Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference

Kasulis (comparative studies, Ohio State U.) argues that cultural structures are rooted in basic assumptions that then recursively reproduce themselves into larger, more complicated seeming systems. He traces how, beginning with different conceptions of the relative value of intimacy versus integrity, larger cultural systems are built that seem vastly different, but are in fact only built on upon this small difference of emphasis. Utilizing American and Japanese culture as an illustration, he describes how basic orientations of intimacy versus integrity proceed to develop quite different understandings of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR