[Clarification of Amae as a concept--response to the criticism by K. Nagayama]

Nagayama wrote a lengthy paper in order to demonstrate that the amae theory which I propounded is all confused. I should say on the contrary that the confusion is his own because he dose not realize that he and I may mean different things by the same word amae. Apparently he means those phenomena that indicate the fulfilment of amae, while I take amae as a verbnoun of amaeru meaning the operation of amaeru in one way or another irrespective of the outcome, its prototype being that of an infant seeking its mother. In short, for Nagayama amae is a characteristic of certain Japanese phenomena and for me a concept. It may refer, in psychoanalytic thinking, to that primordial urge for object relations. It makes no sense therefore to censure my wording of amae like 'narcissistic amae' as not measuring up to the true state of amae as Nagayama defines it, because my usage of the word amae is entirely different from his. In this connection I may point out a curious resemblance between the dismissive manner of his criticism and the behavior of a small group embodying amae which he characterizes as distinctly exclusive of outsiders. There is a good reason to believe that the resemblance is not accidental. I must say that Nagayama is most confused in his critical appraisal of the amae theory against Balint's theory. He completely ignores the fact that these two theories developed independently though there is a definite parallel between them. He then takes me to task that I did not properly incorporate Balint's late ideas into my thinking, even though those ideas became known only in the books published after that book of mine which is the butt of his criticism. Nagayama attempts to trace the amae phenomena back to some racial unconscious underlying Japanese culture. He may believe so, but it sharply contrasts with my view that the very availability of such a concept like amae is indicative of the tenor of Japanese culture. It is interesting to note here that all critics of the amae theory including Nagayama stumble on amae as a concept. They just cannot imagine that one can fetch a Japanese word and make it a universal concept. It must be their unspoken belief that all the valid concepts in whatever field of study come from abroad, notably the West.