish to advance in the work place will speak more like men. Conversely, as sexual distinctions have become less marked in postwar Japan, the speech of young men has become more feminized. Although hierarchical ranking may seem authoritarian, it is not conceived of as oppressive, but rather as a sort of merit system. Persons higher up are deemed to deserve their rankings by virtue of their personal character development through endurance and hard work. If one works hard, one can achieve similar ranking. In addition the constraints of obligation are tempered by sentiment. Superiors offer benign paternalism to their subordinates in the form of concern for their personal lives and care for their prospects. White-collar employees polled in surveys since 1955 have consistently reported that they prefer a supervisor who demands more of them but has a fatherly concern for their welfare to one who limits himself to a distant and fair perspective. Harmony and Affiliation The concept of harmony, wa, is a second important social value. Harmony is created and maintained in the context of group membership. While each person has an appropriate status, one's status exists only in relation to other people. This idea has two corollaries: the individual is not self-sufficient, and each person's life is made meaningful when he or she carries out an appropriate portion of a common group task. Harmony arises from proper participation by individuals in group activities. Japanese in general prefer the satisfaction of working with others to individual activity. Membership in a group gives one a social identity, provides a feeling of security, and enables one to receive the rewards of strong bonds of human interdependence. In traditional society the household or the village was the important group. In the 1980s colleagues at work, fellow students, neighbors, or family members are likely to constitute the groups from which one acquires social status and identity. This emphasis on the formation of groups is not confined to interpersonal relations but is important in other sectors of the society, such as industrial structure, as well. In general it is difficult to establish connections between groups that display a high level of self-sufficiency and insularity. The go-between, nakodo, plays a central role in intergroup relations. This term most generally refers to the person involved in marriage arrangements who does the work of checking each party's background, guaranteeing his or her reliability, conveying questions and criticisms, smoothing out difficulties, and concluding the terms of the marriage agreement between the two families. The term is used much more widely than this, however, and a mediator is necessary to initiate almost any interaction. Japanese educators, for example, will respond to any scholarly request, but they will respond wholeheartedly and enthusiastically only if the person who makes the inquiry is first introduced by one of their colleagues. The mode of introduction, whether it be in person, by letter, or merely by handing over a copy of the mediator's business card, makes no difference; what counts is that there be an introduction. Harmony is the desired quality of behavior within groups. It results from a process that takes a large amount of effort and a great deal of time. It is assumed that each person has something important to contribute. Members of groups encourage each other to do better. They are supportive of individual difficulties and confident that, with time, problems will be overcome. People downplay their own contributions, suppress criticism of others, and willingly assist each other in the completion of specific tasks. Hence even the most inept student will go home from a flower-arranging class with a perfect arrangement, even if it results from the teacher's tearing apart the pupil's own work and redoing it again from scratch. People pay attention to each other and welcome each other's contributions. Decisionmaking involves large numbers of people and is carried out by consulting everyone. Group spirit is also created in overt ways. One training program for new employees of a bank has them spend many weeks together participating in a variety of morale-building exercises. Groups often have identifying symbols: a school uniform, a tour-group flag, or a company song. Doing things together and doing many different kinds of things together is crucial. Convivial drinking is one such fundamental activity. Singing is another that obscures individual differences and unites everyone both physically and emotionally. Holiday trips to vacation spots and places of historic interest are still another. Group membership in Japan has many pleasures but also many tensions. Despite all efforts to agree, harmony cannot always be achieved. Japanese groups have great difficulty handling conflict. Minor issues are sometimes dealt with by appeals to higher authority, but they may well smolder unresolved for years. Major issues are more troublesome. One response is to ignore the controversy and pretend it does not exist. This is particularly necessary when the group is facing outsiders. One anthropologist noted a peculiar reticence when what the members of the community were doing was concealing a decisive internal rift. Unresolved disagreements will get progressively worse, widening and deepening the areas of conflict. Unless a skilled mediator having strong ties to both parties can be found, a rift may go on to be marked by bitterness on both sides and may go so far as an irreconcilable breakdown in communications. Eventually the group may split in two, or the offending member may be ostracized and deprived of all communication with group members. In this way groups are peculiarly vulnerable to fission. Individual Character Development Japanese social values emphasize group ties. Yet a positive concept of the individual is not entirely lacking. Individual development is not tied to individual rights or to individualism. Rather the Japanese philosophy of human development is summed up in the idea that a person's worth is judged by the degree of his or her effort to approximate his existing self to an ideal self. This concept, arising from the Confucian tradition and found in the traditional disciplines of Zen, tea ceremony, flower arranging, and martial arts, is the essence of what is called the seishin philosophy. Seishin-shugi is a term meaning "spiritualism." It implies a philosophy that people are perfectible individuals who can develop their own characters through hard work and determination. To some Japanese the concept has negative overtones associated with the paramilitary activities of extreme right-wing fanatics, but the spirit of striving that it connotes is a tenet with which many Japanese are sympathetic. Hard work, persistence, and optimism are the keys to individual development. Labor is seen as essential to personal growth. Those whose lives are too easy will never develop the character or strength of mature individuals. Hence members of the prewar generation question whether youth raised in postwar affluence will achieve the maturity of those who experienced poverty and deprivation. Persistence is a second essential to the development of one's character. Success does not come easily, and those who are ambitious must endure long periods of unrewarding work in order to prepare them to meet future challenges easily. To conform to labor, although it is not immediately productive, and to suppress one's ego and personal desires, is to develop inner strength. One must come to terms with the world. This philosophy seems gloomy, but optimism is also one of its cornerstones. It assumes that there are no innate differences in human ability. All human beings have the capacity to improve themselves. Doing so is a lifelong effort and will be rewarded with satisfaction. Failure to do so stems from a failure of will, weakness, and flawed effort. This set of ideas manifests itself in several forms. It generally comes to be more important to people in middle age, those whose careers are set, and those whose lives are stable, yet without meaning. It is found in volunteer movements where it motivates efforts to solve social problems. Members of these movements have faith in the goodness of people and confidence that, since the social world is an interconnected one, reinforcement of people's spiritual qualities will make the world a better place in which to live. People should abandon their selfishness, pessimism, and reluctance to participate, and become optimistic, less interested in themselves, and more concerned about others.