Category: Archive

Michael Gordon

In 1979, the National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China enacted the “Population and Family Planning Law,” which is known to much of the world as the “one-child policy.” This law states that, under normal circumstances, Chinese married couples may give birth to and raise only one child. The law was implemented to bring the country’s swelling population under control; China is the most densely inhabited country in the world, with a current population of more than 1.3 billion (The World Bank, 2012, para. 1). The Chinese government estimates that, had the one-child policy not been implemented, China’s current population would be closer to 1.7 billion (National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2011, para. 6). The government believes that it would not have been possible to accommodate such a quickly ballooning society had the trend been allowed to continue. Providing food, adequate living conditions, and employment opportunities for such vast numbers is far beyond the scope of the country’s social and economic institutions. This population reduction tactic was applied with the intention of creating a more sustainable People’s Republic of China.

Sustainability is a subject that can be approached from multiple angles and has many speculative definitions. One of the more widely recognized classifications of sustainability is denoted in the Brundtland Report of 1987. This report, by the World Commission of Environment and Development, defines a sustainable society as a society that can provide the social, economic, and environmental necessities of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet these same needs (Towards sustainable development, 1987, para. 1-3). The intent behind the Population and Family Planning Law is to create just such a society. Chapter one, article one of the law reads:

This law is enacted, in accordance with the Constitution, so as to bring population into balance with social economic development, resources, and the environment: to promote family planning; to protect citizens’ legitimate rights and interests; to enhance family happiness, and to contribute to the nation’s prosperity and social progress. (Population and Family Planning Law of the People’s Republic of China, 2012, para. 1)

However, it is questionable whether such a stringent population control campaign is truly the best way to achieve these noble, yet ambitious goals.

The practice of population control as a tool of sustainability can be traced, in large part, back to the eighteenth century clergyman and economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, who did extensive research on the dynamics of populations. In his most famous literary work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, As It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, Malthus theorized that a population could propagate exponentially and infinitely, until stopped by the “positive checks” of disease and famine when available resources, such as food, were exhausted. He later acknowledged that there are other growth stunting forces, including “preventive checks” (contraception, abortion, or infanticide) and “moral restraint” (abstinence). These two socially concealed checks can work to guard a society from the pains of imminent starvation (Malthus, 2010, para. 1-4).

Today, many biologists and population scientists believe that the human race has recently outgrown its vast habitat, the Earth. It appears that the ever growing demand for the planet’s vital resources has surpassed the limited supply. Various manifestations of Malthus’ “preventive checks” are advocated as instruments to reduce the population and reverse this self-destructive trend, that the Earth might be reverted to a more sustainable, and therefore more congenial condition. It is argued, however, that many of the more popular population control methods are non-sustainable from a perspective emphasizing social justice ideologies; a society that is not socially sustainable is a non-sustainable society.

The Western Australia Council of Social Services provides a template delineation of social sustainability. The WACSS defines a socially sustainable society as one that exhibits equity and cohesion among its people, while providing and promoting good quality of life for current and future generations (Partridge, 2005, p. 9). China’s Family Planning Commission asserts that the one-child policy embodies a significant advance toward greater social sustainability. They claim that the policy promotes gender equality and generally improves quality of life for all Chinese citizens, including children, adults, and the elderly. However, the one child policy is not socially sustainable in the slightest; it is damaging to social equality and is a danger to many Chinese people. This paper examines the arguments surrounding the one-child policy’s impact on social justice in China.

The Impact of the One-child Policy on Equity between Chinese Citizens

A socially sustainable society is equitable, meaning it provides fair and impartial treatment and opportunities to all its members, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, or social status. The Chinese government alleges that their family planning policies promote equity, but an examination of the full effects of these laws reveals that they have the opposite effect.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China argues in favor of their family planning practices, stating that the one-child policy improves gender equality in China. In particular, the policy provides greater opportunity for women, who have traditionally played a subordinate role to men. They argue that if women only have to raise one child, they will have more time for themselves to devote to professional careers or other personal pursuits. This could give women a stronger foothold in conventionally male dominated corporate circles. The Ministry boasts of progress that is already being made in some levels of society. They call attention to the pronounced increase in the number of women holding staff jobs, growing 24.1% from 45 million to 56 million persons in just seven years (1985-1992) (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 1995, para. 20). Women have also made advances in education. The Ministry reports that 56.3% of urban women have a senior middle school education or higher, up from 9.1% for the previous generation (para. 21).

Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs argues that the one-child policy has instigated the implementation of better health services for women. The Ministry contends that the strong emphasis placed on family planning has prompted the government to construct a stronger network of hospitals, and maternity and child care centers. China has also committed to improving health care for women (para. 42-45).

It is true that occupational and educational opportunities for Chinese women are growing; however, it is not clear whether this growth is a direct consequence of China’s family planning policies. These advances could more easily be attributed to other recent governmental policies, such as the “Marriage Law,” the “Criminal Law,” the “Law on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women,”  the “Law of Maternal and Infant Health Care,” or the “Labor Law,” all of which explicitly target increased opportunity for women (National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2006, para. 10)  Even if it is true that mothering a single child plays a significant role in improving prospects for women, the one-child policy still does more harm to women than good. In fact, the policy is causing a steep decline in the country’s female population.

In China, there is a cultural preference for families to produce sons rather than daughters. Parents may prefer a son because sons have a traditional obligation to care for their aging parents. Sons are expected to be providers of life’s necessities, such as food, shelter, and medical assistance, if and when their parents can no longer provide these goods and services for themselves. Daughters, on the other hand, sever any obligational ties with their parents after marrying into a new family. The parents of the bride are also expected to provide a handsome dowry. Because they seemingly provide no benefits for their parents, women are considered to be naught but a drain on family resources (Arnold, 1986, p. 226).

Also, ancestry and family history are integral parts of Chinese culture; many Chinese practice forms of ancestor worship. Sons are desirable because they traditionally carry the family lineage. Daughters only aid in continuing other family lines. The lineage of the parents will essentially terminate if they only have daughters (Arnold, 1986, p. 226).

The disadvantage of having daughters is causing an alarming demographic shift; China is diminishing its female population. The one-child policy is radically accelerating this process; many Chinese families feel greater pressure to have male children when the number of children they are allowed to have is limited. As a result, millions of baby girls are aborted every year in China (Johnston, 2005, para. 3). This crisis is often referred to as China’s “missing girls.” With such astronomical numbers of women being denied the right to simply live, the notion that the family planning policies, which fuel this injustice, are improving gender equality is utterly absurd.

What’s more, the women who are allowed to live are steadily shrinking to a minority status, a historically unfavorable position economically and socially. The advances women have made in recent decades will likely be diminished if current trends continue. There simply won’t be enough women left in the country to be proportionately represented in business and government.

The dwindling numbers of women left alive could be in danger in other ways. According to the U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficing in Persons, human trafficking in China is driven largely by the increasing shortage of marriageable women. Many women are captured from surrounding countries, namely Russia, Romania, North Korea, Burma, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Ghana, to be sold to Chinese men, and forced into marriage (U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficing in Persons, 2009, para. 354). The one-child policy is largely responsible for the gender imbalance that is fueling female trafficking. This abuse of human life is obviously not a promotion of gender equality.

The shift in China’s gender demographic is even affecting crime rates. The country’s crime rate has nearly doubled in the past two decades. A statistical analysis comparing the crime rate to the number of unmarried Chinese men found that there is a definite correlation between the two (Edlund, 2008, p. 1). With so few women in China, the number of unmarried men is increasing; unmarried men are statistically held to be the most crime-prone demographic (Edlund, 2008, p. 2).

Aside from the unrecognized, unintentional maltreatment the family planning policy inflicts on women, the language and enforcement of the law is inherently sexist. In 1988, the National Population and Family Planning Commission added an exception to the one-child policy; families living in rural areas are now allowed a second child if their first is a girl (Heartmann, 1995, p. 162). With this change, the Chinese government is authoritatively affirming female inferiority, implying that girls are not worth as much as boys. Also, the government encourages sterilization as a “safety precaution” to couples who have already had their allotted number of children; however, these prompts are imposed much more heavily on women, despite the fact that there are fewer health risks involved in male sterilization. In China, female sterilization is three times more common than male sterilization (Heartmann, 1995, p. 164). Despite this obvious sexism, the Chinese government still contends that their family planning policies improve quality of life for their citizens.

The Impact of the One-child Policy on the Quality of Life of Chinese Citizens

A socially sustainable society provides a good quality of life; this means that there are systems in place which guarantee education and employment opportunities to any who actively seek them. The Chinese government contends that their family planning policies help provide such opportunities, particularly where children are concerned. However, when all of China’s children are taken into account, it is obvious that quality of life is declining in the country.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission of China holds that the one-child policy improves opportunities for children, arguing that families with only one child can devote more resources to that child rather than divide time and income among siblings. In this way, Chinese children will receive more personal attention and better educations. The Population Research and Development Center of the People’s University of China performed a study to test this claim. Their findings indicate that Chinese children without siblings display a greater chance of enrollment and grade completion than those with siblings (Yang, 2006, p. 18). The policy has also been associated with a decline in child labor practices (China, 2009, para. 10).

The one-child policy may improve the lives of some children, but this argument ignores the growing number of children who are not receiving these benefits, in fact, the one-child policy diminishes opportunities for many children. As mentioned above, millions of children are aborted every year to provide more prospects for living children. A society that denies some the opportunity to live so that others might receive better educations is intrinsically unjust.

Many of the unlawful children who are not aborted are orphaned or abandoned. It is difficult to estimate the number of parentless and homeless children, as the Chinese government keeps no record of this unfortunate portion of the population, but it is clear that the number is growing (Zhong, 2006, p. 1). Abandoned girls are the living remnant of China’s “missing girls,” surviving the high levels of sex-selective abortion and infanticide (which usually involves drowning or suffocation of newborns). These young girls lack government registered births; this denies them from access to the state’s schooling and health services (Heartmann, 1995, pp. 165-166). A society which leaves so many of its children without these basic needs cannot call itself socially sustainable. The elderly will also be denied many basic needs as a result of this policy

The Impact of the One-child Policy on Social Cohesions between Chinese Citizens

A socially sustainable society upholds cohesiveness; it provides a system which ensures that people of varying demographic backgrounds can live together in social and economic security. The one-child policy is upsetting social cohesions between the young and the old. The combination of China’s current low fertility rate of 1.7 children born per woman (a result of the one-child policy) with the declining mortality rates for the elderly is causing a dangerous demographic shift (Hesketh, 2005, p. 1172). China’s population is aging; that is, the ratio of elderly people to working age people is evening out. It is estimated that, by 2040, 30% of the country’s population will be sixty-five or older. This number could be as high as 50% in some cities (England, 2005, p. xi). In the future, there may not be enough young people to support the growing number of senior citizens. Studies show that altering the one-child policy, essentially making it a universal two-child policy, could reverse this troubling trend (Li, 2009, p. 47).

The National Population and Family Planning Commission of China admits that the prospect of an aged population is a disconcerting scenario. However, they refuse to alter the one child policy. Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission states that there are no current plans to repeal any of their family planning policies, and the policies will not be reformed or reduced in any way during the next decade (Yardley, 2008, para. 2-4). Instead, the Chinese government chooses to deal with the problem by implementing chronic-disease prevention programs and improving the long-term care delivery systems for the elderly (Population Reference Bureau, 2012, para. 18-20).

These solutions, however, are inadequate and unrealistic. Even with China’s growing economy, it is doubtful that the government will have the funds to support care-giving services for the elderly, according to policy analyst Toshiko Kaneda. Also, as the number of elderly people grows, so will the cost of health care (which is already higher than most of China’s citizens can afford) (Population Reference Bureau, 2012, para. 4). Social cohesion is not present in a society where care for the elderly is not affordable.

Traditionally, a senior couple becomes the responsibility of their oldest son when they can no longer care for themselves. This custom is even recognized by the state; sons can receive up to five years in prison if they refuse to provide care for their parents. It is estimated that as much as 70% of China’s senior population is economically dependent on their offspring (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). However, since the implementation of the one child policy, this system has been in jeopardy. Sons may be obligated to take in their parents, but it is often the son’s wife who provides much of the physical care (statistically, males have the weakest sense of family obligation). With China’s bride shortage (a consequence of the one-child policy), it is quite likely that the elderly will receive a poorer quality of care (Zhang, 2006, p. 156).

Again, the group who stands to lose the most in this scenario is women. Women, because they live longer than men, are very likely to be widowed. This is unfortunate, as women are often dependent on men and the surplus of elderly people will only escalate this problem. Additionally, China’s social security system is poor at best, but it is virtually non-existent for women (Li, 2009, p. 46).

Another problem associated with the aging population is the financial aspect from the son’s perspective. It is theorized that any financial advantages a married couple obtains by having only one child would be cancelled out if the household had to support both the mother’s and the father’s parents. This has been nicknamed the “4:2:1 phenomenon.” Four grandparents and one child are entirely dependent on the income and resources of two individuals. (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). It is clear that the one-child policy is causing a plethora of grim social and economic problems; it may not be unreasonable to ask: Is such a severe law really necessary?

The Overall Effectiveness of the One Child Policy

After reviewing all the evidence, it is clear that China’s family planning policies are fueling social instability in the injudicious country. If social sustainability cannot be achieved on even the most basic levels, the population will grow increasingly divided and disengaged, thus it is not likely that economic and environmental sustainability will be attained either.

Despite all the social problems the country is facing as a result of their one child policy, the Chinese government has refused to budge on the issue, even with growing disapproval from other nations. The Family Planning commission argues that the policy is the only civilized and efficient way to keep the country’s population down; supporting such a quickly expanding populace is both an environmental drain and an economic impossibility. There are those, however, who dispute that there are better, more humane ways to control the spread of a population.

This is the assertion made by Dr. Betsy Hartmann, professor of development studies and director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College. Hartmann argues that population spikes are not a cause, but a consequence of a non-sustainable society. She affirms that countries with high poverty rates, bad education systems, and great levels of inequality and stratification tend to have much higher birth rates. Citizens living in a country that promotes equality, opportunity, and cohesion among its people seem to naturally choose to have fewer children (Hartmann, 1995, p. 8). Hartmann points out that no democratically governed country is currently experiencing population troubles.

China itself is another example of this social phenomenon. The country’s largest decline in fertility actually occurred before the implementation of the one child policy. In the years between 1971 and 1979, China’s birth rate fell from 5.9 to 2.9 children per woman. During this time the Family Planning commission had the simple slogan: “late, long, few,” suggesting that women could better their predicament by self-regulating their reproductive demeanors (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). Also, there was a plethora of social reforms during this period which promoted equality among people.

In short, the People’s Republic of China would be far better off if they make social sustainability their primary focus rather than population control; their current system and methods are only destructive. China requires a socially sustainable society; economically and environmentally sustainable systems will inevitably emerge from this.

References

Arnold, F. & Zhaoxiang, L. (1986). Sex preference, fertility, and family planning in China. Population and Development Review, 12(2), 221-246.

Branigan, T. (2011, November 2). China’s great gender crisis. The Guardian. Retrieved from  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/chinas-great-gender-crisis

China. (2009). In The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey. Retrieved from  http://www.credoreference.com/entry/sharpecl/china

China’s population: The most surprising demographic crisis. (2011, May 5). The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/18651512

Ebenstein, A. & Sharygin, E. (2009). The consequences of the “missing girls” of China. World Bank Economic Review, 23(3), 399-425.

Edlund, L., Li, H., Yi, J., & Zhang, J. (2008, April 27). Sex ratios and crime:                                 Evidence from China’s one-child policy. The National Bureau of Economic Research.   Retrieved from             http://www.nber.org/public_html/confer/2008/cwgf08/edlund.pdf?utm_source=io9+New sletter &utm_campaign=90e5db5411-UA-142218-29&utm_medium=email

England, R. S. (2005). Aging China: The demographic challenge to China’s economic prospects.  Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Heartmann, B. (1995). Reproductive rights and wrongs: The global politics of population control and contraceptive choice. Cambridge, MN: South End Press.

Hesketh, T., Lu, L., & Xing, Z. W. (2005). The effect of China’s one-child family policy after 25 years. New England Journal of Medicine, 353(11), 1171-1176.

Johnston, R. (2005, August 3). People’s Republic of China: Abortions and live births by region. Retrieved from http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/prc/ab-prcp.html

Li, Q., Reuser, M., Kraus, C., Alho, J. (2009). Ageing of a giant: A stochastic population forecast     for China, 2006–2060. Journal of Population Research, 26, 21-50.

Li, S. (2007). Imbalanced sex ratio at birth and comprehensive intervention in China. 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. Retrieved from  http://www.unfpa.org/gender/docs/studies/china.pdf

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. (1995, August). Family planning in China. Retrieved from http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cegv/eng/bjzl/t176938.htm

National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China. (2006, July 16). Gender equity and women’s empowerment. Retrieved from      http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/international/psummaries/201202/t20120220_381651.html

National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.  (2006, December 7). Future goals. Retrieved from             http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/about/history/201202/t20120220_381718.html

National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China. (2006, December 7). Main achievements of population and family planning program of   China. Retrieved from             http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/about/history/201202/t20120220_381715.html

National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China. (2011, October 31). China to maintain its family planning policy: Official. Retrieved      from http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/en/detail.aspx?articleid=111103165614926202

Partridge, E. (2005). ‘Social sustainability’: A useful theoretical framework. Retrieved from    http://auspsa.anu.edu.au/proceedings/publications/Partridgepaper.pdf

Population and Family Planning Law of the People’s Republic of China. (2012, February 23). National Population and Family Planning Commission. Retrieved from             http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/policies/201202/t20120223_382224.html

Population Reference Bureau. (2012). China’s concern over population aging and health. Retrieved from http://www.prb.org/Articles/2006/ChinasConcernOverPopulationAgingandHealth.aspx

Short, S. E., Zhai, F., Xu, S., & Yang, M. (2001). China’s one-child policy and the care of         children: An analysis using qualitative and quantitative data. Social Forces, 79(3), 913-      943.

Towards sustainable development. (1987). Our common future: Report of the world commission     on environment and development. Retrieved from http://www.un-documents.net/ocf      -02.htm#I

Understanding popular culture in China. (2007). Pop Culture China! Media, Arts, and             Lifestyle. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com             /entry/abcpochine/understanding_popular_culture_in_china

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Yang, J. (2006, February). Has the one-child policy improved adolescents’ educational wellbeing in China? Population Research and Development Center of the People’s University of   China. Retrieved from http://paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=60804

Yardley, J. (2008, March 11). China sticking with one-child policy. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/world/asia/11china.html

Zhang, Y., Goza, F. (2006). Who will care for the elderly in China?: A review of the problems caused by China’s one-child policy and their potential solutions. Journal of Aging          Studies, 20(2), 151-164.

Zhong, J. (2006). 573,000 orphans in China. Chinese Children Adoption International. Retrieved        from    http://www.chinesechildren.org/Newsletter%5CWindow%20to%20China/         WTC_03_2006.pdf

Lindsey McCullough

Japanese is considered to be one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers to master; according to the Defense Language Institute, it takes roughly 2.5 times longer for native English speakers to attain a basic understanding of the Japanese language than to attain an equivalent understanding of a language such as French or Spanish (“DLI’s Language Guidelines,” 2010). Immediate differences between English and Japanese are many, the most obvious of which being the written language. While English uses one set of characters to represent its entire language, Japanese, as cited in the Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary, “…is written using three different basic scripts: kanji (Chinese characters), hiragana, and katakana, the latter two being two distinct types of… phonetic script known as kana” (Nakao, 1997, p. xv). If this is not enough to deter potential learners, there are plenty of syntax differences to explore; for example, one chapter’s title in Making Sense of Japanese, a book by Jay Rubin, professor of Japanese literature at Harvard University, reads, “Warning: This Language Works Backwards,” referring to the fact that Japanese verbs are always at the end of sentences, no matter how long and complicated those sentences may be (Rubin, 1998, p. 106).

With all these differences in mind, one may wonder how well a native English speaker could ever hope to learn Japanese. Is it possible for an English speaker to understand Japanese the way a native speaker can? What can be done to make the process easier? To what extent does one’s native language affect the ability to learn new and different languages?

Kana and Kanji

Perhaps one of the most intimidating aspects of the Japanese language from a native English perspective is the writing system. Kana and kanji are the building blocks of the written Japanese language. That the Japanese writing system is vastly different from that of English barely needs explaining; anyone who opens his or her multilingual digital camera instruction booklet can plainly see this. Aspects that make Japanese challenging for native English speakers are not hard to appreciate, but one may wonder if there is anything about the language that may prove to be less, rather than more, difficult to learn. Comparing the two languages brings some interesting findings to light.

English is composed of twenty-six letters that may be combined in a vast number of ways to create different sounds and spellings. According to Seigo Nakao, assistant professor of Japanese at Oakland University in Michigan, the Japanese kana syllabaries, which can be considered equivalent to the English alphabet in many ways, have over one hundred syllables each, with the hiragana syllabary representing native Japanese sounds and the katakana syllabary representing foreign sounds (Nakao, 1997). This fact could be discouraging to potential learners of the Japanese language, for there are far more kana than there are letters in the English alphabet. However, the pronunciation of any given kana is very consistent in that, with very few exceptions, it will not change no matter where it is placed in relation to other kana, nor does it have more than one pronunciation (as cited in Nakao, 1997). The 2004 Merriam-Webster Dictionary cites at least five possible pronunciations for the vowel “a” in the English language (Mish, 2004). In contrast, Japanese has a total of only five vowel sounds, and they are perfectly predictable according to their associated kana (Nakao, 1997). According to Gene Nishi, founder of the Nishi Institute of Language Education, one Japanese professor wrote that there are more than 3000 different syllables in the English language, a great deal more than there are in the Japanese language (as cited in Nishi, 2000). A 2008 study by Ann Bradlow, PhD., professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University, has shown that native Japanese speakers have quite a bit of difficulty with some English sounds, an example of which would be the difference between “r” and “l”; Japanese contains a sound approximate to English “r,” but nothing approximate to English “l,” and this fact in combination with the similarity between these two sounds makes mastering them a challenge for the native Japanese speaker (Bradlow, 2008). This is not so for native English speakers learning Japanese; all sounds in Japanese have some approximate equivalent in English (Nakao, 1997). It is possible to conclude that the pronunciation of Japanese is less complex than that of English; kana, perhaps, is not so intimidating, but kanji may yet be.

Nakao states that kanji originated in China, and that these symbols are used to represent native Japanese words—and some Chinese loanwords—along with hiragana; the pronunciation of these more complex symbols varies based on context, and some may have more than one possible use (Nakao, 1997). In The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary, linguist Jack Halpern writes that there are thousands of kanji, and that some are made up of as many as thirty strokes each (Halpern, 1999). This aspect of the Japanese writing system is obviously quite complicated, and will prove challenging for the native English speaker. However, Halpern also says the following:

…The effort is well worthwhile. Kanji have the ability to generate hundreds of thousands of compound words from a basic stock of a few thousand units. They form a network of interrelated parts that function as an integrated system, not as an arbitrary set of disconnected symbols. (p. 18a)

Looking at some of the entries in The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary, it is not difficult to appreciate this fact. The entry for the “water” kanji easily illustrates this. Combining this kanji with the one meaning “middle” creates suichuu, a phrase meaning “in the water.” Sui can also be combined with ryoku, or power, to create the term suiryoku, or “hydraulic power” (p. 2). According to language expert Florence Sakade and Japanese language professors Kenneth Henshall, Christopher Seeley, and Henk de Groot, both of these last two kanji are learned by Japanese children in the first grade, making them very basic (Sakade, Henshall, Seeley & de Groot, 2003). So long as a person knows the kanji for “water” and “power,” that person may easily gather what the two of them together mean. “Hydraulic,” having its roots in the Greek language according to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is not so immediately accessible (Mish, 2004). Through the use of kanji, a first grade child in Japan would likely have a better comprehension of the term “hydraulic power” than would a first grade child in America. This building block approach is consistent with much of the Japanese language (Halpern, 1999). In short, the Japanese writing system may be complicated, but it is not incomprehensible.

Understanding Syntax

Together, kana and kanji form the words and phrases of the Japanese language; as with any language, however, these parts need assembling to form complete, coherent thoughts. Japanese grammar is different from English grammar in ways too numerous to detail here, but a few of these discrepancies can be used as examples. Jay Rubin has written a section each in his book for the concept of both verb placement at the end of the sentence and the apparent lack of subject in some Japanese sentences (Rubin, 1998). How does one go about learning a language so different from one’s own? Nishi (2000) rejects the idea of “direct method” learning, “using only Japanese to teach Japanese,” for its impracticality, choosing instead to use English to explain the language (p. 5). Rubin (1998) does this often, himself, in his own book, but he also mentions that “just as it is a mistake to expect students to master a language by translating it into their own, it is also a mistake to exclude translation… entirely” (p. 18). A combination of translation-based techniques and more natural understanding is necessary.

It would make sense, therefore, for a native English speaker to rely on techniques based upon translation and understanding of native language while he or she learns to become a more natural speaker. There are many tools to aid those learning Japanese. One textbook consists of nothing but sample sentence structures that learners may adapt by simply inserting the necessary parts of speech like variables into equations; Nishi’s book takes a similarly formulaic approach to the construction of sentences, but goes in depth, allowing the student more understanding of syntax. Rubin uses memorable anecdotes to explain somewhat difficult concepts; an example is his comparing the end of Patrick Henry’s famous speech to the effect a certain Japanese particle has on the sentence it is placed in (Rubin, 2000).

However, these techniques may not need to be relied upon forever. One study, conducted by Sanako Mitsugi and Brian MacWhinney of Carnegie Mellon University, has shown that English speakers can obtain language processing speeds similar to that of native Japanese speakers. The experiment measured the processing speeds of native Japanese, native Korean, and native English speakers for scrambled Japanese sentences; the native English speakers had spent three years on average studying Japanese, but the study showed no significant difference in the effects on processing speeds as compared to the native Japanese speakers (Mitsugi & MacWhinney, 2010). The case markers, used to infer meaning, were left attached to the appropriate parts of speech; English depends more on word order than things such as case markers, and the fact that the native English speakers were able to make use of the case markers to interpret the scrambled sentences meant that they had acquired considerable understanding of basic Japanese grammar (Mitsugi & MacWhinney, 2010). This finding may prove encouraging to aspiring Japanese speakers; despite the dissimilarity of English and Japanese grammar, native English speakers can make progress in understanding Japanese with practice.

Mimicking Native Learning

After exploring the idea of understanding Japanese based on knowledge of English, one may wonder how to obtain the more natural understanding of the language as mentioned earlier. As the difficulty of Japanese for English speakers seems largely determined on the difference between the two languages, it may be beneficial to observe the differences in how native speakers learn them. Waxman et al. (2013) reference a study comparing three year old and five year old children acquiring new nouns and verbs as they learned their native languages—English, Japanese, and Mandarin acquiring children were included—that bears interesting results in regards to English and Japanese speaking children:

English-acquiring 5-year-olds successfully mapped verbs to actions if the surrounding nouns were mentioned explicitly (e.g., “She is blicking something!”) but not if they were dropped (e.g., “Blicking”). In contrast, Japanese 5-year-olds more successfully mapped verbs to actions when the surrounding nouns were dropped than when they were explicitly mentioned (p. 3).

This means that while English-speaking children were more comfortable with verbs when connected to nouns, Japanese-speaking children were more comfortable with verbs alone. When remembering the fact that Japanese sentences sometimes lack deliberately mentioned subjects, something that regularly confounds native English speakers, this proves quite illuminating.

Knowing this, it would seem there is merit to approaching the Japanese language in the same way native speakers do. This idea can be applied to the acquisition of the written language, as well. One thing Japanese children undoubtedly learn about kanji, for example, is that the symbols are based on pictographs that explain their meaning (Kusuya, 2001). Examination of the origins of these characters may aid learners in remembering what they mean. Another imitation of Japanese schoolchildren’s learning style may be found in books such as A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese, which contains the first 1,006 kanji learned by Japanese children in grades one through six in the order in which they are taught (Sakade et al., 2003). This guide, like The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary by Halpern, as mentioned earlier, also contains examples of how kanji and kana may be put together to form new words and ideas, but the order of the characters provides a different perspective in learning.

Learning kanji in the same order as Japanese children provides benefits most people may not realize. Nishi (2000) employs a technique in his book in which he prints romaji—phonetic representations of the Japanese language written using the English alphabet—above kana and kanji to aid the learner in pronunciation. This idea was originally found in children’s books and other such things, in which kanji would be accompanied by hiragana “ruby,” small text to help children with unfamiliar or complex characters. (Nishi, 2000, p. 6). Materials intended for very young children may have “ruby” accompanying every kanji that is printed; an example for this would be the instruction booklet for a new Japanese Tamagotchi toy, in which every kanji has “ruby” printed above it. In more advanced material, such as a novel based off a video game, some of the more complex kanji still have “ruby,” while more basic ones do not. This book may be printed differently than the instruction booklet—vertically rather than horizontally—but the “ruby” simply appear to the immediate left of the characters rather than above them. If one were to acquire such things, he or she could progress from basic reading materials to more advanced ones. When a word or phrase is still unfamiliar after learning its pronunciation, one of the many helpful smartphone or tablet applications available today would allow for easy lookup through either romaji or kana. This would allow the learner to gain experience with material meant for native Japanese speakers rather than rely simply on texts written for those acquiring Japanese as a second language. If native learning is important—and it appears it is—there are approaches that may be taken to gain a perspective that mimics it.

Japanese for English Speakers

Japanese is very different from English; there is no debate about this. It is, however, quite possible for English speakers to gain proficiency in the Japanese language. The writing system is complex, but the relative simplicity of kana pronunciation does offer easy access to beginning students of the language. Kanji may prove challenging to memorize, but it has been shown that there is coherence and structure to their use, meaning progress can be made. Japanese grammar is complicated and different from that of English in many ways, but with theories like those of Nishi and Rubin, native English speakers can gain proficiency. Native language has a large impact on ability to learn other languages later on, but mimicking native learning will aid English speakers in learning Japanese.

It may be best for traditional classroom learning of Japanese to be supplemented with materials that allow the foreign speaker to approach the language in the same way native speakers do; this would allow for a more natural understanding of the language to develop alongside the technical skills that allow students to decipher the more advanced, everyday speech and writing typically used among adults. There are aids to help native Japanese children understand kanji—such as hiragana “ruby”—that foreign students could easily use. All that is necessary is that they acquire the basic skills and perspective that allow them to do so.

This perspective, in particular, is very important. Japanese and English are two very different languages, and Japanese will prove challenging for the native English speaker to learn. It is only because the language is so different, however, that this is so. Japanese is not, in itself, a confusing language; it actually makes a great deal of sense when one stops to appreciate it. In fact, some aspects of the Japanese language arguably make more sense than do their counterparts in English—pronunciation being the most obvious example, the expediency of kanji as compared to the numerous Greek and Latin word roots of English being another. When these facts are realized, the native English speaker may approach the learning of the Japanese language from a different angle—one that allows for understanding of this unique language through both tools that utilize their understanding of their native language and techniques that allow for natural understanding.

References

Bradlow, A. (2008). Training non-native language sound patterns. In Edwards, J. G. H., & Zampini, M. L. (Eds.), Phonology and second language acquisition (pp. 293-308). Amsterdam: J. Benjamin’s Pub.

DLI’s language guidelines. (2010). Association of the United States Army. Retrieved from http://www.ausa.org/publications/ausanews/specialreports/2010/8/Pages/DLI%E2%80%99slanguageguidelines.aspx

Halpern, J. (Ed.). (2001). The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary (2nd ed.). Saitama, Japan: Kodansha International, Ltd.

Kusuya, D. (2001). Kanji Starter 1. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press.

Mish, F. C. (Ed.). (2004). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

Mitsugi, S., & MacWhinney, B. (2010). Second language processing in Japanese scrambled sentences. In VanPatten, B., & Jegerski, J. (Eds.), Research in second language processing and parsing (pp. 159-175). Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s Pub. Co.

Nakao, S. (1997). Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary. New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

Nishi, G. (2001). Japanese Step by Step: An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese. Tokyo, Japan: Shufunotomo Co., Ltd.

Rubin, J. (1998). Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don’t Tell You. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International Ltd.

Sakade, F., Henshall, K., Seeley, C., & de Groot, H. (2003). A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese (3rd ed.). Tokyo, Japan: Tuttle Publishing.

Waxman, S. et al. (2013). Are Nouns Learned Before Verbs? Infants Provide Insight Into a Long-Standing Debate. Child Development Perspectives, 7(3), 155–159. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdep.12032/full

Daniel Foix

On January 8, 2016, English singer and songwriter David Bowie released his 27th studio album: ★(pronounced “Blackstar”). Upon its release, the record was met by widespread critical acclaim and initiated a surge of reinterest in Bowie’s career. However, a mere two days after the release, David Bowie passed away following an eighteen-month battle with liver cancer – a battle which had been carefully kept secret from the general public. Following this surprising twist of fate, the infant surge of reinterest in Bowie’s career grew exponentially – a passage of discovery for new fans and a rite of mourning for old ones. As reported by Business Insider, this postmortem Bowie fervor led to the artist breaking Vevo’s record for the most videos viewed in a single day, with over 51 million views (Oswald).

To satisfy this public hunger, Bowie’s career received an immense quantity of publicity from
many major news outlets. Primarily, this publicity revolved around the artistic influence of David Bowie and of his ever-changing personas – invented personalities used to explore the musical theater. Predominantly, this publicity focused on either his more famous personas (such as Ziggy Stardust) or his grandest, most influential persona – that of “David Bowie” himself – whereas the man behind the glitz and glamour tends to be glossed over [1]. That is to say, the focus on Bowie’s musical work and the influence thereof tends to distract from acknowledging his personal life. Most prominently, the evolution of Bowie’s personal spirituality – a focal point of the musician’s life and art (as will be discussed) – has been largely unrecognized.

In a similar fashion to his artistic career – which is renowned for reinvention and experimentation – throughout the course of his life, Bowie’s theology has undergone a plethora of “changes.” Despite originating from a Christian background, Bowie’s early life was characterized by conflicting systems of spiritual beliefs: ranging from Satanism, to Kabbalism, and to Buddhism (Buckley 233; Trynka 280, 314). In 1967, Bowie had considered becoming a Buddhist monk before being advised to continue pursuing music; however, he maintained an attachment to Buddhist philosophy for the remainder of his life (Buckley 47; Sawer). Though his spiritual drive assumed a slower tempo as he progressed into middle-age, it was never entirely subdued. In 1993, Bowie would profess an “undying belief in God’s existence,” only to engage in a serious flirtation with atheism as he entered the 21st century (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”; Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”). Suffice to say, Bowie’s spirituality emerges as consistent motif in his artistic work, lyrically and thematically.

Even at a surface glance upon Bowie’s life, the personal significance of his spirituality is deeply evident; hence, discussing the personal evolution of his spirituality and the effects it played upon his artistic work holds substantial erudite prospects. By diminishing the gap between act and actor, this analysis will serve to provide background information on the musician’s life for eager Bowie neophytes while simultaneously illustrating a new perspective for old Bowie acolytes. Furthermore, the interconnectivity between life experience and artistic production is prominently emphasized through Bowie’s life, and such an analysis will serve to emphasize the direct relationship between art and artist. Therefore, to facilitate this discussion, several questions must be posed and evaluated: Why has spirituality been of such prominent interest to Bowie; from where did this spiritual hunger originate? How has Bowie’s spirituality influenced his artistic output and to what extent are these aspects interconnected? For that matter, where did Bowie’s spiritual journey finally end and why was this route chosen?

The Effects of Bowie’s Dichotomous Childhood

David Bowie’s spiritual journey begins in the same place Bowie himself began: at 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, on January 8, 1947. Though he was raised in a loving, supportive environment, Bowie’s childhood was characterized by a religious dichotomy – a dynamic resulting from a Catholic mother and a Protestant father. These differing religious philosophies provided a continual source of contention which Bowie’s parents readily utilized; the morality of their chosen philosophies was argued between them on a nigh-constant basis (Bowie, “Bowie on 9/11 and God”). During a 1997 interview with USA Today, David Bowie would later recount that this dynamic resulted in a sense of religious alienation during his childhood; specifically, he remembered doubting the validity of Christianity and questioning
where he “fit in” at an early age (Gardner and Gundersen). Significantly, during this same interview, Bowie cautiously suggested that his lifelong spiritual search may have been a result of this conflicting religious background (Gardner and Gundersen).

Though Bowie presents his spiritual hunger’s origins with a degree of skepticism, the findings
of Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin during their longitudinal study on the effects of religion on child
development suggest that Bowie may have produced a valid self-diagnosis. Taking note of previous evidence which emphasizes the influence parental relationships have upon childhood spiritual development, their study sought to evaluate the positive and negative effects which parents’ religiousity (based on attendance, faith homogeneity, and how religion is discussed) play upon psychological and social child development. Their findings demonstrate that religiously homogeneous parents generally provide positive effects on child development, whereas religiously heterogeneous parents are typically associated with negative effects on both child development and familial relationships (Bartkowski, Xu,
and Levin 21, 33). Furthermore, when considering the contentious role religion served between Bowie’s parents, the report’s discussion of familial religious conflict holds especial significance:

Frequent parent–child discussions about religion often yield positive effects on child development, while any effects associated with family arguments about religion are deleterious for children. Thus, religion can serve as a bridge that links generations and yields pro-social outcomes, but can also function as a wedge that fosters division and conflict, thereby undermining children’s development. (Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin 33)

Regardless of the implications toward Bowie’s early psychological and social development, it seems reasonable to suggest that religion impeded his early relationship with his parents. A later comment Bowie made about his mother gives credence to this suggestion; in 2002, when questioned about their relationship, he proceeded to recite Phillip Larkin’s poem “This Be the Verse,” which opens with the line “They fuck you up, your mom and dad” and continues on to describe misery deepening like a coastal shelf (Trynka 8).

The significance of the fractured relationship between David Bowie and his parents is
emphasized by social psychologist Lee Kirkpatrick’s attachment-theory perspective on the psychology of religion. According to Kirkpatrick, one’s religious beliefs are heavily influenced by the religious convictions of one’s parents’, yet the precise nature of this influence is dependent upon the quality of the relationship between parent and child (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 11). For example, children with secure parental relationships tend to espouse the religious doctrine of their parents, whereas children with insecure parental relationships are less likely to uphold their parents’ beliefs (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 11). Furthermore, such insecure relationships hold the risk of promoting atheism/agnosticism, which Bowie himself would later espouse (qtd. in Bridges and Moore 12).

An individual develops their view of God at an early age (qtd. in Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin
19). In a 2002 interview, Bowie would recount that the judgment of God always loomed over their household (a focal point of his parents’ debates); he described this sensation as “terrible” (“Bowie on 9/11 and God”). The nature of Bowie’s childhood resulted in an early distrust of Christianity and God’s nature and witheld him from adopting either of his parents’ belief systems. Without a stable system of beliefs to uphold, yet filled with spiritual unease, Bowie would proceed into adulthood on a quest to determine the exact nature of God and thereby escape the spiritual ambivalence of his childhood.

As a corollary to the spiritual unease of Bowie’s childhood, he would also suffer from
significant psychological struggles during his early life. Many years later, he would recount he had serious struggles with low self-esteem and personal/artistic inadequacy throughout his early career (Egan and Bowie 276, 323). In an 1997 interview with David Cavanagh of Q Magazine, Bowie uneasily details this aspect:

. . . A lot of the negativity when I first started was about myself. I was convinced I wasn’t worth very much. I had enormous self-image problems and very low selfesteem, which I hid behind obsessive writing and performing . . . I thought I didn’t need to exist. I really felt so utterly inadequate. I thought the work [my art] was the only thing of value. (Egan and Bowie 323)

Based on the findings of Bartkowski, Xu, and Levin, as discussed in the previous section, this feeling of personal inadequacy likely resulted from the spiritual conflict that characterized his childhood. Bowie’s initial belief in the supremacy of his art – a corollary of his early lack of self-esteem – is not to be ignored; however, since he believed his sole purpose was to produce art, then the purpose of his art must also be considered. On multiple occasions, Bowie would state the central focus behind his entire work – regardless of the surface themes present – was exploring and locating his spirituality (Bowie, “Bowie on 9/11 and God”; Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”; qtd. in Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 66). Therefore, since musical output was of paramount importance to young Bowie, it
corresponds that determining his spirituality was of equal value; locating this spirituality would provide his existence with meaning and circumvent his battle with self-esteem. Accordingly, the exaggerated exploration of Bowie’s spirituality during the ’70s coincides with the apex of his artistic production, further emphasizing the interconnectivity of both aspects. Hence, beyond surface commercial motives, Bowie’s passion for music was used as a tool to explore and express his personal spirituality, and thereby escape the inadequacy and fractured religiosity he derived from childhood. Furthermore, this information provides an oculus to examine the interconnectivity between Bowie’s spiritual and artistic evolution.

Spirituality as Expressed Through Music

At the age of thirteen, two years prior to forming his first band, young Bowie took an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, an interest which originated from reading from T. Lobsang Rampa’s book “The Rampa Story” (Gamboa). In actuality, Rampa was a pen-name used by Cyril Hoskin, an unemployed surgical fitter, who believed that his body was inhabited by a Tibetan Lama named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa following a process of transmigration of the soul [2] (Lopez 99-103; Rampa 149-155). Rampa’s work revolved around metaphysics, aura-reading, and other paranormal/occultic themes; in addition to Buddhism, this book likely served to develop Bowie’s later interests in occultism and Tibetan blackmagic, or, as it would later be described by him, “the dark side of Buddhism” (“Tuesday Lobsang Rampa”; König).

During Bowie’s formative years, his fascination with Buddhism developed to the point at which it threatened to supersede his musical ambitions completely. By the time he was seventeen, he began studying at a Tibetan Centre about four days per week; during this time, he met a high holy Tibetan Lama named Chime Yong Dong Rinpoche who would become his guru (Gamboa; König). After several months of study, Bowie was strongly considering becoming a Buddhist monk; however, Chime Rinpoche ultimately dissuaded him from this path, saying “You don’t want to be Buddhist. You should follow music” (Buckley 47; Gamboa).

Though he heeded Chime Rinpoche’s advice, Bowie’s Buddhist studies remained a lasting influence for the rest of his life. Immediately, these teachings were reflected in “Silly Boy Blue,” one of the first songs Bowie ever wrote (“Child of the Tibet, you’re a gift from the sun / Reincarnation of one better man”), and his twenty-minute pantomime 1968 performance to his song “Yet-San and the Eagle” – a coming-of-age tale of a Tibetan boy during Communist Chinese persecution (Bowie, David Bowie; Mendelssohn). Bowie’s later career continued to pay homage to Buddhism, as is exemplified by the semi-autobiographical soundtrack he wrote for the BBC miniseries The Buddha of Suburbia and his 2001 performance for the Tibet House benefit, which was intended to honor his Buddhist teachers and facilitate the preservation of Tibetan culture (O’Leary; Gamboa).

Though Bowie would soon explore a plethora of other spiritual philosophies following the 60s, he would never entirely stray from his Buddhist influences. In 1996, Bowie would state that the principles of Buddhism which initially interested him still held great personal values, citing specifically the concepts of transience and the fleeting nature of life – themes echoed throughout his entire career (Egan and Bowie 312-313). Appropriately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Bowie would have his ashes scattered on the Indonesian island Bali “in accordance with the Buddhist rituals,” following his death (Sawer).

Following Bowie’s early experiences with Buddhism, he would fluctuate between and investigate a variety of religions and philosophies (including Nietzsche and pottery, as quipped during an interview in 2004) (Bowie, “David Bowie”). His spiritual exploration of the ’70s largely culminated during the mid-’70s, with a fixation on Egyptology, Kabbalism, and black-magic. Occultic themes had long been present in Bowie’s work, as evidenced by references to Crowley and the Golden Dawn on his 1971 album Hunky Dory, yet as the years progressed his mild interest in occultism evolved into an all consuming obsession, leaving the musician in a state of “psychic terror” (Bowie, Hunky Dory; Buckley 226). During this period, Bowie spent his days scrawling pentagrams over the walls of his Los Angeles apartment, being visited by “disembodied beings,” burning black candles, storing urine in his refrigerator (lest his enemies use it to enchant him), and even exorcising his swimming pool (Buckley 227; König). While this spiritual crisis was fueled in part by an overwhelming cocaine addiction, a sober Bowie would later state in the early ’90s that his distress was likely a result of abandoning God (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”).

It was during this state of spiritual, physic, and physical distress that David Bowie recorded his seminal work, Station to Station. Interestingly, and perhaps contradictorily, despite being produced in this state of malady, Station to Station would be hailed as a “masterpiece of invention” by biographer David Buckley and argued among critics to be one of Bowie’s “finest records” (Buckley 263, 269). Fittingly, Station to Station is also one of Bowie’s most spirituality explicit records, containing tactile evidence of both his occultic preoccupations and his contrasting yearning for spiritual liberation (a curious parallel to the album’s dichotomous production and reception). While the funk, krautrock, and “romantic balladry” permeated throughout Station to Station tend to distract from the lyrical content, the album itself is very dark in nature – Bowie himself would later describe it as the closest album to a “magical treatise” he had ever written (Carr and Shaar 78-80; Bowie, CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE).

The title track, “Station to Station,” is the most prominent example of Bowie’s occultic and spiritual fixations of the time. Though the track is often assumed to reference railway stations (which is implied by the noise of a train during the song’s opening), in actuality “Station to Station” is preoccupied with the “Stations of the Cross”[3] and the mystical Kabbalah[4] (Bowie, CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE). Traversing the stations of the Kabbalistic tree of life is lyrically depicted in a ritualistic manner:

Here are we

One magical movement

from Kether to Malkuth

There are you

You drive like a demon

from station to station (Bowie, Station to Station)

It is worth noting that a typical Kabbalist does not travel from Kether to Malkuth, but from Malkuth to Kether. As can be observed from the Tree of Life [4], Kether is the topmost Sephirot in Kabbalism and thus the most sublime and closest to God. Contrariwise, our corporeal plane of Malkuth (the physical world) resides at the bottom of the Tree of Life. To “drive” in this “magical movement” from the apex to the nadir of the Tree would signify descension from the ethereality of God to the physical plane; occultic researcher Peter R. König notes that this descent would thusly “[make] man one with the Divine” (König). In his state of spiritual darkness, Bowie sought to use the Kabbalah – through his art – in an effort to reconnect to the God he had abandoned.

However, this spiritual longing is most clearly emphasized by a later track on the album: “Word on a Wing.” Just as Station to Station is the closest Bowie had came to producing a magical pact, “Word on a Wing” is lyrically more akin to a Christian hymn than a rock and roll jaunt:

Lord, I kneel and offer you

My word on a wing

And I’m trying hard to fit among

Your scheme of things (Bowie, Station to Station)

By “kneeling” before the Lord Almighty, Bowie conjures up the image of a lost soul, offering his life for God’s love and mercy. In a 1993 interview with music journalist Tony Parson, Bowie would later express his belief in the interconnectivity between prayer and music, stating that many of his songs are “prayers for unity within [himself]” (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”). Similarly, shortly before performing “Word on a Wing” in 1999, he would describe the song as a definite “signal of distress” (Bowie, VH1 Storytellers). Rather than simply describing a generic lost soul, Bowie appears to have described himself, offering the song as a testament of his resolve to earn God’s favor – to “fit among [God’s] scheme of things” (Bowie, Station to Station). Indeed, shortly after the release of Station to Station, Bowie would move from Los Angeles to Berlin, in order to escape his cocaine addiction, occultic obsession, and the “scum” with which he surrounded himself – a move later described as a search for religious truth (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”). At this point in his career, until the late ’90s, a relationship with God began to manifest. As this connection continued to develop, the prominent occultic imagery present throughout his early career would greatly diminish. The progression this relationship is prominently expressed in 1992, by Bowie’s recitation of the Lord’s Prayer during Freddie Mercury’s tribute concert (Kaye 2).

However, toward the end of the 20th century, Bowie’s faith in God began to dissipate. Though he did not speak in great detail about the origins of this spiritual doubt until the early ’00s, the direction of Bowie’s spirituality is subtly made evident through his art. In 1997, he would record Earthling, an album which he would describe as an expression of his need to “vacillate between atheism and a kind of Gnosticism” (Bowie, Earthling). Similarly, his subsequent album ‘hours…’ would explore equally dark themes: “The Gods forgot they’ve made me / so I forgot them too” (Bowie, ‘hours…’). As the years progressed, Bowie’s spiritual incertitude would largely culminate with the release of his 2002 album, Heathen – a record saturated with anguish and cynicism.

The most marked example of Bowie’s troubled spirituality is found on the track “I Would Be Your Slave” – a desperate ballad nestled at the centre of Heathen. The song’s sparse, jazzy rhythm is notably subdued, allowing the emotional vulnerability behind Bowie’s vocals to transcend to the universal:

I don’t give a damn

I don’t see the point at all

No footprints in the sand

I bet you laugh out loud at me

A chance to strike me down

Give me peace of mind at last

Show me all you are

Open up your heart to me

And I would be your slave (Bowie, Heathen)

The song, in essence, is presented as a pleading prayer to an entity Bowie doubts is listening – a prayer for peace, for perception, and for propinquity. The most significant line is in Bowie’s reference to “No footprints in the sand,” which serves as a reference to the famous Christian poem, “Footprints” (Bowie, Heathen). The poem itself describes a man walking on a beach with God, leaving two pairs footprints on the sand behind, with each footprint representing a different stage of the man’s life. During times of hopelessness and despair, however, these footprints dwindle into one pair, suggesting that God left the man during those arduous times. When questioned by the man, God responds, “During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you” (“Footprints). By pronouncing a complete lack of footprints in the sand, Bowie suggests that God was either never there to walk beside him or had chosen to ignore his life (the subsequent lines seem to emphasize the latter). Despite this acrimony, the lyrics “Show me all you are / Open up your heart to me,” compounded with his incessant offer of subjugation, reveal the track to be a plea for God to reveal the spiritual plenum Bowie had long been denied, seemingly as a final attempt to bring “peace of mind” to his lifelong spiritual quest (Bowie, Heathen).

In a later interview discussing Heathen, Bowie would attribute much of his spiritual doubt to the “anxiety in the air” present since the early ’90s – anxiety derived from the expectations and disappointments of entering the 21st century (Bowie, “David Bowie on 9/11 and God”). Throughout the subsequent years, until his apparent retirement in 2004, Bowie’s spirituality would seem to slowly settle on a definite school of thought – a school residing on the opposite end of the spectrum from his previously “unquestionable” belief in God (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like”). In 2003, a year following the release of Heathen, Bowie would state that he was “almost an atheist” and go on to say rhat he needed only a few more months to make up his mind (Bowie, “ I’m Not Quite an Atheist, and It Worries Me”). Apparently, Bowie had not been granted “peace of mind,” and thusly sought it himself (Bowie, Heathen).

From 2013 to Eternity

Relatively soon after nigh-espousing atheism, David Bowie would suffer severe health issues while on tour which would dramatically reduce his musical output and personal publicity, until his unexpected commercial return in 2013. By corollary, David Bowie’s pseudo-retirement presents an interesting conundrum in regards to analyzing the final destination of his spiritual journey. Following his health issues in 2004, Bowie would progressively slip away from the public eye until he completely disappearing from view. Though he temporarily stopped making music, he would permanently swear off interviews and personal publicity; during his hiatus, Bowie had learned to enjoy the privacy his career had long denied him of (Visconti 6). Any word concerning Bowie’s health, state of mind, or music was delivered second-hand through his collaborators (primarily from his producer/friend, Tony Visconti). Until Bowie’s tragic departure, these individuals primarily discussed the latter. Without any available personal details on his spiritually from 2004 onward, the only lens into Bowie’s life is that of his music. Hence, the only way to examine the final stages of his spiritual evolution is to examine the thematic evolution between his 2013 comeback album, The Next Day, and his subsequent final album, ★.

Both The Next Day and ★explore the same general theme: death. The difference, however, is the approach taken by either album. Whereas ★carried notes of grace and liberation, The Next Day was saturated with doubt and fear – or, as it would be described by academic writer/artist Tanja Stark: “a honeycombed-catacomb of cryptic mystery, rage and resignation” (Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 61). God and religion are featured as prominent themes throughout the record. The title track opens the album with an obvious diatribe toward the Catholic Church and religious hypocrisy: e.g., “They can work with Satan while they dress like the Saints” (Bowie, The Next Day). The accompanying music video depicted gruesome stigmata wounds, self-flagellation, and other horror/profane elements; Bowie himself is portrayed prominently as a Christ figure, vanishing at the video’s end in the twinkling of an eye (The Next Day). The video echoes Bowie’s publicized distrust of organized religion (Bowie, “CHANGESFIFTYBOWIE”; Gardner and Gundersen). However, beyond traditional religious theology, The Next Day takes a cryptic turn. After “walking the dead” on “Where Are We Now?” and mocking hanging corpses on “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die,” the album is closed with “Heat” – a spiritual reflection which Stark places among “the most torturous songs” of his career (Bowie, The Next Day; Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 73). The track itself, saturated with self-doubt and resignation, likely accumulates from his lifetime of spiritual questioning: “And I tell myself / I don’t know who I am. . .But I am a seer / I am a liar” (Cinque, Moore, and Redmond 73; Bowie, The Next Day).

The most telling example of Bowie’s spiritual state at that time is not found on the The Next Day but rather on The Next Day: Extra – an accompanying EP released eight months following The Next Day. The forth track, “The Informer,” seems to epitomize his spiritual longing:

So help me Christ

I’ve got major questions

About the Lord above

About Satan below

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

And I still don’t know

What we were looking for (Bowie, The Next Day: Extra)

In its entirety, the song discusses the ending of a man’s life and his attempts to reconcile his doubt in God as he lays dying. Though he claimed in 2003 to only need “a few months” to settle on atheism, ten years later Bowie still held “major questions” about the truth and existence of God with a seemingly intensified passion (Bowie, “I’m Not Quite an Atheist”; The Next Day: Extra). These open ended statements about both God and Satan and the subsequent lines concerning his search suggest that Bowie turned back from his atheistic contemplation and remained certain only of his uncertainty. Interestingly, the concept of turning to and questioning Christ in the face of mortality (“So help me Christ”) would be further discussed on his future single, “Lazarus” (Bowie, The Next Day: Extra; ★).

Approximately one year after the release of The Next Day, David Bowie would be diagnosed with liver cancer. He would begin production on ★shortly thereafter (Greene). Though ★’s lyrics detail Bowie’s struggles over mortality, they also contrast the torturous doubt which characterized The Next Day. “Lazarus,” the second single, is a paramount example of this aspect. The title of the song is an obvious reference to Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus famously raised from the dead (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 11.1-45). “Lazarus’s” opening lyric (“Look up here, I’m in Heaven) is an interesting contrast to Bowie’s description of crawling through “broken windows” and “cracked doors” at life’s end, as described in “The Informer” (Bowie, ★, The Next Day). Biblical elements reverberate throughout the course of the song:

By the time I got to New York

I was living like a king

Then I used up all my money

I was looking for your ass (Bowie, ★)

While “looking for your ass” could be taken as a vulgar way of “looking for someone,” in context with the title, it likely serves as a reference to Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem in which He rode a donkey and was hailed as a king (The Holy Bible: King James Version, Matthew. 21.1-9). As Lazarus was also searching for Jesus prior to his death – desiring to be healed – the lyrics could also suggest that Bowie “used up” the value of his material goods in search of lasting spirit fulfillment (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 11.1-45). With this in mind, the opening lines of the subsequent verse (“This way or no way / You know I’ll be free”) hold an interesting parallel to one of Jesus’ most famous instructions: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (The Holy Bible: King James Version, John. 14.6). Though it would be unrealistic to conclude Bowie’s final spiritual path based on pure lyrical analysis (which is inherently speculation, after all) the liberating spiritual and emotional tones echoed on “Lazarus” and all throughout ★seem to reflect a final catharsis to his lifelong quest.

Furthermore, Bowie’s wife, Iman, shared several uplifting spiritual messages through social media in the days leading up to his passing, culminating with the tweet, “The struggle is real, but so is God” – posted mere hours before his death was publicly announced (Park). In addition, Bowie followed “God” on Twitter shortly before his death (Schnitzer). While not directly commenting on Bowie’s spiritual state, these are certainly interesting corollaries.

In time, more information about Bowie’s final days may come to light; that which is currently available is insufficient for any definite statement on his final spiritual state, and any such conclusion would be a grave hubris. However, the information available, coupled with the distinctly contrasting tones between The Next Day,★, and even Heathen, suggest that Bowie may have progressed in a positive direction toward God. At the very least, the cynical voice of spiritual doubt present throughout his post-2000s musical production became significantly at toward the end of his life.

Remembering the Starman

Were it not for his humble Brixton origins, the artist David Bowie may not have existed as we know him. Though his spiritually tumultuous childhood produced extensive feelings of insecurity and spiritual doubt, Bowie channeled this esthesis into a lifelong spiritual hunger which in turn served to fuel his musical and artistic ambitions. Through music, Bowie was able to explore, express, and examine his spiritual worldview while searching for his “tenuous connection with God” (Bowie, “Bowie, What Is He Like?”). Despite the definite presence of spiritual uncertainty echoed throughout his body of work, he would continue to push these boundaries and evolve his spiritual philosophy throughout the course of his musical career. When diagnosed with cancer and confronted with the inevitably imminent prospect of his mortality, his music once again served to express and confront his beliefs. ★, his final artistic gift, suggests that he may have found some measure of spiritual peace at his life’s end; if a silver lining from his tragic passing can be gleaned, this is it.

It has been nearly four months since David Bowie passed away. The shock and sorrow of his sudden, tragic passing are beginning to fade away, yet his influence still resonates throughout the world and will likely continue to do so. Though celebrities and artists are remembered primarily for their work – their contributions to society – it is important to remember that these individuals lead intricately detailed lives much like our own. Art is not created within a vacuum. Regardless of how great or small, life experiences translate into one’s art, and the greatest works of art tend to have deeply personal origins; David Bowie’s life stands as an epitome of this concept. The utility of art to express personal beliefs and emotion is beautifully depicted through Bowie’s own thoughts on music, as recollected by his close friend, the actor Gary Oldman:

Music has given me over 40 years of extraordinary experiences. I can’t say that life’s pains or more tragic episodes have been diminished because of it, but it has allowed me so many moments of companionship when I have been lonely and sublime means of communications when I have wanted to touch people. It has been my doorway of perception and the house that I live in. (Young)

Though David Jones has passed away, David Bowie continues to live on through his art and in the lives of those he touched. While his records continue sell, the spiritual evolution and experience conveyed through his music will continue to testify to art’s provocative healing power for all those still “running down the street of life” (Bowie, Reality).

Notes

1. In actuality, “David Bowie” is a stage name used by the musician christened David Robert Jones. This nom de plume was originally invented to avoid confusion with Davy Jones, vocalist of the American rock band The Monkees (Buckley 23). For the sake of convenience, however, David Jones will generally be referred to as “David Bowie.”

2. Transmigration of the soul is a process akin to reincarnation. In the case of Cyril Hoskin/Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, Cyril Hoskin was a fully grown man prior to his transmigration. In his autobiographical work, The Rampa Story, he details falling from a fir tree and seeing a vision of a Buddhist monk. As this monk’s body was old and feeble, he sought to be incarnated within Hoskin’s body; Hoskin, citing that he was dissatisfied with his own life, willingly agreed to let Rampa take over his body (Rampa 149-155).

3. The Stations of the Cross are a series of images, or “stations,” commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; they are commonly used as a Catholic devotion. There are fourteen Stations in total, each chronicling a different event leading to Jesus being laid to rest in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The Stations of the Cross are used as a form of prayer, rather than an “intellectual exercise”; the basic purpose of this devotion is to deepen one’s understanding of and relationship with God (“Stations of the Cross”).

4. The Kabbalah is an esoteric school of mysticism originating in Judaism. While the precise definition of what the Kabbalah “is” differs according to the individual practitioner’s traditions, the purpose of Kabbalism is to understand the relationship between Ein Sof (infinity/God) and the mortal, palpable realm (Dan 4-10, 39-41). As Kabbalists hold that God is beyond human comprehension, they believe that God created ten attributes/emulations, referred to as sephirot, through which his nature is continuously revealed (“Jewish Mysticism”). With the exception of Malkhut, our physical realm, these emulations are metaphysical, with each station representing the transcendent nature of God’s divinity and the path of man’s spiritual ascent; by ascending the sephirot, man can access the power of God (“Jewish Mysticism”). The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is used as symbolic representation of these ten Sephirot.

Fig. 1: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (Kiener). 

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