A quandary

On the occasion noticed at reference 1, I came across the word kinaesthetic, which I got to poking around.

With the help of the Surrey Libraries access to research service, sometimes useful for providing access to stuff otherwise locked behind paywalls, I got to a paper about kinaesthesia and music which contained remarks about Japanese archery in connection with its interest in the fine control of the movements of the hands - something that western classical musicians might well be interested in.

From there I got to the paper at reference 2, illustrated left, which turned out to be surprisingly interesting.

But there was a catch. The fact that this paper started life as being read to the German-Japanese Society in Berlin in 1936 was just one pointer. Further enquiry revealed that the author - Eugen Herrigel - became a committed Nazi for the duration of the second world war, being banned from teaching for some years afterwards in consequence. Should I be profiting from the work of such a person? I have, but I do feel slightly awkward about it.

As it happens, on another track, I have just come across the Japanese word 'amae', described in wikipedia as 'as a uniquely Japanese need to be in good favor with, and be able to depend on, the people around oneself'. Which all perhaps ties in with a culture in which an adult professional man, perhaps a dam building engineer, might spend 20 years in pupillage with a master of archery. From where I associate to the long term relationship of a psycho-analyst and his (or her) analysand, a relationship which does not strike me as being that different from that described by Herrigel.

But I can't see many of today's young of the west who like to dabble in things of the east devoting twenty years to a study of this sort. Far too much like hard work, far too feeble in the instant gratification department. That said, there is a steady supply of young people who do devote a good part of their life - to the exclusion of much else - to football, to ping-pong or to playing the violin - so perhaps the remark about dabblers is unfair.

PS: later on I remembered about the entertaining books of Amélie Nothomb, one of which chronicles her stint as a salaryman in Japan. Perhaps it is time I turned them up again from their place on the front room bookcase. See reference 3 - in which connection I should say that I am fairly sure than I never got to read the 'Fundamental Problems of Marxism' mentioned in more or less the same breath.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/an-emotional-occasion.html.

Reference 2: http://www.ideologic.org/files/Eugen_Herrigel_-_Zen_in_the_Art_of_Archery.pdf.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=northomb.