The Orient of the Mind

Paul Axton explains that orientalism is not simply academic or nationalistic but is intimately tied to psychology and human interiority. Japanese used the work of Sigmund Freud, very much an orientalist, so as to manufacture an identity to ward off and reverse the denigrating assessments of the West. Japanese psychologists and texts literally reverse Freud and his valuation system and this reversal has become a key part of the Japanese search for identity.

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Music: Bensound