Japan

NAKAMURA: That is one of the points at issue. Behind the reason nature was preserved in the past was a certain sense of aesthetics, which was supported in major or minor ways by a sense of religion. Today, we live in an irreligious manner, so we have separated aesthetics from religion. This has weakened the status of beauty in our time.

Despite the fact that we had come on this trip together—even if it was only a two-day trip—I felt as if the person moving steadily away from me, Sensei, was a stranger.

The samurai defined culture as a code of action, a system not of values but of virtues. A value is merely a belief, but a virtue is a belief that you actively pursue or embody. The reason so many efforts to establish “corporate values” are basically worthless is that they emphasize beliefs instead of actions. Culturally, what you believe means