《漫長的敗北：日本的文化創傷、記憶與認同》
作者：橋本明子（Akiko Hashimoto）
紐約：牛津大學出版社，2015年。208頁，平裝本 $24.95。
ISBN：9780190239169
書評作者：福岡一也（Kazuya Fukuoka）
聖若瑟大學（Saint Joseph’s University）
電子郵件：kfukuoka@sju
一、東北亞的「記憶戰爭」依然以日本為中心
東北亞的記憶衝突至今仍環繞著日本展開。
日本社會長期被一個問題所困擾——應如何紀念日本過去所犯下的錯誤，並為其在亞洲造成的身心創傷贖罪。除了長期懸而未決的歷史教科書爭議、戰時「慰安婦」問題、以及日本首相參拜靖國神社的爭論外，近年來日本與南韓的竹島／獨島（Takeshima/Dokdo）主權爭議、以及日本與中國的釣魚台／尖閣群島（Senkaku/Diaoyu）問題，更使區域間本已緊張的關係雪上加霜。
此外，許多日本人也逐漸意識到，中國與韓國政府在「記憶外交」方面更為老練，能將歷史作為談判籌碼。顯而易見，東北亞的歷史陰影將不會輕易消散。
二、橋本明子的研究主題與核心問題
橋本明子的《漫長的敗北：日本的文化創傷、記憶與認同》（The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan）正面探討了這一問題，聚焦於記憶研究中最根本的提問：
為什麼過去的創傷事件，即使距離原始暴行已久，仍未消失？
更具體而言，她問道：
「為什麼那些艱難經驗的記憶會延續、甚至加劇，即便人們傾向於逃避這些恐怖回憶、並想繼續向前生活？」（第1頁）
橋本認為，日本難以擺脫過去的原因觸及了「日本戰敗文化的核心」（第2頁）。
她引用社會學家傑佛瑞·亞歷山大（Jeffrey Alexander）的「文化創傷」（cultural trauma）概念，並將「英雄、受害者、加害者」三種相互衝突的創傷敘事，應用於「家庭、媒體、學校」三個日常生活領域（第21頁），以探討「失敗如何以及為何成為日本國族集體生活中不可磨滅的一部分」（第2頁）。
橋本指出，創傷事件能成為「集體意識中的重要參照點」，並隨著時間「在集體生活中被話語化、常態化」（第4頁）。
三、打破「日本健忘症」的刻板印象
本書的重要貢獻之一，在於挑戰西方媒體常見的簡化印象——即日本陷入「國家失憶症」（national amnesia）（第4頁）。
橋本指出，這種看法是錯誤的。日本的記憶政治中，真正的爭點並非健忘，而是：
「一場激烈而多聲的鬥爭——爭論國家遺產與『成為日本人』的意義」（第9頁）。
她主張：「日本不存在單一的『集體記憶』，而是多種帶有不同道德框架的戰爭與戰敗記憶並存，並爭奪合法性」（第4頁）。
四、章節概要
第一章：導論
概述日本的「歷史問題」（rekishi mondai），並將創傷理論置入社會記憶研究的脈絡之中，為全書奠定理論基礎。
第二章：家庭記憶
探討戰爭世代如何回憶與詮釋自身經驗，以及後世如何從中學習、並形成「後記憶」（postmemory）——即「由未經歷事件者，基於成長過程中受到的深層影響，對創傷形成的想像理解」（第26頁）。
她分析了《朝日新聞》讀者來信欄中的430個案例（含390篇戰時世代的戰爭敘事與40篇戰後世代的文章），並輔以《文藝春秋》中的20篇戰時菁英子女證言。透過基層與菁英記憶的對照，橋本揭示了日本社會的記憶建構趨勢（第28頁）。
第三章：媒體與公共記憶
分析報紙社論、電視紀錄片與近年戰爭電影，說明「政治表演與媒體論述在紀念時刻的互動」，以及「公眾記憶爭奪如何迫使人們重新檢視道德羅盤，並在不確定的記憶文化中重構自我」（第55頁）。
她指出，日本的戰爭敘事從未統一，「英雄、受害者與加害者的敘事並存且相互牴觸」（第80頁）。
第四章：教育與和平敘事
檢視和平博物館、歷史教科書與教育漫畫（study manga）等教材，分析日本學生如何學習戰爭歷史。
本章共分析15本歷史與公民教科書，另輔以31本舊版教材作為對照樣本。
橋本指出，這些漫畫以「生動情節、色彩鮮明的人物與幽默筆法，使沉重歷史更易為人接受」（第104頁），並成為和平教育的重要工具。然而，她也發現近年來「加害者視角」已逐漸滲入主流的受害敘事，反映出新民族主義右派的政治反撲（第116頁）。
第五章：再軍備與歷史問題
最後一章將當前日本的再軍備辯論與歷史記憶問題相連結，並以德國戰後經驗為參照，提出日本未來的三條可能路線：
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民族主義式回歸
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和平主義持續
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和解導向的改革
五、書評者的反思與建議
福岡指出，本書雖以精彩的分析收尾，但略顯缺乏總結章節，若能在最後對研究整體進行自我評估，將更為完整。他建議未來研究可延伸橋本的架構，進行原始訪談與問卷，以補足資料層面。
他特別讚賞橋本對「記憶生產者與消費者」關係的重視（第20頁），並認同她在第四章的觀點——「世代記憶對情感與規範社會化的影響難以量化」（第114頁）。
橋本以問卷、訪談、焦點團體、公共論壇、部落格、網站、隨筆與報刊信件等多元材料「拼貼」（collage）出整體畫面，其細緻運用次級資料堪稱典範。
六、整體評價
《漫長的敗北》無疑是一項重要成就。
這是記憶研究領域學者與學生必讀之作。
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理論層面：橋本精確結合社會記憶理論與創傷理論，建立有說服力的分析框架。
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實證層面：每一章皆基於原始資料，深化了對日本記憶政治的理解。
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資料層面：豐富運用日語資料，使本書對研究日本身份政治者亦具價值。
是否希望我接著幫你撰寫這篇書評的中文導讀摘要版（約800字），用於媒體投稿或社群刊載？
The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan, by Akiko Hashimoto.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 208 pp. $24.95 paper.
ISBN: 9780190239169.
KAZUYA FUKUOKA
Saint Joseph's University
kfukuoka@sju
Memory wars in Northeast Asia still revolve around Japan.
Japanese society has been long haunted by the question of how to commemorate Japan's past wrongs and atone for physical as well as psychological wounds it caused in Asia. Along with the seemingly never-resolved issues over school history textbooks, the war-time comfort women, and the controversial official visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese prime ministers, among others, the recent territorial disputes over Takeshima/Dokdo (in the case of Japan and South Korea) and Senkaku/Diaoyu (Japan and China) have further complicated the already troubled international relations in the region. Also important, many in Japan now realize that the Chinese and Korean governments are more diplomatically skilled in the Asian pol-itics of memory, employing the past as a bargaining chip. It seems rather clear that the difficult past in Northeast Asia will not disappear easily.
Akiko Hashimoto's The Long Defeat: Cul-tural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan tackles this very issue and deals with one of the most fundamental questions in mem-ory studies. That is, why has the difficult past not disappeared, long after an original atrocity occurred? More concretely, in Hashi-moto, "[w]hy do memories of difficult expe-riences endure, and even intensify, despite people's impulse to avoid remembering dreadful pasts and to move on?" (p. 1). According to Hashimoto, the question of the resiliency of the difficult past in Japan touches upon "the heart of Japan's culture of defeat" (p. 2). By referring to what Jeffrey Alexander calls "cultural trauma" and applying three conflicting trauma narratives (heroes, victims, and perpetrators) into the analysis of "three areas of everyday life" (family, media, and school) (p. 21), the vol-ume tries to figure out "how and why defeat has become an indelible part of Japan's national collective life" (p. 2). Hashimoto's application of the concept of cultural trauma is useful, as a traumatic event can be "a sig-nificant referent in the collective conscious-ness" and engenders "a structure of dis-course that normalizes it in collective life over time" (p. 4).
Importantly, the volume defies the conven-tional understanding of Japan's war memo-ries, typically captured by western media as "the single, caricatured image of 'amnesia."" (p. 4). This perception is simply wrong, since what is at stake in Japan's memory politics is "not about national amnesia but about a stale-mate in a fierce, multivocal struggle over national legacy and the meaning of being Jap-anese" (p. 9). Hashimoto claims that "there is no 'collective' memory in Japan." Instead, what is observable is "multiple memories of war and defeat with different moral frames [that] coexist and vie for legitimacy" (p. 4).
The book has five chapters. The introduc-tory Chapter One constitutes an excellent introduction to Japan's history problem (rekishi mondai). Hashimoto also skillfully contextualizes trauma theory in the social memory literature. The next three chapters constitute the empirical core of the book. Chapter Two deals with family memory, showing how the wartime generations remembered and interpreted their war expe-riences and how the later generations learned from them and developed their "postmemory"-"an imagined understand-ing of trauma by those who did not experi-ence the event itself but grew up deeply influenced by it" (p. 26). The chapter analyzes 430 cases derived from "the readers' page of the left-of-center Asahi newspaper" (including 390 war stories/narratives by members of the wartime gen-eration and 40 from the postwar genera-tions). Along with the examination of "a subsample of 20 testimonies by children of wartime elites" (from the conservative monthly magazine, Bungei Shunju), Hashi-moto tries to capture "the general trends of memory making by juxtaposing grassroots testimonies with elite testimonies" (p. 28).
Chapter Three looks into the roles of mass cultural media. Through the analysis of national newspaper editorials, television documentaries, and recent wartime films,
Hashimoto shows "the interplay of political performance and media discourse during commemorative moments" and "the strug-gles over public memory that force people to probe their moral compass, and rework their memory, in the face of an uncertain, changing memory culture" (p. 55). As the chapter shows, Japan's narratives of war defeats are still never unified; "[n]arratives of heroes, victims, and perpetrators coexist uneasily" (p. 80).
By examining the variety of Japan's educa-tional materials, including peace museums, history textbooks, and educational comics, Chapter Four explains how school children in Japan learn about the last war. The chapter conducts a discourse analysis of fifteen histo-ry and civics textbooks. It also examines an additional 31 textbooks as a secondary sam-ple, including the previous editions of those texts. In addition to the examination of school textbooks (i.e., "History from Above"), the chapter also analyzes the role of manga (comics) ("History from Below"). Those so-called "study manga" books are effective, as they "make grim history palatable, with dynamic plots, colorful characters, and humorous asides" (p. 104). While they have been very useful tools for peace educa-tion in Japan, the chapter also found that perpetrator accounts have recently made inroads into the popular victim narratives to a significant degree (p. 116). Hashimoto attributed this to the series of political back-lashes led by the neonationalist right.
The volume ends with Chapter Five, in which a current public debate over Japan's remilitarization is discussed in conjunction with Japan's history problem. By taking the post-war German experience as a reference point, the chapter explores three future options for Japan: nationalist, pacifist, and reconciliationist approaches.
A few questions remain. First, the volume does not necessarily have a concluding chap-ter. While the book ends with a stimulating analysis of three potential paths Japan could take, it would be helpful if the volume con-cluded with critical self-appraisal of the over-all project. Hashimoto surely presented new ways we can study Japan's history problems. Any new research now must consult with what the volume found and consider creat-ing further research based on the book's approaches and questions. Very simply put,
this reviewer wonders how Hashimoto per-ceived the (potential) limitations of the study and what she would suggest for future studies. Another question pertains to the issue of the production/reception nexus in memory formation. Hashimoto is keenly aware of this, emphasizing the important analytical foci on both "producers" and "consumers" (p. 20). I agree with Hashimoto's lament in Chapter Four that "[t]he impact of generation-al memory on emotional and normative socialization is not easily measured" (p. 114). By relying on a variety of sources, "from surveys, interviews, focus groups, and public fora, to blogs, websites, essays, and letters to newspapers," Hashimoto tries to "build a collage" (p. 114; emphasis in origi-nal). Her careful use of secondary data is exemplary. Maybe this is too much to ask for one book, but I wonder how carefully conducted original surveys and interviews would add to what Hashimoto built in this book.
The Long Defeat is no doubt a significant achievement. This is a must-read volume for scholars and students of memory studies. The book is theoretically solid and empiri-cally rich. Theoretically, Hashimoto's thor-ough reading of social memory literature is skillfully matched up with trauma theory, providing a compelling theoretical frame-work. Empirically, each analytical chapter has original data, deepening our under-standing of Japan's memory politics. The book is also rich in Japanese sources, which also makes it a valuable read for the students of Japanese identity politics.
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