What Is Modernity?: Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

What Is Modernity?

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weatherhead books on asia Columbia University

literature David Der-wei Wang, Editor Ye Zhaoyan, Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, translated by Michael Berry Makoto Oda, The Breaking Jewel, translated by Donald Keene Han Shaogong, A Dictionary of Maqiao, translated by Julia Lovell Takahashi Takako, Lonely Woman, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori Chen Ran, A Private Life, translated by John Howard-Gibbon

history, society, and culture Carol Gluck, Editor Michael K. Bourdaghs, The Dawn That Never Comes: Sihimazaki Tôson and Japanese Nationalism

What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi edited, translated, and with an introduction by Richard F. Calichman

columbia university press new york

This publication has been supported by the Richard W. Weatherhead Publication Fund of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex This work was originally published in Japanese by Chikuma Shobo. Translation copyright © 2005 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Takeuchi, Yoshimi, 1910–1977 What is modernity? : writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi / translated by Richard Calichman. p. cm.— (Weatherhead books on Asia) isbn 0–231–13326–X — isbn 0–231–13327–8 (pbk.) 1. Japan—Intellectual life—1868– I. Calichman, Richard. II. Title. III. Series. DS822.25.T3449 2004 952.04—dc22

2004050086

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

contents

Preface vii Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Ways of Introducing Culture (Japanese Literature and Chinese Literature II) —Focusing Upon Lu Xun 43 Chapter 2. What Is Modernity? (The Case of Japan and China) 53 Chapter 3. The Question of Politics and Literature (Japanese Literature and Chinese Literature I) 83 Chapter 4. Hu Shi and Dewey 93 Chapter 5. Overcoming Modernity 103 Chapter 6. Asia as Method 149 Glossary 167 Index of Names 179

preface

As with every other intellectual of his generation, the decisive event in Takeuchi Yoshimi’s lifetime was Japan’s Fifteen-Year War, which of course ended with the nation’s defeat in 1945. Yet this war bore a significance for Takeuchi that was quite unlike that of his contemporaries. For one thing, Takeuchi was at this time a budding scholar of Chinese literature who was extremely sympathetic to Chinese culture and society. These sympathies were openly in conflict with Japan’s imperialist policies in China and indeed throughout nearly all of Asia. It is important to recall in this regard that the government’s policies received widespread support in Japan, as the people took great pride in the country’s growing influence in world affairs. Expansion into the Asian continent was moreover justified as a means of recovery from the global depression of the late 1920s, the severe effects of which Japan continued to suffer well into the next decade. Yet this very pragmatic state of affairs was seen by many as beneficial not only to Japan but to China as well, since the Japanese development of the region would, it was claimed, help accelerate the pace of Chinese modernization. Such rationalization of Japan’s overseas aggression represented a kind of convergence, or synthesis, between the militarist and western liberal elements then fighting for control over the state. Whereas the former viewed China merely as a weaker nation that was forced to yield to the demands of a more powerful Japan, precisely as it had earlier been forced to make concessions to the major

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western powers, the latter camp regarded the country as still mired in a feudalism that it appeared unable to overcome, as witnessed by the great civil unrest at this time as well as by the considerable power yet exercised by the warlords. This feudalism lingered despite the quite radical social and cultural reforms instituted in China a decade earlier by the leaders of the May Fourth movement, several of whom had in fact been educated in Japan—a point that was of course not lost on the Japanese liberals. The struggle between the militarists and western-style liberals in Japan during the 1930s was a real one, involving extremely different conceptions of politics and society, particularly in regard to Japan’s proper role in international relations. But it was to Takeuchi’s great credit that he was able to discern through these differences a certain underlying complicity at work between the two groups in relation to China. In marked contrast to the view—still popular in many circles today—that the Japanese expansion into China represented the simple triumph of a militaristic nationalism over the otherwise pacifying forces of liberalism and democracy, Takeuchi realized that the latter’s promotion of such values as development and civilization was in fact instrumental in the formation of a sophisticated imperialist logic that could be used to justify Japan’s overseas involvements. This logic came to be utilized by the militarists and the liberals alike. According to this logic of imperialism, China’s own antiquated traditions prevented or at the very least delayed the transition from feudalism to modernity, thereby making the nation ripe for foreign invasion. For if the modern period had shown nothing else in Asia, it had demonstrated quite unequivocally that history consisted of the gradual absorption of the weak into the powerful, and that this process was to be understood in positive terms as the natural progress of civilization. This was ultimately, of course, the problem of bunmei kaika, or “civilization and enlightenment,” as symbolized in the Meiji era by the thought of the wellknown social reformer and writer Fukuzawa Yukichi. From Takeuchi’s perspective, Fukuzawa appeared as the very exemplar of this imperialist logic, since his liberal philosophy with its striking conflation of such ideals as freedom and progress seemed to go hand in hand with his own nationalist-militarist tendencies, as expressed in his vociferous support for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. While the political climate surrounding Sino-Japanese relations had certainly changed from Fukuzawa’s time to that of the Fifteen-Year War, Takeuchi nevertheless saw precisely the same logic of imperialism at work in the self-serving belief that Chinese weakness and backwardness called out to the civilizing force of a more modernized Japan. He recognized this pattern, so typical of modern Japanese history, as evidence of a profound misunderstanding of China and Asia, a misunderstanding that Takeuchi spent much of his life trying to correct.

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Yet there was an additional sense in which Takeuchi’s perspective on the Fifteen-Year War distinguished him from other intellectuals. This centered on the problematic of East–West relations, for Takeuchi believed that the modern period emerged only in the tensions between East and West, of which the war represented merely the latest, if most consistently devastating, instance. In order to fully grasp the significance of the war, then, it was necessary to first come to an understanding of the nature of that modernity within which it took place. Significantly, Takeuchi eschewed here the various theories traditionally put forth to explain the phenomenon of modernity, choosing instead to focus on the history of western imperialism in Asia. For without this history, he maintained, modernity would be unthinkable in its very terms. By this he meant that the concept of modernity was in and of itself senseless; in order to be intelligible, it paradoxically required another concept to act as its contrasting or negative foil, and this, of course, was the notion of feudalism. Here Takeuchi saw the West as actively appropriating this logic in its invasion of Asia, for the opposition between feudalism and modernity now came to be seen as virtually equivalent to the distinction between East and West. Just as the transition from a feudal to a properly modern social structure was regarded as positive, then, so too was the West accorded definite privilege over the East in this emerging configuration of terms. The process of modernization thus became synonymous with that of westernization, as Takeuchi observed, even if what was called the “East” was in actual fact much more modernized than the “West” in certain respects or certain locations. According to Takeuchi, this identification of the West with modernity left the various Asian nations in the extremely difficult position of either accepting their status as feudal, thereby rendering them susceptible to foreign aggression, or embarking upon a radical course of modernization that would effectively negate their identity as Asian and make them part of the West. If Japan were to avoid the fate of China, which had become a quasi-colony of the West as early as the 1840s with its defeat by the British in the Opium War, it had no choice but to drastically reform the state and its principal institutions along the lines of the nations of Western Europe. And yet this westernization of the country would, it was argued, leave Japan as no longer East but West. To refuse modernization, as in the case of China, meant that westernization would take place by way of external coercion, whereas to openly embrace modernization, as in the case of Japan, signified the nation’s readiness to sacrifice its own cultural traditions and transform itself. Regardless of the nature of Asia’s response, then, the encounter with the modern West seemed inescapably to lead to an increased westernization and a corresponding decrease or diminishment of the East. For Takeuchi, it was this paradox inherent to East–West relations that Japan had refused to come to terms with since

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the beginning of the Meiji period, as a direct result of which it now found itself fighting against both Asian and western nations in the Fifteen-Year War. This was to say, in other words, that the inability or unwillingness in Japan to confront the paradox posed by the modern West brought about a modernization in which imperialism was seen as requisite to any real success. Takeuchi traced this history back to the Seikan ron of 1873, in which the leaders of the newly established Meiji state, under the guidance of Saigô Takamori, launched a plan to invade Korea and so expand Japanese influence in the region. Although this plan was subsequently aborted, Takeuchi regarded it as symbolic of the imperialist violence underlying the formation of Japan as a modern nation-state. This violence would in fact come to a head several decades later with the SinoJapanese War, which ended in China’s cessation of Taiwan, the Liaotung Peninsula, and the Pescadores to Japan, as well as the signing of an unequal trade treaty that gave Japan many of the powers hitherto reserved exclusively to the West. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 would repeat this pattern, as a defeated Russia was forced to yield to Japan the southern half of Sakhalin Island and transfer several of its more profitable holdings in China. And yet this latter war represented a quite different victory for Japan, as Takeuchi noted, since it was seen throughout Asia as proof of the West’s vulnerability in the face of what he resonantly called “Oriental resistance.” This explains why Takeuchi, who was otherwise so critical of the violence of modern Japanese history, expressed high praise for Japan’s efforts in this war. In his eyes, the Russo-Japanese War appeared less as a positive moment in the process of Japanese modernization than as a kind of oppositional or negative moment in the East’s relations with the West, for it revealed for the first time that modernization was not necessarily identical to westernization, that indeed a different type of modernity could emerge in which Asia was no longer forced into the role of slave vis-à-vis the master West. This insight was in fact shared by the leaders of the various Asian independence movements—in, for example, such countries as China, India, and Burma—who frequently articulated their protests against western colonization in reference to Japan’s earlier success in defeating Russia. If East–West relations in modernity were to be conceived along the lines of the master-slave dynamic, however, Takeuchi argued persuasively against the tendency to identify Asia’s position as simply that of the slave. This was the lesson he learned from the great Chinese writer Lu Xun, who wrote that the slave’s overriding desire was to become the master and so arrogate power to himself. The slave was not to be pitied, for, despite appearances, he in no way existed outside the sphere of power relations; on the contrary, he sought merely to replicate those relations by subjugating others to himself in precisely the same way as the master had subjugated him. Takeuchi sought to apply this understanding of slave psy-

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chology to Japan’s response to the threat of the modern West, as the imperialist policies then in effect in Japan had derived originally from the West’s own policies in Asia. Just as, for example, France, England, Germany, and the United States all maintained colonial holdings in the Asian Pacific, so too did Japan come to feel the necessity of expanding its own interests in the region so as to take its place among the modern nations. But this subjection of Asia was just the initial step in the slave’s reversal of the hierarchical relations with the master. For Japan to assume full parity with the West, it was insufficient to merely join the ranks of those nations enjoying imperialist privileges in the otherwise unenlightened East. There must rather be a complete overturning of the structure of East–West relations itself, such that Japan, which now envisioned itself as the chosen protectorate of Asia, would directly challenge the West for supremacy in the region. In this way, Takeuchi saw the outbreak of the Greater East Asian War as developing logically from the master-slave dynamic that had informed East–West relations from the very beginning of the modern era. While the West was undeniably responsible for shaping the unequal terms of its relations with Asia, Takeuchi nevertheless found Japan to be guilty of simply accepting those terms, desiring nothing more than to occupy the position of superiority otherwise reserved for the West. In Lu Xun’s language, Japan symbolized the slave who had so thoroughly incorporated the mindset of the master that all relations with others could only be governed by the complementary terms of subjection and submission, without which these power relations would begin to collapse. It was partially in order to think through the problem of the master-slave relation, in both a specifically historical and a more formal or general sense, that Takeuchi found himself so fascinated by Lu Xun in the first place. For Lu seemed to offer a way out of the endless antagonisms and inversions of this relation, without, however, avoiding the difficulties inherent in all political activity as such. It would not be too much to say in this respect that Takeuchi viewed Lu Xun as in some sense representative of modern China, for he interpreted Lu’s writings on the master-slave relation as emblematic of China’s own response to the threat of the West. In highly critical fashion, Takeuchi attempted to juxtapose this response with that of Japan in order to bring into relief what he saw as the “slavishness” of modern Japanese society. Although China with its long history of western colonization might appear on the surface to be the slave, Takeuchi argued that it had consistently maintained its spirit of “Oriental resistance,” refusing to accept the terms forcibly imposed upon it by the West, and that it was above all this quality that distinguished it from the sense of ressentiment so typical of slave psychology. Here Takeuchi was objecting to the then widespread view that China’s rejection of the West was tantamount to an outright rejection of modernity, for this would undermine the importance of resist-

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ance in such a way as to make it indistinguishable from mere reactionism. While he was not blind to the presence of various reactionary elements within China, Takeuchi believed that the country was attempting to steer a course for itself that was distinct from both imitation of the West and a nostalgic clinging to its own past glory. The way of the past belonged to the slave that refused to change with the times, whereas the way of the future, insofar as this future was shaped by the West, represented the desire for mastery that ultimately marked the slave as slave regardless of its outward appearance. It was thus vital to create a future that went beyond the master-slave dynamic, one that could show the failings of Japanese modernization in its overt dependence upon the West. Naturally there were others who called attention to the problems of Japan’s course of modernization as well. Takeuchi referred, for instance, to the criticisms expressed by the celebrated Meiji writer Natsume Sôseki, who warned that Japan risked absorption by the West in its haste for technological and cultural progress. In particular, Sôseki’s 1914 novel Kokoro offered a portrait of a rapidly modernizing Japan while concurrently thematizing the danger of master-slave relations in the friendship between the main characters. Unlike Takeuchi, however, Sôseki never saw China as a privileged site of resistance against the West, a country in which the Japanese conflation between westernization and modernization was avoided, if not indeed actively problematized. Interestingly, Takeuchi would find in the West those individuals who recognized the true value of what China was then trying to accomplish. He pointed to two philosophers, the American pragmatist John Dewey and the British logician Bertrand Russell, as having seen through the superficiality of Japan’s modern culture and discerned the underlying substance of modern China. Both of these men had in fact visited China at about the same time, and according to Takeuchi had predicted not only the future emergence of the country as a world power but also the parallel declivity of Japan. This confirmed Takeuchi’s own suspicions—or rather hopes, since he regarded this historical reversal extremely positively as a sign of diminishing global violence. Clearly Takeuchi was envisioning here a kind of inversion of power relations that would, however, no longer simply repeat the violence between victim and victimizer. Yet this surpassing of Japan was in a larger sense a transcendence of the West itself, as he explicitly declares in the essay “Asia as Method.” Diverging sharply on this point from Dewey and Russell, neither of whom gave sufficient attention to the history of western imperialism in Asia, Takeuchi interpreted China’s growing international visibility as a sign that Asia could now finally begin to extricate itself from the hold of the West. At the same time, such release from subjugation was for Takeuchi a necessarily precarious one; it was in no way equivalent to liberation, or emancipation, with its various utopian connotations. Here again Takeuchi took his cue from

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Lu Xun, whose stories about the Chinese underprivileged steadfastly refused any moment of catharsis in which suffering would magically cease, the characters suddenly rescued by the artifice of a happy ending. Rather, it was necessary to endure what Takeuchi called, after Lu Xun, “despair,” a lesson that Takeuchi sought to apply—rather indiscriminately, it must be said—to both individuals and nations alike. Only in this way was it possible to sustain a kind of negative or critical energy that produced change, internally as well as externally. Throughout his writings, in a great diversity of contexts, Takeuchi can be seen to emphasize the tremendous importance of this energy, for without it, he warned, historical entities fall into decadence. It is this energy that he found to be at the core of Lu Xun’s works, which he spent a lifetime reading, discussing, and translating for a Japanese readership that he hoped would be transformed as a result, just as he himself was. This transformation was in fact nothing less than revolution, which Takeuchi understood as a kind of moral dictate. He believed that a space must be created and vigilantly maintained in which such critical energy could work itself out, thereby opening the possibility for something like revolution to take place on both an individual and historical level. It is in this sense, perhaps, that Takeuchi speaks most clearly to us today, not merely as a postwar thinker or scholar of Chinese literature but rather, more generally, as someone who attempted to respond to the demands of his own time and place through developing this critical energy as fully as possible. Even in his own scholarship, Takeuchi sought to establish a dialogue between the object of his research and his own contemporary situation so as to allow the former to speak back to the latter, at times pointing out its unwitting mistakes. In his writings on Lu Xun, for example, efforts are consistently made to bring Lu’s critical spirit to bear upon what Takeuchi saw as the various shortcomings of modern Japanese society. Here Takeuchi betrayed his profound dissatisfaction with the norms governing scholarly writing, with its emphasis on objectivity and critical detachment. Many critics took him to task for this approach, arguing that his readings of Lu Xun spoke more of Takeuchi himself than they did of Lu. Yet Takeuchi remained convinced of the importance of using scholarship as a means to critically address the problems of the present, without however in any way sacrificing the intellectual rigor and integrity necessary for all research. In reading Takeuchi now, more than a quarter century after his death, we should naturally remark upon his manner of grappling with some of the most difficult historical and theoretical questions besetting the Japanese postwar generation— how to rethink the war, how Japan should shape its relations with China and the West, what is the essence of modernity, etc.—and yet we might also reflect upon how to effectively bring Takeuchi’s critical spirit to bear upon the problems facing us today, in the field of Asian Studies and beyond.

acknowledgments

My foremost thanks go to two individuals: Naoki Sakai, who introduced me to Takeuchi’s writings in the early stages of my graduate career; and Carol Gluck, under whose direction I spent the academic year 2001–2002 as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University completing this book manuscript. Work on the manuscript had actually begun the previous year, at which time I was fortunate enough to receive a postdoctoral fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, which allowed me to pursue my research in Tokyo. I am especially grateful to Kyoko Selden, who carefully checked early versions of the “Kindai towa nanika” and “Ko Teki to Dûi” essays included here, and to Katsuhiko Endô, who very skillfully and conscientiously checked the remaining essays. I am indebted to the two reviewers of the book, one of whom remains anonymous; the other, Michael Bourdaghs, provided me with several excellent comments regarding the improvement of the manuscript. Madge Huntington of the East Asian Institute at Columbia University and Jennifer Crewe of Columbia University Press were both instrumental in the realization of this project, and I would like to record my thanks to them here. The book is dedicated, finally, to M.

What Is Modernity?

introduction

Takeuchi Yoshimi is remembered today in Japan as one of the leading intellectuals of the postwar period in his dual capacity as China scholar and literary and social critic. He was born in 1910 (in Usuda-machi, Nagano Prefecture) and died in 1977. His early schooling was in Tokyo, but he attended higher school in Osaka before returning to Tokyo to enroll in the Chinese literature department at Tokyo Imperial University in 1931. At age twenty-two, Takeuchi first visited mainland China, where he developed what would be a lasting and profound passion for Chinese literature and culture.1 With a small group of friends (including the novelist Takeda Taijun), Takeuchi helped form the Chûgoku bungaku kenkyûkai [Chinese Literature Research Society] upon his return; this group put out a small journal to which he contributed essays and translations. After graduation from university, Takeuchi returned to China in 1937 and stayed for a period of two years. Proclaiming his support of the Greater East Asian War shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor,2 he was drafted in 1943 and sent to China, where he served until the war’s end. Returning to a defeated Japan, Takeuchi resumed his writing and translation activities as well as began teaching, first at Keiô University and then later, more substantially, at Tokyo Metropolitan University. He refused an invitation to join the Japan Communist Party in 1949, but did become affiliated with the left-leaning Shisô no kagaku kenkyûkai [Institute of the Science of Thought] (whose members included the

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Introduction

philosopher and social critic Tsurumi Shunsuke and the political scientist Maruyama Masao) several years later, in 1953. In 1960 Takeuchi resigned from his teaching position at Tokyo Metropolitan University as a sign of protest against the forced ratification of the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, or Ampo. Takeuchi’s first book, Ro Jin [Lu Xun], originally appeared in late 1944, with a revised edition published in 1946. The year 1948 saw the initial appearance of three important essays in Takeuchi’s oeuvre (all of which are included in the present volume): “Ro Jin to Nihon bungaku” [Lu Xun and Japanese literature], which was later retitled “Bunka inyû no hôhô (Nihon bungaku to Chûgoku bungaku II)” [Ways of introducing culture (Japanese literature and Chinese literature II)]; “Chûgoku no kindai to Nihon no kindai: Ro Jin wo tegakari to shite” [Chinese modernity and Japanese modernity: Lu Xun as key], which subsequently became “Kindai towa nanika (Nihon to Chûgoku no baai)” [What is modernity? (The case of Japan and China)]; and “Chûgoku bungaku to hyuumanizumu” [Chinese literature and humanism], which was eventually changed to “Seiji to bungaku no mondai (Nihon bungaku to Chûgoku bungaku I)” [The question of politics and literature (Japanese literature and Chinese literature I)].3 In the following year there was the collection Ro Jin zakki [Miscellaneous notes on Lu Xun], and in 1951 another collection entitled Gendai Chûgoku ron [On contemporary China]. In 1952 he published Nihon ideorogii [Japanese ideology] in addition to the essay (included here) “Ko Teki to Dûi” [Hu Shi and Dewey].4 The next year Takeuchi published Ro Jin nyûmon [Introduction to Lu Xun], and the year after that, Kokumin bungaku ron [On national literature] and Chishikijin no kadai [The task of intellectuals]. Beyond this, Takeuchi’s literary and critical output extends to a vast number of other writings—books, essays, translations, reviews, roundtable discussions, critical commentaries (kaisetsu), etc.—which include the 1961 Fufukujû no isan [Legacies of disobedience] and the final two essays presented here in translation: “Kindai no chôkoku” [Overcoming modernity], published in 1959, and “Hôhô to shite no Ajia” [Asia as method], published in 1961.5

I If Takeuchi is to be understood in the context of modern Japanese intellectual history as a thinker (shisôka), as he in a certain sense must be, it should nevertheless be emphasized that he attempts to think this notion of thinking beyond its traditional determination as the privileged act of a solitary subject. Here Takeuchi was responding in part to certain elements within the Japanese literary world (bundan) at the time, which typically set forth a very romantic notion

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of the writer as an isolated individual, alone with his thoughts, which require unique artistic expression. This view of the bundan represents isolation or solitude in strictly psychological terms: the literary thoughts of the writer distance him from others and force him to pursue his craft alone, where he can all the more easily be true to himself and his individual genius. That is to say, the relation between thought and solitude in this instance is grounded upon nothing more substantial than the content of thinking, or that which takes place within the writer’s own head (heart, soul, etc.). While it is of course readily granted that the act of thinking is common to all people, nevertheless the writer’s thoughts are believed to be in some way more elevated or superior, and hence more faithful to thinking as such. The greater the writer’s literary gifts, then, the more distinct he becomes from common people and common thinking, and with this distinction comes an increased turning inward upon himself and his thoughts. Now if Takeuchi dismisses this view of thinking in its relation to solitude, he will refuse the temptation of putting forth a conception of thought that remains simply at the level of content—as, for example, arguing that the writer’s state of isolation from others is a false one insofar as his thoughts are not qualitatively different from those of anyone else. For such an argument leaves untouched the real question of whether it is not thinking as such that helps engender the notion of the subject as solitary, in some decisive sense away or apart from others and so alone with itself. Regardless of the individual content of thoughts, whether unique or common, artistic or banal, the formation of thought itself, as Takeuchi understands, bears all the weight of the question of the solitary subject, and so naturally renders moot the bundan’s distinction between writer and nonwriter. In effect, Takeuchi has changed levels in his debate with the bundan over the status of thinking; he has brought the discussion down to the more urgent question of form. Thus it is not the content but rather the form of thinking itself that seems complicitous with the traditional notion of the subject as solitary. The very activity of producing thoughts appears to be proof of one’s distinction and separateness from others, for this activity takes place within a space of interiority that, no matter how socially determined, belongs in the last instance to oneself alone. If thinking is to be freed from its determination as a solitary act, however, the demonstration must begin at the original point of separation between self and other, which separation alone ensures the possibility for thought to be produced. And this is precisely where Takeuchi turns his attention, as can be seen in the 1954 essay “Hito to hito to no aida” [Between people]: “Thinking must necessarily take place by way of expression. It is not that expression follows after thinking, but rather that thinking is itself fixed by expression, which then develops that thinking. This process is infinitely repeated. Expression, in turn, is

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completed by communication, such that thought, expression, and communication are always linked together.”6 Here we can see a kind of reversal taking place. Traditionally, the relation among thinking, expression, and communication is conceived in terms of priority and derivation, that is, thinking occurs prior to expression and communication, which are therefore derivative of that thinking. Expression is an expression of thinking in the sense that it belongs to it, or grows out of it; and communication would extend this chain in its belonging to the expression that in turn derives from the prior and original thought. But if this chain marks a continuum among these three notions, it also points to a radical break between subjective solitude or interiority and the external world beyond it. This break would naturally represent a danger to that subjective solitude were it not for the fact that the relation of priority and derivation serves here to, precisely, patch things up or cover things over, in any case ensuring that the chain that leads out from the subject and its otherwise isolated sphere of thought can always lead back into it as well. Here the thinking that is pure interiority stands opposed to what Takeuchi calls “communication” or “transmission” (dentatsu), which necessarily takes place in the element of exteriority, this being the world. This world is above all the world of others, the infinite space that creates distance “between people,” as Takeuchi writes, and as such introduces the expressed thought to contingency, which becomes manifest for it in the possibility of miscommunication or misunderstanding. The subject that desires to express its thoughts (which is to say: all subjects, since silence is essentially foreign to subjectivity)7 has little choice but to take heed of this worldly contingency and the constant danger that it represents to thinking. It must acknowledge that communication takes place only in a universal element or milieu, one that is for better or worse governed not by itself but by others. And yet, in the face of this universal exteriority, the subject appears not to be without its defenses. Again, these defenses lie far less in the content of thinking than in the form of thought itself: the unity and self-presence of thought for the subject are after all the very requisites for its solitude. Thus it is not simply that without this unity and self-presence the subject has no means at its disposal to differentiate itself from the world; rather, much more radically, the subject is that very unity and self-presence to begin with. It does not stand behind these things, it is not to be found anywhere else but in that cognitive unity and self-presence, since these traits are essentially constitutive of subjectivity as such. For Takeuchi, the Japanese bundan remains blind to this insight in its more or less unconscious desire to hold on to something like a substrate, which in its underlying selfidentity functions as a ground (jiban, konkyo) to which inhere its different qualities or properties. As Takeuchi remarks in “Kindai towa nanika”: “In becoming a scholar in Japan, everything may be questioned except the final question—for

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if this were questioned, one would no longer be a scholar. Even if writers strip a character naked, they must leave on the final layer of clothing, for the character would disappear if they removed it. That is to say, the character is not originally present.”8 In its recognition of the dangers inherent to communication given this activity’s occurrence in the outside world, the self-expressive subject insists that the alteration of its thought takes place only in the space of that outside. In this way, of course, it reaffirms what it believes to be its own underlying solitude or isolation. Far from claiming that the outside world is merely an extension of itself, however latent or dormant, the subject paradoxically interprets the possibility of miscommunication and misunderstanding as proof of its interiority. This logic of opposition is one with which Takeuchi is deeply familiar: “Its self was confirmed inversely by encountering the heterogeneous (ishitsu na mono),” as he writes, for instance, in another context. Or again, stated in more formal terms, “The existence of A depends upon its exclusion of non-A.”9 Here the distinction between communication and thought, and so also subjective exteriority and interiority, comes to be reinforced by the very difficulties communication faces in order to be successful. Nevertheless, these difficulties will at no point come to be confused with the core meaning (i.e., the original thought) that is being communicated or transmitted. Or rather: the possibility of the communicated thought’s alteration is seen strictly in unessential terms, such that its actual occurrence would represent no more than an empirical accident. It is this reduction of contingency from an essential to an empirical trait—if we can still use such language—that allows the subject to cut its losses and withdraw back into itself with its communicated thought fundamentally unblemished. What has been altered by the world in the subject’s attempt at communication is merely the outer shell or skin of thought that is language, thus leaving the thought intact in its original integrity. Alteration is an empirical accident because it is what befalls the thought in its exposure to the world. This, of course, presupposes the existence of the thought in an as yet pristine or immaculate state, one that is to be found prior to the appearance of expression and communication, to follow the chain of cognitive articulation being sketched here by Takeuchi. And to point out that expression and communication are nothing other than the thought’s own externalization would not really change things in this regard, insofar as the derivativeness of this relation still allows one to see thought as the proper point of origin, or that site which, while marking the beginning of a self-expository movement, yet remains ultimately detached and distinct from it. In any case, the alteration of thought in miscommunication must be attributed to an outside: the world in all its senseless randomness. (Senseless because, as Takeuchi’s uncovering of oppositional logic reveals, the

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Introduction

subject must be seen above all as the site in which sense is produced.) Conceived as empirical, the possibility of thought’s alteration effectively relieves the subject of any responsibility for its self-othering, which would be rather the world’s responsibility, if indeed it were possible in this instance to even speak of responsibility, given the world’s utter senselessness. But as we are suggesting, this notion of the world is an extremely limited one in that its border or endpoint coincides precisely with the subject’s own point of beginning. Such a notion of subjectivity is what Takeuchi refers to throughout his works as shukan. For the world to be thought in its proper universality, or generality (fuhensei), such that it always exceeds the border between itself and the thinking subject (or for that matter, the subject determined as “thinker”), it is necessary to understand thought and thought’s alteration as related to each other essentially. Yet this “essentially” would be conceivable in Japanese less as honshitsuteki ni than as honraiteki ni, for what is at stake here is not anything like a natural matter or natural quality (shitsu), which would contain itself in its self-presence beneath all ephemeral appearances. On the contrary, thought is altered essentially because alteration takes place at the very origin (honrai), or opening, of thought. Here let us simply note that any introduction to Takeuchi’s thought must begin by recalling that it is precisely this opening of thought, this opening that in fact takes place before thought and to which thought is constantly indebted, that he tried so assiduously—if, at certain crucial moments, unsuccessfully—to think. Clearly this opening of thought to the world is an opening in the double sense of the word: one, opening is an emergence, a coming into being, of what has not previously been present (one speaks of a shop’s grand opening, for example); and two, opening is an exposure to the outside, such that the border which until this point delineated two spaces or entities from each other comes to be in some way troubled, compromised (the opening of a window or door).10 This duplicity of meaning suggests that thought’s opening is simultaneously thought’s end, since the instant of its appearance coincides exactly with its exteriorization, and so differentiation from itself. The moment that it rises up and takes its stand is necessarily also the moment that it is swept outside of itself, or that this outside comes flooding in and overwhelms the thought in its differentiating movement. Thought’s spontaneity, which, as Kant writes in the first Critique, is nothing less than the basis for all concepts,11 must yield here to the more powerful, because more universal, force of the world. In all rigor, this is why activity is not so much defeated by passivity (which would imply some type of equality between them) as it is inscribed within it, such that activity is from the very beginning—or always already—passive, given over to the world. To make use of a certain philosophical vocabulary, one could perhaps even say that activity represents the species of which passivity would be the genus, or class. But this

Introduction

7

fundamental passivity of the subject, about which Takeuchi writes time and again (“Lu Xun was always passive [ukemi],” as he laconically remarks in “Bunka inyû no hôhô”),12 is really only another way of describing the relation between thought and its alteration as an essential one. Thought contains within itself the possibility of its miscommunication. The befalling is essential, for it takes place at the very site where thought originates. And yet if thought’s opening is thus its alteration, this fall can no longer refer to a pure space of interiority that would be isolable from the world—but this would of course necessitate an entire rethinking of the notion of befalling apart from its philosophical and theological underpinnings. We encounter here the difficult problem of paleonymy, for in order to bring forth what Takeuchi is attempting to think, certain words or concepts must be displaced, more or less violently, and so shaken from their previous contexts and meanings so as to signify otherwise, that is, to mean something new. Specifically, the exteriorization of thought that Takeuchi is describing must be seen in essential, rather than simply empirical, terms. This means that the possibility of miscommunication and misunderstanding is necessarily inscribed within the structure of thought itself: this possibility is not an external but rather an internal one, such that internality here would be equivalent to essentiality. However, that the alterability of thought by the world is essential to thinking, that this possibility is in fact what is most internal to it, means nothing less than conceiving essence and internality (interiority) in this instance as fundamentally exterior. The possibility of thought’s alteration is a contingency, then, but an essential contingency, just as the exteriority of the world must be seen as that which is most internal to thinking. The older terms or concepts are retained, clearly enough, but their meanings have undergone a decisive transformation. For example, when Takeuchi refers in a 1955 essay to the act of expression as “the spontaneous (jihatsuteki) utterance of one’s own will,”13 that spontaneity (as well as the will) has significantly already been affected by the alterity of the world, and is thus less ji-hatsusei than ta-hatsusei, or rather it is a jihatsusei that is necessarily inscribed within the universality of tahatsusei. Despite appearances, such concepts (spontaneity, will, own [jibun no], etc.) do not simply refer to their traditional determinations. Instead, one must in reading Takeuchi’s text perform the more difficult and more urgent task of retracing the logic he is elaborating—in this case, the logic or structure of expression—in order to grasp what is actually being said. And retrace it in such a way that one follows it back to its proper point of origin, for this origin is determinative of all the concepts that follow from it. It is, we believe, imperative to understand this point for any real understanding of Takeuchi’s project. Otherwise, it becomes all too easy to label Takeuchi as, in one critic’s words, “a bourgeois individualist who clung

8

Introduction

stubbornly to a view of himself as a loner,” or, in another, albeit much more sympathetic reading, someone whose attacks were directed simply against “the absence of spontaneity.”14 What would first of all be required here is a reexamination of the implicit presuppositions behind such everyday notions as “individualist,” “loner,” and “absence of spontaneity,” followed by an inquiry into their particular applicability to Takeuchi’s thought given his sustained attempt to conceive of thinking, and so subjectivity as such, primarily along the lines of the world’s exteriority and alterity. Paleonymy stands in Takeuchi’s text as a device to think such older words or concepts anew, thereby allowing them to effectively intervene in critical discourse. Indeed, so much of Takeuchi’s writing contains a quality of strangeness precisely because he is trying to twist old words into new meanings, make them say something that they are not used to saying or perhaps appear unwilling to say. The best examples of this can be found in “Kindai towa nanika,” of which we shall cite here only the first few: “Simply being Europe does not make Europe Europe” (Yooroppa ga, tan ni Yooroppa de aru koto ha, Yooroppa de aru koto de nai); “They must risk the danger of losing the self in order for the self to be itself” (jiko ga jiko de aru tame ni ha, jiko wo ushinau kiken mo okasanakereba naranu); “In order for Europe to be Europe, it was forced to invade the Orient” (Yooroppa ga Yooroppa de aru tame ni, kare ha Tôyô he shinnyû shinakereba naranakatta); “Europe is only Europe in its incessant tension” (Yooroppa ha fudan no kinchô ni oite de shika Yooroppa de nai); and finally, “I do not know this. Previously I wrote the words ‘to know,’ but this is not a knowing in which I could assert that truth is relative. It is through the act of knowing that I do not know” (shiru toiu kôi ni yotte ha shiranu no da).15 Here the concepts of Europe, self, and knowledge are strenuously reworked, they are submitted to a kind of torsional movement in which the older, more familiar meanings are bent to the point of deformation, such as to begin to signify in new and unsettling ways. Paleonymy is in no way a mere word game for Takeuchi. On the contrary, in order to properly think thinking, one must begin at the very point at which the self is originally opened up by others and so introduced to its “own” impropriety. Such crucial distinctions as those between inside and outside, self and other, unity and alterity, a priori (essential, necessary) and a posteriori (empirical, contingent), knowledge and nonknowledge, spontaneity and external determination, etc. come inevitably to be loosened (without, however, disappearing) in this process. And with this loosening, words or concepts are no longer able to pose themselves in strict opposition to that which they are not. The same words are still employed, perhaps, but they are now charged with different meanings, thereby agitating the border in language between identity and difference itself. As a general rule, any reading of Takeuchi will be forced to take this essential loosening into account.

Introduction

9

I return at this point to Takeuchi’s remarks on the notion of thinking in “Hito to hito to no aida.” Several lines after asserting that “it is not that expression follows after thinking, but rather that thinking is itself fixed by expression, which then develops that thinking,” as we have earlier quoted, Takeuchi decides to give even greater weight to the reverse force that expression (and so communication) exerts upon thinking. Now it is not merely that thinking is “fixed” (katameraru) by what lies outside of it; even more profoundly, it is “formed” by it: “Thinking is formed (keisei sareru) by expression and communication, from which it develops. Man does not think of things in isolation. To think is to think socially, it is what takes place in the relation between people. Even though it may appear as if man thinks in isolation, that thinking depends upon one’s own interior dialogue (jibun no naibu de no taiwa) or the accumulation of past experiences. Even hermits and prisoners locked in solitary confinement think dialogically. It is impossible to think without expression.”16 As Takeuchi’s language in this essay makes clear, what is at issue in this relation among thinking, expression, and communication is a dissolution of the one into the space of the many. Thus, as he writes, monologue (dokuhaku) collapses—that is to say, opens up— into dialogue, interiority (naibu) into exteriority (taigai), and the individual (ko) into sociality. Everything will be affected by this reinscription of the one within the many, even those terms that seem to patently contradict this logic, as for example the traditional notion of independence, or self-standing (dokuritsu): “The independence of the individual . . . comes into being (naritatsu) in the space between people, which means that the forms of thought and expression must naturally be changed.”17 Significantly, the notion of independence is not simply being denied here; neither are the related notions of individual, monologue, and interiority. Yet just as significant is the fact that these notions are no longer quite recognizable as themselves: they now function differently, and in this difference produce something like a domino effect that essentially alters the chain of other words and concepts that are linked to them. Thought’s formation takes place not through itself, as Takeuchi tells us, but rather by way of an outside over which it has little control. But to thus see the shaping or structuring of an inside as derivative of an outside is to effect a reversal of the traditional conception of subjectivity, and in this respect Takeuchi’s thought reveals certain important commonalities with that of the contemporary critic Karatani Kôjin, much of whose work is concerned with just such a reversal (or inversion: tentô).18 Generally understood, expression is the externalization of a cognitive content that has already been formed or constituted within the interior space of the subject. Hence the relation between thought and expression (and communication) appears as a simple relation of doubling: what originally emerges within the subject is now duplicated, and in that duplication

10

Introduction

projected out of the subject and into the world, the space “between people.” Because doubling enacts an externalization upon thought—first as expression and then, subsequently, as communication—the inevitable errors in understanding that take place between people can, it seems, always be retraced back to their proper point of origin. In Takeuchi’s language, “dialogue” would then be folded back onto “monologue,” that is, the purely subjective or autonomous realm in which thoughts arise spontaneously. In this way all misunderstanding could at least potentially be resolved, or literally clarified, since the step back from communication to expression to, finally, thought is at once a process of lightening, given that the source of light in this traditional conception is firmly located within the subject itself. (And Takeuchi does not fail to call attention to this conception in his criticisms of the link between subjectivity and visuality.)19 The problem, however, is that this desired endpoint that is monologue is shown here to have no real existence. The progressive return from—or reduction of— communication to expression to thought, and thus from subjective exteriority (dia-logue) to subjective interiority (mono-logue), discovers, not without a certain irony, we might note, that in the place of univocity there is only “interior dialogue,” as Takeuchi puts it. Now this dialogue is to be rigorously distinguished from the dialogue that is actual communication, and which takes place in the physical world. Interior dialogue necessarily inhabits an ideal rather than material space. Nevertheless, this notion of dialogue that Takeuchi is elaborating lies far deeper than the distinction between these two types of space. In referring to an interiority that is made possible only within or through the universality of an outside, which can thus no longer be seen simply as its outside, dialogue points to an essential split within the subject, one that while allowing for it to manifest itself in the movement of expression yet grounds that very movement to begin with. That is, if expression is to be understood as the concrete manifestation of thought in the world, then it must also be realized that thought is in a sense already concretized, because already exposed to that world before its expression. Here the originary act of exteriorization belongs not to man but to the world. Consequently, man’s “own” act of exteriorization in expression can in no way be separated from the world’s exteriorization, for it derives from it through and through. It is the world that first gives itself, and gives itself in such a way that man’s thinking is nothing other than a repetition of this giving. Or rather, since this repetition that is thinking does not in any way take place after the world’s exteriorization or giving, thinking “completes” that initial exteriorization, in much the same way that Takeuchi describes expression as “completed (kansei suru) by communication.” Hence the exteriorization of the world cannot, strictly speaking, be extracted from the genesis of thought in the subject. Contrary to tradition, the subject is not to be understood as the ultimate sense-

Introduction

11

giver, that is to say, it is not indebted to itself for the meaningful cognitive contents that it receives.20 The thought that is bequeathed to it begins elsewhere, thereby dividing the subject from itself in a manner that Takeuchi conceives of as dialogue. Prior to any face-to-face exchange, “dialogue” names here this original cut that opens thought to the world and the world to thought. In a sense, the dialogue in which the subject participates in its dealings with others is in fact preceded by another, more originary dialogue, one which takes place entirely without the presence of the subject, as this subject comes into being only as a result of that dialogue. The opening of thought is a dialogic event in that the subject begins to actively manifest itself to others in the form of expression and communication, and because thought has already been opened by the world, as it were, behind the subject’s back. Yet whereas the former opening appears to involve a simple relation of doubling between thought and expression, therefore ensuring in principle the reducibility of dialogue to monologue, the latter reveals that the exteriorization of the world into thought vastly exceeds any logic of doubling. Doubling necessarily requires the initial presence of an ontic entity, or what is commonly understood as a thing, and yet that is precisely what the world in all its universality or generality can never be reduced to. Indeed, how can the world be doubled when it can never appear as such, when its movement consists entirely in transcending such appearances, even as it is responsible for them? Further, if expression is to be returned to thought, and thought then to the world, wouldn’t this imply a certain circularity inherent to the world insofar as it merely gives itself to itself through the mediation of the subject?

II Here, however, we begin to enter upon questions that Takeuchi never deals with thematically, even though the movement of his thought leads time and again in such a direction. To say that Takeuchi was not a philosopher, as he himself repeatedly does in one form or another,21 is perhaps not to say very much. And this for at least three reasons, listed here in ascending order of importance: 1. the empirico-biographical; 2. the ambiguity of Takeuchi’s determination of philosophy (its meaning and tasks); and 3. the general problematic of reading as articulated by Takeuchi. 1. Despite his claims about being an outsider to philosophy, it is an established fact that Takeuchi read philosophical works throughout his life. Beyond the various references found in his diary and other autobiographical writings to such figures as Nishida Kitarô, Tanabe Hajime, and Watsuji Tetsurô, etc. (many of which, for better or worse, are quite dismissive),22 as well as the allusions

12

Introduction

throughout his work to Nietzsche and Marx (which feature, let us note, is extremely common to many leftist intellectuals of Takeuchi’s generation, regardless of their individual fields or disciplines), even a cursory examination of the essays included in this volume reveals a sustained concern with certain problematics of, for example, Hegelianism (“Kindai towa nanika”); the Kyoto School (“Kindai no chôkoku”); world history, or sekaishi (“Hôhô to shite no Ajia”), and Deweyan pragmatism in its reception in Asia (“Ko Teki to Dûi”), to name but a few. 2. A profound ambiguity underlies Takeuchi’s relationship with philosophy as such, beginning with its very meaning. Insofar as philosophy is understood as essentially a search for transcendental truths, it remains in his lexicon an “abstraction” from the world in all its materiality, representative of a kind of impoverishment, or “decadence,” from “action” (i.e., bodily agency: shutaisei) to “contemplation” (i.e., detached subjectivity: shukansei). That is to say, as “Kindai towa nanika” makes perfectly clear, philosophy is another name for the West. The history of the world as the progressive development or expansion of the self (jiko) at the expense of all alterity is accordingly viewed as the history of the West (Europe) in its ongoing colonization or assimilation of the non-West (what Takeuchi calls the Orient). In reading Takeuchi, it must be borne in mind that the East–West problematic to which he devotes so much of his thinking represents both a philosophical critique and a historico-political critique. At all costs, the West that Takeuchi attacks in his writing must not be reductively seen as a mere geopolitical entity, which view can be found, for instance, among much cultural studies research being done today in both Japan and the United States. Much more important, Takeuchi sees the historical figure of the West as uniquely representative of the modern notion of the subject.23 The movement of westernization, likewise, will be conceived as the subject’s progressive appropriation of the other, or more accurately, of the otherness of that other. The logic behind this subjectivization of the world is precisely that oppositional logic to which we had occasion to call attention previously, as when Takeuchi writes that “the existence of A depends upon its exclusion of non-A.” In other words, the subject posits itself necessarily against an other, whose being is characterized originally strictly by difference, both internal and external. The other’s difference from the subject is thus more fundamentally a self-difference, which functions to divide the subject from itself as well. With this act of positing, however, difference comes to be transformed into oppositionality—and here we must not fail to note the essential relation between subjective positing, or positionality, and oppositionality. As the law of contradiction famously states, thing A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time. Extrapolating from this formula, Takeuchi finds that the subject (the West) must, in order to gather itself

Introduction

13

into itself and so come into being as such, posit an opposite outside of itself (the Orient). In the very same gesture, then, the subject’s positing of this oppositional other is at once a figuring and an exclusion.24 For Takeuchi, it is this very figuring of difference that allows the subject to fortify its borders, and so effectively ward off any and all incursions or interventions from the outside. Insofar as philosophy primarily concerns itself with such an exclusion of difference, then, Takeuchi will stridently reject it. On the other hand, however, Takeuchi will not disregard the fact that his very insights into the exclusionary nature of the subject derive in great part from philosophy. In a sense, what can be called here subjectivist philosophy has to be combated by another philosophy, or at least another manner of philosophizing, one that takes as its point of departure not the subject’s separation from the world and history (i.e., shukansei) but rather, directly to the contrary, the essential ties or links that steadfastly bind man to the world of others, thereby interweaving him with difference (shutaisei). This involves a radical shift at the level of thought from the notions of knowledge and self-consciousness to those of acting and corporeality. It bears emphasis in this context that Takeuchi does not simply see this shift as calling for a cessation of all knowledge in favor of immediate being, as if this were at all possible. Rather, what needs to be thought, in all rigor and thoroughness, is the relation between man’s thinking (now conceived as an act [kôi, kôdô], as when Takeuchi writes that “it is through the act of knowing that I do not know”) and the world. Interestingly, Takeuchi tries to think this relation as a kind of “logic,” as can be seen in the question that he poses to the Kyoto School in its wartime activities: “Perhaps it was possible to conceptually transcend the ‘inferior oppositionality between war and peace’ through a philosophy of ‘absolute nothingness,’ but this was not the issue. What logic (ronri) is required for thought to act effectively on reality? Such logic was never discovered during the war, and it remains undiscovered even now.”25 Clearly, this logic is not to be seen in its traditional formulation as involving a rigid separation between form and content, or what Takeuchi refers to in this context as thought (shisô) and reality (genjitsu). Such a separation comes about only through the abstraction of form from content, and is thus derivative upon a more originary “logic” in which, as Takeuchi suggests, the relation between form (thought) and content (reality) can be conceived in its proper intimacy, or co-belonging. Only in this way can abstract thought be avoided and thinking returned to its more concrete grounding in the world. Now this more original logic, or perhaps quasi-logic, would have the effect of dissolving the otherwise fixed distinctions produced by subjectivist logic, that is to say, by the oppositional logic that governs subjectivity. As we have seen in reference to the law of contradiction, the latter enables itself by asserting that A cannot be both A and

14

Introduction

non-A at the same time. For Takeuchi, however, such logic is merely formal in its abstraction from a reality in which, precisely, A can never fully be separated from non-A. This is of course not to say that no difference exists between entities, or that all differences are immediately collapsible into the general space of the One. Differences exist, but since they are not governed by oppositional logic it becomes impossible to articulate them in terms of the strictly formal relation between A and non-A. What is at issue here is the very loosening to which we referred earlier. The relation between self and other is to be conceived both in its separation and joining, and so is neither simply one of oppositionality nor fusion. The loosening of subjective oppositionality gives way to a difference between beings, a difference that is necessarily also a self-difference, but at no point is this difference ever appropriated by a greater unity—as for example in the case of the unity of community.26 (And we will have occasion to remind Takeuchi of this important point somewhat later.) In any event, what seems clear here is the weight that Takeuchi gives to thinking out the “logic” between self and world so as to release thought from the grip that the more derivative logic of contradiction or oppositionality otherwise maintains over it. This strange appeal to logic against logic should be read, we believe, as a sign of Takeuchi’s hesitancy in judging the merits of philosophy as such. Wishing to think the self as essentially disturbed by the other (just as the West cannot but be disturbed by the Orient), Takeuchi’s reinscription of the subject as within the world, as an entity whose knowledge is grounded upon an act that makes it both possible and impossible, must be seen in terms of the transition that he at one point attributes to pragmatism: it is a shift, as he writes in “Ko Teki to Dûi,” away from “philosophy” to “doing philosophy.”27 3. The question of Takeuchi’s relation to philosophy opens up for us the entire problem of reading. What does it mean, for example, to understand a body of work as either philosophy or nonphilosophy when the very posing of the question in these terms is revealed by Takeuchi himself to be problematic? At what point does a text exceed its belonging to the various regional human sciences (for example, in Takeuchi’s own case, literary studies, cultural-intellectual history, etc.) and start belonging to the realm of philosophy? Conversely, when does a text effect the transition from philosophy back to these same sciences or disciplines? Surely the matter of Takeuchi’s belonging or nonbelonging to philosophy cannot be simply resolved along the lines of a positivism (which philosophy, it should be noted, Takeuchi criticizes in passing in “Kindai towa nanika”) that would base its judgment on the actual or self-present content of his text—references to philosophers, usage of philosophical terminology and concepts, the operation of something like a philosophical system, etc.—for this would eliminate the need for reading that text. What we would like to argue

Introduction

15

here is that the notion of reading itself provides a key to understanding Takeuchi’s elusive relation with philosophy. Reading, in this sense, must be conceived as necessarily bound up with the question of man’s relation with the world (i.e., the world of others), which problematic, as we have tried to show, occupies a central and lasting place in Takeuchi’s thinking. In order to better grasp Takeuchi’s relation to philosophy, then, one must examine the notion of reading that is worked out in his text. In “Kindai towa nanika,” for example, Takeuchi touches upon his method of reading in discussing Lu Xun’s parable “Congmingren he shazi he nucai” [The wise man, the fool, and the slave]: “I think Lu Xun is writing here about the state of being wakened. He is writing about the ‘most painful thing in life,’ the pain of wishing to escape from an inescapable reality: ‘to awaken from a dream and find no path to follow.’ And yet I sense that certain conditions are necessary for the interpreting subject (kaishaku suru hô no shukan) to interpret the parable in this way. These conditions, however, seem to be determined by the object (taishô) (i.e., Lu Xun). Here I wish to avoid the trouble of examining this point in detail, for such a discussion would stray from my theme.”28 The difficulty of these lines lies at least partially in the fact that they seem to sketch out a notion of reading while at the same time calling out to be read themselves. Takeuchi very explicitly points to the two poles from, or rather between, which all readings must emerge: what he calls, following tradition, the “subject” and “object.” On the one hand, reading cannot take place purely from the perspective of the subject, and this for the simple (or literally: mundane) reason that the subject must read something. The subject is not free to create the text in his reading, for reading is what it is strictly in relation to something that already exists, something that precedes the subject. Here we return to the notion of spontaneity encountered earlier: this notion, to recall, was not merely rejected out of hand but rather shown to come forth in the space “between people,” as Takeuchi writes. It is this emphasis on the “between” (aida) that above all reveals reading’s situatedness in a context that is not of its own making, and properly makes of that reading an “act,” in the particular sense that Takeuchi gives to this term. The act of reading is a constrained one in that it must take its point of departure from something beyond itself, something that paradoxically marks the point of its own beginning. That is why this act is necessarily an opening, an opening act, as one says, but only with the caveat that all acts are in principle opening acts. (An opening act could thus never be reduced to the status of mere species of the genus “act.”) In a complex interweaving of inside and outside, the act of reading opens itself and so comes into its own strictly by opening itself up to that which is irreducibly other to it. Reading begins, therefore, from the loss or death of an other that in dying opens up the possibility of its own rebirth, which takes place only through the act of

16

Introduction

reading. Here we see that the act, in referring away from itself to an other that precedes it, is simultaneously active and passive. Acts are of course born of activity, but an activity that emerges only in its response to something outside of itself, and it is this that marks the act as profoundly passive. On the other hand, however, it must be recognized that reading cannot take place purely from the perspective of the object. The act of reading is passive, yes, but this passivity includes within itself a moment in which action necessarily bursts forth in the form of a response to the text being read. This explains why Takeuchi must in the above passage refer to what he calls the “interpreting subject” in the same breath that he speaks of the object. For the object in and of itself is unable to produce a reading of itself alone; it must make appeal to an outside in order to appear in the world, and this appeal is answered by or in the act of reading. In a certain sense, the object depends upon the subject in order to release what is inherent in it, and this release of an inside to an outside is what lies at the heart of the act of reading. Takeuchi has no choice, then, but to speak of an “interpreting subject,” which, as it were, comes to the aid of the object-text in order that the latter may come into being. The movement of reading originates with the object, but it requires the subject to finish what it cannot achieve alone. As Takeuchi emphasizes, the reading that he gives to the Lu Xun parable depends upon certain conditions pertaining to the subject, conditions that are in the final instance, however, determined not by the subject but by the object. (And these more theoretical remarks on reading, brief as they are, are concluded by what is essentially an appeal to further reading, thus lending the passage an important performative dimension. It is as if Takeuchi is himself calling out to future readers to finish what he cannot achieve alone, exactly as Lu Xun has called out to him.) This priority of the object over the subject is absolutely crucial for Takeuchi, as indeed he explains quite clearly in the essay “Jinsei to bungaku ni tsuite.” As with the passage from “Kindai towa nanika,” Takeuchi reflects here upon his own reading method after providing an analysis of a Lu Xun text. Concluding his remarks, he writes that “the method is to be found within the object, it is not something that can be applied to the object from outside (hôhô ha taishô no naka ni aru wake de, soto kara hôhô wo taishô ni tekiyô suru toiu seishitsu no mono de ha nai) (this is what philosophers call ‘dialectics’).”29 To suppose that a reading method can be applied to the object externally is tantamount to declaring the superiority of the subject over the object (i.e., the world, the text); it is to suggest that the subject is in the last instance separated or detached from the world. In thus denigrating the world, such a method represents for Takeuchi the most formalistic abstraction. Hence it is also indicative of an underlying blindness to its own situatedness, for in fact the adoption of a subject position outside the object is itself made possible by the object. As we have

Introduction

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noted, the object is paradoxically forced to exteriorize itself in order to appear: this self-exteriorization of the object results in the apparent separation between subject and object, and so also the notion that activity and passivity can be seen merely as oppositions. It is at this stage that the reading method of external applicability comes forth. For Takeuchi, however, these interrelated notions of subject and application, etc. must have their source in the objective world, which they are incapable of ever fully leaving. The external method of reading results from the movement by which the text (or world, object) folds itself over upon itself, thereby becoming other to itself. In this way a relationship opens up within the world, one that involves at its most fundamental level the crossing or chiasmatic movements of call and response. Although necessarily originating in the text, the act of reading requires just enough space away from it in order for this chiasmatic movement of call and response to take place. To say that reading departs from the point of the text is to say that the text ceaselessly calls out to it, demanding a response. Takeuchi remarks that this back-and-forth movement is what philosophy has known as “dialectics” (benshôhô), but in fact it is no different from what he himself calls “dialogue” (taiwa), as we witnessed earlier in the context of “Hito to hito to no aida.” In this sense, it is important to recall what Takeuchi doubtless already knew, that the term “dialectic” itself originally refers in the Greek to a kind of dialogue (specifically, a dialogue in the form of a debating competition). But ultimately it is of little interest to determine the actual content of Takeuchi’s philosophical knowledge. What is much more important for an understanding of Takeuchi’s thought in its most essential aspects is to grasp the movement that takes place, as he suggests, in the space of the between that lies between the subject and object, but which derives most originally from the latter. Given that Takeuchi himself refers to the method of reading he adopts as dialectic, let us here cite a passage from Hegel that we believe sheds light on the strange crisscrossing movement that Takeuchi is trying to set forth. The passage is to be found in the Phenomenology, and concerns the relation between parents and children: [The relationship] of parents towards their children is emotionally affected by the fact that the objective reality of the relationship does not exist in them, but in the children, and by their witnessing the development in the children of an independent existence which they are unable to take back again; the independent existence of the children remains an alien reality, a reality all its own. That of children towards parents is emotionally affected, conversely, by the fact that they derive their existence from, or have their essential being in, what is other than themselves, and

18

Introduction

passes away, and by their attaining independence and a self-consciousness of their own only by being separated from their source—a separation in which the source dries up.30 Now it seems to us indisputable that the parent-child relation Hegel discusses in these lines (and elsewhere) represents precisely the internal—or, if you will, essential—method of reading that Takeuchi refers to above. Although Hegel appears to frame his analysis of the relation in terms of emotional affect, it should be understood that this is in no way a discourse on subjective psychology. Rather, what is most centrally at issue here is the movement between the two poles of origin (i.e., text, object) and derivative (i.e., reading), as represented by parent and child, respectively. First of all, the parent and child are nothing in and of themselves; in order to be what they are, they have no choice but to release themselves into relationality with the other. Quite simply, the parent is what it is (qua parent) only through the existence of the child, just as the child in turn owes its being essentially to the parent. The parent, as Hegel writes, discovers that the “objective reality” of its relation with the child lies not in itself but in the child. What derives most properly from itself has now become “an alien reality, a reality all its own,” which is to say in effect that the essence of the parent, that part which is most secret and internal to it, is to be found, incredibly, on the outside. The essence lies on the outside: this will be the lesson learned from dialectics. The child, conversely, maintains a relation with the parent that is one of identity and difference: its “essential being” belongs to the parent, to which it is therefore eternally indebted, whether of course it wishes to be or not. (For again this is not a question of psychological desire, but rather one of a transcendental [or more accurately: quasi-transcendental] structure or movement that both grounds and ungrounds such desires.) Although the child is identical to the parent in that it emerges from within it, the instant of that emergence signals the creation of difference. Moreover, the parent, in the very gesture by which it reproduces or repeats itself—thereby condemning the child, as it were, to re-turn (in one form or another) to the site of that originary division— “passes away,” and this passing is at once a death and a transmission. Quite literally, the parent leaves in the dual sense that it departs and bequeaths itself in the form of a legacy or inheritance to the child, a legacy that the child does not so much receive as is. (In its leaving, in other words, that which the parent leaves is the child.) Or rather: the child is only insofar as it has received its being from the parent, and this should tell us that being is first and foremost something that is given to one, it is fundamentally a question of giving, as in a text that gives itself to be read, as Takeuchi emphasizes. Through the gift of the parent’s passing, the child comes into its own; it is now “separated from [its] source” and so

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assumes an “independent existence.” Nevertheless, that independence (and here we must recall Takeuchi’s highly ambivalent use of this term, for it is an independence strictly by virtue of its dependence upon others) emerges as a response to the parent and the gift of life that it has bequeathed to the child. No matter what it goes on to do in the future, the child always remains in some sense a child of the parent. Hence it is an independence that remains externally conditioned, separated from its source, perhaps, but never to the point where it is completely severed from it. In a sense, the parent in its death gives the child no more than the minimum space required to render homage back to it. The inheritance comes with strings attached, as one might say, but it is the function of these strings to ensure that the movement proper to relationality—meaning the back-and-forth or give-and-take movement that distributes both passivity and activity to its participants (a distribution, however, in which passivity is primary)—is not erased. The passing of the parent into the child is necessarily coupled by the child’s response to that passing, a response that it cannot not give, inasmuch as the parent demands it or calls for it as its proper due. Here we see the crisscrossing movement that lies at the heart of Hegelian dialectic. Yet this family bond is, in the precise nature of its bonding, the same bond that holds the text together with the act of reading, as Takeuchi understands it. Indeed, how can it be otherwise, since what is most at stake in the parent-child relation and the text-reader relation is, after all, relationality itself, defined here as a giving back to a prior giving? Let us recall Takeuchi’s reading method: “the method is to be found within the object, it is not something that can be applied to the object from outside.” In other words, reading can only depart from inside the text, not outside it. However, it seems self-evident that the act of reading itself takes place on the text’s outside, as a kind of working upon it. But this is really no contradiction, since the movement from inside to outside is effected most originally by the text, which repeats itself and in so doing opens up a space within which it now becomes possible for response to come forth. The text’s repetition sets in motion the dual activities of call and response, that is to say, finally, the act of reading itself, since reading is nothing other than a response to the call of the text. Without this call and response there is only, as Takeuchi critically notes, “application.” An internal (i.e., dialectic) reading method represents a bonding together of identity and difference, since—exactly as in the case of the parent-child relation—the method (child) is at once identical to the parent-text in deriving from it and yet invariably different from it in that it no longer simply is the text but rather a response to it.31 This bonding ensures that the reading is not just any reading, for it must acknowledge its own status as a reading of the text, to which it necessarily remains fixed. This is reading’s essential responsibility, the hom-

20

Introduction

age that it has to respectfully render to the text, or “object,” in Takeuchi’s vocabulary. At the same time, however, the response that reading makes to the text inescapably strains or even perverts the bond that ties them together. Here we must emphasize Takeuchi’s own emphasis on the importance of the act, as can be seen, for example, in the essay “Bunka inyû no hôhô,” once again in reference to Lu Xun: “[Lu] is referring to Japanese literature from his position as a writer, someone who feels this situation bodily, for he actually puts himself inside it, intent on discovering how he himself would respond, as opposed to merely looking at things from the outside. In other words, his remarks are made from the site of action (kôdô no ba).”32 Reading must be understood as an act because it differs each time from itself—and here we should point out that what Takeuchi refers to as “method” is in fact nothing other than an act, as opposed to merely a preprogrammed blueprint or calculus for action. (And this is why, strictly speaking, there can be no methodology for reading without thereby depriving it of its responsibility, of its proper status as response.) Indeed, the distinction Takeuchi makes between internal (dialectic) and external (formal, abstract) methods of reading is virtually equivalent in his thinking to the distinction between the “site of action” and the “site of contemplation,” or again, as he also writes, between the notions of “participant” (seikatsusha: literally, someone who lives or engages in daily life) and “spectator” (bôkansha).33 Generally speaking, the act of reading repeats the text each time differently, and so effectively loosens the bond that is nevertheless tightened by the very taking place of the response. These movements of tightening and loosening are, in fact, indivisible from one another: the so-called freedom of reading, like the supposed independence of the child, comes into being only in the space opened up by the repetition of the origin, regardless of course of whether this origin be determined as text, parent, object, or world. Let us summarize our argument at this point so as to minimize any possible confusion. The dialectic method of reading that Takeuchi introduces is read alongside Hegel’s dialectic of the parent-child relation, and from this we discover a kind of crisscrossing or chiasmatic movement that opens up between the two poles of reader and text, child and parent. This movement was seen to be paradoxically one of identity and difference, for the repetition of the origin that takes place in both biological reproduction (Hegel) and, let us say, reproductive reading (Takeuchi) (reproductive because the reading method is said to be born from within the object, as opposed to coming to the object from outside, as in the case of application) at once acknowledges the absolute necessity and force of the origin and displaces that origin in the very event, or act, of its repetition.34 Identity and difference do not then simply oppose each other, but rather are bound together in such a way that it becomes impossible to tell them apart.

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(Takeuchi appears to hint at this in his Lu Xun text of 1944: “How did Lu Xun become a writer? Putting myself in his place, I would like to learn how he accomplished this. My interest here is not in how he changed, but rather in how he did not change. Lu Xun changed and yet he did not change.”)35 In our analysis of Hegel’s discussion of the parent-child relation, reference was made to the concept of legacy or inheritance: to repeat, the parent leaves in the sense that it dies or departs, but in that leaving it leaves behind a legacy to the world, and this is of course the child. The legacy, then, both is and is not the parent. It represents the parent, since it is after all a doubling of the parent’s own presence (or being), but clearly in this representation a gap has opened up between the parent and child that functions to differentiate them from each other. Now the internal method of reading that Takeuchi introduces, in its literal status as the product of the text given the fact that it emerges from the text’s own act of reproduction, obeys exactly this same logic of inheritance. And indeed there should be nothing surprising about this, since Takeuchi himself, as we have seen, describes this method of reading as dialectic (or more precisely, it is what philosophers have called dialectic, as he in fact says, thereby opening up a space between himself and philosophy). Here let us simply note the fact that several Japanese critics have had occasion in the past to call attention to what they perceive to be a certain Hegelianism in Takeuchi’s thinking.36 Reading is an inheritance because it is, in fact, what the text leaves behind itself in its death. In his notion of reading Takeuchi is concerned above all to criticize the implicit subjectivism—still massively apparent today, we believe—behind the belief that a text can be simply approached externally, that is to say, from a position that is not already inside the text (object, world, being, etc.). The falsity of the concept of application lies in the fact that it presupposes a pure outside of the text, and this would of course be the pure interiority of the subject-reader. In this way the act of reading loses its fundamental nature as response; it pretends that the bonds that tie the act of reading together with the text are fabricated by the subject alone. These bonds can either be made or not: it is the subject’s own caprice that determines everything here; gone is the law that demands that the subject respond, and thereby acknowledge its situatedness in a world that is not of its own making. But of course this law does not just disappear, as it in no way depends upon the subject’s recognition of its force. In Takeuchi’s terms, the relation between internal and external reading methods cannot be understood as one of opposition. Because for Takeuchi all methods must by right emerge from within the object, an external or applicatory reading merely disavows its status as necessarily already in the text. In other words, it disavows its own history, the relation to which must be properly rethought in terms of the notion of inheritance. To read is to return to the site of inheritance, it is to in some sense

22

Introduction

consciously (meaning: without disavowal) come to grips with that which has originally produced one, whether this be determined as parent or text (or more generally, history itself). This return to the text that is reading, however, need not be seen as conservative or reactionary, etc., since it is to do no more than acknowledge the basic fact of one’s own historicity. Such reactionism may be revealed, perhaps, only if the act of reading is grounded upon a mere subjective desire to effect this return. But as we have seen, reading qua return (or repetition) has essentially nothing to do with the desire of a reading subject, but on the contrary obeys something like a transcendental—or rather, quasitranscendental—law that says: you must return. The situation of inheritance is one that is profoundly inescapable; it places demands on the reading subject that call for a response. And it is in this response, precisely, that a measure of something like freedom appears, since the call of the text can be answered, or read, in a multiplicity of ways. Thus one cannot not inherit a text, but one can negotiate the singular response back to it, and in this way a certain irreducible inflection is given to the inheritance.37 For Hegel, this inflection of the inheritance is manifested in what he calls the child’s “independent existence” from the parent, an independence that is necessarily relative given the fact that the child’s “essential being” lies squarely within the parent as opposed to itself. In Takeuchi, the notion of inheritance appears most thematically in his reading of texts that have occupied a central place in the formation of the tradition of modern Japanese history. Profoundly exposed to this tradition, Takeuchi attempts to responsibly respond to it by inflecting it otherwise, that is to say, by opening up the difference that inheres within it. So, for example, we can read Takeuchi’s reading of the “notorious” 1942 symposium “Kindai no chôkoku” [Overcoming modernity] in his essay of the same name, “Kindai no chôkoku.” Significantly, Takeuchi repeatedly frames his discussion in terms of an inheritance or legacy (isan), but just as significant is the fact that he so clearly regards his task as a kind of dialogic encounter with tradition, one that calls out for his response to it: It is difficult if not virtually impossible to strip the [symposium’s] ideology (ideorogii) from the ideas (shisô), or to extract the ideas from the ideology. But we must recognize the relative independence (sôtaiteki dokuritsu) of these ideas from those systems or institutions that exploit them, we must risk the difficulty of distinguishing these actual ideas. Otherwise it would be impossible to draw forth the energy buried within them. In other words, it would be impossible to form tradition (dentô keisei). . . . If the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium were a relic (or remains: ibutsu) of the past, then we wouldn’t need to go through such trouble. We could

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simply consign it to the past and let bygones by bygones. But the symposium still lives on today in its ideas.38 Takeuchi’s language in this passage is extremely revealing, as it brings out what is perhaps only implicitly contained in the notion of inheritance. First of all, Takeuchi makes use here of the term ibutsu (relic, remains), which is ideographically related to the notion of isan (inheritance, legacy) in that both compounds share the same root character of i, meaning “leave behind, remain, bequeath, save, reserve.” Ibutsu also contains the less common but more concrete or specific meaning of “remains of the dead,” which is perhaps brought out more fully in its alternate reading, yuimotsu. This should make much clearer the fact that reading as inheritance primarily concerns the relation between life and death. We can see this also in Takeuchi’s phrase “kako wo shite hômurashimereba ii,” which we have translated as “We could simply consign it to the past and let bygones be bygones,” but which is more literally translated as “We could just bury the past and have done with it,” since hômuru is the word that describes the act of burying or interring. (And in this regard, we should not fail to note that hômuru repeats the verb uzumoreru [to be buried], used earlier in the phrase “draw forth the energy buried within.”) Finally, these terms of death and burial are directly opposed in the text to the notion of life, as can be read in the statement “But the symposium still lives on (ikiteori) today in its ideas.” What Takeuchi is in fact presenting in these lines is a concept of history or historical time in which the past is never simply dead and buried but rather, as it were, both dead and alive at the same time. And we might recall here that Hegel says precisely the same thing of the parent-child relation: the parent passes away, but in that passing passes himself on to the world in the form of the child—who therefore does not so much receive the parent’s legacy as is the legacy (or rather, as we remarked in more general terms, being is revealed in the notion of inheritance to be none other than a question of receiving, it is before all else something that is given to one, a gift that one must accept). The child, then, is not simply itself but in some sense both parent and child, and thus both dead and alive. The identity that the child receives from the past is inflected by its very being, and so continues on through it into the future as now different from itself. In any case, Takeuchi’s meaning in this passage seems to be that tradition, as represented here by the “Kindai no chôkoku” symposium (as well as by the “Sekaishiteki tachiba to Nihon” [The world-historical standpoint and Japan] symposium of 1941–1942, with which it has been historically linked due in large part to Takeuchi’s own essay), is something that one necessarily inherits both passively and actively. Tradition must be reckoned with in order for man to understand his own historicity, i.e., that human existence is essentially

24

Introduction

historical. This historicity—the fact that man inherits a past that is not of his own making, and which he must inherit whether he wants to or not—places man in the primary role of respondent, someone who must answer for who or what he is by answering to that which made him this way. If man’s existence is thus one of response, however, this in no way means that he is deprived of all freedom of decision or action, that he has no choice but to repeat the tradition exactly as it has been handed down to him. On the contrary, through the very consciousness of that tradition, its possibilities and limitations, he is given the chance to transform it. It is important to emphasize here that recognition of one’s historicity is not equivalent to adopting a determinist view of history. The law that dictates that one must repeat the past exists alongside another law that states that difference is opened up in that very repetition. For Takeuchi, the most responsible way to respond to tradition is not to repress it or disavow its existence. Indeed, a careful reading of “Kindai no chôkoku” reveals that the essay is to a great extent written against those writers who would seek to deny their own complicity with wartime ideology, an ideology that for Takeuchi extended well into the postwar period as well.39 For such writers, the past was something that was simply dead, and this made the question of man’s historicity irrelevant. In Takeuchi’s words, there could in this way be no active “formation of tradition”—i.e., a “drawing forth of the energy buried within” the symposium’s ideas—since that energy had dissipated with the death of the event. But here it becomes important to speak of history in terms of something like the return of the repressed. The past does not simply die, as Takeuchi asserts; it lives on after itself to haunt the living. As he writes several pages earlier of the symposium, “It is as elusive as a ghost (bôrei), and yet it disturbs the living.”40 Or again, citing the writer Odagiri Hideo, “We did not try to clear up the past ourselves, thus we have begun to suffer its vengeance.”41 The past is not to be figured as a corpse, in other words, but rather as a ghost, one that wreaks vengeance upon those who seek to disavow its existence. “Overcoming Modernity” took place in a past that nevertheless still lives on in the present, and in its haunting appropriates man within a structure of call and response. That is to say, in its call from the otherwise dead and buried past it reminds man of his historicity, it demands that he in some sense return to the site from which he comes forth into the world. This return, as we have said, takes the form of a response—a response that, as Takeuchi remarks, necessarily comes from within the object. In this context, it is important to call attention to the very title of Takeuchi’s essay, “Kindai no chôkoku,” for his reading (or inheritance) of the symposium begins most originally from the symposium itself, and represents a repetition thereof. In what is clearly a performative gesture, Takeuchi acknowledges this origin that he must repeat by repeating the sympo-

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sium’s title, “Kindai no chôkoku.” What this performative repetition of the title does is to introduce in more explicit fashion the complex relation between identity and difference in the context of reading. Coming face to face with the ghost of the symposium, Takeuchi declares himself one of its heirs by precisely identifying with it—an identification, let us add, that must be understood as a necessary moment in all responsible reading, that is, a reading that is anything more than an expression of the reader’s own subjective fantasies. This identification of course manifests itself in the very title of Takeuchi’s essay. At the same time, however, a difference emerges in this repetition of the symposium’s title: as goes without saying, Takeuchi’s “Kindai no chôkoku” of 1959 is not the “Kindai no chôkoku” of 1942. Let us conclude this demonstration of Takeuchi’s notion of reading qua inheritance by citing several more passages from his “Kindai no chôkoku” text: “To discard the idea of ‘overcoming modernity’ by identifying it with its legend would be to abandon those problems that we might still succeed to (or inherit: keishô) today, and this would act against the formation of tradition. I think we should reclaim the legacy (isan wo toraenaosu) of those ideas with the greatest breadth possible”; “We cannot inherit or succeed (keiju) to the thought of the symposium today without clearing up the confusion and grasping its meaning”; and finally, “The disappearance of the aporias of modern Japanese history with the defeat has allowed the state of intellectual ruin [in Japan] to freeze over. Creativity of thought is now hardly possible. If we are to restore creativity to thought, we must unfreeze this state of ruin and rethink these aporias. . . . If all the energy invested in the war had been wasted and there were no possibility of inheriting (keishô) it today, then any intellectual formation through tradition would also be impossible.”42 To read is to inherit, and in this sense what we have called the text is really just another name for the past itself. What should above all be clear here is Takeuchi’s concern to think the notion of reading as a kind of “objective” law or imperative that must be obeyed—one must read the texts of the past that have already claimed one as heir—thereby reminding man of the basic fact of his situatedness in the world.

III In so saying, however, it would be irresponsible on our part not to call attention to some of the difficulties contained in the concept of historicity, which Takeuchi comes to via his notion of reading qua inheritance. Historicity, as we have seen, reveals that man does not come forth into the world as into a vacuum, but rather that his being is marked fundamentally by the past, a past he

26

Introduction

must try to come to terms with in order to arrive at any reflective understanding of himself and his surroundings. This reflective understanding, let us emphasize, is necessarily something that is arrived at—meaning that it comes from something that precedes it and effectively relativizes it. This origin of reflective understanding is in fact the past itself. The past, in this sense, functions to make man who or what he is, but only by determining that individual existence as in itself lacking or incomplete, always dependent upon something outside of itself, to which man is therefore permanently indebted. The past exists for man as a kind of ghost, dead in the sense that it no longer exists in the fullness of its presence, but alive to the extent that, as Takeuchi writes, “it disturbs the living.” The precise nature of this disturbance reveals that the past qua ghost lives inside man, it does not simply affect him externally. Or rather: the fact that man can be externally affected by the past at all means that something within him is drawn back to the site from which he derives, and this for essential reasons. The past calls out, compelling a response that takes place by way of a return, as for example Lu Xun describes in his well-known short story “Guxiang” [My old home] (1921), which Takeuchi translated.43 As we have already stressed, this return to the past in the present does not have anything reactionary or conservative about it, since it takes place most originally at a level that precedes the emergence of subjective desire. Nonetheless, if the return is thus “objectively” mandated, this by no means implies that all ways of return are to be considered identical. Here we encounter a kind of tension between the law of return and its actualization, which can be explained roughly as follows: the law of return must be obeyed, there is no way it cannot be obeyed, and yet the act (kôi, kôdô) by which it is put into effect is necessarily singular, that is to say, each time different from itself. The law is helpless to avoid these singular acts—which introduce with them the possibility of misinterpreting or at least modulating the law—and manifesting itself as such, for this very manifestation (if it were indeed ever possible) would necessarily also be an act. Hence the very actualization of the law, i.e., the act of return to the past from which one comes, opens the possibility that the law won’t strictly be obeyed—not despite but rather precisely because it must be obeyed. In other words, there is in this law of return (as indeed in all laws) a strange cohabitation of universal prescription (what one must do at all times) and singular actualization (what actually happens at each time). One result of this is that the law is made to yield at a certain moment to its singular actualization, which means, somewhat paradoxically, that the return that must take place can nevertheless always not take place. This is of course not to say that the return to the past can in any way be avoided, that one’s being in the present can remain simply unaffected by the past; rather that the very act of return, in its singularity, retraces the past each time differently, thereby opening

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up new possibilities of relationship between past and present. In any case, it is this necessary dependence of the law upon its singular acts that requires us to focus on the various ways that the return can be effected. An awakening of man to his historicity teaches him that he is his past, he is what he has received from his past. The past places him in debt, and in a certain sense his future will be determined by this debt that he pays off, or at least tries to pay off, since by right the debt to the past can never fully be cleared. Stated quite simply: man can never be equal to his past; it will always exceed him while yet keeping him in its grip. At the same time, however, an important question arises as to precisely which past man is indebted. Let us recall here Takeuchi’s concern in “Kindai no chôkoku” with what he calls dentô keisei, or the “formation of tradition.” These lines were read as representative of Takeuchi’s insight into the dual nature of one’s relation with the past, that this relation is at once passive and active. While the past claims one as its heir, there is nevertheless always a chance given to respond to that claiming, and so effectively transform tradition. In this respect, the formation of tradition can at each instant potentially become a transformation of tradition. Everything depends here upon the nature of the inflection that one gives to tradition in the response back to it, for it is in fact all too possible to shape one’s response in such a way that tradition remains basically unchanged, not weakened but actually strengthened by one’s participation. The relation with tradition provides a chance to change the very terms that tradition imposes on one, but by that same token tradition can also be said to open itself to change, or alteration, the better to ultimately appropriate its differences back into itself. In order to develop, tradition has no choice but to open itself to relationality: this opening is at once a chance for tradition to reconfirm its unity and self-sameness through its self-difference and a chance for it to be transformed beyond recognition. Let it be said here that what Takeuchi calls dialectics is extremely ambiguous on this point, for the risk that something takes in opening itself to alterity can often be seen in dialectical philosophy to have been merely a calculated risk, a chance in which the outcome was in some fashion determined in advance, and so in fact no real chance at all. As is well known, this would be the problematic of the third term in dialectics, in which the contradiction between self and other comes to be resolved at the level of a greater, more comprehensive entity, which would represent the synthesis of this dyad. We can see this, for example, in Hegel’s dialectic of the parent-child relation, which despite the very radical consequences that can be drawn from it is finally resolved by Hegel in a third term, this being, significantly enough, the nation. As he writes in the same passage quoted earlier, the relationship between husband and wife “therefore has its actual existence not in itself but in the child— an ‘other,’ whose coming into existence is the relationship, and is also that in

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Introduction

which the relationship itself gradually passes away; and this alternation of successive generations has its enduring basis in the nation.”44 By resolving the tension in the parent-child relation in the figure of the nation, Hegel reveals his belief that the negativity inherent to dialectics can always be sublated, or literally comprehended, by a higher positivity, which would thus be capable of taking this difference into account. In this way, negativity is reduced to the status of mere instrument of positivity; it would contain within itself a telos that governs its otherwise expropriating movement. Now the question that must be asked at this juncture concerns Takeuchi’s own use of dialectics, and particularly whether his thinking does not yield at a certain point to a notion of the third term that would represent the sublation of difference or negativity into itself. Here it is important to call attention to Takeuchi’s employment of a whole range of Hegelian concepts, which in certain instances show themselves to be quite central to his analyses. To name only the most obvious: mediation (baikai), spirit (seishin), antithesis (anchitêze), moment (keiki), contradiction (mujun), formation or Bildung (keisei), development (hatten), and negation (hitei), to say nothing of the master-slave (shujindorei) relation that so fascinated him.45 The difficulty is that Takeuchi appears both to accept and to criticize these concepts depending upon the diverse contexts of his writing, which is to say in effect that no final or authoritative judgment concerning his relation with dialectics is really possible. (Nor, to be fair, is any final judgment possible concerning the notion of dialectics itself—but such a discussion would take us well beyond the scope of the present essay.) Nevertheless, the fact that Takeuchi articulates the relation with the inherited past in terms of the notion of the “formation of tradition” does raise some questions, and these can only be answered by determining the precise status of this notion in his work. For it should be sufficiently clear by now that the relation with the past that one after all is is worked out by Takeuchi in a way that is strikingly similar to Hegel’s dialectic of the parent-child relation. In both cases, the present is revealed to be inadequate to itself, structurally dependent upon a past that is nonetheless itself given over to the present for its actualization. The past is a “ghost,” to use Takeuchi’s term, which in its haunting of the living both holds sway over and remains dependent upon it, for ghosts necessarily require something to haunt, something more solid or substantial to which to attach themselves. In Hegel’s case, this unsettling movement between past and present (or parent and child, death and life, etc.) comes ultimately to be contained within the nation, which represents its “enduring basis,” as he calls it. In this way, the relationship with the past reveals itself to be in truth a relationship with the national past. Just as the child contains its “essential being” in the parent, so too will man more generally come to find his own essential being in the

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nation—which thereby determines him in his historicity as a national subject. Now for Takeuchi as well, significantly enough, the formation of tradition can be seen to refer all too often to national tradition. The notion of historicity that so preoccupies him in “Kindai no chôkoku” under the name of “inheritance” is intended to awaken man to the fact that human existence is fundamentally historical. Man is bound by his past, but the nature of this binding is such as to always allow a space of dialogue to open up between past and present. As we have pointed out, in Takeuchi the relation with the past must be conceived as both active and passive, which is merely another way of describing the necessity by which the call of the past, which is originally given, is given back or returned with a response (each time different from itself). Failure to become aware of the grip in which the past firmly holds one gives rise to something like the return of the repressed, which Takeuchi expresses through the figure of the ghost that incessantly “disturbs the living.” For the past demands a response to its call, it demands to be acknowledged as the proper site from which man comes. The problem, however, is that Takeuchi will at a certain point appeal to exactly this same logic of the return of the repressed when he takes up the question of the nation. In other words, the question of the nation will be seen as nothing other than the question of one’s past, and so it must be addressed in order to confront one’s own historicity. Repression of this question merely serves to aggravate the problem; it in no way eliminates it. As Takeuchi writes in “Kindaishugi to minzoku no mondai” [The ideology of modernity and the question of the ethnic nation] (1951), The tradition of nationalism (nashonarizumu) in modern Japanese literary history clearly exists, however obscurely and intermittently. It has merely been kept from our knowledge by the dominance of modernist ideology. The fact that no one attempted to unearth the buried riches of this tradition led to the reactionism of the “Japanese Romantic School.” . . . The ethnic nation (minzoku) has its roots in those dark corners, and it becomes a problem when it is neglected. Ethnic-national consciousness emerges through repression. Even though another, later force was required in order to raise this consciousness to the level of ethnic nationalism (minzokushugi), it was originally related to the demand for a restoration of humanity. While ethnic-national consciousness will remain below the surface if it is not repressed, it will nevertheless always exist as a moment (keiki) [and so can emerge latently]. In order to restore our lost humanity, we must prevent the merely unilateral use of power from allowing this dormant ethnic-national consciousness to continue sleeping. While we should denounce the system of power of Japanese fascism that

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awakened this dormant consciousness and raised it to the level of ultranationalism, it would nevertheless be wrong if such denunciations were to lead us to repress the simple or naïve sentiment of nationalism itself. This naïve sentiment of nationalism has a legitimate right to speak out.46 It should be clear here that Takeuchi wishes to make a distinction between a healthy or positive nationalism and a negative or deleterious one. The latter, which he of course associates with Japanese fascism during the war, seems to be referred to alternately as ethnic nationalism (minzokushugi) and ultranationalism (urutora-nashonarizumu), while the former is expressed by the notions of the ethnic nation (minzoku) and nationalism (nashonarizumu). According to Takeuchi, the sense that one has of belonging to a nation is necessarily a simple or naïve (soboku) one, since that belonging is immediate. That is to say, the nation plays the role here of the natural or organic community (Gemeinschaft) that exists prior to the intervention, or mediation, of the state.47 This is of course not to suggest that Takeuchi denies the existence of the Japanese state—indeed, he shows himself to be for the most part one of its fiercest critics—but rather that he locates the ethnic nation within the state-mediated nation as that aspect which is most essential to one’s identity as a communal being. Communal existence within the ethnic nation is both synchronic and diachronic, as it were: it is synchronic insofar as it involves one’s present surroundings in the people and their ways of life (seikatsu), but it is diachronic in that this present itself largely owes its being to the collective past that the people share, and that has properly formed (keisei) them as a people. One’s participation in this ethnic-national community is best served by understanding the past that inheres in its present, a present which is necessarily also one’s own present since this communal past has formed one into who or what one is in the first place. A proper understanding of one’s historicity, therefore, includes not simply knowledge of the past, but more specifically knowledge of one’s ethnic-national past, for the past that one inherits and that calls out for a response is above all else that which comes from the ethnic nation. It is from the perspective of historicity that a response to the ethnic nation becomes necessary. This is why Takeuchi will criticize in the harshest of terms those for whom the call of the ethnic nation is not heard, either because it has been drowned out by modernist ideology (which looks only to the West [and Takeuchi explicitly refers here to such modernist writers as Kuwabara Takeo, Nakamura Mitsuo, and Itô Sei])48 or because it has been manipulated by the state and turned into ultranationalism. In either case, the past in the form of the ethnic nation comes to be “repressed” (yokuatsu sareru), as Takeuchi concludes. But this repression is of course incapable of permanently silencing the ethnic nation’s call from the past, and this leads him to see a kind of complicity

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between modernist ideology and ultranationalism, for it is precisely by neglecting the importance of the ethnic nation that this latter could be appropriated by the state for ultranationalist ends. Even in the postwar era, Takeuchi regards the dominance of modernist ideology and its wholesale support of westernization as further exacerbating the repression of Japan’s ethnic-national past, hence once again sowing the seeds of a revival of ultranationalism in the future. It is noteworthy in this respect that Takeuchi refers to the other nations in Asia as embodying that more positive form of nationalism which Japan seemingly lacks. This “‘correct’” nationalism, as he tentatively calls it in quotation marks,49 can be seen in the fact that these nations have neither endorsed wholesale westernization nor inflicted upon themselves (and others) the dangers of ultranationalism. Rather a more simple or naïve sense of belonging to the ethnic nation was maintained, as Takeuchi declares, and this opened the possibility for social revolution, as could be witnessed, for example, in the case of China. In order for Japan to overcome the dominance of westernization—and it must be recalled here that Japan at this time (1951) was still under the Allied occupation—and rediscover its proper belonging in the ethnic nation, it was necessary for it to establish some type of solidarity with these other Asian nations. Interestingly, this focus on the Japanese ethnic nation did not for Takeuchi have the effect of separating Japan from Asia; on the contrary, it was instrumental in helping one discern the existence of a communal Asian identity, of which Japan was originally part. In other words, an understanding of one’s belonging to the ethnic nation Japan allowed one also to discover one’s proper belonging to Asia. To be authentically Japanese, in the sense of possessing “the simple or naïve sentiment of [Japanese] nationalism,” as Takeuchi writes, is therefore to be authentically Asian. What reveals itself in Takeuchi’s thinking at this point is a difficult tension: on the one hand, he wishes to stress the importance of the Japanese ethnic nation as essential for the notion of historicity, but on the other he wants to situate Japan as properly within Asia, such that Japanese ethnic-national identity is in no way contradictory to a more general Asian identity. Much could be said regarding this tension—in many ways, it is precisely the tension contained in the notion of the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” a notion that Takeuchi of course condemns and yet does not entirely avoid repeating50—but let us simply note here that the transition from Japanese ethnic-national identity to a more general Asian identity seems to correspond in his text with a palpable shift in emphasis from past to future. Whereas the concept of the ethnic nation is introduced in some sense alongside the concept of historicity and a focus on the past, the notion of Asia appears as significantly part of a futural movement toward greater universality. We quote here at length the concluding lines of “Hôhô to shite no Ajia”:

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In the process by which such cultural values as freedom and equality spread from the West, however, they were sustained by colonial invasion—or accompanied by military force (Tagore) or by imperialism (Marxism). The problem is that these values themselves thus came to be weakened as a result. For instance, although equality might exist in Europe, one glance at the history of Europe’s colonial exploitation in Asia and Africa reveals that equality has not been attained by all. It is extremely difficult to imagine that Europe would be capable of effecting such global equality, and nowhere is this better understood than in Asia. Oriental poets have grasped this point intuitively, as can be seen in Tagore and Lu Xun. These poets feel that it is their role to achieve such global equality. Such ideas as Arnold Toynbee’s are currently fashionable, in which the Orient’s resistance against western invasion is said to lead to the homogenization of the world, but here as well one can discern the limits (genkai) of the West. Asians today would disagree with this view. Rather the Orient must re-embrace the West, it must change the West itself in order to realize the latter’s outstanding cultural values on a greater scale. Such a rollback of culture or values would create universality (fuhensei). The Orient must change the West in order to further elevate those universal values that the West itself produced. This is the main problem facing East–West relations today, and it is at once a political and cultural issue. The Japanese must grasp this idea as well. When this rollback takes place, we must have our own cultural values. And yet perhaps these values do not already exist, in substantive form. Rather I suspect that they are possible as method, that is to say, as the process of the subject’s self-formation (shutai keisei no katei). This I have called “Asia as method,” and yet it is impossible to definitively state what this might mean.51 These words must be read against the background of the notion of world history (sekaishi) as thematized by the Kyoto School, which Takeuchi discusses in part in his “Kindai no chôkoku” essay. This notion of world history first emerged in Japan as part of an attack against the belief that the West represented the proper telos of history, that is, that history itself was in the final instance the history of the West qua subject. In this view, historical time is seen as the gradual coming into being of the West, a movement of course coterminous with the progressive disappearance or elimination of the non-West, since the West’s formation takes place precisely by absorbing the non-West into itself. This Eurocentric notion of history is typically attributed to Hegel, and can indeed be read quite straightforwardly in his Philosophy of History: “The History of the World

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travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning.”52 At its most fundamental level, such a notion robs time of its irreducible alterity, for time is regarded merely as a process of Reason with its own internal development that ties together beginning and end as the ongoing actualization of what was previously only latent or potential. Thus the East (Asia) exists at the beginning of history, but will reveal itself to be in truth not the East but the West (Europe). From the perspective of the end of history, the East can be determined to be the West as yet unconscious of itself, still in its immediate or natural form. The historical transition from East to West, then, is in no way a change from one entity into another; on the contrary, what changes is the East’s growing reflection into itself, through which it realizes itself to be the West. The western imperialism of the non-West that Takeuchi sees as constitutive of modernity is mistakenly criticized if interpreted merely along the lines of an incursion or invasion of a foreign entity, for in this instance the West functions strictly as the mediation through which Asia can properly become itself, no longer immediate but now self-differentiated: a westernized Asia, in which the self is mediated by the other. But this westernized Asia is really just the West itself, for Asia’s self-development leads it to realize itself as West. Takeuchi devotes a great deal of care and energy in “Kindai towa nanika” to working out this logic of westernization in Asia, and yet it must be noted that the focus there is primarily on the notion of resistance (teikô), according to which Asia somehow escapes the developing universalization of the West. In this respect, it is highly significant that Takeuchi presents the relation between East and West in “Hôhô to shite no Ajia” in very different terms. Granted, the major concern still very much remains a critique of western dominance, but Asia’s role has become much more prominent. The notion of resistance was introduced previously in order to call attention to the impossibility of the West ever fully comprehending Asia, and he appears to conceive this impossibility in terms of the ultimate unsublatability of matter into spirit, that matter in other words always leaves a remainder of itself in its idealization. As he writes in “Kindai towa nanika,” “Although Europe has comprehended (hôkatsu shita) the Orient, it seems to have felt that something remains which cannot be fully comprehended (hôkatsu shikirenu mono ga nokoru). This is something like the root of European anxiety.”53 In “Hôhô to shite no Ajia,” however, Takeuchi speaks for the first time about Asia possessing in some sense a greater universality than the West, that the West’s universality was in truth no more than a moment (keiki) in Asia’s own “formation as subject.” Hence it is the East that reveals itself to be the proper subject of history, not the West. While the universality of such western values as freedom and equality must be recognized, the West’s own exploitation of these values must also be acknowledged. This exploitation is read by

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Takeuchi as a sign of the gap between the universal West and those universal values it has produced; from this he concludes that the latter have in their very universality outstripped or exceeded the former in such a way as to require a more authentic universal entity for their realization: “Rather, the Orient must reembrace (tsutsuminaosu) the West, it must change the West itself in order to realize (jitsugen suru) the latter’s outstanding cultural values on a greater scale. Such a rollback of culture or values would create universality. The Orient must change the West in order to further elevate those universal values that the West itself produced.”54 As should be clear, nothing has really changed in this substitution of East for West. The extremely problematic presuppositions upon which this notion of history is built appear to be accepted in their entirety: history is seen as essentially a dialectical process between East and West, the result of which is the creation of universals and the self-realization of a universal subject. And while we might express admiration for Takeuchi’s concern to achieve a “global equality” that has been exploited by the West, nevertheless the terms in which he frames this concern—East vs. West—seem to doom his project in advance, for Asia as universal subject would place the West in exactly the same position that Asia itself was placed throughout modernity. Let it be emphasized that this positioning is above all a structural or formal one, that is to say, it is a positioning of hierarchy that presupposes that we see East and West as oppositional entities to begin with. Thus it makes little difference what the specific content attributed to East and West might be. So, for example, when Matsumoto Kenichi, in his reading of “Hôhô to shite no Ajia,” proposes that Takeuchi’s notion of the East’s historical “re-embracing” of the West be properly seen in terms of love’s (East) comprehension of power (West), it must be pointed out that the oppositionality of these terms remains altogether unquestioned.55 What appears in this simple reversal of East and West is a victory of ressentiment, in which the slave triumphs over the master by oppressing his oppressor, and thereby himself becoming the master, or oppressor. Yet the difficulty here lies in the fact that this understanding of the master-slave reversal comes directly from Takeuchi himself. Also, it is Takeuchi who repeatedly points out the failure of oppositional logic, even though the notions of East and West that he makes use of are informed by this logic through and through. But perhaps this teaches us only the importance of reading Takeuchi, reading him up to the very point where his thought may be said to encounter its limits.

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notes 1. See Takeuchi’s own personal reflections on this visit in the opening pages of both “Hôhô to shite no Ajia” [Asia as method] (1961) and “Son Bun kan no mondaiten” [The central problematic of Sun Yat-sen] (1957). In Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû [Collected works of Takeuchi Yoshimi] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1980), 5: 90–115 and 25–42, respectively. 2. See here the January 1942 statement “Dai Tôa sensô to warera no ketsui (sengen)” [The Greater East Asian war and our resolve (declaration)], in ibid., 14: 294–298. 3. “Ro Jin to Nihon bungaku,” in Sekai hyôron [World review] (Tokyo: Sekai Hyôronsha, 1948), vol. 3, no. 6; “Chûgoku no kindai to Nihon no kindai: Ro Jin wo tegakari to shite,” in Tôyôteki shakai rinri no seikaku [The nature of Oriental social ethics], vol. 3 of Tôyô bunka kôza [Lectures on Oriental culture] (Tokyo: Hakujitsusho, 1948); “Chûgoku bungaku to hyuumanizumu,” in Ningen [Human] (Tokyo: Kamakura Bunko, 1948), vol. 3, no. 12. 4. “Ko Teki to Dûi,” in Dûi kenkyû: Amerikateki kangaekata no hihan [Dewey studies: Critique of American ways of thinking], ed. Tsurumi Kazuko (Tokyo: Shunjûsha, 1952). 5. “Kindai no chôkoku,” in Kindaika to dentô [Modernization and tradition], vol. 7 of Kindai Nihon shisôshi kôza [Lectures on modern Japanese intellectual history] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1959); “Hôhô to shite no Ajia,” in Shisôshi no taishô to hôhô [Objects and methods of intellectual history], ed. Takeda Kiyoko (Tokyo: Sôbunsha, 1961) (originally given as a lecture at the meeting of Asian Cultural Studies, International Christian University). For a complete listing of Takeuchi’s writings throughout his career, see the “Chosaku mokuroku” section in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 17:175–279. 6. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:367. 7. “For man, life is an incessant process of self-expression,” as Takeuchi puts it in “Jinsei to bungaku ni tsuite” [On life and literature] (1954). Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:379. 8. Ibid., 4:146–147. This passage would have to be compared with Takeuchi’s remark in Lu Xun that “the ground of Lu Xun’s literature lies in something that would have to be called nothingness (mu).” Ibid., 1:61. In this context, it is perhaps not irrelevant to cite several lines from the Catholic writer Endô Shûsaku’s 1965 novel Ryûgaku that seem to illustrate Takeuchi’s point about Japanese writers: “. . . all these he now felt being peeled away and crashing to the ground. What was left of him was like a statue from which the plaster had been ripped off, leaving only an ugly skeleton. But at least, with a statue, the skeleton remains even after the plaster has been torn off!” Foreign Studies, tr. Mark Williams (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 1989), 59. 9. “Kindai towa nanika,” in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:131 and 143, respectively. See also “Jinsei to bungaku ni tsuite”: “To write a sentence is to oppose it to a sen-

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tence that is not written. . . . Sentence A . . . occupies its place by virtue of its exclusion of sentences B and C, etc. Thus to understand the meaning of sentence A, one must ideally know the meaning of all the things (sentences B, C, etc.) excluded by A.” Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:378. 10. Hence Takeuchi’s fascination with the Lu Xun parable “Congmingren he shazi he nucai” [The wise man, the fool, and the slave] (1925), in which the fool, attempting to break down the walls of the slave’s hut, claims to be simply opening a window. See Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:154–159. The Lu Xun text is to be found in Selected Works of Lu Hsun, tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), 1:353–355. 11. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 105. 12. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:118. 13. In “Hyôgen ni tsuite” [On expression], Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:397. 14. The first citation is from Lawrence Olson, Ambivalent Moderns: Portraits of Japanese Cultural Identity (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992), 74; the second is from Honda Shûgo, Monogatari sengo bungaku shi [Postwar Japanese literary history: Monogatari] (Tokyo: Shinchôsha, 1975), 509. It should be noted that both these works say much of Takeuchi that is highly valuable, and our reading has benefited from this scholarship. Our disagreement stems from certain aspects alone. 15. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:130–139. 16. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:369–370. 17. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:373. My emphasis. 18. See, for example, Karatani’s sustained attack against solipsism (dokugaron) in Tankyû I [Investigations I]: “In the abstraction of the otherness of the other, dialogue with this other becomes monologue, that is, monologue (introspection) is seen as identical to dialogue. To say that philosophy begins in ‘introspection’ is to say that it begins in the interior space of the same language game. What I am calling here solipsism does not in any way correspond to the notion that the self exists alone. Solipsism, rather, refers to the conception that what can be said about me can be said about everyone. In order to criticize this solipsism, then, one must introduce the other, that is to say, introduce communication with the other in its belonging to a different language game.” Tankyû I (Tokyo: Kôdansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1992), 12. 19. “In the final analysis, the Orient is for Europe the rear: it cannot be seen with the eyes.” And several lines later: “If we suppose the existence of a third eye that was neither European nor Oriental, Europe’s step forward and the Orient’s step backward . . . would be seen as a single phenomenon. . . . [However] our very supposition of a third vantage point represents a European form of thought.” Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:133–135. 20. For an excellent discussion of these and related issues, see Briankle G. Chang’s Deconstructing Communication: Representation, Subject, and Economies of Exchange (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

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21. See, for instance, Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:138 and 144 (“Kindai towa nanika”); 5:53 (“Ko Teki to Dûi”); and 5:97 and 99 (“Hôhô to shite no Ajia”). In his subsequent “Bibliographical Notes” to “Kindai towa nanika,” Takeuchi writes that he originally sought in this essay to elaborate what he calls “a general theory of modernization,” but that he lacked the proper theoretical or conceptual sophistication for such. In Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:443. 22. For example, Takeuchi accuses both Tanabe and Watsuji of remaining at “the site of contemplation” (kansô no ba), as witnessed by their “fixity of thought” that unfolds from already established concepts, and so lacking in any “adventure.” Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 15:514–515. The sole exception to this general disdain for philosophy and philosophers in Japan seems to be Nishida’s 1911 Zen no kenkyû (An Inquiry into the Good, tr. Masao Abe and Christopher Ives [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990]), which Takeuchi describes as having a powerful influence upon his own thought and work. See “Waga kaisô” [Recollections] (1975), in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 13:263. 23. And thus, as Matsumoto Kenichi argues, it would be a mistake to see Asia or the Orient in Takeuchi’s text as referring solely to an actually existing entity as well. Takeuchi Yoshimi ron: kakumei to chinmoku [Takeuchi Yoshimi: revolution and silence] (Tokyo: Daisan Bunmeisha, 1975), 194 ff. 24. Naoki Sakai refers to this process in terms of Kant’s notion of schema (which functions in the Kantian system as a kind of bridge between concepts and intuitions) as the “schema of co-figuration” (tai-keishôka no zushiki), in Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 25. “Kindai no chôkoku,” in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:49. 26. See on this point Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community, ed. Peter Connor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 1–42. 27. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 5:46–47. 28. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:155. 29. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:379. Our emphasis. Despite the extreme brevity of these remarks, it seems to us impossible to overstate their importance for a proper understanding of Takeuchi’s thought. Any reading of Takeuchi must at one point or another attempt to take the massive consequences of this remark into account. 30. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 273–274. Takeuchi’s gesture of referring to dialectics in his discussion of methods of reading is in a sense repeated by Michel Lisse, who refers to Hegel as “the first thinker of plastic reading, that is, a reading which no longer contents itself with discovering the author’s meaning (le vouloir-dire) but which rather becomes inventive, in both a passive and active sense.” This notion of invention, which of course comes from Derrida, refers very basically to a return or repetition that takes place strictly by way of difference. L’expérience de la lecture (Paris: Galilée, 1998), 11. 31. Nakagawa Ikurô appears to move slightly too fast in downplaying the importance of dialectics (in the strict sense here of a dialogic or in-between movement, which

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is how we believe Takeuchi understands it) in Takeuchi’s “method.” He argues instead that this method is to be properly grasped along the lines of Nishida’s notion of “self-identity in contradiction” (mujunteki jiko dôitsu), in Takeuchi Yoshimi no bungaku to shisô [Takeuchi Yoshimi: literature and thought] (Tokyo: Orijin, 1985), 255. 32. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:117. My emphasis. 33. See for example the entirety of Lu Xun, in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 1:3–175; and “Kindai towa nanika,” vol. 4, esp. 159–161, where this distinction is described in terms of “spectators” and “runners.” 34. In the context of our discussion of Takeuchi’s relation to philosophy, it strikes us that this double relation to the origin (simultaneously one of respectful return and violent displacement) as implicitly contained in Takeuchi’s notion of dialectical reading describes precisely the ambivalent status of philosophy in his thought. That is to say, the respect that one must pay the origin should be seen as analogous to the respect that one must pay philosophy, regardless of whether one wishes to or not. And yet at the same time, the singular act of paying this respect necessarily differs according to context. The multiple possibilities contained within this act (qua act) means, then, that one need not respond to philosophy philosophically, that a different relation to philosophy can be opened up in the response. 35. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 1:40. 36. As for example the poet and literary critic Yoshimoto Takaaki, in “Jôkyô e no hatsugen—Takeuchi Yoshimi ni tsuite,” Shikô 50 (June 30, 1978): 5 (cited in Olson, Ambivalent Moderns, 163n64). 37. The notion of reading understood as inheritance that we are developing here in our interpretation of Takeuchi’s reading method derives, by necessity, directly from Takeuchi’s text, and is no more than an unfolding or opening up of what is already contained within it. That is to say, this notion does not in any way represent an “application” to Takeuchi’s text from a position that could be seen as external or foreign to it. Nevertheless, it must also be said that this notion of inheritance has been worked out very explicitly by Derrida, and we have learned a great deal from his analyses thereof. See here esp. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, tr. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994). Genealogically, this notion of inheritance would have to be referred back beyond Derrida to Hegel’s discussion of the parent-child relation, as we have done here. But it would also have to take into account Heidegger’s understanding of historicity in terms of a “heritage” that one can “take over” by means of a repetition through difference, that is, by a reading that is simultaneously respectful and violent. In Being and Time, tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 434 ff. Finally, in terms of Takeuchi’s own reading, let us note that Tanabe Hajime seems in his 1946 text Philosophy as Metanoetics (tr. Takeuchi Yoshinori et al. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986], 41) to be working out a very similar notion through what he calls “historicity-through-action.”

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38. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:12. For English-language accounts of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, see Harry Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 34–94; and Minamoto Ryôen, “The Symposium on ‘Overcoming Modernity,’” in Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of Nationalism, ed. James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 197–229. Both these writers provide a discussion of Takeuchi’s essay on the symposium. 39. The profound links between wartime and postwar ideology in Japan are revealed quite brilliantly in Kurosawa’s postwar film Nora inu [Stray dog] (Tokyo: Shintôhô, 1949), 122 minutes. We might note in this context that Kurosawa was Takeuchi’s exact contemporary (both were born in the year 1910), and that Takeuchi had in fact seen Nora inu at the theater, as he records in a diary entry, in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 16:280. For a reading of this film that also focuses on the important theme of continuity between wartime and postwar Japan in terms of the notion of the return of the repressed, see Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto’s Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 147–178. 40. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:6. “When someone says anything about Japan’s modernization, there is a tendency to say of him or his remarks such things as: ‘That’s the position of the Overcoming Modernity faction!’ or ‘That’s close to the Overcoming Modernity faction!’ or perhaps, ‘That’s not the Overcoming Modernity faction!’ Thus the matter is disposed of with a word by distancing oneself from the symposium. . . . It is as elusive as a ghost, and yet it disturbs the living.” 41. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:12. 42. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:24–25, 36 and 66, respectively. This notion of inheritance also appear prominently in the 1961 text Fufukujû no isan [Legacies of disobedience], in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 9:3–295. 43. In Selected Works of Lu Hsun, 1:63–75. Takeuchi discusses his own thoughts about translating this piece in “‘Kokyô’ no yakusha to shite” [As translator of Lu Xun’s “My old home”], in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 2:437–439. 44. Phenomenology of Spirit, 273. Our emphasis. 45. Despite the fact that Takeuchi appears to have read Hegel as early as 1931 (see Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 17:290), it must be pointed out that Hegel is never cited or explicitly discussed in any of Takeuchi’s works. It seems much more likely that this Hegelian influence, if it can indeed even be called that, took place through Takeuchi’s readings of such Kyoto School philosophers as Nishida and Tanabe. 46. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:34–35. 47. Takeuchi is extremely unclear about this transition from community (Gemeinschaft), which is immediate and natural, to society (Gesellschaft), which is mediated by the state. At certain times he will appear to be aware of this distinction, which leads him to focus sharply upon modernity as the era in which this shift was historically effected in the emergence of nations. At other times, however, he

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will speak as if the entity “Japan” (Japanese culture, Japanese literature, etc.) did not come into being in modernity but rather existed as such as early as the Nara period. As he writes in “Bunka inyû no hôhô,” “The extreme slavishness of Japanese literature lies in its inferiority complex, as evidenced by the fact that, from the Nara period onward, Japanese culture failed to ever free itself from Chinese influence, and has indeed never even become conscious of that failure. This slavishness can also be seen in its dependency upon others, for it has sought (in vain) to overcome this Chinese influence precisely by incorporating European culture. Japanese literature possesses a deep-seated instinct that makes it fear independence and freedom, and that moreover blinds it to its own slave nature.” Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:126–127. 48. These modernist writers who ignored the importance of the ethnic nation will be later contrasted to those who in Takeuchi’s eyes duly recognized its importance, as for example Ishikawa Takuboku, Okakura Tenshin, Masaoka Shiki, and Kitamura Tôkoku. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:35. In “Hôhô to shite no Ajia,” Takeuchi adds Sôseki’s name to this list, citing such works as Kokoro (1914) and Sanshirô (1908) as proof of a similar sentiment. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 5:98–99. 49. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:34. Takeuchi further develops this point in the 1951 essay “Nashonarizumu to shakai kakumei” [Nationalism and social revolution], in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 7:13–20. 50. This tension derives at least in part from Takeuchi’s difficulty in thinking through the problematic of the whole-part relation. See here Naoki Sakai’s important reading of Takeuchi in “Modernity and Its Critique: The Problem of Universalism and Particularism,” in Translation and Subjectivity, 170–176. I discuss this difficulty at length in Takeuchi Yoshimi: Displacing the West (Cornell East Asia Series, 2004). 51. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 5:114–115. This passage, which is often cited in discussions of Takeuchi’s work, is in fact anticipated several years earlier in the closing lines of the 1955 essay “Ajia no nashonarizumu” [Asian nationalism], in ibid., 5:8–9. We quote them here: “Over the course of Mao Zedong’s lifetime, Asian nationalism logically developed from its early stages of resistance and submission to the modern West to its later stages in which it actively developed the values it had inherited therefrom, such as freedom and equality. In a word, this represented the creation of a new humanism, which is an extremely important topic for thought today. The West, however, would no doubt disagree with this assessment. Japan has neglected the issue of Asian nationalism in its imitation of the West, but this issue is something that it must learn to reckon with in the course of its postwar recovery.” 52. G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Willey Book Co., 1900), 103. 53. Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 4:133. 54. It will be observed that Takeuchi’s notion of Asia here has much in common with the Asia of Okakura Tenshin, whom Takeuchi admired. For as Karatani Kôjin

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argues, Okakura’s notion of “ideal” in his book The Ideals of the East “should be understood not as so-called ideals, that is, goals or norms that must be realized, but rather in the sense of Hegel’s Idee. According to Hegel, history is the stage upon which the Idee realizes itself. . . . In this sense, Okakura understands the history of Asia as the process of the self-realization of the Idee of Asia.” In “Senzen” no shikô [“Prewar” thoughts] (Tokyo: Kôdansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 2001), 40. For Takeuchi’s own discussion of Okakura’s notion of Asia, see his “Okakura Tenshin” (1962), in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshû, 8:162–176. 55. Takeuchi Yoshimi “Nihon no Ajiashugi” seidoku [Reading Takeuchi Yoshimi’s “The Asianism of Japan”] (Tokyo: Iwanami Gendai Bunko, 2000), 186–190.

Chapter 1 ways of introducing culture (japanese literature and chinese literature ii)—focusing upon lu xun

Lu Xun became known in Japan quite early. There were many Japanese writers who traveled to Shanghai and met with him, after which they recorded their impressions of the interview. Yet Lu Xun complained of these writers (e.g., Nagayo Yoshirô) that they completely misunderstood the meaning of his remarks. After all, he said, understanding between the two parties was difficult, given the differences in national conditions. Generally speaking, these Japanese writers who met with Lu had not seriously read his works, and were attracted solely by his reputation. In other words, their meetings were strictly political. They met with him not as writers but rather as “China rônin.” However, such reception of Chinese literature on the part of Japanese writers goes beyond Lu Xun, just as it goes beyond Nagayo Yoshirô. These writers met Lu without feeling any anxiety, and thus were not influenced by him. Such a spirit, in which things are handled matter-of-factly without the least self-questioning, once existed within Japanese literature, and indeed can be said to still exist even now. This is a debilitated spirit that makes literature decadent. It is because writers have not fully recognized the dominance of this spirit in Japan, moreover, that the farce that was the Greater East Asia Writers’ Congress could ever take place. Lu Xun’s words describing the difficulty of understanding between Japanese and Chinese writers due to differences in national conditions strike me as quite profound. This was not simply a personal complaint about being misunder-

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stood, however, but rather a criticism of the grounds for such lack of understanding. Here one can discern a sense of pity or compassion for these writers in their ignorance. Lu Xun knew Japanese literature extremely well, in all its diverse aspects. He thus was familiar with the kind of literature these writers produced. Lu fully realized that they had no interest whatsoever in understanding him, that they were blinded by various prejudices and preconceived notions, and further, that they refused to call this blindness into question. Indeed, anyone would be at their wit’s end in trying to deal with such people for whom anxiety is utterly lacking. The most one could do would be to attribute this misunderstanding to something like “differences in national conditions.” As Lu Xun writes in a 1934 letter to Xiao Jun, “Apart from that one text, none of Nakano Shigeharu’s works is available in China. Yet even he committed tenkô. Of all the left-wing writers in Japan, only two have yet to commit tenkô (Kurahara Korehito and Miyamoto Yuriko). Doubtless all of you are surprised by this fact, but the Japanese left wing is no match for the stubborn persistence and tenacity of the left wing in China.” This quotation alone provides a good understanding of both the extent and the nature of Lu Xun’s understanding of Japanese literature. It sheds excellent light on that literature. Nevertheless, this remark should be taken neither as simply a criticism of Japanese left-wing writers in their act of tenkô nor as a boast about the “stubborn persistence of the Chinese left wing.” The passage continues: “And yet since I am speaking of things comparatively, it should be noted that oppression in Japan is applied systematically and thoroughly. The authorities there are possessed of a Germanic precision and meticulousness. Things would be different in China if the authorities were more like the Japanese in this respect.” Here we can see that Lu Xun’s remarks are not limited to his insights into the workings of military rule in the two countries (which represent one instance of the differences in national conditions). Rather, he is referring to Japanese literature from his position as a writer, someone who feels this situation bodily, for he actually puts himself inside it, intent on discovering how he himself would respond as opposed to merely looking at things from the outside. In other words, his remarks are made from the site of action. The “Chinese left wing” that Lu Xun alludes to here is, it seems, the League of Left-Wing Writers, which was formed in 1930. This organization suffered oppression from the authorities in less a “Germanic” than an “Asian” fashion. Although it ultimately died out, it survived the great debates that took place in 1936 (the year of Lu Xun’s death) and was succeeded by the United Front, which was set up as an attempt to resist Japanese aggression. There is much about the League of Left-Wing Writers of which I am ignorant. What I do know, however, is that it emerged from the Freedom League, that it was organized for strictly

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defensive purposes (according to Lu Xun), and that it functioned historically as the womb from which emerged the People’s Front. The league was apparently not an individual group or faction, as for example the Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio in Japan. Rather, it established itself as a kind of popular organization, which contained nascent elements of the People’s Front. Although there remains much I don’t know about the great debates of 1936, it seems that the literary world was then split over the formation of the United Front (this split mostly centered around organizational problems). Here Lu Xun was part of the minority camp, in which capacity he risked his life fighting against public opinion. To the best of my knowledge, Lu’s stubborn persistence in this situation can be attributed to his adherence to the tradition of the League of Left-Wing Writers. The league was organizationally rather loose. Due to the terrible oppression from which it suffered (which was different, and in certain respects even worse, than the oppression experienced in Japan), the league was forced to curtail its activities, and lost increasing numbers of its members. At around this time Japan’s imperialist invasion of China became increasingly conspicuous, and this gave rise to a burning desire on the part of the people to save their country. The Chinese Communist Party proposed that a united front be created unconditionally. Nevertheless, or rather precisely because of this, Lu Xun firmly adhered to the tradition of the League of Left-Wing Writers. His adherence proved instrumental in effecting the transition from the United Front to the People’s Front. Lu’s death functioned as the mediation behind this transition, and this is something that people often refer to when they speak of the “Lu Xun spirit.” While it is difficult to know the full nature of this debate without further research, it seems clear in any event that Lu Xun’s actions were not internally divisive, or ultraleftist, as his opponents claimed. Indeed, Lu ceaselessly fought against such things. Not once did he put himself first, nor did he ever form factions, as can so often be seen in the literary world. Lu Xun was always passive. In 1930 when the League of Left-Wing Writers was first formed, his ideas were quite close to those of Communism. (It should be noted here that Lu never referred to himself as a Communist, but rather as a companion of the Communists.) And yet this meant simply that his guiding principles of antifeudalism and anti-imperialism were given clearer form. Nothing new was added; rather, the governing principles of his thought were reinforced. This was a Communism that was true to China’s reality as a premodern quasi-colony. The years immediately prior to the formation of the League of Left-Wing Writers saw Lu Xun waging a bitter struggle against revolutionary literature (i.e., proletarian literature). Here the debates were every bit as fierce as those of 1936. Lu found intolerable this literature’s strong romantic tendencies (which resem-

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bled the sudden switch to the left on the part of the New Sensationalist writers in Japan). In reaction against this, a group of China’s most progressive writers founded the league as a popular organization, and this in turn ultimately led to the formation of the United Front against Japanese aggression. In historically evaluating the merits of Japanese proletarian literature (which task is absolutely necessary for the progress of Japanese literature), it seems to me that China’s League of Left-Wing Writers can serve as an excellent mirror. The league maintained good relations with the Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio in Japan, yet it must be said that these two groups were essentially different from each other. Why wasn’t a League of Left-Wing Writers created in Japan? Which is to ask, in effect: why didn’t Japan produce anyone like Lu Xun? These questions can only be studied on the basis of Lu’s notion of “differences in national conditions.” It seems clear that Japan’s somewhat shaky tradition of bourgeois literature is responsible for the absence of anyone like Lu Xun, but is that sufficient? Are the “differences in national conditions” behind this absence? Even if the entire history of Japanese literature since Futabatei could be compressed within a span of several years, I for one would find it difficult to believe that anyone like Lu could be found. Lu Xun absorbed much from Japanese literature. Coming to Japan as a foreign student during the late Meiji period, he also absorbed much of modern European literature through his knowledge of Japanese and German. Yet this manner of absorption was unique: although he spoke German, for example, he didn’t really devote himself to German literature—with the exception of Nietzsche. (Nevertheless, he expressed a strong interest in Heinrich Heine in his later years, and planned to read his collected works.) What interested him more than German literature was the literature available in German translation that was produced in the smaller, oppressed nations, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Balkans, in addition to Slavic resistance poetry. No doubt Lu Xun’s interest in these works can be explained by the fact that he found in them a certain urgency. And yet this interest was reflective of the period, as many of his contemporaries expressed similar tastes. In any event, it is worth asking what Japanese literature would make of such a reception of foreign literature. When Japanese literature brought in many works of modern European literature, its manner of reception was quite different from that of Lu Xun. In Japan, writers rushed off after first-rate literature. That is to say, they sought out only those works that were seen as representative of mainstream European literature. Japanese literature’s reception of these works consisted in seeking out the best first, then working down therefrom. But this kind of reception holds for Japanese culture in general. Japanese culture has tried to modernize strictly by approaching European culture. This was not always the case, however, as can

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be seen in the early stages of Japanese literature. A very different attitude was prevalent at the height of the political literature movement, and can be perceived in Futabatei’s translations as well. By the time of Mori Ôgai and Ueda Bin, however, this attitude had all but disappeared, replaced by the belief that modernization equals Europeanization. (Of course this is not to say that Ôgai translated Faust without understanding Goethe.) Such a notion of modernization is deeply bound up with Japan’s infrastructure, and is indeed still present even today. How then does Japanese literature regard Lu Xun’s reception of foreign literature? The answer is this: it regards it as a sign of backwardness. From the perspective of mainstream European literature, Lu Xun introduced merely secondand third-rate works, that is, texts that were tangential rather than mainstream. It was inconceivable that he would knowingly ignore Europe’s mainstream or first-rate literature in favor of translating these other works, for this represented a roundabout way of modernizing. The very fact that this pioneer of modern literature sympathized with such minor works alone explains his backwardness— or at least so it appears. However, it was not the case that Lu Xun believed that these works should be seen as mainstream world literature. Nor is it true that he lacked interest in translating such writers as Goethe and Tolstoy. On the contrary, he fervently hoped that all the classic texts of modern literature would be translated, and worked hard toward realizing that goal. No one was as eager to train young scholars of foreign literature as Lu Xun. Moreover, he regretted that he lacked the requisite energy to translate these large-scale texts. He praised the abundance of translations in Japan as well as the readiness with which the Japanese accepted the latest literary works from abroad. He not only encouraged younger scholars to do likewise, but also in some ways made greater use of these latest literary works than did Japanese writers themselves. Throughout his life he never stopped translating, and indeed a glimpse of the translations he made in his later years reveals what great pains he took to introduce the latest works in China. Lu made detailed use of Japanese translations, regardless of how minor or flawed, and was also, it should be noted, quite thorough in introducing woodcut art in China. And yet he never put himself first. Furthermore, he ceaselessly fought against those who appealed to the authority of foreign literature (even Soviet literature) as a symbol of literary fashion or newness. In these battles he sought to expose the pretensions of those writers and scholars who appealed to the authority of such authors as Paul Valéry, Romain Rolland, and Anatolii Lunacharskii. Lu Xun’s attitude here can be related to his reception of Japanese literature, for in this as well he chose not to focus on mainstream works. He refused to introduce any writings—whether from world literature or Japanese literature—

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simply because of their fame or status as mainstream. During his time in Japan Naturalist literature was at its height, but Lu did not introduce any works from either Japanese Naturalism or French Naturalism. The 1923 volume Contemporary Japanese Fiction [Xiandai Riben xiaoshuo ji] that he coauthored with Zhou Zuoren was an excellent work, and it is clear that the authors possess an extraordinary understanding of their subject matter. (This text was introduced in Japan by Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, who thereby showed that his understanding was no less extraordinary.) Indeed, it can all the more be surmised here how critical Lu Xun was of Japanese literature (as was Zhou Zuoren, whose literary tastes, however, differed from Lu’s). Lu Xun’s interests in Japanese literature focused on such lesser-known writers as Arishima Takeo and Kuriyagawa Hakuson. These interests owe much to the influence of Nietzsche, as can quite clearly be seen in Lu’s early writing. Also Lu expressed great admiration for the later Akutagawa, and had planned to introduce his works in China. In his readings of Japanese literature (and of other literatures as well), Lu Xun focused only on those texts he deemed essential. Such an attitude represents the absolute opposite of those Japanese writers who visited him in Shanghai strictly on account of his fame. “I like Shaw. I admired and began to like him not through his works or life, but simply because of a few epigrams I read and because I was told he was always tearing the masks from gentlemen’s faces—I liked him for that. Another reason is that China keeps producing men who ape Western gentlemen, and most of them dislike Shaw. I tend to believe that a man disliked by the men I dislike must be a good sort.”1 This, then, is Lu Xun’s attitude. Lu’s determination to introduce only those works that he found to be essential for him, regardless of their fame, is surely a sign of strong character. Yet it must be remembered that such strength of character is produced within a social context. Indeed, Sun Yat-sen can be seen as the same type as Lu Xun, a type that was likewise regarded as backward by the Japanese. The Japanese were entirely unable to understand Sun Yat-sen’s ideas and actions, and this inability persists even today. The distinction that I am making here between the Lu Xun type and the Ôgai type in the reception of European literature (European culture) no doubt reflects the different principles of infrastructural development between China and Japan. In Japan’s case, modernization was successfully achieved from the top down—that is to say, this modernization was not actually successful so much as potentially successful, since the Japanese believed that success would come eventually. Japan then tried to resolve the internal contradictions that were cre1

“On Seeing Shaw and Those Who Saw Shaw,” in Selected Works of Lu Hsun, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), 3:217.

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ated from this tension between actuality and potentiality by means of outward expansion, a policy it has consistently employed since 1873 with the debate to invade Korea. Here one can see at work a principle of movement that may be called the “Prussian type.” This type can be recognized by the colonized’s desire to become a colonizer so as to escape its colonization, just as it can be seen in the tendency to rush off after the latest things in order to overcome one’s own backwardness. Lu Xun referred to such a self-expansive life force as Japanese “diligence.” When it appears at the level of consciousness, this diligence is seen as the kind of modernization that takes place through the infinite approach toward the advanced nations. Thus Japanese literature is constantly turned toward the outside waiting for new things. It always has hope. Even if it falls behind, makes certain compromises, and ends up abandoning the individual, hope remains. Indeed, despair itself comes to be seen as an end, and thereby is transformed into hope (e.g., Dazai Osamu). Lu Xun’s despair is not born in Japan, nor is there any way it could be born there, and this explains why the Japanese cannot understand it. Lu Xun’s principle is different, just as the society that produced him is different. Like Japan, China at the end of the Qing Dynasty experienced a reform movement from above, one that, however, failed miserably. The reforms instituted by Zeng Guofan and his high government officials failed, as did those of Kang Youwei and his lower-rung officials. These failures became fixed in people’s minds, and actually began to change the nation’s infrastructural development from a downward and externalizing direction to an upward and internalizing one. Although Sun Yat-sen succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy that ruled over the various ethnic groups in China, this success was at the same time a failure in that it ushered in the reactionism of foreign-backed warlords. These events necessitated another people’s revolution from the bottom up, and from within that revolution the Chinese Communist movement sprang forth. This movement emerged from the bottom up and proceeded in an internalizing direction. It was just such a ground that made Lu Xun possible, for he was someone who formed himself negatively by rejecting all new things from the outside. However, I am limiting my discussion here strictly to mainstream types. In referring to a Lu Xun type and an Ôgai type, I mean to designate the different principles of movement of social consciousness, not the diverse cases of individual human spirit. In other words, there exists one type that sets out to destroy what Lu Xun represents so as to make what Ôgai represents mainstream, and another type that constantly absorbs or assimilates these Ôgai elements into the Lu Xun elements. Such writers as Hu Shi and Lin Yutang represent the very opposite of this Lu Xun type, but they have not become mainstream. While it is often said, and indeed rightly so, that Hu Shi was the leading force behind the

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Literary Revolution of 1917, historical analysis will reveal that the Literary Revolution in fact represented an emergence of Lu Xun elements from Hu Shi elements. This is similar to the situation in China in 1930, where the League of Left-Wing Writers emerged from the revolutionary literature movement. Lu Xun did not openly oppose Hu Shi when Hu attempted to introduce democracy into China, yet inwardly he laughed at Hu’s naïve optimism. By that time Lu’s “despair” had already come into being, and this made him unable to maintain the fantasy that China’s salvation lay in democracy. Therefore the only thing to do was to write, despairingly, of the absence of salvation. It was out of this experience that the story “A Madman’s Diary” [Kuangren riji] was born. Lu Xun opposed the notion of “fair play” that Lin Yutang set forth in 1925. If one were to introduce bourgeois morality into a society with no foundation for it, fair play would simply change form. Thus if fair play lost its fairness, it would become a force that merely strengthened the strong and weakened the weak. Lu Xun grasped this point not through knowledge but rather from experience, precisely that same experience upon which his “despair” was founded. Here, “despair” refers to the absence of any and all external salvation. The world that Lu saw was one in which men ate men, and one never knew when one would be eaten. Furthermore, one was forced to participate in this man-eating as well. Thus it was not simply that the world was evil; rather, he who had to destroy that evil was no less evil. Evil could be found even in the destruction of it. There was no standpoint of the good from which one could look upon evil while being actually outside of it. On the contrary, one’s own evil could be seen in the vain efforts to rise above it. How are such men as Lu Xun seen in the eyes of Japanese literature? They are seen as backward, that is, as typical of the closed societies of developing nations. The real problem here, however, is this very reflection of something as backward, but of course Japanese literature doesn’t realize this point. Japanese literature views itself as having escaped such backwardness, or at least as able to escape it in the future. Thus it contains possibilities, a hypothetical point it regards as self-evident. Even though this literature doesn’t see itself as already modern, it is nevertheless convinced of the future possibility of that modernity. It knows that the nature of modernity itself will change when introduced to such a backward society as Japan, but that the search for a true or authentic modernity can then begin over again. It’s all trial and error here, for Japanese literature understands that it won’t run into a wall forever. Just as Japanese society has falsely resolved its contradictions through outward expansion, so too has Japanese literature sought to conceal its own poverty by seeking new things on the outside. Japan considers its avoidance of walls, or obstacles, as evidence of progress. When it sees other countries come up against these same walls, how-

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ever, it projects its own backwardness upon them. The slave maintains hope only on the condition that he can one day become master, for he is then not a slave in a potential sense. Thus he never comes to recognize himself as slave. Nor can he understand the despair that comes when one refuses to see oneself as either slave or master. When the slave recognizes himself as slave, however, it finally becomes possible for him to free himself from slavery. In this respect, Lu Xun described Chinese history as a constant shifting between “the periods when we longed in vain to be slaves” and “the periods when we succeeded in becoming slaves for a time,” and set forth “the creation of a third type of period, hitherto unknown in Chinese history” as “the task of our young people today.”2 From the perspective of Japanese literature, such a rejection of tradition is surely regarded as a sign of hysteria. For Japanese literature, new things always come from the outside in the form of schools. Proletarian literature, which was made into an authority by those writers who awaited it, represents one such example. This literature became an authority in its very opposition to authority. When authority comes up against reality and loses its value in Japan, another authority is simply sought out. Lu Xun’s founding of the League of Left-Wing Writers by rejecting (or negating) the authority of proletarian literature could never take place in this country. Even today, when Japan is facing the wall that is the aftermath of its wartime defeat, the only new literary movements taking place are those seen as the French type, the Soviet type, the Communist Chinese type, etc. When writers realize that it is impossible to introduce these various types directly into Japan, they simply consider how best to adapt them. Yet what is so strange here is the perspective that insists on seeing this French type, Communist Chinese type, etc. as types in the first place. These things are testimony to the cowardice of Japanese literature, which refuses to see its own walls and confront its own slave nature. It is currently said that Japanese culture is divided from itself—as can be seen, for example, in the distinctions between Iwanami culture and Kôdansha culture, city and countryside, etc.—and this has given rise to debates on how best to unify these divisions. But is Japanese culture really so divided? If it were, then there should be those for whom such divisions are felt as painful, and there are no such people. This way of looking at Japanese culture as divided is rather strange, for in fact there are in this country only a plurality of quasi-cultures, each quite separate from the others. Lu Xun’s notion of “differences in national conditions” is an important one, and must be thoroughly examined. With this notion he seems to be referring to 2

“Some Notions Jotted Down by Lamplight,” in ibid., 2:135–136.

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something like differences in infrastructure, that is to say, to the distinct principles of development (or expansion) of both society and consciousness. Yet perhaps he is pointing to something even deeper than this, what might be seen as the difference between those who are aware of their status as slaves and those who are so slavish as to refuse this awareness. It seems to me that Lu Xun regarded Japanese literature as slave literature, for its aspirations were those of the slave becoming the master. This is what I sense in his use of the words “differences in national conditions.” The extreme slavishness of Japanese literature lies in its inferiority complex, as evidenced by the fact that, from the Nara period onward, Japanese culture failed to ever free itself from Chinese influence, and has indeed never even become conscious of that failure. This slavishness can also be seen in its dependency upon others, for it has sought (in vain) to overcome this Chinese influence precisely by incorporating European culture. Japanese literature possesses a deep-seated instinct that makes it fear independence and freedom, and that moreover blinds it to its own slave nature. We can see this, for example, in the writing of the word “France” in Chinese characters as opposed to katakana, in the rather blithe or unthinking daily use of both Japanese dictionaries and Chinese-Japanese dictionaries, and finally in the unwitting contempt for China implicit in so-called “Sinophilia.” What must be studied here is the different kind of backwardness characteristic of that Japanese literature that sees Lu Xun as backward, despite the fact that he freed himself from slavery. In his later years Lu Xun wrote several pieces in Japanese where, in both form and content, he appealed to the Japanese people. Yet Japanese literature never responded to these writings, despite the fact that Lu was very popular at this time. It seems to me that Lu Xun is necessary for Japanese literature, but this necessity is such as to in fact finally make him unnecessary. Without this latter aspect, it becomes meaningless to read him. What I fear is that Japanese literature will turn Lu Xun into an authority, that it will transform this poet of the people into an icon or idol of bureaucratic culture. This danger is a real one. Indeed, have I not myself here considered Lu Xun simply in terms of a Lu Xun type? (January 1948)

Chapter 2 what is modernity? (the case of japan and china)

The Meaning of Modernity Lu Xun is the founder of modern literature. It is impossible, regardless of the conditions, to say that Lu Xun precedes modern literature. (Let us here keep the ambiguity of the word “modernity” so as to avoid a method that begins through conceptual determination.) Although there is much of the premodern within Lu, this very presence of the premodern means that he can only be called modern. This point becomes clear in comparing post–Lu Xun and pre–Lu Xun writers. Several types of groundbreaking pioneers existed before Lu, but they were all isolated from history. Because of this isolation they were never considered pioneers. It was only after Lu’s emergence that it became possible for them to be so considered. In other words, Lu Xun’s emergence signified the rewriting of history. For such phenomena as the birth of new people and the ensuing total renewal of consciousness take place historically, whereas the awareness of these things necessarily comes after a historical era has passed.

Oriental Modernity It must first be recognized that Oriental modernity is the result of European coercion, or is something derived from that result. Because the term “modernity” designates a historical era, it would be confusing not to use this word in a

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historical sense. Civil society existed in the Orient from long ago, prior to the invasion of Europe. The genealogy of bourgeois literature can be traced back to the Song period (and perhaps even to the Tang period). Particularly at the time of the Ming Dynasty, civil rights had in certain respects extended to the point where bourgeois literature was able to forge a type of free man that was virtually akin to the Renaissance man. (Ming bourgeois literature had a profound influence on Japanese Edo-period literature.) Nonetheless, it cannot be said that this bourgeois literature is immediately related to the literature of today. While present-day literature undeniably stands upon this legacy, it in a sense also began by rejecting that legacy. Or rather, what allowed the legacy of bourgeois literature to be recognized qua legacy, that is to say, what made tradition into tradition, was a certain self-consciousness. The direct moment that produced this self-consciousness was the invasion of Europe. When Europe brought over to the Orient its modes of production, social institutions, and the human consciousness that accompanies these, new things were born in the Orient that had never previously existed. Although Europe did not bring these to the Orient in order to give birth to those new things (today, of course, the situation is different), that was the result. I do not know if the European invasion of the Orient was based upon the will of capital, a speculative spirit of adventure, the Puritan spirit of pioneering, or yet another instinct for self-expansion. In any event, it is certain that there existed in Europe something fundamental that supported this instinct, making the invasion of the Orient inevitable. Perhaps this something has been deeply intertwined with the essence of what is called “modernity.” Modernity is the self-recognition of Europe as seen within history, that regarding of itself as distinct from the feudalistic, which Europe gained in the process of liberating itself from the feudal (a process that involved the emergence of free capital in the realm of production and the formation of personality qua autonomous and equal individuals with respect to human beings). Therefore, it can be said that Europe is first possible only in this history, and that history itself is possible only in this Europe. History is not an empty form of time. It includes an infinite number of instants in which one struggles against obstacles so that the self may be itself, without which both the self and history would be lost. Simply being Europe does not make Europe Europe. The various facts of history teach that Europe barely maintains itself through the tension of its incessant self-renewals. That fundamental thesis of the spirit of modernity that states that “the doubting self cannot be doubted” is undeniably rooted in a psychology of people who are located (who have located themselves) in such a situation as this. Let us acknowledge that it is Europe’s essential self-expansiveness (leaving aside the question of what the true form of that self-expansiveness is) that, on the

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one hand, revealed itself in the movement to invade the Orient (and that, on the other, produced its unlikely child, the United States). This is the manifestation of the movement of European self-preservation. Europe’s capital seeks to expand markets while its missionaries are committed to expanding the kingdom of God. Through incessant tension, Europeans attempt to be their own selves. This constant activity to be their own selves makes it impossible for them to simply stop at themselves. They must risk the danger of losing the self in order for the self to be itself. Once liberated, people cannot return to their originally closed shells; they can only preserve themselves within activity. This is precisely what is called the spirit of capitalism. It grasps the self in the course of its expansion through time and space. The notion of progress, and hence the idea of historicism, first came into being in modern Europe. These were never placed in question until the end of the nineteenth century. In order for Europe to be Europe, it was forced to invade the Orient. This was Europe’s inevitable destiny, which accompanied its self-liberation. Its self was confirmed inversely by encountering the heterogeneous. Although Europe’s longing for the Orient existed from long ago (or rather, Europe itself was originally a kind of mixture), the movement that took the form of invasion occurred only with modernity. Europe’s invasion of the Orient resulted in the phenomenon of Oriental capitalism, and this signified the equivalence between European self-preservation and self-expansion. For Europe this was accordingly conceptualized as the progress of world history and the triumph of reason. The form of invasion was first conquest, followed by demands for the opening of markets and the transformation to such things as guarantees of human rights and freedom of religious belief, loans, economic assistance, and support for educational and liberation movements. These very transformations symbolized the progress of the spirit of rationalism. From within this movement were born the distinctive characteristics of modernity: a spirit of advancement that aims at the infinite approach toward greater perfection; the positivism, empiricism, and idealism that supports this spirit; and quantitative science that regards everything as homogeneous. It was natural that in the eyes of Europe, for which everything is homogeneous, the movement of European self-realization was regarded in terms of such objective principles as the influx of higher culture into lower cultures, the assimilation of such lower cultures, or the natural adjustment of the gaps between historical stages. The European invasion of the Orient produced resistance there, a resistance that was of course reflected in Europe itself. Yet even this could not change the thoroughgoing rationalist conviction that all things can ultimately be objectified and extracted. Resistance was calculated, and it was clear that through resistance the Orient was destined to increasingly Euro-

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peanize. Oriental resistance was merely the essential element that made world history all the more complete. In the latter half of the nineteenth century a qualitative change occurred within the movement of European self-realization. This change was perhaps related to Oriental resistance, for it occurred when Europe’s invasion of the Orient was nearly complete. The internal contradictions that prompted Europe to its self-expansion came to be recognized. At the same time that world history was approaching its completion with the comprehension of the Orient, the contradictions of this history surfaced through the mediation of the heterogeneity contained in the Orient. It was recognized that the contradictions that led to progress were the same contradictions that prevented progress. And when this realization occurred, European unity vanished from within. The chief causes of European dissolution can be seen from various sides. The result of this dissolution, however, was the emergence from within Europe of three worlds that opposed Europe at the same time that they opposed one another. The contradictions of capital (i.e., the material base) led to the negation of capital itself, as manifested by resistance in Russia. The New World, which was previously a colony of Europe, exceeded the European principle by gaining its independence. It then opposed Europe by becoming ultra-European. And third is Oriental resistance: through its continued resistance, the Orient appears to have produced non-European things that are mediated by, while at the same time exceeding, the European. Oriental resistance was reflected in Europe. Nothing can escape Europe’s eyes insofar as it exists within the framework of modernity. At each crisis in which Europe becomes conscious of its internal contradictions, those things that rise to the surface of its consciousness are always recollections of the Orient that exists latently within it. Europe’s nostalgia for the Orient is one of its contradictions, and it is forced to think this Orient the more explicit these contradictions become. Orientalists have always existed, but they were never more apparent than during the crisis known as the fin de siècle. This is the crisis of European dissolution, which has continued up to the present day. Although Europe has comprehended the Orient, it seems to have felt that something remains that cannot be fully comprehend. This is something like the root of European anxiety. I have a feeling that it might be the continued resistance of the Orient which provokes that anxiety. However, it is open to question whether Europe has interpreted this situation as I imagine it. Perhaps it has not. In the final analysis, the Orient is for Europe the rear: it cannot be seen with the eyes. Just as I cannot understand Europe in the same way that I do Russia (my understanding passes through the school of Futabatei Shimei), so Europe can only understand the non-European half of

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Russia through its European half. Although the Russian Revolution was a product of Europe’s own contradictions, Europe feared it on account of that half of Russia which it could not see. Analogously, this quality has forced Europe to recognize the dominance of the United States (i.e., pure Europe). It is certain that today’s problem of American-Soviet opposition is in certain respects a more advanced reproduction of the historical legacy of the European opposition between Europe and the Orient. Regardless of how Europe has interpreted it, Oriental resistance has continued, and it is through this resistance that the Orient has modernized itself. The history of resistance is the history of modernization, and there is no modernization that does not pass through resistance. It was through the Orient’s resistance that Europe recognized its own triumph in the course of comprehending the Orient within world history. This triumph was conceived in terms of cultural, ethnicnational, and economic superiority. The Orient recognized its defeat within this same process. Defeat is the result of resistance, and there is no defeat without resistance. Hence the continuation of resistance is the continuation of the sense of defeat. Europe advanced one step while the Orient retreated one step. Retreat went hand in hand with resistance. For Europe, this movement of advance and retreat was conceived of as the progress of world history and the triumph of reason. Defeat was decisive when this way of thinking came to act upon the Orient through its resistance, and this at the time of its continued sense of defeat. In other words, the Orient recognized defeat within its own sense of defeat. A certain development was required before the Orient recognized defeat within its own sense of defeat, however, the condition of which was its continued resistance. Defeat takes place only when there is resistance; but even when there is resistance, the sense of defeat is recognized only when that resistance is continued. Defeat is a one-time occurrence. There is no direct relation between this one-time fact of defeat and the recognition of it. Rather it is often the case that one is led to forget the fact of defeat, resulting in a secondary defeat at the hands of the self—a defeat which is therefore all the more decisive. Here there is of course no consciousness of one’s sense of defeat. Such consciousness arises through a secondary resistance that rejects this secondary defeat. It is here that resistance becomes double. For there is both resistance against defeat and resistance against the lack of consciousness, or the forgetting, of defeat. This is also both resistance against reason and resistance against the nonrecognition of the triumph of reason. The triumph of reason must be recognized, but this can only occur through such double resistance. What Europe conceived of as the triumph of reason was secured with its own step forward, which itself took place on the basis of Oriental resistance. Europe is only Europe in its incessant tension, just as reason can only be reason in its step forward. It is obvious that such

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an advancing reason cannot be reason in its step back. If this were possible, however, then it would not be true reason but merely the reflected image thereof. Hence if reason were to reveal itself, it would do so only in resistance, that is, in the rejection of this image. In other words, the revealing of reason would take place only in an absolute sense of defeat. (What can be said here of reason can also be said of freedom and consciousness in general. Furthermore, I suspect that what can be said of consciousness can also be said of matter, but I am not sure on this point.) If we suppose the existence of a third eye that was neither European nor Oriental, Europe’s step forward and the Orient’s step backward (this relation is essentially one of heads and tails) would be seen as a single phenomenon. It would be seen as a natural phenomenon equivalent to that of mixing together liquids A and B. This is precisely the concept of the fusion of eastern and western culture (and the varieties thereof). This concept is abstract in its abstraction of values. But even apart from this, our very supposition of a third vantage point represents a European form of thought. It is a product created from within Europe’s advance. Nevertheless, as Europe is Europe only in its incessant tension, it can be said here that Europe is Europe only in the advance that exists within the equivalence between European advance and Oriental retreat. Hence this European form of thought is valid only within the instant of that advance. But this thought is conceived of as truth by virtue of the fact that the instant is conceived of as permanent. This concept of the permanence of the instant comes from the effort (i.e., the movement) to make it permanent. In other words, it comes from the instinct for self-preservation according to which Europe desires to be itself. It goes without saying that this concept is invalid within that retreating Orient in the context of the equivalence between European advance and Oriental retreat. As with consciousness in general, such a European form of thought is naturally reflected in the retreating Orient. But what is reflected is an image, itself unproductive. In the mixing of liquids A and B, consciousness on the part of liquid A would not allow it to arrive at the concept of its mixing with liquid B. If this were the Orient, it would merely sense its own self-loss.

The Occident and the Orient Europe and the Orient are oppositional notions, just as are the notions of the modern and the feudal. Indeed, there are differences in the categories of time and space between these two pairs. I shall leave these points aside, however, as my field is neither logic nor historical philosophy. Such conceptual understanding, and hence the ability to judge these formal differences, first of all

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belong to modern Europe. In other words, they are products of continued tension. The Orient essentially lacks the ability not only to understand Europe but also to understand itself. What understands the Orient, and so brings it to realization, are those European elements within Europe. What makes the Orient possible is situated in Europe. Not only does Europe become possible in Europe, the Orient also becomes possible there. If Europe is represented by the notion of reason, then both reason and unreason (i.e., nature) would be European. Everything belongs to Europe. As I have written, the understanding that Europe and the Orient encountered each other at a certain spatiotemporal point—thereby initiating the movement (or mixture) of advance and retreat—is an abstract one, for it supposes the presence of a transcendent, or immobile, vantage point. However, such abstraction cannot be described as foreign to the concept of truth. In the Europe of infinite advance, that which was previously outside history is consumed within it through European self-expansion, thus becoming historical. Europe gives content to the abstract through its transformation of history. Although abstraction represents a risk for thought, it is not nonsense. As with scientific hypotheses, it becomes true if confirmed by experimentation. Or rather, it might be more correct to say that such risk originates in the anticipation that this abstraction will be confirmed. Even if something exists outside of time and space, it would no longer be transcendent if time or space were to extend that far. Hence even fictitious things are potentially not fictitious, as they may someday become actual. For such things are in keeping with the course of movement. (Here I am thinking of the simplest types of East–West cultural discourse, but the same principle holds for more complex cases, which merely come with various additions.) Thus of course the image produced in the Europe of advancement is not produced in the retreating Orient (within the equivalence between advance and retreat). Nor can the risk of thought that is abstraction be produced in the Orient. The equivalence between advance and retreat is instantaneous. This is the instant of tension in which Europe becomes Europe (and in which the Orient disappears as the Orient). The instant is a limit, a point within history that lacks extension, or rather it represents the place (which is not an expanse) from which history emerges. Hence it is in fact wrong to describe the instant in terms of that movement in which advance equals retreat. Because all consciousness emerges from the instant, however, even this image of equivalence between advance and retreat naturally comes from it—if derivatively. Thus this image is itself European. But where is the guarantee that this image is European? What is the basis of judgment according to which something is said to be European or Oriental? Isn’t truth universal? In the final analysis, won’t my words lead to a kind of

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agnosticism or relativism? I too am struck by such questions, questions that are perhaps related to issues of epistemology or psychology. But I am ignorant of these fields, and so cannot pursue matters in their direction. I recognize the importance of this questioning, but my own task lies elsewhere. I am simply trying to answer the questions that have been posed to me (i.e., my own present questions) based on what I know experientially, using my literary intuition as a key. Or rather, I am not so much trying to answer these questions as to merely grope my way toward them. However, if I were asked whether truth is relative, it seems that now, that is, in my present circumstances, I would have to say that it is relative. I know this experientially. What is true for me is not true for officials and scholars, and what is true for them (or what I believe to be true for them) is often not true for me. I know this from experience, but upon reading Lu Xun I found that he sensed the same things, although with much greater precision than myself. This confirmed the substance of my experience, providing me with a key to answer my questions. It was on this path that I encountered Lu Xun. My encounter with him was an event, one that I shall not, however, go into here (although thinking about this encounter will also provide a key). In any case, what I am thinking of here and now is that my judgment on the relativity of truth might itself be European. I do not know this. Previously I wrote the words “to know,” but this is not a knowing in which I could assert that truth is relative. It is through the act of knowing that I do not know. I feel as if I understand what Lu Xun means when he repeatedly writes, “I do not know anything.” It seems that in the Europe of infinite advance truth itself is developmental, and I suspect that truth consists only of those things that develop. Hence I suspect that truth does not appear as such in the Orient (as situated within the equivalence between advance and retreat). This can be understood when viewed historically. In Europe not only matter moves but spirit as well. Spirit is not the shadow of matter, nor is matter the shadow of spirit; rather it seems that each is a substance in the sense of a subject of self-movement. The self-movement of spirit certainly seems recognizable, as there is an incessant activity of going beyond oneself, such that no concepts ever stop at the place of concepts. Rather they are advanced like chess pieces. But it seems that not only chess pieces advance, as the very board that sets the pieces in motion advances alongside them. Although this advancing is not uniform, those pieces that stop will always begin moving again. There is absolutely no final stoppage. This is true of all pieces, such as reason, freedom, humanity, and society. Perhaps the concept of progress burst out of this movement in the form of self-representation. No such self-movement of spirit existed in the Orient; that is, spirit itself did

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not exist. Of course there was something resembling spirit that existed prior to modernity, as for example in Confucianism and Buddhism, but this was not spirit in the European sense of development. However, even this disappeared with the advent of modernity. Proof of this can be seen by viewing the history of words in Japan, for words here either disappear or fall into decay. The word “civilization” becomes the name of a sponge cake while that of “culture” becomes the name of an apartment or a cooking pot. Such apartments decay from ferroconcrete to wood, they never advance from wood to ferroconcrete. It is true that new words are born one after another (while new words become necessary inasmuch as words fall into decay, they at the same time cause the decay of old words), but this is due to the fact that they are originally rootless. Thus while it appears that new words are born, in fact they are not. Do words exist that have sprouted new shoots through growth and ripening, splitting apart naturally from the weight of their content? Of course there are some words that have neither disappeared nor fallen into decay. Yet a close look reveals that these words have been nourished externally, and live only as long as such nourishment is not cut off. Such words are not productive in themselves. Given that words are the representation of consciousness, doesn’t the fact of their rootlessness mean that spirit itself is not developmental? Doesn’t this mean that culture is unproductive (and hence not culture)? Even though I raise these questions, I lack the answers to them. My questions are old, and many people have answered them. There have been people who argue that new words have roots, while others argue that they do not. The former locate these roots in the various substancelike things that they bring. While I might find this argument persuasive, it seems to me that roots themselves do not move. The latter attempt to transplant the various roots that they introduce externally, but I have yet to see a case where transplanted roots actually grow. In addition, there have been those who argue in favor of growing words from their native soil since transplanting is unsuccessful. But this soil can only be introduced externally; no sprouts have yet emerged from it.

Repetition and Development This can be said not only for history but also for individuals. While there is a difference between historical laws and the laws of individual spirit, a certain relation exists between them (although I am uncertain as to the nature of this relation). There is thus a relation between the absence of historical development and the absence of individual development. Few writers in Japan have transcended themselves, projecting out from their work. Even more notable than

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their small numbers, however, is that such people rarely emerge in history: they appear and then disappear. Darkness must be strong in order for light to be light, but in Japan the border between light and darkness is ambiguous. (This is related to the problem of individuality, but even if I began from this point I would still come across the place where I discovered Lu Xun.) Naturally there do exist things that resemble development. Development exists within fixed coordinates, but there is no development of the coordinates themselves. Writers are generally faithful to their concepts (in the sense of sincerity among Inovelists) but careless in their language (in which case, concepts themselves cease to develop). Although contradictions emerge with development, they are rare, in history or in individuals. Hence that which appears to be development is in fact repetition; it is merely a shadow cast by some hypothetical substance. The method by which one poses questions such as “What is culture?” or “What is spirit?,” raising then certain representations of culture and spirit and setting off in search of the things to which these representations correspond (turning back if they are not found), already indicates the direction of spirit in which one anticipates an entity in the outside world and conceptualizes it as something given. This is perhaps the reverse of the direction of European movement: the direction of movement itself is reverse. Here is the relation in which what advances on the one hand retreats on the other. Within this movement of advance and retreat, it is natural that the concept of advance is created from within the course of advance, or rather that spirit itself is constituted in an advancing manner. Within the course of retreat, however, there is naturally no self-consciousness. For within the course of advance only that spirit which is constituted in an advancing manner (i.e., true spirit) is productive. In the course of retreat, spirit does not emerge as such. Rather it is generally the case that what arises in the course of retreat is the consciousness of advance. For the concept of advance formed within the course of advance permeates retreat due to its advancing nature. Advance is easily accepted in those places where there was originally no spirit. This unproductive and fixed concept is there seen as something substantial. However, there is a coming to consciousness of retreat in these same places. The concept of retreat also emerges from within advance, as the opposite notion that projects advance upon its counterpart. Hence the concept of retreat correlates with that of advance. Yet when this concept of retreat is accepted into the course of retreat it loses that correlativity, such that each concept becomes fixed as an isolated substance. In the course of retreat, the two substantial concepts of advance and retreat coexist without mediation, and hence without contradiction and its consequent unification. Here lies the source of that slave sentiment which lacks subjectivity in the sense of the coexistence of a superiority and inferiority complex.

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Such a phenomenon seems common among the Oriental nations, as well as among the backward nations of Europe. The difference is merely one of degree, since there exists neither a pure Europe nor a pure Orient. However, the phenomenon emerges most clearly (perhaps it appears this way only for me) in the case of Japan. In this sense, Japan is the most Oriental of the nations in the Orient. In another sense, of course, Japan is the least Oriental of these nations. This “other sense” does not refer to any quantitative comparison of productivity, as is often claimed. Rather I am thinking of the notion of resistance in the Orient, and in Japan’s case resistance was scarce. This scant resistance is related to the remarkable speed of capitalist development in Japan. But it is also tied up with the fact that what appears to be progress is at the same time decadence, and what appears to be the least Oriental is at the same time the most Oriental. Resistance in the Orient is the historical moment at which Europe becomes Europe. Without Oriental resistance Europe would be unable to realize itself. This point can be understood in the context of individual consciousness, for consciousness emerges in resistance. The existence of A depends upon its exclusion of non-A. Europe’s invasion of the Orient could not take place unilaterally. Movement or activity means that the self changes the other at the same time that it is itself changed. Movement involves range, and is perceived through this range, but it is not continuous like a stream. Movement is mediated by resistance, or is perceived within resistance. Resistance gives rise to movement and is thus the moment that completes history. In saying this, however, I do not know what resistance is; I am unable to fully penetrate into its meaning. I am unaccustomed to philosophical thought. All discussion would end if I were told that my thinking had in fact nothing to do with resistance. It is simply that I feel something within this notion, something that I cannot extract and logically construct. This inability is due to my own inadequacies; determining the meaning of resistance is not impossible as such. But I don’t even know whether it is impossible in the first place. Ultimately, it seems possible. This cannot be known until one actually attempts such a determination, and so I can only assume that it is possible provided I do not abandon my efforts. And yet the realization of this possibility is so distant that I feel afraid, and I feel guilty for it. For me, the rationalist conviction that all things can be extracted is frightening. Or rather, what is frightening is the pressure of that irrational will that underlies this rationalist conviction. To me, this irrational will is European. Previously I lived without understanding my fearfulness for what it was. Yet I felt anxious as I sensed that many thinkers and writers in Japan—with the exception of a few poets—did not feel what I felt, that they were not afraid of rationalism, and that what they called rationalism (including materialism) did not appear to me as such. It was at this time that I encountered Lu Xun. I saw Lu

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desperately enduring the same fears that I felt. What is more, I found in his resistance a key to understanding my own feelings. It was then that I began to think about resistance. If I were asked what resistance is, I can only reply that it is something found in Lu Xun. Such resistance is either scarce or absent in Japan. From that point I began to compare Japanese modernity with Chinese modernity. I came to conceive of this problem in terms of the general expression “Oriental resistance” since I felt that what was to be found in Lu Xun also existed in other Oriental nations, and from this I could deduce the Orient’s general nature. However, I do not believe that such a general Oriental nature exists as a substance. For me, the argument over whether the Orient exists or not is meaningless, it is a regressive argument that takes place only in the minds of scholars. The real problem is that of the intellectual makeup of scholars, for whom this argument is conceived of as a matter of objectivist scholarship. This itself seems to symbolize the history of decadence in the Japan that belongs to the concept of the Orient, and hence also the history of decadence within scholarship in general. Actually, in terms of practice, such scholarship was and remains very forgiving of the militarists’ self-interests in the name of scholarship. (See the defense arguments of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.) Like other concepts, the concept of the Orient may be understood as progressive at a certain period in Japan’s modernization (e.g., the time of the Oriental Free Press), but it fell straight into decadence thereafter. Naturally this decadence goes unnoticed by the subject of spirit who remains caught up within it. This subject becomes conscious of it only upon the projection of that (moving or active) concept of the Orient which resides in Europe. Yet this recognition does not lead to selfknowledge in the sense of understanding one’s own decadence within the progress of the other. For there is here no resistance, that is to say, there is no wish to preserve the self (the self itself does not exist). The absence of resistance means that Japan is not Oriental, but at the same time the absence of the wish for self-preservation (the absence of the self) means that Japan is not European. That is to say, Japan is nothing. However, it must be said that the inquiry into the Orient’s existence does in fact emerge from a kind of resistance, as there is here an aspect of defiance against any concept of the Orient as self-evident. This aspect is correct qua scholarship, and was thus unpopular with the militarists. Yet when it sought to establish itself as scholarship, in which the thesis of the Orient’s existence was opposed to that of its nonexistence, i.e., when it became a method to compare extractions, this aspect fell into decadence. For such scholarship represents the sole scientific method, and in Japan this method can only fall into decadence. Here I am not being sarcastic or paradoxical, as I have no time for this. What scholars call progress in scholarship is for me the decadence of scholarship—

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they simply cannot see this because they wear the spectacles of progress. Were they to remove these spectacles, they would see that progress is decadence. When concepts are extracted, they are already rotting. For those who think otherwise, please show me which concepts in modern Japanese history have survived without rotting. Which scholarship has not fallen into decadence? Which literature has not fallen into decadence? The history of modern Japanese literature is the history of man’s decadence. Were this not so, why were several poets destroyed for their rejection of this decadence? Scholars for whom science consists in the extracting of concepts are merely situated within the concept of science. Writers for whom literature consists in the extracting of characters, and who believe that characters are ultimately extractable, are simply forcing the latter within the concept of literature. They do not think of the place that accommodates characters and allows them to move. For if they did, their scholarship and literature would no longer be realized. Hence it is the very fidelity to scholarship and literature that distances a person from scholarship and literature. In becoming a scholar in Japan, one may question everything except the final question—for if this were questioned, one would no longer be a scholar. Even if writers strip a character naked, they must leave on the final layer of clothing, for the character would disappear if they removed it. That is to say, the character is not originally present. When in Europe a concept become discordant (i.e., contradictory) with reality (it always becomes contradictory), a movement occurs in which accord is sought by the overcoming of that contradiction, that is to say, by the development of place. Hence it is the concept itself that develops. However, when in Japan a concept becomes discordant with reality (this is not movement, and so not a contradiction), one abandons former principles and begins searching for others. Concepts are deserted and principles are abandoned. Writers abandon words and search for others. The more faithful these writers are to scholarship and literature, the more fervently they abandon the old and incorporate the new. Thus in Japan the failure of liberalism leads to totalitarianism, and the failure of totalitarianism to communism. Or again, the failure of Stalin leads to Mao Zedong, and the failure of Mao Zedong to De Gaulle. The failure of the materialist dialectic leads to the self-identity of absolute contradiction, and the failure of absolute contradiction to existentialism. Hence the following sentiment: “Where Tôjô Hideki failed, another may succeed—perhaps me.” Such things constantly fail, yet these failures themselves never fail. “Failure is the mother of success, so if you fail, just start over again.” “If your house burns down, just rebuild it, for brooding won’t lead anywhere.” “Better to have another child than to mourn the one who has died.” “What’s the use of pursuing war crimes after the defeat?” There is no failure of Japanese ideology, for it perpet-

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ually succeeds by perpetually failing. It is an infinite repetition, which has been conceived of as progress. Indeed, there is no better word to describe it. Europeans are astonished at the speed of Japan’s modernization, while the Japanese are astonished at how little damage they sustained in the war. Lu Xun said that even if we reject everything Japanese, we must at least study their “diligence.” Indeed, there is no better word to describe it. It is just that Japan’s progress is the slave’s progress, its diligence is the slave’s diligence. Japanese culture is progressive and the Japanese people are diligent: this is indeed true. History has revealed it. The unconscious psychological tendency of the Japanese, in which the “new” becomes a standard of values and is seen as equivalent to what is “correct” or “right,” cannot be understood apart from the progressive nature of Japanese culture. Japanese diligence manifests itself in the constant search for the new and the constant attempt to become new. Hence progress in scholarship is represented by the search for newer theories, while progress in literature is seen as the discovery of newer schools. Few peoples are as diligent as the Japanese in seeking out the new. There is present in Japan a logic of the new according to which the discordance of old theories or schools with reality is explained by the fact that the former have grown old: “They can no longer adapt to reality, and so we must get new ones. When something new becomes old, it must be exchanged for something even newer. This is the basis of fidelity to scholarship.” The more conscientious people become, the more they think in this manner, for it is the conscientious who notice such discordance with reality. “Reality develops,” they argue, “and so theories must develop as well.” This “must” is a demand to “search” for new theories, which derives from the anticipation that new theories will be given. Such anticipation is based upon a psychological tendency formed within an environment in which new theories were given in the past, are still given in the present, and will continue to be given in the future. In other words, this is a problem of structure. Hence it appears self-evident that new theories will be given, and it is impossible to conceive of a state in which they would not be. Of course there do exist elements that oppose the new and reject the notion that new theories are to be given. But these come from the resignation to lag behind reality; they are the products of the desire to chase after reality. Idealists desperately chase after (the concept of) reality, abandoning one after another those concepts that no longer conform to reality; whereas the realists resign themselves to lagging behind reality, and simply search for theories that explain the reasons for this lagging. But neither the idealists nor the realists attempt to pull reality back to themselves. They do not try to bridge the discord between reality and concept by pulling reality back to themselves. Nor do they think about whether such a project is even possible in the first place. This possibility cannot be determined without trying, but such a

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notion strikes them as foolish. For these idealists (including materialists), reality is something absolute and sacred, it is to be worshipped at the altar of authority. These idealists slumber within the concept that reality can be changed. For those who lack the experience of ever having changed reality, even this concept becomes a cushion for peaceful sleep. They see reality as something substantial, the infinite approach to which is scientific and rational. And indeed it is scientific and rational. It is simply that this science and rationalism belong entirely to the slave.

Honor Student Culture Scholarship and literature, in short, culture made up of the products of human spirit, are conceived of by idealists as existing outside, as things that must be chased after and captured. Idealists are extremely zealous in their efforts to capture these. “Overtake, outrun!”: this is the rallying cry of the champions of Japanese culture. “We must not lose, take the lead.” They score points like honor students. In fact, those who used to be honor students in school became the champions of Japanese culture, where they educated the next generation by means of the honor student system and honor student spirit. Japanese culture is thus structurally an honor student culture. The bright students gathered in military academies and imperial universities, after which they ruled Japan. The slow students were no match for them, for they possessed an inferiority complex that in fact made them act more like these bright students than the bright students themselves. In Japan, private universities are more like national universities than the national universities themselves. Fukuzawa Yukichi’s tradition had already disappeared while he was still alive. Hence a pyramid-shaped honor student culture was created that reflected the pyramid-shaped social structure known as “hierarchy.” The top of this pyramid grew increasingly higher, and the bright students were proud: “Japanese armaments are the greatest in the world. Japanese cotton spinning is the greatest in the world. Japanese medicine is the greatest in the world. And Japanese ethnicity is the greatest in the world. We champions of Japanese culture who constructed this superior culture are qualitatively different from the common people (i.e., the backward students). We are the chosen. It is our mission to guide these backward people, just as it is our mission to guide the backward Oriental nations.” Such thinking represents the logical development of the honor student complex. The honor students are thus subjectively correct. From this a conclusion emerges that reflects their dogmatic makeup: “Since our superiority derives from the assimilation of European culture, the backward common people of course will, and should, accept our cul-

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tural charity.” This assertion is also subjectively correct. If the people refuse such charity, the honor students ascribe this to their stupidity and inability to incorporate superior things; it is due to their stubborn and conservative nature. This kind of leadership consciousness can be found not only among soldiers and politicians but within the labor movement as well. It isn’t just the soldiers and politicians who try to pull the people along with them; the liberation movements do the same through their honor student psychology. Such is the honor student nature of Japanese culture. But this nature is also represented by the fact that it was the imperial universities that produced the most radical thinking in Japan; that it was the champions of the student movement who succeeded as “ideological” prosecutors; and finally, that it was the members of the left who collaborated in wartime operations and formed the backbone of right-wing organizations. The roots of Japanese fascism lie in the very structure of Japanese culture, which includes within it both the left and the right. Japanese culture is superior: this is absolutely true. It was built by superior champions and so must be superior. The honor students consider it superior, and so the people (the backward students) must agree. However, a notion exists among these honor students that Japanese culture is an imitation, without originality. But since, as they argue, imitation is in its own way superior, the “imitationist” camp is in the end identical with the “superiorist” camp. The honor students claim that Japan is capable of imitation precisely because of its superiority, or again that imitation itself is creative, i.e., superior. The people (the backward students) are persuaded by this argument. Yet the honor students admit that within this superior Japanese culture elements exist that are not superior: these are the backward students. Japanese culture would be perfect if it consisted only of honor students, and whatever imperfections it has can be explained by the presence of the backward students. Regardless of the honor students’ efforts, the backward students lower the general cultural level. How unfortunate, they say! The people (the backward students) react to these words with feelings of contrition toward the honor students for causing such decline. When the honor students achieve victory in international competition, the backward students share in the honor. They must cheer for the honor students, and they will: “The honor students will win because they’re superior. And yet they lost. How can this be? They lost because the backward students pulled them down. The backward students stood in the way of victory. The loss took place with the backward students, not with the honor students. It is they who bear responsibility for the wartime defeat.” Such is the logic of honor student culture. Hence the substitution of players. But those who were substituted in were also honor students, for only honor students are allowed to play. This was simply a substitution of imperial university honor students for those from the mili-

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tary academies. “While it’s true that the former honor students failed, this was not because they were honor students but because their methods were wrong: they forgot to take into account the backward students. The loss can be attributed to the inferior students, that is to say, the honor students failed to take them into account.” The new honor students try to redeem that failure by bringing the backward students closer to them, and the people (the backward students) can only thank them for this favor: “Even the honor students lost, but they lost because of us. They showed us favor, and we are guilty for letting them down. How can we not be grateful? We must try harder, we must obey the commands of the honor students and draw closer to them so as not to lose in the future. It would be shameful if we don’t raise the general average of this superior Japanese culture.” Such is the educational spirit of honor student culture. “Indeed! Education will succeed. The backward students learned a lesson from the defeat and will now follow the example of the honor students and become clever. Honor student culture will flourish. There is no defeat for Japanese ideology, for it represents a superior spiritual force that turns even defeat into victory. Regard the superiority of Japanese culture! Long live Japanese culture!” What if we consider that the wartime defeat was attributable not to the inferior but rather to the superior aspects of this superior culture? What would happen if we rejected this culture? What would happen if progress itself were seen as decadent and rejected? “Don’t be absurd,” the honor students would say. “That is unthinkable. Why do you insist on playing the fool and let progress slip by? The backward students would simply become more backward. It was we who saved these students by keeping the defeat in check. We rallied those people who gave in to despair and participated in strikes and black-market transactions by providing them with the goal of a cultural nation instead of militarism. But your calls for rejecting progress and the superior culture would simply make Japan into an uncultural nation instead. Our good will and hard work would then all be for naught, so stop being so reactionary!” And yet the backward students would protest as well: “We are fools. The war was lost because non-honor students were made into players. We cheered for these players and despaired when they lost. But we finally took heart when the real honor students told us that those players were fake. These honor students told us that we must all become honor students ourselves, and they were right. We must now turn over a new leaf and start studying. Please do not treat us like backward students, for we have severed our ties to those fake honor students who used to treat us like this.” Indeed you’re right, you backward students! I’d like to join you, if it’s all right, for I think your views are absolutely correct. This is the only way to live in

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Japan’s honor student culture: backward students depending upon the honor students. If the backward students opposed the honor students, they would not only be attacked by them; they would also be isolated from the other backward students. As Lu Xun writes, “The most painful thing in life is to wake up from a dream and find no way out. Dreamers are fortunate people. If no way out can be seen, the important thing is not to awaken the sleepers” (“What Happens After Nora Leaves Home?” [Nala zou hou zenyang]).1 I too am among those who wish to dream, never to be wakened. I want to avoid the “most painful thing in life.” But I saw someone who was awakened, someone who experienced the “most painful thing in life”: “to wake up from a dream and find no way out.” This is Lu Xun. Although I was afraid to be awakened, I could not separate myself from Lu. He also writes, “We have no right to urge people to sacrifice themselves, no right to stop them either.”2 I cannot but dwell on what Lu was awakened by and how he was awakened.

Humanism and Despair There is a parable by Lu Xun called “The Wise Man, the Fool and the Slave” [Congmingren he shazi he nucai]. The slave’s work is hard and he constantly complains. The wise man consoles him, “Your luck will surely improve before long.” But the slave’s life is hard, and he next complains to the fool, “The room given me doesn’t even have a window.” “Tell your master to have a window made,” says the fool. “What an absurd idea!” answers the slave. With this the fool goes to the slave’s house and begins tearing down a wall. “What are you doing, sir?” “I am making a window for you.” The slave tries to stop him but the fool does not listen. The slave then shouts for help, and other slaves appear and drive the fool off. Finally the master appears and the slave informs him what has happened, “A bandit began destroying the walls of my house. I was the first to discover this and together we drove him off.” “Well done,” says the master. The wise man visits the master after this incident and the slave thanks him: “Indeed, sir, you are very prescient. My master praised me, so my luck has improved.” The wise man seems pleased. “That’s right!” he replies. I think Lu Xun is writing here about the state of being awakened. He is writing about the “most painful thing in life,” the pain of wishing to escape from an inescapable reality: “to awaken from a dream and find no way out.” And yet I sense that certain conditions are necessary for the interpreting subject to inter1 2

In Lu Hsun: Writing for the Revolution (San Francisco: Red Sun Publishers, 1976), 101. Ibid., 104. Emphasis Takeuchi.

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pret the parable in this way. These conditions, however, seem to be determined by the object (i.e., Lu Xun). Here I wish to avoid the trouble of examining this point in detail, for such a discussion would stray from my theme. Besides, it should be implicitly understood that my theme and interpretation of this parable are mediated by each other. The subject of the parable is the slave, not slave nature but the concrete slave (strictly speaking, Lu Xun himself). All uniqueness would be lost if one were to abstract from the parable only that aspect of oppositionality in human nature represented by the wise man and the fool. The text would then be reduced to the general space of “humanism.” It would thus become ordinary, something that could be found in either Europe or Japan. Lu was not such a humanist, as the fool would appear in his eyes as the “wise man.” He was someone who rejected humanism (he rejected everything). While it is true that he hated the wise man and loved the fool, these two are indivisible: to hate the wise man was to love the fool. Lu does not see these two figures in terms of an opposition of values. Such a position of seeing—i.e., the humanist position—does not exist for him, for the fool cannot save the slave as the humanist might hope. The fool would be rejected if he tried to save him. In order to avoid rejection and thus save the slave, the fool must stop being a fool and become a wise man. The wise man can save the slave, but this salvation would be merely subjective. In other words, salvation for the slave consists precisely in nonsalvation, in dreaming without awakening. From the slave’s standpoint, the pursuit of salvation itself is what makes him a slave. If therefore he were to be awakened, he would have to experience the “most painful thing in life,” the fact that there is “no path to follow”—the selfawareness that he is a slave. And he would have to endure this fear, for he would lose that self-awareness were he to give up and seek salvation instead. In other words, having “no path to follow” means that one is awakened from a dream, whereas the presence of such a path is proof that one is still dreaming. The “most painful thing in life,” awakening from a dream, occurs when the slave rejects his status as slave while at the same time rejecting the fantasy of liberation, so that he becomes a slave who realizes that he is a slave. This is the state in which one must follow a path even though there is no path to follow; or rather, one must follow a path precisely because there is no path to follow. Such a slave rejects being himself at the same time that he rejects being anything else. This is the meaning of despair found in Lu Xun; it is what makes Lu Xun possible. Despair emerges in the resistance of following a path when there is no path, while resistance emerges as the activation of despair. As a state this can be seen as despair, whereas as a movement it is resistance. There is here no room for humanism to enter. Japan’s humanist writers would not write “The Wise Man, the Fool, and the Slave” in the same way that Lu Xun did. Rather they would have the wise man

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or the fool save the slave, or perhaps have the slave free himself by overthrowing the master. In other words, they would describe the moment of awakening as joyful rather than painful. In the eyes of such humanists, Lu Xun’s darkness would appear as an instance of colonial backwardness that lacks the social conditions required for liberation. In Lu’s eyes, however, such an “advanced” Japanese literature is represented by the figure of the wise man, that is to say, it is the literature of the fantasy of liberation. Yet the advanced nature of this literature would prevent it from recognizing this about itself. Indeed, even the darkest of Japanese writers strike me as perfectly bright when compared with Lu Xun. It is certainly true that their darkness stems from the lack of social conditions required for liberation, but Lu despises the wise man and rejects the fantasy of liberation. He endures the pain of being “awakened” while struggling against the blackness. He does not view the social conditions for liberation as something to be “given,” for it was in such an environment as this (in which these conditions were not given in the past or present and would still not be given in the future) that his consciousness was formed. These conditions are not given because of resistance. Resistance means that they are not given, and so one rejects the fantasy that they could be. They are given only when resistance is abandoned, but this would mean the loss of the ability to reject the fantasy that they could be given. Here lies the difference between health through being conservative and decadence through being progressive. Japan’s humanist writers all became decadent. (The few poets who rejected decadence were defeated.) And yet such decadence in no way touched Lu Xun, who rejected humanism. The slave refuses to recognize the fact that he is a slave. He is a true slave when he thinks that he is not a slave. And he reveals the full extent of his slavishness when he becomes a master, for at that time he subjectively views himself as no longer a slave. As Lu Xun writes, “The slave and the master are identical.” Lu also writes, “The tyrant’s subjects are more violent than the tyrant himself” and “He who enslaves all others as a master would himself be content as a slave.” The slave is not liberated when he becomes the master; this is liberation only in the slave’s own subjective terms. The nature of Japanese culture can be understood if one applies this insight to it. In its turn toward modernity, Japan bore a decisive inferiority complex vis-à-vis Europe. (This inferiority complex was the result of Japanese culture’s superiority.) It then furiously began to chase after Europe. Japan’s becoming Europe, as European as possible, was conceived of as the path of its emergence. That is to say, Japan sought to emerge from slavery by becoming the master—and this has given rise to every fantasy of liberation. Today’s liberation movements are so permeated by this slave nature that they cannot fully free themselves from it. Ignorant of his own status as slave, the subject of liberation movements remains trapped within the fantasy that he

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is not a slave, and from this position he attempts to emancipate the people (the backward students). This subject attempts to awaken others when he himself refuses the pain of awakening. Regardless of his efforts, then, subjectivity fails to emerge, i.e., he is unable to awaken these others. He then looks to the outside in search of that “subjectivity” which ought to be given. Such lack of subjectivity comes from the fact that the self is not itself, for it has abandoned being itself. In other words, it has abandoned resistance from the very beginning. This represents the superiority of Japanese culture. (Hence this culture’s superiority is that of the slave, which tends toward decadence.) Because of Japan’s progressive nature and superiority in having abandoned resistance, those Oriental nations that did not abandon resistance appear backward. People like Lu Xun appear as backward colonial types. In the eyes of Japanese literature, Chinese literature appears backward. And yet Russian literature, which like the latter did not abandon resistance, does not. That is to say, Japan sees only the aspect of Russian literature that incorporates European literature, while overlooking the aspect that resists it. Dostoevsky’s stubborn Oriental resistance is overlooked, or at least was not directly reflected in the eyes of Japanese literature until it was reflected in Europe. Tolstoy’s suffering in his attempts to become a fool is of no concern for that Japanese literature which does not experience such suffering; it does not become an internal problem of the self. Hence there is no attempt to understand Lu Xun, whose suffering was similar to Tolstoy’s. A unified vision is lacking that could see in both these figures a moment of common resistance.

Spectators and Runners People like Lu Xun appear as backward nation types, just as the Chinese literature that produces writers like him appears as a backward nation literature. Chinese literature is reflected in the eyes of Japanese literature as a backward nation literature, and this reflection is an accurate one. Accurate, truly “accurate.” Accurate like a camera, “accurate” in showing time and space reduced to two dimensions. Japanese literature does not enter history in this way; it looks from outside at racehorses running the course of history. Refusing to enter history, it loses sight of the moment of resistance that fulfills history. Instead it clearly sees which horse will win. The Chinese horse is lagging behind while the Japanese horse quickly pulls ahead. Such is how things appear, and this view is an accurate one. It is accurate because one is not running. People like Lu Xun only emerge through fierce resistance. Lu represents a type that appears only in backward societies, like the societies of “Asian stagna-

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tion” referred to by both European historians and the progressive historians of Japan(!). This is just like Dostoevsky, who emerges from Russian backwardness. Such people are formed when all paths toward progress are closed and the hope of becoming new is broken. They have the lowest of living conditions, in which old things do not become new but rather are new while being old. People like Lu Xun do not come from European society with its limitless progress. Neither do they come from Japan, which remains within the fantasy of progress. Not only do they not come from Japan, they are not even understood there. When Japan sees Lu Xun, he is distorted (like everything else) into a thinker of progress, a superior enlightenment figure. He is distorted in mirrorlike fashion into an enlightenment figure who desperately chased after Europe in trying to improve backwardness. He becomes a Chinese Ôgai. In fact, however, Lu is the very opposite of this. He is an opponent of such thinkers of progress as Hu Shi and Lin Yutang. As he often writes, “I am a man from the old days.” Japanese thinkers of progress see this as a sign of Lu’s modesty. They do not consider that it has its source in the structural differences between Japanese and Chinese modernity. People like Lu Xun do not come from Japanese society. Even if they were born there, they would not be able to grow. They would not become a tradition to be handed down. Within Chinese literature, of course, Lu stands alone. Yet his isolated figure can be seen and thus handed down: his image is clearly recognizable, it has not been buried in the surroundings. In Japan, however, what was once distinct gradually becomes buried. New things are constantly born and become old; never do old things become new. Futabatei Shimei and Kitamura Tôkoku are already buried, just as Ishikawa Takuboku’s “socialist imperialism” is buried. Shimazaki Tôson walked from The Broken Commandment [Hakai] to The Eastern Gate [Tôhô no mon], he did not walk from The Eastern Gate to The Broken Commandment. Only the poet Nakano Shigeharu—who is the “he” of the line, “Korea was the land of his hopes”—inherited Akutagawa Ryûnosuke’s discovery of Lenin’s “Oriental locomotives that smell of flowers.” When Takamura Kôtarô wrote, “There are no paths before me,” he was standing in the same place as Lu Xun, who wrote, “The earth had no paths to begin with.” Lu continued on, bloodied by thorns, while Takamura did an about-face and walked away.

Conversion and Tenkô The phenomenon of tenkô is also a product of Japan’s particular character. In the superior culture of Japan, one either falls into decadence as an honor student or falls into defeat by rejecting decadence. Tenkô invariably takes place when honor students act conscientiously. If they do not commit tenkô, they can no

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longer be honor students since they lose their ability to incorporate new things. Conscientious behavior consists in abandoning communism for totalitarianism when the latter appears newer. If democracy comes, the progressive attitude most befitting the honor student is to follow democracy. Tenkô comes about through progress, and so is not shameful. Rather it is the refusal to commit tenkô that is conservative, and thus (as all the evidence suggests) reactionary. Lu Xun stubbornly resisted proletarian literature when it entered China, yet he proved over time to be more Marxist than the proletarian writers. This would be impossible in Japan. Japanese modernity began with tenkô: the antiforeign faction also advocated opening the country. Structurally, tenkô is inseparable from Japanese culture. Katô Hiroyuki, one of the Meiji pioneers, brilliantly changed his position from civil rights to evolutionary theory, thereby setting an example of scholarly conscience for the professors of the imperial universities who preserve the traditions of this superior culture. Tenkô occurs where there is no resistance, i.e., no desire to be oneself. The person who holds fast to the self cannot change direction, but only walks his own path. However, walking means that the self changes. The self changes by one’s holding fast to it. (That which does not change is not a self.) I am “I” and yet not “I.” If I were simply “I,” that would not even be “I.” In order that I be “I,” there must necessarily be a juncture at which I am outside of “I.” This is the juncture at which old things become new and the Antichrist becomes Christian. This moment appears in the individual as conversion, and in history as revolution. Conversion may resemble tenkô on the outside, but its direction is the reverse. If tenkô is a movement toward the outside, conversion is a movement toward the inside. Conversion takes place by preserving the self, whereas tenkô occurs by abandoning the self. Conversion is mediated by resistance, whereas tenkô is unmediated. Tenkô does not take place at the site of conversion, while conversion does not take place at the site of tenkô. Cultures governed by the principle of tenkô are structurally different from those governed by the principle of conversion. As types, I believe that Japanese culture is based on tenkô whereas Chinese culture is based on conversion. Japanese culture never underwent the historical discontinuity of revolution; it never experienced new birth and the revival of the old by severing itself from the past. In other words, its history was never rewritten. Thus there are no new people. In Japanese culture, new things always become old without old things becoming new. This culture is structurally unproductive: it proceeds from life to death, never from death to rebirth. Hence Shimazaki Tôson did not walk from The Eastern Gate to The Broken Commandment, while Takamura Kôtarô did an about-face and walked away. Lu Xun’s principle is not suitable for Japan, as can be understood by comparing

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Futabatei’s Shimei’s genbun itchi movement with the Chinese “Literary Revolution” of 1917. It is commonly said that the “Literary Revolution” began with Hu Shi’s vernacular movement, the introduction of modern European literature, and the destruction of Chinese tradition. This is correct, but the driving force behind this was more fundamental, for it negated the movement from within. Lu Xun was at the center of this force. Japan’s genbun itchi movement did not seek to go beyond itself through internal negation, and ended with Futabatei’s self-dissolution. Mori Ôgai’s completion of this movement was imposed from outside. In Japan everything is completion, a one-time affair.

The Chinese Revolution of 1911 and the Meiji Restoration This point can also be understood by comparing the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Restoration was certainly a revolution, but it was at the same time a counter-revolution. The decisive victory in the Seinan War of 1877 was a victory in favor of counter-revolution. In Japan, the revolutionary force needed to negate this victory from within was extremely weak— not in the sense of absolute quantity of force but rather structurally, so that revolutionary force itself came to be appropriated by counter-revolution. (See here E. Herbert Norman, Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription.) Although the Chinese Revolution of 1911 was similar in its equivalency of revolution and counter-revolution, its development was nonetheless one of revolution. It was a revolution in which the force of internal negation constantly sprang forth. For Sun Yat-sen, revolution was always to be conceived of as “failure.” The 1911 Revolution negated the warlordism (a kind of colonial absolute monarchy) that was produced in its wake, after which it negated the bureaucratization of the revolutionary party itself. In other words, this was a productive, and hence a true, revolution. The Meiji Restoration succeeded while the 1911 Revolution “failed” because it was actually “revolution.” This is not to say that there were absolutely no elements within the former that saw its success as failure, and so tried to begin again. But these were either crushed or appropriated by the revolutionary leadership. The movement for popular rights was partly crushed and partly appropriated by the national rights faction, with the first “China rônin” among those who were appropriated. The revolutionary movements of the 1920s were the repetition of this, as they were partly crushed and partly appropriated for the purpose of invasion through the creation of a new “China rônin” (the South Manchuria Railway, etc.). There was, however, a difference: just as the national rights faction fell into decadence, so too did the quality of the “China rônin.”

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An interval of fifty years separates the Meiji Restoration from the Chinese Revolution of 1911. While this interval serves as proof of the superiority of Japanese culture, the qualitative difference between the two revolutions testifies to the nature of that superiority. There is no nation in the Orient in which revolution succeeded so easily as Japan. Japan displayed scarcely any resistance against Europe. While Russia incorporated capitalism only through the most barbaric resistance, Japan’s encounter with capitalism produced less resistance than did the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Even during the most decisive defeats of the Sino-Japanese War, the reformist ideology among the Qing Dynasty’s progressive bureaucrats remained one of “Chinese learning as substance, western learning as function.” In other words, European dominance was conceived of in merely technological terms. In Japan, this would be comparable to the level of Arai Hakuseki. After China’s defeat, various reform movements were initiated, such as those of Yan Fu and Kang Youwei (many Japanese historians overlook the fact that the SinoJapanese War was a major turning point in modern Chinese history), but these were all crushed by the reactionaries. Kang Youwei’s attempt to imitate the Meiji Restoration in China did not succeed. While Japanese students returning from abroad furthered their ambitions by being placed in high government positions, Yan Fu (who was the first Chinese to study abroad—China lagged ten years behind Japan in sending students abroad) was aggravated that his low official status kept him from applying his hard-won new knowledge. In China, reactionism was so strong that it prevented all reform from above, but this caused a revolution to rise up from below. As Lu Xun writes of the reactionism in 1900: So there appeared Grand Secretary Hsu Tong, known as the flower of Confucian scholarship. He scoffed at mathematics as a study belonging to the foreign devils, and although he had to concede the existence of such countries as France and England, he refused to believe in that of Spain and Portugal. According to him, these were names invented by France and England, who were rather embarrassed themselves by the number of demands they were making on China. He was also the secret instigator and director of the famous Yi Ho Tuan Uprising of 1900. But the Yi Ho Tuan failed completely, and Grand Secretary Hsu committed suicide. Then once again the government felt there was something worth learning in foreign politics, law, and science. This was the time when I was so eager to go to Japan to study. (“Confucius in Modern China” [Gendai Shina ni okeru Kôshi sama])3 3

In Selected Works of Lu Hsun, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), 4:177.

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From Japan’s viewpoint, this reactionism of 1900 was almost comically barbaric. In the same year, Japan joined the Allied Powers and occupied Beijing in the name of civilization. Japan was that civilized. The extent of its civilization can also be seen from the impressions Lu Xun received while studying there, which I see as related to the similarities between the China of 1900 and the Japan of 1945. As Lu writes (continued from the previous citation): “I gained my wish and went to the Kobun College founded by Mr. Kano in Tokyo. . . . One day Dean Okubo summoned us and announced: ‘Since you are all disciples of Confucius, today you may go and take part in the ceremony in the Confucian Temple at Ochanomizu.’ I was amazed. I remember thinking: ‘I came to Japan just because I had lost faith in Confucius and his disciples. Do I still have to worship him here?’ There must have been many others, I imagine, who were amazed and reacted similarly.”4 Such is the nature of civilization. Chinese reactionism of 1900 caused Lu Xun to have “lost faith in Confucius and his disciples,” yet Japan was so civilized that it prompted him to think, “Do I still have to worship him here?” It was undoubtedly this very civilization that led Japan to 1945. Everything about Japan is problematic due to its course of progress as determined by the Meiji Restoration. The problem is the superiority of Japanese culture, which allowed the Meiji Restoration to succeed. Japan’s leaders were superior: their progressivism was strong and their reactionism relatively weak. In brilliantly overcoming the single crisis that was the Seinan War of 1877, Japanese progressivism completely severed the roots of reactionism. In so doing, however, it also severed the roots of revolution itself. In China, the force of reactionism was so great that it stifled even those dissident activities within the bureaucracy. This drove the revolution lower and lower, allowing it to spread its roots among the people at the bottom. In Japan, however, even the people’s movement was sucked upward by an open conduit, beyond the military academies and imperial universities, where it withered and died. Where does the superiority of Japanese culture come from? It comes in part from the superiority of its leadership and infrastructure. And it would not be wrong, for all that, to seek its ultimate cause in such quantitative factors as that of productivity, since certain things do come to light in this way. Yet I have a sense that something remains unexplained by these answers. In the Orient’s encounter with Europe, why did Japan alone show no resistance? Can this be explained merely through such homogeneous factors as productivity? Europe’s invasion of the Orient extends across time and space, and so the cutting of this extension at a spatiotemporal point results in these entities becoming deter4

Ibid.

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mined, actual things. Thus while resistance at this point may also be understood as something individual, can such individual differences be explained as homogeneous? Indeed, various types of people emerge from this individual resistance. These types would include, roughly speaking, Lenin and Gorky, Sun Yatsen and Lu Xun, Gandhi and Tagore, and Kemal Atatürk and Ibn Saud. (However, such discourse presupposes a point from which these people can be seen as types.) In Japan, nothing exists that can be called a type. That is to say, Japan lacks resistance. Put more forcefully, the Japanese type is precisely this absence of types, just as Japanese individuality is the absence of individuality. It seems to me that Japan’s lack of resistance vis-à-vis Europe is due to the structure of its culture. Japanese culture faces the outside, always waiting for new things. Culture always comes from the West. This was the case with both Confucianism and Buddhism. Hence Japanese culture waits. National isolation is embraced, not rejected. Edo-period bourgeois literature cannot be understood without regard to the bourgeois literature of the late Ming: this includes all Edo writers, such as Matsuo Bashô, Ihara Saikaku, and Takizawa Bakin. The scholars of National Learning rejected tradition, but this did not change the structure of Japanese culture. It merely cleared the way for Europe, which assumed the role of new master without any resistance. Just as Japanese capitalism is borne upon feudalism, so too is Japanese modernity comfortably borne upon the structure of Confucianism (or a structure of infinite cultural reception). This grounding relation is so perfect that Japanese culture is not even conscious of it. Proof can be seen in the revival of the study of the Chinese classics, whose teaching authority had been revoked during the revolution/counter-revolution of the Meiji Restoration. This is represented in the activities of such people as Motoda Nagazane, but it is also related to that civilization which forced Confucianism upon Lu Xun. I suspect that Japanese culture lacks within its traditions the experience of independence, and that as a result independence is not perceived as an actual feeling. Japan has never received things from the outside as pain, it has never received them in its resistance to them. He who does not know the taste of freedom is satisfied merely by the suggestion that he is free. The slave is a slave in thinking that he is not a slave. The pain of “being awakened” is foreign to Japanese culture. Otherwise there would be no reason to introduce such drugs as modernity, despair, and existentialism so as to try to awaken it. Ultranationalism and Japanism were once fashionable. These were to have banished Europe; they were not to have banished the slave structure that accommodates Europe. Now modernism is fashionable as a reaction against these ideologies, but the structure that accommodates modernity is still not problematized. Japan, in other words, attempts to replace the master; it does

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not seek independence. This is equivalent to treating Tôjô Hideki as a backward student, so that other honor students remain in power in order to preserve the honor student culture itself. Doubtless both the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War were won because of the superior part of Japanese culture. And doubtless if Japan had lost these wars, the losses would be due to that same part. It is hardly possible that only the 1945 defeat should be attributed to the backward part of this culture. Those who claim that 1945 was a mistake are trying to preserve Japan’s honor student culture; it is just that they recognize the honor students of the imperial universities rather than those of the military academies. Leaving the slave structure of Japanese culture intact, they merely substitute the part that rides on top. This then does not become a negation of Tôjô. It is also impossible to negate Tôjô when one stands upon the same ground from which he grew. It is impossible to negate Tôjô by opposing him: one must go beyond him. To accomplish this, however, one must even utilize him. One must risk one’s life for true independence, and every moment of resistance must be grasped in order to accomplish this, regardless of how insignificant these moments may be. Even the frailty about Tôjô that serves as a camouflage must be utilized, not negated. In order to do this, however, one must endure the pain of “being awakened.” This sacrifice cannot be forced upon others. The following words are found in Norman’s Soldier and Peasant in Japan. Of the books I’ve read recently, this one made a particularly deep impression, striking me as virtually a work of art. It hits home through the weight of its content. The text possesses a formative logic, with the wealth of its resources rising up like a Rodin sculpture. It is classically beautiful in its abundance of life force. Toward the end of the book, when the militarists become the tool of capital (which lagged behind European capital) and set off for the mainland invasion, the inevitable process of barbarization on the part of the modern army is captured in precise psychological realism: “The common Japanese man, himself an unfree agent enrolled in a conscript army, became an unwitting agent in riveting the shackles of slavery on other peoples.” After this Norman adds, “It is impossible to employ genuinely free men for enslaving others; and conversely, the most brutalized and shameless slaves make the most pitiless and effective despoilers of the liberties of others.”5 While reading these lines I recalled Lu Xun, who time and again wrote exactly this same thing about his own country. Norman, who probably has not read Lu Xun, clearly loves Japan and the Japanese people. His love is different, 5

E. Herbert Norman, Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1965), 53.

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and perhaps even greater, than that of Lafcadio Hearn and Bruno Taut, and as a foreigner it reaches an extreme. Without this love Norman’s research would not have crystallized so brilliantly. I think these lines are invaluable, and I regret that I lack the words to respond to them. Lu Xun, however, has offered a response. How ashamed I would be without Lu Xun! In a line concerning the absence of records about the people of the Oki Island Commune,6 Norman criticizes virtually the entirety of Japanese scholarship. I do not know how Japanese historians will respond to this criticism. I only know that such a brilliant grasp of the structural defects of Japanese culture on the part of a foreigner represents for me a point of departure.

The Third Period This is what Lu Xun has written: But however fine the phrases of those splendour-loving scholars, or however grand the expressions they use in their chronicles, such as “the rise of the Hans,” “the age of Han expansion,” or “the age of Han resurgence,” while appreciating that their motives are of the best, we cannot but feel their wording is too ambiguous. A much more straightforward mode of expression would be: 1. The periods when we longed in vain to be slaves; 2. The periods when we succeeded in becoming slaves for a time. These periods form a cycle of what earlier scholars call “times of good rule” and “times of confusion.” . . . But are we all like the men of old, to be content forever with “the good old ways”? Are we all like those classicists who, dissatisfied with the present, long for the peaceful days of three centuries ago? Of course, we are not satisfied with the present either, but that does not mean we have to look backwards, for there is still a way forward. And to create a third type of period, hitherto unknown in Chinese history, is the task of our young people today. (“Some Notions Jotted Down by LampLight” [Dengxia manbi])7 (April 1948)

6 7

Ibid., 40n53. In Selected Works of Lu Hsun, 2:135–136.

Chapter 3 the question of politics and literature (japanese literature and chinese literature i)

If Japanese literature were to be defined as children’s literature, then Chinese literature would have to be seen as adult literature. This distinction between children’s literature and adult literature has nothing to do with good and bad, for children have their own good qualities as well as their own proper development. Rather it is simply that children and adults occupy different worlds: regardless of a child’s age, it still remains a child. There is no continuity between the child’s world and that of the adult. Children cannot understand adults, just as adults cannot understand children. In the eyes of those who believe in the idea of literature, however, such a distinction between adult literature and children’s literature (a distinction not originally my own) will surely be seen as the foolish pipe dream of an amateur. That is perfectly fine with me. I don’t put faith in words, and so I only submit myself to them provided they don’t betray me. The other day I read through a roundtable discussion entitled “On Chinese Literature” in the Literature Review [Bungaku jihyô], issue number four. Participants included the poet and journalist Li Shou (I had never heard of this person, but was quite impressed with his views), such writers of the New Japanese Literature Association as Miyamoto Yuriko and Sata Ineko, and various scholars of Chinese literature. A wide range of current topics was discussed, and I learned quite a lot. What surprised me, however, was the fact that the partici-

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pants did not speak a common language. The many questions that were put to the interlocutor (Li Shou) were answered quite intelligently, and yet the Japanese participants utterly failed to grasp the subtlety behind his remarks. Although they constantly affirmed Li’s views, it seemed as if they understood nothing. Nor did they call into question their own lack of understanding. It appeared that the Japanese writers had no desire to understand Chinese literature from the outset, and that their professions of interest in the subject were merely expressions of courtesy. They turned away from things and neglected the remarks of their interlocutor. Having fixed preconceptions of Chinese literature, they sought out only those responses that fit within that framework. Not one of these writers felt any anxiety in the face of their interlocutor, and indeed it seemed that they lacked the simplicity of heart required to feel anxiety in the first place. How is it possible for writers to gather together and discuss literature without there appearing even the slightest flash of contact or communication with one another? To put it in the extreme, I must say that I came away from this discussion reminded of nothing more than the Greater East Asia Writers’ Congress. Of course the record of a roundtable discussion differs from its actual atmosphere at the time, and so my impressions might well be mistaken. But even in that incomplete record or transcription, there was something in Li Shou’s remarks that pressed in upon me in their overwhelming intensity. I understand what Li felt in the very pores of his body. He felt this strongly, and it is through this feeling that I understand him, though I have not read his works. I believe that Li’s views on Chinese literature are correct, for he grasped its spirit from his own experience. In contrast, the Japanese writers never really concerned themselves with what he had experienced (i.e., Chinese literature), but rather discussed only the very tip of language. Instead of allowing themselves to be touched by that Chinese literature which Li spoke of in the depths of a language born from experience, they simply relegated it to the sphere of the everyday. Japanese poets have long since lost the language of poetry, but have their spirits so hardened now that they don’t even realize this loss? Once a man loses the capacity to look at things without prejudice, he is no longer a writer. He is beneath notice, regardless of how splendid his use of language. Japanese writers are so blinded by certain prejudices that they are unable to be affected by things, and this is related to a kind of frailty or feebleness in their writing. It strikes me that a vast hollowness exists within Japanese literature. Rough, simple things have disappeared, leaving only strangely cunning and twisted things in their place. This can be seen quite clearly when Japanese literature encounters those things that still retain their original roughness, as, for example, Chinese literature. I am not sure about others, but in my mind Miyamoto Yuriko is one of the few Japanese writers capable of understanding Chinese literature. This understand-

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ing does not come to her naturally or instinctively (unlike Nakano Shigeharu), but she compensates for this with her intelligence and hard work. I have great regard for the several short pieces she’s written on this subject. In certain respects, Miyamoto has keen insights into the nature of Chinese literature. At the same time, however, her reading contains a kind of blind spot that seems to prevent her from coming to an essential understanding of this literature. That is to say, she holds Chinese literature cheap. This attitude is perhaps related to her writing as well, if not indeed to the nature of Japanese literature as a whole. While there certainly exists something within Chinese literature that encourages such an attitude, there is nevertheless also something that rejects it. In emphasizing only this former aspect, however, Japanese literature reveals its weakness. Generally speaking, the Japanese writers who have most expressed interest in Chinese literature have been humanists. Here I am referring to the members of the New Japanese Literature Association, for these writers have their roots in the proletarian literature movement, which inherited its humanism from the bourgeois Shirakaba School. The reasons for this interest in Chinese literature are self-evident, and can be understood historically. In contrast, the more highbrow Japanese writers have shown no such interest, the reasons for which are equally self-evident. This is all fine and good, I suppose, but what has come about as a result of this attention is a pronounced tendency to view Chinese literature solely in its more humanist aspects. Or rather: Chinese literature is seen through the eyes of Japanese humanism in such a way that it is strictly its resemblance to that humanism that comes to be emphasized. While this misunderstanding can be attributed in part to the shortcomings of Japanese scholars of China, we should remember that the Japanese scholarship on foreign literature is inseparable from the literary movements taking place here as a whole. Hence the insufficiencies that can be seen in the introductory works on Chinese literature are not unrelated to the nature of Japanese literature as such. This situation has somewhat changed in the postwar period, but the attitude of Japanese writers in their reception of Chinese literature—that is to say, their unconscious drive to seek in this other an analogous form of their own Japanese humanism— yet very much remains the same. (This phenomenon is doubtless related to the fact that Japanese literature itself has remained essentially unchanged from the prewar to the postwar periods.) Nevertheless, the humanism to be found in Japanese literature is utterly unlike that of Chinese literature. While it is certainly true that Chinese literature as a whole grounds itself upon humanism, this latter remains so different from Japanese humanism that it is impossible to group the two together under the same term. It is thus a mistake to view Chinese literature strictly from the perspective of Japanese humanism. This point can really only be grasped through an exposition of the facts.

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Lacking the necessary space for such an exposition, however, I shall instead limit myself to simply recording my impressions of several features of the roundtable discussion. During the discussion Li Shou made several noteworthy remarks. In describing his impression of Japanese literature (i.e., the feelings or emotions of the Japanese people), he used the word “sentimental.” This sentimentalism, he maintained, has its roots in the deeply embedded feudalism within the Japanese psyche. Here I found myself struck by this poet’s intuitive understanding, but the Japanese participants at the discussion responded to this point only vaguely. They might have agreed with Li, suspecting that this criticism was directed only at writers outside their own circle. Or they might have claimed to discern this sentimentalism themselves, and said that it was for precisely this reason that they had established their own literary movement. Yet Li was in fact referring to Japanese literature as a whole, and this makes it unlikely that he viewed the New Japanese Literature Association any differently. Here one could make out a kind of gap between speaker and listener. Had the Japanese participants better understood Li’s language, there would have been the chance for some contact at the level of thought. Even if this did not lead to any real understanding of one another’s position, it would surely have brought about the simple recognition that the common language necessary for such understanding was absent. Unfortunately, however, the discussion did not follow this course. The Japanese participants wanted to hear from their interlocutor only the most superficial of explanations, which they in turn could interpret in the most facile manner possible. What this points to is a fundamental difference concerning the notion of literature. As a poet, Li Shou grounds himself upon national feeling, and it is this national feeling that informs his language. In contrast, the Japanese participants remain grounded upon their own professional consciousness as writers, such that the language they speak is that of their own group or circle. Japanese writers do not have the same concerns as Li. The fundamental difference between them is this: what for Li represents the very core or substance of literature is for Japanese writers merely tangential, while what Japanese writers see as important literary issues are for Li merely questions of technique. From the perspective of Chinese literature, it is self-evident that writers act as the agents or spokesmen of national feeling. And it is on the basis of such national feeling that writers are judged, i.e., how and to what extent this feeling is represented. With Japanese literature, however, things are entirely different. The question of whether a writer represents national feeling is completely separated from the question of how this feeling is actually expressed, such that an additional operation is required in order to link the two together. Here lies the ground upon which the typical Japanese question of “politics and literature” is posed. Japanese critics

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see this separation as of a piece with the radical split in consciousness inherent in modern literature as such, but I would disagree. Rather I would concur with Li Shou that it must be seen as symptomatic of the feudal nature of Japanese literature. Such separation does not point to an excess so much as to a lack of modern consciousness. In this respect, the journal New Japanese Literature [Shin Nihon bungaku] hardly represents an exception. On the contrary, Japanese literature as a whole must be understood as children’s literature. This distinction between Chinese literature and Japanese literature can also be seen in the different conceptions of writers’ groups or organizations. During the roundtable discussion, it was, I believe, Tsuboi Shigeji who asked whether such organizations as the New Japanese Literature Association existed in China, to which Li Shou replied that they did not. I am uncertain whether Tsuboi was satisfied with this answer (he doubtless was not), but in any event the matter was not further pursued. There can be seen in this exchange a gap in the sensibilities of the two writers. In Japan in general, above and beyond New Japanese Literature, a psychological tendency can be discerned for which the existence of literary organizations is held to be self-evident—one cannot even imagine a situation in which such organizations do not exist. Chinese people find this hard to understand. For writers in China, it is their own sense of civic solidarity that acts as the ground or support of their literature (without which they would no longer be writers), and this relieves them of the need to seek this latter on the outside. While it is true that literary organizations are formed in China in order to coalesce the forces of new literary movements, the organizations naturally disband when the movements reach a certain stage of development. Literary groups or organizations are considered to be no more than the means for such movements; hence they are formed only when it is expedient to do so. They are the means for literary movements, then, not the end. The end is rather the advancement of literature (national literature). Thus in the eyes of Chinese literature, literary organizations that in their fixed nature always become an end in themselves (such as the New Japanese Literature Association) appear as factional, or cliquish. This factionalism is a sign of the feudal insularity of Japanese literature. Yet the question of literary organizations in Japan is complex, and is bound up with the nation’s very social structure. The organization behind Japan’s proletarian literature movement did not at first take itself as its own end, but was rather formed for the sole purpose of destroying all factionalism. In its gradual focus upon itself to the total exclusion of proletarian literature, however, one could perceive the deeply rooted feudalism that underlies Japan’s social structure and overall consciousness, a feudalism that stops only when it has turned all things decadent. Literary organizations that come to take themselves as their own end represent the organization’s decadence. That this decadence is not even

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properly recognized points in turn to the decadence of Japan’s spirit of literature. In its rejection of decadent bourgeois humanism, proletarian literature established itself as humanism’s rightful successor. It devoted itself to the task of the national liberation of literature. In its early period, this proletarian literature was filled with such healthy passions as are born from the spirit of humanism. But this health vanished and humanism became decadent, and this together with the decadence of the proletarian literary organization has resulted in our present state of affairs. Feudalism in Japan is so deeply rooted that those literary movements that began by freeing themselves from feudalism invariably come to be swallowed up by it in the end. While it is true that certain decadent literary organizations and movements exist in China as well, it must nevertheless be pointed out that such decadence is always rejected, for there the impulse to advance new literary movements is born from within these organizations themselves. In China, things do not simply end in decadence, as they do in Japan. In the early stages of the proletarian literature movement, Japan and China were able to communicate by means of a common language. Now, however, the gulf between the two countries has widened to such a degree that Japanese writers do not even recognize that this common language has been lost. If a Chinese writer were to ask me about the New Japanese Literature Association, I would be hard pressed for a response. Were I to explain that in Japan there exist both democratic and nondemocratic literatures, and that the New Japanese Literature Association aligns itself with the former, my interlocutor would surely burst out laughing. In order to convince him, I would be forced to begin by explaining the depth of feudalism in Japan. However, those Japanese writers who engaged Li Shou during the roundtable discussion were frankly unashamed of their own feudalism, and indeed found it strange that Li lacked this quality. Given the current opposition in China between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party, the Japanese writers no doubt suspected that all Chinese writers must necessarily belong to one of these two camps. Yet such childish thinking is in no way restricted to these Japanese writers alone, and is instead part of a more general, deeply entrenched problem here. (This point also bears upon the tradition in this country of categorizing Chinese people as either pro-Japanese or anti-Japanese.) What this issue comes down to, in other words, is the Japanese projection of their own self-divisions upon others. To be sure, in China the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party are currently at war. But this conflict over leadership is based entirely on national unity. It is, as it were, an intellectual or ideological confrontation, and thus never gives rise to any division in national feeling. On the contrary, this national feeling (which now suffers from the present civil war) represents the very womb of literature in China. While it is naturally a matter of the writer’s own freedom as to which

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party he belongs to in his political activities, such issues of party affiliation have absolutely no bearing upon one’s assessment as a writer. Chinese writers are not so childish as to judge literary merit or substance on the basis of these labels, for literature there possesses a force of growth that alleviates any need to appeal to political parties. Indeed, Chinese literature possesses a kind of traditional character or temperament that rejects such appeal to outside forces as shameful, and that has always opposed anything that attempts to appropriate literature from the outside. This character is clearly recognized by Li Shou, as can be seen in his remark that “the best writers are always critical.” If, however, Chinese writers are free to choose the specific manner of their political involvement, it must be noted that they are in fact unable to go against Chinese national feeling, for this would be equivalent to an act of suicide in their capacity as writers. It is for this reason that these writers cannot forgive those who betrayed such national feeling by participating in the Greater East Asia Writers’ Congress. All Chinese writers understand that they are the agents or spokesmen for Chinese national feeling as a whole, and their actions are dictated accordingly. They find intolerable the notion that they represent but one part of the nation, for it is impossible to think in this fashion as a writer. Of course such factors in China as class composition and social consciousness are enormously complex, and the individual character of writers varies in accordance with these. Nevertheless, Chinese writers are at all times concerned with the whole. Such phenomena as literary movements and debates take place with the implicit understanding that what is being discussed is the whole. It is inconceivable for writers to find satisfaction in dividing up this space among the various literary guilds. Thus when Chinese writers discuss Japanese literature, they are concerned primarily with the nature of this literature as a whole. And they see it as still informed by a feudalistic preoccupation with individual spheres of influence, for in their eyes Japanese literature deals only with issues of territory. In discussing China, Japanese writers mainly focus upon how territory will be divided up between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party. For Chinese writers, however, this question has absolutely nothing to do with literature. Here one can perceive a decisive gap in sensibility between the writers of these two countries. Historically, the proletarian literature movement in Japan was in its early stages quite similar to Chinese literature. This movement did not begin as an attempt to receive its own petty shares from bourgeois literature, but on the contrary sought to snatch everything away from it. It tried to change the very nature of Japanese literature as such. In these early stages, the movement was utterly devoid of the decadent spirit that demands nothing more than its own small cut. It sought to give life to the entire tradition of Japanese literature, and this it did by actually negating that tradition in toto. For the spirit of literature in Japan

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once enjoyed such a period of good health, because of which it was able to communicate with Chinese literature through a common language. Due to various complex reasons, however, Japanese literature then became decadent, whereas Chinese literature did not. While these reasons defy any simple explanation, I would nevertheless like to put forth the following hypothesis as a key to understanding this phenomenon: whereas in China the functions of politics and literature are distinguished quite clearly from each other, in Japan the border between the two remains ambiguous. This disparity between the two countries is ultimately tied together with the difference between a modern and premodern social structure. (I will demonstrate this point elsewhere.) My central concern in this essay is with the decadence of Japanese literature, not with the various members of the New Japanese Literature Association. My point is that this organization has lost its revolutionary fervor and become simply factional or cliquish, and that this change can be seen as symptomatic of the debilitation of Japan’s literary spirit. Any literary organization that loses its revolutionary fervor has lost its reason for being, and can thenceforth do nothing but devolve into factionalism. The history of modern Japanese literature is replete with such instances. Japanese modernity represents the history of man’s decadence, as writers have had no choice but to either achieve fame and thus fall into decadence or reject decadence and thus admit defeat. There has been no third path beyond these alternatives. This stands in marked contrast to the situation in China, where the rejection of decadence is seen as precisely the means by which to achieve growth as a writer. This point can be grasped by examining the extent to which Chinese literature developed over the course of the war. I recall my surprise upon learning of the gains it had made during this time, for it had advanced in ways totally unforeseen by me. (That is to say, my failure to foresee these changes was proof that I myself was part of Japan’s decadence.) I had feared that the war would result in Chinese literature’s devastation, as the damage suffered in China was several times worse than that in Japan. But this literature emerged from the war refreshed and astonishingly artistic, thus teaching me that war could occasionally lend greater depth to men’s souls. (Something quite similar took place in France as well.) I was then all the more struck by the decadence of Japanese literature. While it is still too early to fully appreciate the achievements made by Chinese literature, I nevertheless suspect that they far outweigh the total legacy of literature in Japan. We must of course await a sustained analysis of these achievements, but Li Shou gives us at least a glimpse in his remarks during the roundtable discussion. Certain critics in Japan have attributed the difference in the war’s influence upon Japanese and Chinese literature to the different experiences of the war in the two countries. And yet if a Chinese writer were to ask me to account for the present decadence in Japanese literature, I would be

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ashamed to reply that it stems from Japan’s war of invasion. Such an explanation would be too pitiful. On the contrary, it would be far easier to answer in the reverse, in other words, that it was actually the decadence of Japan’s spirit of literature that made the war of invasion possible in the first place. Those writers in Japan who realize the extent of Japanese literature’s devastation have employed various and sundry means to rescue it. But here as well we can see the difference between Chinese literature and Japanese literature. Broadly speaking, Japanese writers have either sought help in politics or introduced new literary schools from abroad (in the manner of a shot or injection). In other words, they have tried to make use of outside forces. Yet these methods have proven time and again to be failures. Despite the fact that this decadence was first brought about by writers making use of such outside forces, they once again turn to the outside in order to correct things. Here we can get a sense of the depth of Japanese slave nature. Japanese literature is so weak that it is unable to rise up by virtue of its own strength alone. It is exactly like a child, constantly relying upon outside forces, without ever once trying to responsibly solve the problems first presented by Futabatei Shimei’s skepticism. Even now it still poses various questions about politics and literature as if these had absolutely nothing to do with itself. It is not without reason that Japanese literature appears to people like Li Shou as sentimental. (Li also refers to its lack of originality.) From his perspective as a writer, Japanese literature seems to be irrevocably premodern—or, if that is a bad way of putting it, then merely an instance of colonial literature. In contrast, Chinese literature first established itself by abandoning such premodernity or coloniality. From its very beginning, Chinese literature rejected politics and thus was able to establish itself as a properly modern literature. It did not carry over anything that was made ambiguous through connection with politics. This involved an outright rejection of all things seen to be external to itself, including humanism. Hence the humanistic quality of Chinese literature was something that it achieved independently, by rejecting all past humanisms. (I shall discuss this point elsewhere.) It did not rely upon anything outside itself. While it is of course true that this literature constantly gained nourishment from outside, nevertheless its roots were its own. It should be recalled in this context that Japanese literature also tried to put down roots (e.g., Naturalism), but all of these eventually withered. There is a kind of poison within Japanese society that causes all things to wither. The purity of Chinese literature qua literature (which was the condition for all its wartime progress) and Japanese literature’s corresponding impurity (which resulted in its growing sentimentality) can be seen, in the context of the aforementioned roundtable discussion, in the considerable gap in sensibility between Li Shou and the participating Japanese writers. But it is also revealed in the fact that in China politics retains a purity qua politics, which is very different from

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politics in Japan. There exists a reciprocal relation between purity in literature and purity in politics. Chinese literature is above any collusion with political forces, whether the Nationalists or the Communists. Likewise, politics in China never seeks to appropriate literature for its own ends. (Such appropriation was once attempted by the Nationalist Party, which was severely criticized as a result.) In China, literature that receives government patronage has a very short life. Even without making use of literature, political parties in China possess the necessary strength to stand alone. In other words, they are able to achieve autonomy as moral subjects. The functional independence of politics and literature is a prerequisite for the formation of modern society, and in China this independence has been successfully achieved. Politics and literature exist there out in the open, unconcealed by any mysterious veil. This stands in marked contrast to such theocracies as Japan (which has disbanded its theocracy in name only). Japan has always been haunted by a dark shadow that obscures the border between politics and literature. The collusion between the two can be seen both in literature’s dependence upon politics and in politics’ appropriation of literature. As a result of this collusion, literature has become weak qua literature, just as in politics there is a deficiency in moral autonomy. Hence ideas are never clearly elaborated, as can quite vividly be seen in any comparison of the Chinese Communist Party with the Japanese Communist Party. The uncompromising moral sensibility of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, which is virtually akin to piety or devotion, appears to be absent in the leaders of the Japanese Communist Party. I sense that China’s Communist Party leaders are extremely fearful that they too will become decadent, and that it is this fear that drives on and sustains their selfless revolutionary fervor. On the whole, however, I do not sense the same thing on the part of Japan’s Communist Party leaders. I would not call these leaders decadent, but they do not seem to fear the possibility of their own decadence, or at least fear it to the extent of their counterparts in China. Yet my observations here owe much to the decadence of the proletarian literature movement in Japan. Frightening as the thought may be, I am not at all certain that the Japanese proletariat of the 1940s will not fall into decadence in precisely the same way as the German bourgeoisie of the 1840s. The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party would not, for example, write such a book as Death Is Also Refreshing [Shi mo mata suzushi], as did one leader of the Communist Party in Japan. But even were a book like that to be written there, the Chinese Communist Party would certainly have the moral rectitude to reject such narcissism, which is merely elitist, childish, and falsely heroic. This might not be a literary issue per se, but it is without doubt related to literature. (December 1948)

Chapter 4 hu shi and dewey

I. Toward Understanding The historical events known as the May Fourth movement of 1919 determined the direction of Chinese modernization. The guiding force of revolution in this movement shifted from professional revolutionaries to a foundation in the masses, with students in the vanguard. A revolution from above was replaced by a revolution from below. This is directly continued in the new democratic revolution of today. May Fourth was both a comprehensive social revolution and a spiritual revolution. The intertwining of these two aspects, which took on an ethnic-national hue, was the distinctive feature of May Fourth. This paved the way for the formation of China’s national culture. The May Fourth movement did not simply determine the direction of the Chinese Revolution, it also determined the national liberation of Chinese culture. That is to say, it represented the turning point toward modernity. The driving force that led to China’s modernization was its own ethnicnational energy, it was not anything added from the outside. This must not be forgotten in our understanding of modern Chinese history. While it was Europe that forced modernity upon China, China rejected this coercion, thus inaugurating the process of modernity as its own. This is a decisive difference between Japanese and Chinese modernization, and it also explains why the Japanese have been unable to understand China. Many European observers have of

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course overlooked this point, but there were some like John Dewey (to whom I shall refer later) who already understood it at the time of May Fourth. Here I cannot discuss the May Fourth movement in its totality, and thus neither can I discuss the fundamental character of Chinese modernity. On the basis of the viewpoint I have just outlined, however, I would like to note several things about Hu Shi and his relation to Dewey that have perhaps been overlooked in Japan. I do this both as a key to my own research and as an introduction to the materials for future researchers.

II. Hu Shi and the May Fourth Movement Hu Shi was one of the ideologues who best represented the May Fourth movement in its function as cultural revolution. A considerably long period of enlightenment preceded May Fourth. Hu appeared at the end of this, and directly touched off this cultural revolution. In addition to being the leader of the vernacular movement commonly known as the Literary Revolution, he performed the groundwork for establishing modern culture in many fields. The diversity of these fields is simply astonishing, and yet there is a consistent method at work. Hu called this method “pragmatism,” and thus it appears to be from the outside as well. But whether this method is pragmatism and, if so, what kind, are questions that demand separate treatment. In any case, Hu Shi was a kind of encyclopedist. While this quality was part of his personality, there was something that allowed it to develop, that is to say, it was the sociohistorical conditions behind the May Fourth movement that formed such encyclopedists. This is an important feature when one examines May Fourth in its function as cultural revolution. As a thinker, however, Hu Shi was not intellectually profound. His range was broad and his depth limited, as is generally the case with encyclopedists. In this sense, Hu resembles Liang Qichao of the older generation, whereas in the case of Japan he resembles Fukuzawa Yukichi. He was poor as a thinker and even poorer as a writer. Hardly any of his works remain today. In the 1920s Hu stood at the vanguard of every cultural movement, but by the 1930s his name had disappeared. It is in this sense that he is representative of the May Fourth movement; that is to say, he did not produce new values but rather functioned as a moment in the revaluation of values. If one interprets the May Fourth cultural revolution as a continuity of the discontinuity of historical flux, Hu represents the aspect of discontinuity. It would not be difficult to explain this phenomenon in terms of ideology. One could determine the stages of the Chinese Revolution and there apply dif-

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ferent types of ideology. While such an external explanation might have value in Communist China, in which there have emerged practical demands for a revolutionary subject, it is academically meaningless for us Japanese. We must not externally determine which stage of ideology Hu Shi represents, but rather try to grasp the concrete Hu Shi within those sociohistorical conditions that made of him an ideologue. In other words, we must investigate the nature of the ethnic-national revolution known as May Fourth and historically evaluate the role Hu Shi played in it, taking into account his ideological foundations. The viewpoint that sees Hu as representative of the past bourgeois ideology cannot be denied, even in the context of his downfall. Yet this alone cannot fully explain why he was the leading figure of the Literary Revolution, nor can it explain why such a literary revolution did not take place in Japan. Defining May Fourth as bourgeois democratic revolution is all but meaningless. The reasons for this are quite long and I shall not go into them here, but it seems that such a schematic understanding derives from the backward nature of Japanese scholarship.1 Restricting my questions to the case of Hu Shi, I would like to organize them as follows: 1. What kind of pragmatist was Hu? 2. What were the historical conditions of Chinese culture that made such a pragmatist into an enlightenment thinker? 3. How did American pragmatism interpret these historical conditions? Since I have not done enough research to provide answers to these questions, I would simply like to note several points.

III. Hu Shi the Pragmatist In order to understand the nature of Hu Shi’s pragmatism, one must first consider his relationship with John Dewey. Hu studied in the United States for seven years, from 1910 to 1917, and the latter half of this period was spent at Columbia University directly under Dewey’s supervision. Hu was profoundly influenced by Dewey. His diary and notes from this time have been published 1 Among the recent evaluations of Hu Shi, I have in mind here Nohara Shirô’s outstanding “Ko Teki to Jukyô” [Hu Shi and Confucianism], in Tôyô bunka kôza [Lectures on Oriental culture], vol. 3, Tôyôteki shakai rinri no seikaku [The nature of Oriental social ethics] (Tokyo: Hakujitsu Shoin, 1948). The sources used in this article contain several errors.

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in several volumes collectively entitled Notes from the Room of Hidden Brilliance [Canghuishi zhaji].2 According to the book’s introduction, Hu read all of Dewey’s works in the summer of 1915, and thereafter pragmatism became the foundation of his life and thought. Hu also remarks that both his dissertation, The History of Ancient Chinese Logic [Xianqin mingxueshi],3 and his subsequent The History of Chinese Philosophy [Zhongguo zhexueshi]4 were guided by pragmatism, and that his advocacy of the Literary Revolution was itself an expression of pragmatism. In Notes from the Room of Hidden Brilliance, however, there are few passages that directly touch upon Dewey and pragmatism. But this is all the more proof of how deeply influenced Hu was by Dewey, as he acknowledges in his introduction. In other words, Hu did not understand pragmatism as a given theory but rather learned it as a method. He did not study “philosophy,” he studied “doing philosophy.” What this means is that “doing philosophy” is the essential nature of pragmatism, a spirit that Hu Shi had fully grasped. The distinctive feature of this philosophy lies in its claim that it cannot be understood as a completed system; no one who failed to grasp this could be called a pragmatist. While Hu indeed called himself a pragmatist, the only essay in which he explained this philosophy was “Experimentalism” [Shiyanzhuyi],5 which was written for the purpose of introducing Dewey when Dewey came to China. Hu Shi did not preach pragmatism but rather effected reform of the status quo, and this attitude informed all of his work. For example, his first work involved the vernacular movement, which began with a 1916 debate among Chinese students in the United States. Here Hu firmly believed that he argued from the status quo of Chinese literature, whereas his opponent adhered to the fixed traditional conception that popular literature could be written in the vernacular while poetry could not. In order to persuade his opponent, Hu made several attempts at composing vernacular poetry.6 This was to demonstrate, he maintained, the “exper2

Four volumes (paperback edition). Shanghai: Yadong Tushuguan, 1939. The original title of this volume is The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China (Shanghai: Oriental Book Co., 1922). 4 Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang [Outline of the history of Chinese philosophy], vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1919). 5 The content of this essay is as follows: 1. Introduction; 2. The Founder of Experimentalism: C. S. Peirce; 3. Jamesian Psychology; 4. The Jamesian Discourse of Experimentalism; 5. The Basic Ideas of Dewey’s Philosophy; 6. Dewey’s Thought; 7. Dewey’s Philosophy of Education. In Hu Shi wencun [Collected essays of Hu Shi], 4 vols. (paperback edition) (Shanghai: Yadong Tushuguan, 1921). 6 These were later collected in the volume Changshiji [A collection of experiments] (Shanghai: Yadong Tushuguan, 1920; rev. ed. 1922). Notes from the Room of Hidden Brilliance provides 3

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imental spirit.” He was thus unconcerned when it was later pointed out that these poems were nothing more than translations from the written language into the vernacular. For while artistically inferior, the poems would fulfill their “experimental” role if they functioned as the stepping-stone for creating works that were of higher artistic value.7 This point is also related to Hu’s view of history and his reform-centered gradualism. Generally speaking, his basic view of history was that society advances infinitely one step at a time; this can clearly be seen in his works on the history of philosophy and literature.8 This view is, as far as it goes (or formally), close to the pragmatist notion of history. It was both Hu’s environment and his personality that led him to interpret pragmatism in this manner. His innate rationalism as well as an environment of empiricism and evolutionary theory made him into a pragmatist.9 In another sense, however, this means that he was never exposed to historicism. Hu was innately quite close to pragmatism, and he learned from Dewey how to develop this tendency. For him tradition was, if irrational, something that could be changed; it was not a burden. It was this attitude that made it possible for him to initiate the Literary Revolution, despite the fact that he was a gradualist and so a reformist instead of a revolutionary. But this was also why he then vanished so quickly from history. The extent of Hu Shi’s gradualism can also be seen by examining his general plan of action for the vernacular movement. He opposed the argument that the vernacular should be used on university entrance examinations as part of the radical implementation of this movement, claiming that the idea was both tyrannical and impractical. Rather he argued that it was better to gradually shift to the vernacular from primary school, as it was advisable to adopt gradualist means through enlightening the populace.10 He did not think of his own notion of the vernacular as revolutionary. ——————— detailed information regarding the preparatory discussions on the Literary Revolution while Hu was in the United States. These discussions are also summarized in the introduction to Changshiji, the very title of which reveals his aim of experimentation. Hu’s writings at the time of the Literary Revolution are collected in Hu Shi wencun. 7 See the introduction to Changshiji, in Hu Shi wencun. 8 For Hu’s studies of literary history, see Guoyu wenxueshi [The history of Chinese literature] (Beijing: Wenhua Xueshe, 1927); and Baihua wenxueshi [The history of vernacular literature], vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1928). 9 On Hu’s life before his period of foreign study, see Sishi zishu [A self-account at forty] (Shanghai: Yadong Tushuguan, 1933); trans. Yoshikawa Kôjirô, Ko Teki jiden [Hu Shi’s autobiography] (Tokyo: Yôtokusha, 1946). 10 “Wenxue gaige de jinxing shunxu” [The order for carrying out literary reform], in Hu Shi wencun.

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As Hu wrote in his introduction to A Collection of Experiments, “The basic theory of my notion of literary revolution is that literature evolves historically.” The smoldering energy of Chinese culture required a fuse in order to explode, and Hu Shi was chosen as that fuse. There were objective reasons why pragmatism, which is not a theory of revolution, effectively led to revolution in China. These reasons enabled Hu, who was not a radical, to temporarily fall in step with such radicals as Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. Let me recount an episode that reveals the nature of Hu Shi’s pragmatism. Having completed his foreign study and returned to Shanghai in July 1917, Hu was greeted by the sight of his backward country, unchanged in seven years. Virtually no progress had been made in either scholarship or the people’s everyday lives. It was natural that such stagnation would have made a strong impression on him, as he had just returned from abroad, but there is something surprising here as well. Visiting the primary school of his birthplace, he saw that it had been furnished with an expensive organ and that an English teacher had been hired at great expense, despite the fact that the school was located in the provinces. Hu was unimpressed by the school’s perfect curriculum, seeing this as merely formal. Was it really necessary for the children to learn English at such a rural school? And it was impractical to learn to play an organ there. Wouldn’t it be better to teach everyday agricultural techniques or basic hygiene rather than to have such grandiosity? One should be free from the rules of education departments in order to make learning practical, responsive to local conditions. This is what Hu felt, and his pragmatism can fully be seen here. What this episode also reveals, however, is the historical inevitability that the Chinese school system should change from a Japanese to an American model. In this sense, it must be said that Hu Shi mastered the spirit of pragmatism. But the question is what enabled this mastery. I believe that what made him a pragmatist, i.e., the nature of Chinese culture, is fundamentally different from Japanese culture. Japanese pragmatists would perhaps have felt differently than Hu. In Japan, new trends of thought are received as either additions to or replacements of already existing values. They never become a practical force that destroys such values, as in the case of China. Before the Literary Revolution, there were generally three channels by which European thought was received in China. The first, introduced by Yan Fu, centered on British empiricism: this was the earliest and most influential school. The second derived from German idealism, as introduced by Wang Guowei and Cai Yuanpei, but later drew on the thought of Henri Bergson and Rudolf Eucken through Zhang Dongsun and Zhang Junmai. The third school was that of French materialism, and was introduced by Li Shiceng. This school extended from Chevalier de Lamarck to Pyotr Kropotkin, and included Rousseau and Voltaire. Such eccentric thinkers as Wu

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Zhihui emerged from it.11 Regardless of which school one considers, however, the reception of European thought is considerably different in China than in Japan. The Chinese generally do not become the propagators of specific foreign ideas, thus avoiding the creation of academic guilds, as in Japan. For example, Hu Shi wrote his dissertation on the Chinese classics as opposed to pragmatism, Cai Yuanpei wrote The History of Chinese Ethics [Zhongguo lunlixueshi], and Lin Yutang studied Chinese phonemics. After returning home to China, Hu gave lectures at Beijing University on the history of Chinese, not western, philosophy. While this reception of European thought can be understood as a feature of the Chinese enlightenment, I see here a difference between Japan and China. As proof, the same thing can be said of the Marxism that became dominant in China from the late 1920s. In Japan, Marxism emerged as a school based upon a framework of cultural bureaucracy. In China, however, it was received on an ethnic-national basis and transformed into a subjective force by which to realize the spirit of the May Fourth movement. This took place so as to increase the energy to destroy the bureaucracy from within. In his essay “Problems and Isms” [Wenti yu zhuyi], Hu Shi opposes discussion of abstract isms that takes place merely on paper, arguing that one must consider the problems that actually exist in contemporary society.12 It is of course fine to introduce new trends of thought, but these are strictly reference points. Moreover, attention must be given to the environment in which these thoughts are produced so as to guard against their mechanical application. Such claims are obvious for pragmatists, but they are just as obvious for nonpragmatists. A counterargument was made against Hu that pragmatism was also an ism, to which he responded that this was indeed the case, but that this philosophy encountered actual problems and set forth hypotheses, thus dealing with the problems one step at a time. Pragmatism is not an ism that claims truth for itself since it does not recognize the value of absolute truth. Rather it must be described as a method.13 This debate is a trite one, but it is important for understanding Hu as a pragmatist. For it was he himself who lost the ability to deal with actual problems. The pragmatist method he advocated seems in fact to have been inherited by those Marxists who opposed him. Hu’s warning to focus on actual problems is pertinent, but this pertinence makes it all the more meaningless. Why? I believe it is due to the fact that pragmatism becomes empty when it is brought to a backward nation like China. 11

See Cai Yuanpei, Wushi nian lai de Zhongguo zhexue [Chinese philosophy of the past fifty years]. 12 Collected in Hu Shi wencun. 13 See on this point “Wo de qilu” [My crossroads], in Hu Shi wencun, erji [Collected essays of Hu Shi, second collection], 4 vols. (paperback edition) (Shanghai: Yadong Tushuguan, 1924).

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Because of this emptiness, it leads to revolution when the conditions are ripe, after which it is abandoned. Hence pragmatism is not brought to Japan, where the conditions for revolution are absent, because of its formalism and inability to function as ideology. Yet this issue cannot be clearly addressed if we do not take another look at it from the standpoint of pragmatism.

IV. Dewey’s Influence in Asia Let us acknowledge that pragmatism, and especially Deweyan pragmatism, is purely American, and thus ultra-European. It cannot be conceived apart from its environment of high capitalism. In one sense, pragmatism is revolutionary theory as the self-expression of American energy. It was formed in the process of the United States’ liberation from European colonization, which it achieved through its own efforts. As the extension of that process, pragmatism opens up infinite possibilities for the future. It represents the frontier spirit for all frontiers. For the Old World, its characteristics are revolutionary: discontinuity with the past, the absence of any sense of historical burden, a plasticity based on everything as present necessity, and absolute self-reliance. But the circumstances behind American independence are different from those behind the independence of Oriental colonies, and so its revolutionary nature differs from that of the Orient. It would be merely formal to say that certain aspects of this revolutionary nature are the same. It is understandable that when China (which feels the weight of history even more than Europe) was driven to that extreme point where it had to undergo a revaluation of values in order to survive, pragmatism played the role of igniting the revolution, after which it ended as such. Just as high capitalism is an extension of capitalism, so pragmatism, which is in one sense a revolutionary theory, is in another sense an extension of British empiricism. Its form is revolutionary but its content is not. The New World is independent of the Old World, but it is also an extension of that world. The savage continent of America enabled the formation of pragmatism, but this philosophy has been newly tested in the Orient, where climatic conditions are different and the force of tradition is strong. This is precisely the ideological aspect of the problem of American capitalism’s progressive nature (including its limits) in the context of its invasion of the Orient. In other words, this is the problem of how pragmatism has taken into account, and how it has contained within itself, the resistance of Oriental tradition. I am not a student of pragmatism and so cannot enter upon discussion of this point. That is not my task. I would simply like to say a word about Dewey’s view of China.

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Dewey stayed in China from May 1919 to July 1921, stopping off in Japan on his way there and back. He had originally intended to visit China for a short period of sightseeing but then changed his mind, gradually extending his stay in response to a formal invitation. From Fongtian in the north to Guangdong in the south, he traveled to eleven provinces and lectured. The Beijing lectures, known as the “Five Major Lectures” [Wu da jiangyan], are especially famous.14 Naturally Hu Shi acted as Dewey’s leading guide during his time in China. Dewey’s sixtieth birthday was celebrated through the common sponsorship of the Fourth Association of the Beijing Education Community.15 Upon Dewey’s return to the United States, Hu wrote an essay entitled “Mr. Dewey and China” [Duwei xiansheng yu Zhongguo], in which he argued that no foreigner who had come to China ever enjoyed such a profound intellectual influence as Dewey.16 This is somewhat of an exaggeration, coming from Dewey’s own disciple, but it is not altogether untrue. However, it seems to me that this influence was limited to Dewey’s theories of education. This resembles the case of Bertrand Russell, who came to China at about the same time, in that his influence was limited not to philosophy but to social reconstruction theory. It appears that neither Dewey nor Russell enjoyed the same intellectual sympathy in China as Rabindranath Tagore. Dewey’s indirect influence in China was considerable, however, as reforms of the educational system were initiated as a result of his visit. It seems that what Dewey received from China was greater than what he gave to it. The May Fourth incident took place not long after he arrived in Shanghai. He witnessed a China that was embroiled in the shift from the old to the new. The letters that he and his wife sent back to the United States meticulously describe the course of the May Fourth movement.17 Dewey took an extraordinary interest in this movement, recognizing it as a historic event, and seems to have tried to understand the spirit of the new China from within it. We can surmise on the basis of these letters just how astonishingly successful he was in this understanding. Here he was no doubt helped by his quite talented disciples, beginning with Hu Shi. In reading his topical essays where reference is made to 14

The content of these lectures is as follows: 1. Social Philosophy and Political Philosophy; 2. Educational Philosophy; 3. The Different Schools of Thought; 4. Three Contemporary Philosophers (James, Bergson, Russell); 5. Ethics. 15 In his banquet address, Cai Yuanpei remarked upon the fact that Dewey shared the same birthday with Confucius, after which he then compared the two thinkers and emphasized the union of eastern and western cultures. 16 Collected in Hu Shi wencun. 17 John Dewey and Alice Chipman Dewey, Letters from China and Japan (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1920). The letters date from February 5, 1919 to August 4, 1919.

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China,18 one finds that the accuracy of his judgments is such as to make the observations of Japanese liberals (e.g., Yoshino Sakuzô) look foolish. These writings are even today extremely useful, as they often compare China and Japan. Quite simply, Dewey’s view of the May Fourth movement was affirmative. There is of course some occasional confusion on his part, but this is inevitable. The students acted not as a mob but as representatives of the people, to whom they were dedicated. Antiforeign activity was the only means by which a backward nation could establish nationalism, and so the blame for this lies with imperialism. As many foreign observers have remarked, the Chinese ethnicnational movement was a manifestation of its ethnic-national energy, it was not incited by students returning home from abroad. While China is not a nation in the European sense of this concept, it remains a powerful nation capable of making contributions to the world. Hence none of its old values will disappear; they will be newly reborn. Christian nations are mistaken in their superior belief that they must give to China, and should on the contrary attempt to learn from it. Japan appears to be a much more modern nation, yet it is essentially one in which feudalistic elements remain in force. Because of its old culture, China is more conservative than Japan, and thus its attempts at modernization have lagged behind. Precisely because of this, however, its reform has been all the more thorough and sound, as it began with the groundwork of revolutionizing the people’s way of thinking. Henceforth only an industrial revolution remains necessary. Although this last prediction was wrong, all of Dewey’s other predictions were correct, including his view that Japan would follow in the wake of imperial Russia. In line with the most powerful capitalism, Dewey’s observations were unparalleled in their precision (with the exception of this one point). But we Japanese can hardly laugh at his mistaken expectation of an industrial revolution in China, situated as we are within the framework of a Japanese modernity that he recognized as superficial. We should rather learn from history’s desertion of Hu Shi, who was certified by Dewey as a loyal pragmatist.

18

A dozen or so essays have been collected in Characters and Events: Popular Essays in Social and Political Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt, 1929), vol. 1.

Chapter 5 overcoming modernity

I. Dealing with the Question “Overcoming modernity” was one of the catchwords that took hold of Japanese intellectuals during the war. Or perhaps it was one of the magic words. “Overcoming modernity” served as a symbol that was associated with the “Greater East Asian War.” Hence even now—that is to say, now when the name “Greater East Asian War” has been changed to “Pacific War”—the words “overcoming modernity” are bound up with dark memories. The generation of intellectuals over the age of thirty cannot hear or say these words without having mixed reactions. As a phrase of the intelligentsia, “overcoming modernity” perhaps corresponds to the more popular “Fight to the end!” or “Extravagance is the enemy!” Here, “popular” does not mean that it was the people who created these words; rather those in power created them for popular use, and the people consumed them. Although the people of course exercised their intelligence in this consumption, that intelligence never reached the level of language. The people had no means of self-expression other than that of conveying their emotions through the words “Fight to the end!” While “overcoming modernity” differed from this latter phrase in that it was created by the intelligentsia purely for their own use or consumption, it likewise evokes mixed reactions in being bound up with memories of war and fascism. In its proper sense, “overcoming modernity” refers to the symposium that was carried in the September and October 1942 issues of the journal Literary World

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[Bungakkai]. This was published in book form the following year.1 With this publication, the words “overcoming modernity” became fixed as a symbol. To say that “overcoming modernity” was fixed as a symbol, however, is not directly equivalent to saying that this message was advocated or promoted by the sponsors and participants of the symposium themselves. In other words, it should not be concluded that the participants wanted to make “overcoming modernity” into an intellectual movement. I make this judgment on the basis of the facts. There was a diversity of intellectual tendencies among the participants: Japanists were present alongside rationalists, and each offered their own views on the question of “overcoming modernity.” In the end, it was never explained what “overcoming modernity” was. The symposium simply ended with the mutual recognition of intellectual differences. Thus it is impossible to extract the substance of “overcoming modernity” from the records of the symposium alone. It has been so vilified in the postwar era as a symbol of war and fascist ideology that any reference to it must seemingly include the adjective “notorious.” And yet a rereading of the symposium now reveals it to be oddly empty of intellectual content, such that one wonders how it could have caused such havoc. The reasons “overcoming modernity” achieved such notoriety are not explained in the symposium itself. There was another “notorious” symposium that took place at the same time. This involved four philosophers and historians of the so-called Kyoto School who were students of Nishida Kitarô and Tanabe Hajime. Appearing in three consecutive installments of the journal Chûôkôron from the years 1941–1942, the symposium was later published as The World-Historical Standpoint and Japan [Sekaishiteki tachiba to Nihon], after the name of the first session.2 The words “world-historical standpoint” and “philosophy of world history” (this phrase appeared in the course of the symposium, and was also the title of a work by Kôyama Iwao, one of the participants) functioned alongside “overcoming modernity” as symbols among the intelligentsia at the time. The substance of these words can be extracted quite clearly by examining the three sessions of the symposium as well as the participants’ own works. The term “overcoming modernity” occasionally crops up during the symposium as well, thus enabling us to additionally understand its meaning. On the level of ideas, the “Overcoming Modernity” and “World-Historical Standpoint” symposiums share much in common. As movements (supposing 1 Published in July 1943 by Sôgensha. The book subsequently reached 46 editions of 300 pages, with 6,000 copies printed of the first edition. 2 Published in March 1943 by Chûôkôronsha. The book subsequently reached 46 editions of 443 pages, with 15,000 copies printed of the first edition.

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that one were to view them as such) they are also related, as evidenced by the fact that two of the participants of the latter symposium were also invited to the former. In denouncing the intelligentsia for their wartime collaboration, it is common to lump these two symposiums together. Viewed in detail, however, the two reveal differences that in fact contributed to the failure of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. It is nonetheless undeniable that the symposiums had the same kind of intellectual formation at stake. When one speaks of “overcoming modernity” in the broad sense, the reference is generally to both symposiums. Although the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium has ended as an event, it yet remains as an idea. By this I mean that, one, its memory lives on, and evokes at every step feelings of either enmity or nostalgia; and, two, several of the issues presented at the symposium are being raised again today, but because they are raised in such a way as to be either unrelated or only vaguely related to the symposium, they can no longer be taken seriously. The fact that we have not rationally come to terms with the symposium makes it difficult to take those items of present-day knowledge that are indispensable for us Japanese in constructing goals for the future (e.g., the question of Japan’s modernization, the world-historical position of modern Japan, etc.) and treat them as objects of intellectual inquiry. When someone says anything about Japan’s modernization, there is a tendency to say of him or his remarks such things as, “That’s the position of the Overcoming Modernity faction!” or “That’s close to the Overcoming Modernity faction!” or perhaps, “That’s not the Overcoming Modernity faction!” Thus the matter is disposed of with a word by distancing oneself from the symposium. Either that, or one’s language becomes emotionally inflected out of concern that the matter be disposed of so easily. At such times, each person has a different conception of the symposium. It is as elusive as a ghost, yet it disturbs the living. This is the case, for example, with the following lines from an article that appeared in the June 1952 issue of New Japanese Literature [Shin Nihon bungaku], written by a member of the younger generation: Ten years have now passed. . . . In the January issue of the journal Literary World there appeared the symposium “The Intellectual Fate of Contemporary Japan” [Gendai Nihon no chiteki unmei].3 This long sympo3 This special issue occupied approximately half (80 pages) of the total pages of Literary World 6:1 (January 1952). Content was divided into the following sections: 1. Politics and Society; 2. Religion and Morality; and 3. Literature and the Arts; with a Conclusion written by each of the section moderators (Uramatsu Samitarô, Kamei Katsuichirô and Nakamura Mitsuo). In addition

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sium was prefaced with the words “Conference of Intellectual Cooperation.” I read over it once again and then took out the October 1942 issue of Literary World from ten years ago, in which there appeared a rather long symposium entitled “Overcoming Modernity.” This was prefaced with the words “Conference of Cultural Synthesis.” I could not escape some old feelings. Young men had pored over this piece ten years ago, at a time when journals had all but disappeared. The conclusions of this symposium appeared in another symposium published in the same journal in January of the following year, entitled “On the Gods and Faith of the Japanese People” [Nihonjin no kami to shinkô ni tsuite]. At a time when copies of Overcoming Modernity: A Conference of Cultural Synthesis (this is in fact an error, and should read Conference of Intellectual Cooperation—T.Y.) were piled in the back of empty bookstores, students of the humanities throughout Japan were sent out to the barracks and battlefields. These students clearly saw no relation between the banner of “Students to the Front!” that sent them off to war and the rather relaxed atmosphere of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Or perhaps the one thing that eased the conscience of these young students dressed in military garb was the words of Kobayashi Hideo, who wrote: “Always there are the same things, and always men fight over these things. But immortal are those who attain them.” Here I am not trying to force “The Intellectual Fate of Contemporary Japan” symposium together with that of “Overcoming Modernity.” But when I encountered Kamei Katsuichirô’s remark that “We are living in a

——————— to these three, participants included: Itô Sei, Inokuma Genichirô, Hasegawa Saiji, Niwa Fumio, Kawakami Tetsutarô, Kawamori Yoshizô, Yoshikawa Itsuji, Yoshimura Kôsaburô, Nakano Yoshio, Nakayama Ichirô, Ôoka Shôhei, Fukuda Tsuneari, Kon Hidemi, Abe Tomoji, Miyagi Otoya, Hirabayashi Taiko, and Sugawara Tadashi, thus making a total of twenty participants (some of whom attended several sections). In the opening pages of the volume there appears the following editorial preface: Although peace treaties have been concluded and independence officially recognized, it is well known that Japan has been placed in an extremely precarious position. Japan stands at an important crossroads with the crisis of war not yet past. A great many problems exist both internationally and domestically, and yet what kind of views and beliefs do writers have about these problems? We have organized this symposium in order to examine not only the present-day situation but also the various tragedies or instances of intellectual confusion experienced by the Japanese people since the Meiji period. In short, we focus on the essence of “modern Japan.” At the same time, we have explored our prospects and preparedness for the future. A conference of intellectual cooperation.

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uniquely tragic period, one which springs from a fine intellectual curiosity,” I thought of the participants of the former symposium—their words, questions, and forms of expression—as if nostalgically confronting the errors of my youth. What came to mind was the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. I felt as if I were reading that symposium and its sequel, even though the kana usage was different. And yet ten years have now passed. I am alive. But during these ten years, how many students and young men died either in the war or due to the miserable circumstances of the postwar period?” (Ninna Makoto, “The Tenth Year: On ‘The Intellectual Fate of Contemporary Japan’” [Jûnen me: ‘Gendai Nihon no chiteki unmei’ wo megutte]) In dealing with the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, one cannot avoid the enmity of those who suffered, for otherwise the truth is overlooked. Thus I have begun by quoting an indictment of the symposium from a member of the younger generation. Ninna’s enmity is, I believe, natural. And he speaks for many people. At the same time, however, I feel it is necessary to explain to those of his generation that the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium did not itself directly drive young intellectuals to their death. It would be a misfortune for both Ninna’s generation and my own were I not to point this out. The symposium did not have such influence. It is true that among the youths who died were some who had eagerly read “Overcoming Modernity” and “The WorldHistorical Standpoint.” And it is not unreasonable (as a kind of tenkô mentality) that, upon the reversal of values with the defeat, enmity would be directed not at the violence itself but rather—in a kind of “unjustified resentment”—at those things that were previously cherished. But this point is not grasped if one fails to consider what kind of reaction there would be to having a journal of the same name (although substantially different, it would be argued) publish ten years later the same kind of discussion (as seen by Ninna) under the same heading of “Conference of Intellectual Cooperation,” with the same members as participants. This must be viewed as an imprudent act. Such imprudence has its roots in a kind of irresponsibility among us: it derives either from the fact that the symbolization of “overcoming modernity” is inseparable from its ideas, or from the sense that it is unnecessary to separate these two, or yet again from a utilitarianism and intellectual indolence that finds it easier to leave the symbolization vague without separating it from the ideas. This irresponsibility is a direct result of the defeat, but it seems that its roots are more deeply concealed within Japanese thought and its tradition of professional thinkers. It is absolutely necessary to isolate this type of professional thinker by studying such figures as Inoue Tetsujirô and Tokutomi Sohô, but that is not my

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present task. Rather my task is to distinguish among the symbolization of the symposium, its ideas, and those who exploited these ideas. The men indicted by Ninna are subjectively convinced that they themselves were the victims, and in a sense they are right. Ninna too has a tendency to exaggerate or embellish his memories. His statement describing “a time when journals had all but disappeared” is untrue. There is a gap here of as much as two years. Since the regulation of journals had begun considerably earlier, however, the fact that he youthfully mistook the absence of new journals for the absence of all journals is in its own way significant. Odagiri Hideo writes, “Being somewhat older than Ninna at the time, I have always had the greatest contempt for the ‘Overcoming Modernity’ symposium.” Odagiri is of course quite capable of historically situating the symposium in a “theoretical” manner: The “Overcoming Modernity” debate that took place during the Pacific War constituted one flank of the “ideological warfare” that was an organic part of the “total war” of the militarists. This ideological campaign sought to bring about the destruction of modern democratic thought as well as any demands for life’s daily necessities. In contrast to the “ideological warfare” declared at that time by the more violent militarists (and echoed by a considerable number of the literati), this debate sponsored by Literary World seemed to be more intellectually polished. But essentially it followed the same path, thus making its influence all the more complex. The debate expanded the critique of capitalist society set forth by the Japanese Romantics (its critique of bureaucratism and “civilization and enlightenment”). It also attacked from various angles the distorted developments and attendant weaknesses of modern Japanese society and its daily life, civilization, and art. As a result, this ideological campaign consisted in the defense and theorization of the militaristic tennô state and the submission to its war system. (“On ‘Overcoming Modernity’” [‘Kindai no chôkoku’ ni tsuite], Literature [Bungaku], April 1958) Odagiri’s definition of the symposium is a fine one. It is consistent and concise, and incorporates all the necessary elements (he later refers to “The WorldHistorical Standpoint” symposium, although I have not included this passage here). This definition would merit a perfect score if it appeared on a history exam. I, for one, could not do such a good job. For the most part, Odagiri’s reading corresponds with the currently accepted view of the symposium. The modern literary historians at the New Japanese Literature Association and Japanese Literature Society would find themselves

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broadly in agreement with him, as would the critics affiliated with Modern Literature [Kindai bungaku]. By this I mean that they would acknowledge the symposium’s dual aspects of resistance and submission, but that ultimately it would be seen in terms of submission, as “essentially following the same path” as militarism. This is how the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium has been situated in literary history. Within intellectual history and the history of philosophy, however, the same place is occupied not by “Overcoming Modernity” but by “The WorldHistorical Standpoint” symposium. This latter of course also “seemed to be more intellectually polished, but essentially followed the same path” as militarism.4 Odagiri’s interpretation of the symposium is noteworthy in that it expresses a linear historical viewpoint while representing philosophically an ideological judgment. But this is not to say that the interpretation is wrong, since history is in a sense always a discourse on results, just as thought always functions as ideology. Far from wrong, I find it to be an excellent definition of the symposium, which is precisely why I quote it here. However, I would just like to point out that Odagiri’s interpretation is unable to convincingly refute demands for the rehabilitation of the symposium; nor can it refute what he sees as the symposium’s present-day version (I will return to this point later). An example of such rehabilitation would be the following: “I can today still clearly recall how powerfully influenced I was by the symposium. It seems that the correct aspects of its motifs truly demand an answer now after the postwar liberation. In this sense, it is difficult for me to approve of those writers who criticize only its negative aspects” (Sako Junichirô, “Wartime Literature” [Sensôka no bungaku], in Interpretation and Appreciation [Kaishaku to kanshô], January 1958, as quoted in Odagiri).5 4 The chief references here are as follows: Hirano Ken, “Senjika no bungaku” [Wartime literature] (Shôwa bungakushi [The history of Shôwa literature], vol. 1 [Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 1956]). This essay appears largely unchanged in Gendai Nihon bungakushi [History of contemporary Japanese literature], in Gendai Nihon bungaku zenshû [Complete works of contemporary Japanese literature], separate vol. 1 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1959); Odagiri Hideo and Furubayashi Takashi, “Taiheiyô sensôka no bungaku” [Pacific War literature] (Kôza Nihon kindai bungakushi [Lectures in the history of modern Japanese literature], vol. 5 [Tokyo: Ôtsuki Shoten, 1957]); Saigusa Yasutaka, Nihon romanha no undô [The Japanese Romantic movement] (Tokyo: Gendaisha, 1957) (this volume provides a detailed introduction to the materials); Furuta Hikaru, “Dainiji taisenka no shisôteki jôkyô” [The intellectual situation during World War II] (Kindai Nihon shisôshi [Modern Japanese intellectual history], vol. 3 [Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1956]); and “Sekaishi no tetsugaku” [The philosophy of world history] (Shôwa shisôshi [Shôwa intellectual history], ed. Takeuchi Yoshitomo [Tokyo: Minerva Shobô, 1958]). 5 This demand for the symposium’s rehabilitation can also be seen in Usui Yoshimi. See his “Kindai wa ningen wo sukuiuru ka” [Can modernity save man?] (Tokyo Shinbun [Tokyo news], September 15–18, 1957).

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Sako’s position is the direct converse of Ninna’s: if the latter represents a philosophy of enmity, then the former is one of nostalgia. Sako’s values are the very opposite of Odagiri’s, but they are both critiques of ideology. It is simply that Odagiri believes that ideology adheres closely to, or emerges from, systems or institutions, whereas Sako does not take these into consideration. That is to say, although Sako ignores the question of ideology, his denunciation of “those writers who criticize only [the symposium’s] negative aspects” clearly represents an ideological position. The ultimate goal of ideological debate is the submission of one’s opponent so that he be converted to one’s own point of view: this is what is meant by ideological struggle. Now in response to Sako’s demand that the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium be rehabilitated, Odagiri acknowledges that “as Sako points out, the symposium certainly contained some theoretical aspects that would have currency today.” And yet he criticizes Sako: “By so energetically and methodically examining those aspects alone, Sako ‘overcomes’ ‘modernity,’ he draws both himself and his readers in the direction of unconditional surrender to militarism.” Here, history and the present are seen as reflecting each other. Odagiri’s reasoning is that the past exists even now, which differs from Sako’s logic of “now after the postwar liberation.” I am suspicious of Sako’s notion of “postwar liberation,” yet I do not agree with Odagiri that the symposium is inseparable from “militarism.” For if such were the case, the symposium would not deserve the name of thought; it would not have affected such intellectual youths as Ninna. An ideological struggle over the symposium’s rehabilitation or eradication is instructive. This is taking place today, and will continue in the future. It is just unfortunate that the debate has gone nowhere, for there is no common understanding of the facts. What is required now is judgment supported by the facts. A confrontation over the facts between the rehabilitationists and the eradicationists must take priority. It is difficult if not virtually impossible to strip the ideology from ideas, or to extract the ideas from ideology. But we must recognize the relative independence of ideas from the systems or institutions that exploit them, we must risk the difficulty of distinguishing the actual ideas. Otherwise it would be impossible to draw forth the energy buried within them. In other words, it would be impossible to form tradition. What I mean by “actual ideas” involves examining the task that they set for themselves, and whether and how they resolve that task within a concrete situation. If the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium were a relic of the past, then we wouldn’t need to go through such trouble. We could simply consign it to the past and let bygones be bygones. But the symposium still lives on today in its ideas. Odagiri recognizes that “the series of essays that have been

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called the new version of ‘Overcoming Modernity’ have begun to spread within literary discourse and social critique.” He even sees this phenomenon as due to the fact that “we did not try to clear up the past ourselves, thus we have begun to suffer its vengeance.” Therefore, even he would not deny the need for further factual analysis of the symposium before we rush to pronounce judgment upon it.

II. The Substance Behind the “Overcoming Modernity” Legend I have written that the idea of “overcoming modernity” cannot be abstracted solely from the symposium of this name, nor does it directly coincide with its symbolization. And yet one must begin by taking the symposium as a key in order to know how to distinguish these three from one another. As I wrote earlier, “Overcoming Modernity” appeared in installments in the September and October 1942 issues of the journal Literary World. Essays by Nishitani Keiji, Moroi Saburô, Tsumura Hideo, and Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko appeared in the September issue, while those by Kamei Katsuichirô, Hayashi Fusao, Miyoshi Tatsuji, Suzuki Shigetaka, and Nakamura Mitsuo, as well as a record of the roundtable discussions, appeared in October. The essays by Miyoshi and Nakamura “were written as impression pieces after the symposium” (postscript to the October issue). A book was published in July 1943 entitled Overcoming Modernity, but essays by Shimomura Toratarô and Kikuchi Masashi were included, Suzuki’s essay was dropped, and a conclusion was added by Kawakami Tetsutarô (the moderator of the symposium) entitled “Overcoming Modernity: Concluding Remarks” [‘Kindai no chôkoku’ ketsugo]. Including Kobayashi Hideo, who did not present a paper, the total number of participants was thirteen. As Kawakami states in his “Concluding Remarks,” “From its initial conception, the symposium has taken approximately one year to be realized. Kamei Katsuichirô eagerly proposed a meeting of this type at the beginning of this year (1942), and, together with Kobayashi Hideo and myself, drew up plans. These plans were finally put into practice in May when we selected participants and sent out invitations. Everyone accepted (only Yasuda Yojûrô was unable to participate due to a sudden inconvenience at the time of the symposium). We then immediately requested copies of the papers, printed them out, and had them distributed to the participants to look over. The symposium took place over a course of eight hours in the intense heat of July 23–24.” Of the participants, Kamei, Hayashi, Miyoshi, Nakamura, Kawakami, and Kobayashi were members of Literary World, while all the others were invited. Scholars from various fields were assembled: Moroi (music), Tsumura (film), Yoshimitsu (theology), Nishitani and Shimomura (philosophy), Suzuki (history),

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and Kikuchi (science). Of these, Nishitani and Suzuki participated in “The World-Historical Standpoint and Japan” symposium. Literary World often conducted such symposiums, and these traditionally dealt with not only literature but also a wide range of cultural topics. Hence it is not the case that the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium took place suddenly as a one-time affair. Still, it was unusual that such a large number of outside scholars was invited and that papers were solicited. It was also unusual that Miki Kiyoshi did not participate, as he among all the members of Literary World was an indispensable part of such symposiums—his absence was probably due to the fact that he was at this time drafted for overseas work with the army press corps. This would also explain the absences of Nakajima Kenzô and Abe Tomoji. It is not clear why Suzuki’s essay was omitted from the book; nor are the circumstances clear surrounding Yasuda Yojûrô’s “sudden inconvenience.” If one were to hazard a guess, perhaps Suzuki was unhappy with the direction of the symposium and refused to have his article included. I do not know the immediate reason behind Yasuda’s absence, but it can be inferred from his thought at the time that he found such events meaningless. While these points may seem quite minor, they are of use when abstracting the logic of the symposium from its ideology. Nevertheless, it might have simply been by chance that Suzuki’s essay was omitted, just as one could argue that Yasuda’s absence was unimportant since the Japanese Romantic School was represented by Kamei (and in part by Hayashi). In which case, these points are moot. Thus far we have looked at the constituency of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium; we must next consider the meaning of this constituency. Here I believe we must not overly concern ourselves with individual names. In order to understand the actual ideas at stake, it is unhelpful to view things as moving from the top down, such that “overcoming modernity” represents war and fascist ideology and the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium represents “overcoming modernity” ideology. In this way, each of the participants becomes a representative of the whole. Conversely, it is unhelpful to view things as moving from the bottom up, such that the accumulated “ideas” of the individual participants are thought to comprise tennô-fascist ideology as such. Participation in the symposium occurred quite by chance, and there is no correlation between individual names and right of representation. Of course it is possible, and even necessary, to examine the ideas of participant A or B, but we must make a distinction between these ideas and that of “overcoming modernity.” We must problematize the latter without regard to individual names or we must restrict both the scope and right of representation of the names so that they be treated symbolically, as proper names assigned to certain forms of thought. Let me confess that I too subscribe to a philosophy of enmity. Thus, apart

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from some differences in judgment between Ninna and myself, I agree even with his uniform suspicion of all the thinkers discussed in comparing their present statements with those from ten years ago. I also sympathize with Odagiri Hideo’s criticisms (cf. the latter half of “On ‘Overcoming Modernity’”). I too find it difficult to shake the belief that ideas belong to the individual. My concern, however, is that knowledge will remain obscure if one does not strip these ideas from the body and ontologize them as something objective. Without this, one loses sight of the enemy’s true form. In my view, the real legacy of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium was not its status as war and fascist ideology. Rather it lies in the fact that the symposium failed to achieve even this, and that its attempt at intellectual formation resulted in intellectual loss. In considering the constituency of the symposium without regard to individual names, we see that three intellectual elements or lineages were brought together. These were—to provisionally refer to them by their names—the Literary World group, the Japanese Romantic School, and the Kyoto School. While the Kyoto School refers here of course to Nishitani and Suzuki, it was in fact represented not by two but by four people if one includes Kôyama Iwao and Kôsaka Masaaki, who however did not participate. The Japanese Romantic School was represented by Kamei, but his right of representation was comparatively slight. It would have been better to bring Yasuda Yojûrô, who did not participate. Kobayashi Hideo was also at this time virtually a member of the Japanese Romantics, despite the fact that (apart from his early period) he was at the very center of Literary World. While this “virtually” must be emphasized, the fact remains that Kobayashi was a better representative of the Japanese Romantics than he was of Literary World. As for representation of this latter, neither Kawakami nor Kobayashi was qualified. In my opinion, it was perhaps Nakamura, who wrote the essay “Doubts About ‘Modernity’” [‘Kindai’ e no giwaku] and who rarely spoke during the discussions, who was the group’s representative. There was also Shimomura, who retained a modest adherence to rationalism. In my judgment, it was these three groups that together brought forth “overcoming modernity” as an idea. Before examining the nature of this collaboration, let me first look at the aims of the symposium’s organizers. As Kawakami writes in his “Concluding Remarks”: I do not yet know whether the symposium was a success. It is an undisguised fact, however, that it was organized at a time of intellectual trembling during the first year of the war. We intellectuals were certainly at a loss then, for our Japanese blood that had previously been the true driving force behind our intellectual activity was now in conflict with our

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Europeanized intellects, with which it had been so awkwardly systematized. This resulted in the strange sense of chaos and rupture that dominated the symposium. A faithful recording of this desperate fighting. . . . Somewhat prior to the start of the Greater East Asian War, most people had begun chanting in unison slogans about Japan’s new spiritual order. All intellectual efforts and capacities were suppressed behind this unison. . . . The aim of our symposium was to break through such early torpor. . . . It had already been pointed out several years ago that our culture’s various fields were isolated from one another, and I am sure that many readers of the present volume would concur with this. Disparities could be seen everywhere, in such aspects as terminology, intellectual methodology, and historical stages of work. We spoke to one another like comrades in neighboring cells who communicate by beating against a wall. . . . It was with unspeakable joy, then, that the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium appeared like a beacon that faintly pierced these walls and shone into our eyes. This passage clearly reveals the aims of the symposium, yet just as clear is that it represents a reflection or defense of the fact that the symposium did not achieve its expected success. First, the outbreak of the Pacific War came as a shock to Kawakami; it was a time of “intellectual trembling.” The meaning of this “intellectual trembling” is explained by the “conflict” between “Europeanized intellect” and “Japanese blood.” Second, the desire emerged to “break through the early torpor” that caused “Japan’s new spiritual order” to become mere slogans chanted “in unison” by “most people.” Third, in order to effect this break there arose the practical demand to destroy the walls that “isolated our culture’s various fields from one another.” Thus a wide range of scholars from outside the Literary World group were invited to the symposium, and the goal of “overcoming modernity” established as the common task. But why was “overcoming modernity” chosen as the title? As Kawakami explains at the beginning of the discussion, Actually the words “overcoming modernity” were a kind of sign, and in offering it up we hoped that it would strike a common chord. In a manner of speaking, our lives in Japan have not necessarily been the same from, say, the Meiji period onward. In other words, each one of us has encountered the “present” from different angles. Nevertheless, our emotions have revealed something like a shared pattern to them, especially since December 8. This agreement can in no way be expressed through

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language; it is in other words what I call “overcoming modernity.” From the perspective of this agreement, we aim both to reflect upon ourselves while listening to others and discovering their individual traits and characteristics, and to express to the outside world that present-day Japanese culture is unified and operating smoothly. As goes without saying, the “December 8” referred to here is December 8, 1941, the day that Japan declared war on the United States and England. This day remained a national “holy” day until August 15, 1945. An “Imperial Rescript Day” was held on the 8th not only of December but indeed of every month, at which time newspapers would carry the “Imperial Edict” declaration of war, followed by all sorts of observances. “Overcoming modernity” was, according to Kawakami, “a kind of sign.” He does not determine its meaning; it is an “agreement,” something that “cannot be expressed through language.” If, however, this sign were offered up to others, it could be expected that it would “strike a common chord.” As it turned out, this expectation was betrayed. People differed in their understanding of the “modernity” to be “overcome,” and this difficulty was never cleared up. Moreover, the writers’ impatience with the scholars’ academic style of argument on the first day of the symposium led to accusations of “empty theory” on the second day. By the end things had fallen into chaos, with some emotional exchanges taking place, and the symposium was adjourned without anything like a conclusion having been reached. The moderator’s goal for the symposium was never realized. In his essay Nakamura Mitsuo writes, “Everything would be simple if we regarded the word ‘modern’ as synonymous with ‘western’—as has hitherto generally been done in Japan—and saw this problem in terms of ‘western decline’ and ‘Japanese self-consciousness.’ But we needn’t introduce these new words if we wish to conclude matters on the basis of such crude notions. Such ideas as that of borrowing western concepts so as to negate the West are already themselves disgraceful contradictions. It is without question due to several modern western thinkers that we have expressed the task of modern culture as that of ‘overcoming modernity.’” While these words appeared after the discussion, they are clearly a critique of the symposium in toto. However, Nakamura rarely expressed his views during the discussion. Suzuki Shigetaka also recognized that the notion of “overcoming modernity” comes from the West. Unlike Nakamura, however, he affirms this fact and problematizes the notion by returning it to its original meaning of “overcoming historicism.” Yet this was never fully explained during the discussion. It was rather on Suzuki’s home ground of the “World-Historical Standpoint and

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Japan” symposium that this notion was discussed at length by a group of scholars, all of whom got along well with one another. In addition to its implication of overcoming historicism, i.e., the theory of stagistic development (these may be considered synonymous), the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium had another implication: the negation of the notion of “civilization and enlightenment.” Hayashi and Kamei chiefly emphasized this aspect in the essays they submitted. Yet this too was insufficiently explained during the course of discussion. At the start of the second day Kawakami raised several topics in his capacity as moderator, but without explaining their meaning passed the baton over to Kobayashi Hideo, who turned the discussion to his own pet theories of the negation of history and machinery. Suzuki and Shimomura were quick to take up the gauntlet, with the result that Hayashi’s and Kamei’s comments went undiscussed. The Japanese Romantics, and in particular Yasuda Yojûrô, saw Japanese modernity as a process of “civilization and enlightenment” and thus something to be completely negated. Hayashi and Kamei shared this view, but Kamei did not (like Yasuda) include the negation of reason. He was thus at odds with Nishitani and Yoshimitsu. Kobayashi’s antihistorical position was close to that of Yasuda, but he did not problematize the notion of “civilization and enlightenment.” “The overcoming of modernity is the overcoming of western modernity,” as Kobayashi writes; “the overcoming of Japanese modernity is not the issue.” Moreover, such statements by Kobayashi as “It is through modernity that modern man can triumph over modernity” reveal the paradoxical logic of a staunch rationalism, making it impossible for him to shift to Yasuda’s logic of “attaining things.” In this way, the notion of “civilization and enlightenment” was either unproblematized in the course of discussion or seen as relatively negated by history. By the end of the discussion each participant had returned to his own point of departure, as several examples from the papers show. For Nishitani Keiji, “what is called ‘modern’ generally means European” and “modern things in Japan are based upon those European things that were brought in since the Meiji Restoration.” But because “most fields of culture were imported separately from one another,” the “standpoint of religion,” i.e., the “standpoint of subjective nothingness,” became necessary so as to unify them. Nishitani returned to his initial departure point by arguing that such standpoints coincide with the “establishment of Greater East Asia” as a “world-historical necessity.” Shimomura Toratarô agreed with Nishitani’s determination of modernity, but modernity could not be negated since “Europe was no longer the other.” Shimomura thus returned to his view that “we must find a way to overcome modernity through the self-awareness of a new concept of spirit.” Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko returned to his view that “before God, both East and West are burdened with

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the existential question as if facing the sole source of love and truth.” Tsumura Hideo returned to the necessity of negating science: “at the same time as we overcome the spirit of modernity, we must free ourselves from the spirit of the present.” Hayashi Fusao returned to his position of imprecating modern literature for turning “most intellectuals into a foreign settlement race that has forgotten Emperor and country.” And Kamei Katsuichirô, referring to “a mode of civilization that has steadily violated Japan’s spiritual depths since the introduction of the decadent western culture of ‘modernity,’” returned to his view that “while the war we are fighting is outwardly the destruction of British and American power, it is inwardly the basic cure for the spiritual disease brought by modern civilization.” These views do not simply attest to the diversity of interpretations of modernity, as there are among them both affirmations and negations of the modern. Even among the latter, there are some that contain a moment of modernity’s transcendence and some that do not—with this transcendence itself understood both in terms of a temporal logic and otherwise. Therefore, it is quite impossible for Kawakami or any other moderator to unify these views. “Overcoming modernity” becomes empty if they are all put together. If, as Kawakami writes, “the ‘Overcoming Modernity’ symposium appeared like a beacon that faintly pierced these walls and shone into our eyes,” he says this for his own comfort. And yet why did the symposium influence Ninna, Sako, and so many other young intellectuals? Perhaps there was in it “an ambiguity that we somehow did and did not understand” (Nakamura Mitsuo). The symposium’s influence derives from both the magical effects of such ambiguity and the final lightning flash of “intellectual cooperation,” which could not have been realized without the Literary World tradition. After the symposium, in fact, there were absolutely no attempts at intellectual formation until the defeat. The symposium was without substance, but this allowed it to be read all the more arbitrarily; it was instrumental in spreading the traces of thought and burying the accompanying sense of emptiness. On the other hand, this lack of substance contributed all the more to its being targeted as an object of enmity and hatred. The symposium itself sowed the seeds of the “Overcoming Modernity” legend. The first issue of Literary World appeared in October 1933, largely through the efforts of Takeda Rintarô. The journal experienced business difficulties, and in less than two years editorship was transferred to Kobayashi Hideo. With the backing of Bungei Shunjûsha, it developed into the leading literary magazine. Editorial responsibilities were transferred from Kobayashi to Kawakami, and publication was discontinued in April 1944. The journal’s various changes overlapped with the war, which gives it the fateful distinction of witnessing in

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miniature the resistance and collaboration of the intelligentsia.6 Any assessment of Literary World determines much of the way we view the literary history of the Shôwa period. In the “Postscript” to the April 1936 issue there appears the self-flattering description of the journal as “the Nouvelle Revue Française of Japan.” Its many plans for “Conferences of Intellectual Cooperation” were also imitations of the Nouvelle Revue Française, but it is questionable how far these were actually carried out. As Kawakami Tetsutarô writes in his “Concluding Remarks,” “Symposiums of a similar format were held about ten years ago at the League of Nations by the ‘Committee for Intellectual Cooperation,’ with several chaired by Paul Valéry. There one could see the mobilization of intellectuals as a stopgap measure for preserving the Treaty of Versailles, whose contradictions had already begun to be exposed. . . . First-rate intellectuals thus exhausted their minds in trying to strip the body from the intellect. . . . Although versed in intellectual etiquette . . . their chorus sounded empty. Their forlorn hopes are revealed today by the real state of European politics.” Today these words can be read as veritable self-criticism; they have gone beyond tragedy and are almost farce. And yet it would be wrong to see Literary World as the standard-bearer of fascism. Takami Jun (The Rise and Fall of Shôwa-era Literature [Shôwa bungaku seisuishi], vol. 2 [Bungei Shunjûshinsha, 1958]) disagrees with Nakano Shigeharu’s claim that Literary World and the Japanese Romantics should be treated equally (“On the Second Bungakkai and the ‘Japanese Romantic School’” [Dai ni ‘Bungakkai’ ‘Nihon rôman-ha’ nado ni tsuite], in Lectures on Modern Japanese Literature [Kindai Nihon bungaku kôza], vol. 4 [Kawade Shobô, 1952]). Takami is correct here, even after we take into account the position of Nakano, who repeatedly turned down invitations to join Literary World. We must understand resistance and submission in light of the concrete situation. Thus even in the case of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, which appears so unsightly today, it seems to me that there is still something to be saved. This problem is in some sense related to how we interpret Kawakami’s notion of “intellectual trembling.” Resistance has several stages, as does submission. To discard the idea of “overcoming modernity” by identifying it with its legend would be to abandon those problems that we might still succeed to today, and this would act against the formation of tradition. I think we should reclaim the legacy of these ideas with the greatest breadth possible.

6 A general listing can be found in “Bungakkai saimoku” [Details of Bungakkai] (Rikkyô daigaku Nihon bungaku [Rikkyô University: Japanese literature], ed. Odagiri Susumu, issues 1–3 [composite volume], July 1959).

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III. The Meaning of “December 8” In the same year that “Overcoming Modernity” appeared, Kawakami Tetsutarô wrote in the January issue of Literary World a piece for the “Literary Commentary” section entitled “Glorious Day” [Kôei aru hi]. I quote the opening passage here as a key to understanding the meaning of the “intellectual trembling during the first year of the war”: Finally the glorious autumn has arrived. We are all satisfied by our Empire’s dignified bearing leading up to the war, the government’s shrewd plans and policies, and especially by the brilliant military victories at the war’s outset. All of this brings delight to the citizens. The day has come for a hundred million people to be reborn. This is not the result of external force. Rather it is the present situation of which I speak that has aroused such feelings of joy in us. In the final analysis, it is thanks to these events that we realize we stand directly before the Emperor, eagerly waiting to be summoned to act as his shield. It is not that I am needlessly excited. I cannot but be happy now that I feel so at ease. The very phrase “dark clouds over the Pacific” belongs to a long and wasted time. It might be strange to say that the Pacific has cleared up since the war, and yet this is indeed how I feel. How muddy and disagreeable a chaotic, dark peace when compared to the purity of war! (Emphasis in the original; a blank appears before the word “Emperor”) These lines were “written on the second day of the war” (“Postscript”). As proof that I have not introduced this old text in order to attack Kawakami, I would like to quote the first paragraph of Aono Suekichi’s article “The Force of Prayer: Kyôdôzakki” [Inori no tsuyosa: Kyôdôzakki], which appeared in the same issue and was written under the same circumstances: “War has been declared against the United States and England. This was a natural consequence. My heart roars with news of military victories. What grand plans and designs! The United States and England suddenly seem small. What fortunate people we are to have an imperial army that can be absolutely relied upon! It is no secret that Japan is a great nation!” Let me next quote one of Miyoshi Tatsuji’s ten serial poems, collectively entitled “News of Victory Arrives” [Shôhô itaru]: “Forever repel the foreign traitors, do not blemish the blue seas.” Even with these quotations, however, I find it extremely difficult today to

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re-create the intellectual atmosphere of 1941–1942. Such uncritical praise for the war on the part of Kawakami and even Aono is far from “intellectual trembling.” It is intellectual chaos, the complete abandonment of the intellect. How could this have happened to so many intellectuals? It is quite difficult to explain these circumstances. “How muddy and disagreeable a chaotic, dark peace when compared to the purity of war!” It is clear that Kawakami’s words are related to the following remark by Kamei Katsuichirô, whose notoriety was remarkable even for the notorious “Overcoming Modernity” symposium: “Peace is even more frightful than war. . . . A king’s war over a slave’s peace!” Both these men were on the same track in terms of their affirmation of war and negation of peace. But there is a subtle difference: in Kamei’s case the war in general is contrasted with peace in general, whereas with Kawakami it can be perceived from the context that this contrast between war and peace is based on his particular experience of December 8, 1941. The point of Kawakami’s remark that “I am not needlessly excited” lies in the second half of the quotation (“I cannot but be happy now that I feel so at ease”), and the reason for this “happiness” is explained in the first half. This first half is thus an intellectual embellishment. The point of his remark (“I cannot but be happy”) is related to his affirmation of the war at the particular instant of December 8, 1941. We should note that this specific affirmation of the war soon develops into an affirmation of the war in general. Hence the difference here between Kawakami and Kamei is not an intellectual difference; rather we should see it as indicative of a shift in time. Kawakami’s experience of December 8 was in fact the most common (with the exception of those few who were taken into preventive detention on that day). In this respect Kawakami represents not only the Literary World group but also a wide range of Japanese intellectuals. For example, Takasugi Ichirô, who was at the time one of the editors of the journal Literary Arts [Bungei], remembers this spiritual transition as follows: Although we were lazy and inactive, we still felt a sense of resistance against Japan’s war of invasion of China. But when the war spread to Europe and back again to Asia, and Japan finally plunged into that hopeless Pacific War at the end of 1941, we abandoned this sense of resistance as if suddenly paralyzed, and instead clutched onto a kind of holy war consciousness. On the evening of December 8, my colleague the literary critic Teraoka Mineo and I were speaking excitedly while walking down Ginza Avenue during a blackout. . . . I went straight to my home in Asagaya without drinking and searched my closet for a back issue of the Englishlanguage International Literature, published in Moscow. This was a spe-

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cial issue entitled “Will to Fight!!” that appeared when Soviet Russia was being attacked by Germany, and consisted of statements from all Soviet writers in which they vowed to fight fascism to the end. Following these was a short story by Mikhail Sholokhov describing the scene as the Cossack army prepared for battle. The next morning I took the journal to work, planning to use exactly the same format in Literary Arts. I wrote letters to many writers requesting that they contribute something under the heading of “Will to Fight!” Not one writer refused, and I myself was utterly convinced of this plan. Henceforth our hands would be dirtied. . . . (“As Editor of Literary Arts” [Bungei henshûsha toshite], in Literature, April 1958) Here the secret of the psychological turn from resistance to collaboration is told brilliantly. Takasugi inwardly supported the Soviets in the Russo-German War. He equates hatred for the Nazis with the refusal to sanction Japan’s war of invasion against China, revealing his secret resistance against this sham undeclared war. It was the Pacific War that psychologically released him from this resistance, or perhaps it was his longing for this release that made him idealize the Pacific War. Hence he saw no contradiction in the appropriation of the Soviet’s “Will to Fight” against fascism by Japan’s “Destroy the U.S. and England!,” even though Japan was the “ally” of Germany, which was in turn the enemy of the Soviet Union. Such perversion of intelligence is similar to that of Kawakami Tetsutarô, who ridiculed Valéry. From the standpoint of reason, it is self-evident that imperialism cannot be overturned by imperialism. In reading these remarks by Takasugi today, it certainly seems that he has abandoned all reasoned judgment. Yet he writes that “not one writer refused my request.”7 The common root that links Kawakami’s praise for “our Empire’s dignified bearing” and Aono’s imprudent remark that “Japan is a great nation” is clearly not reason, but in the context of the concrete situation at that time it was not mere unreason. It was a choice of a real war over a sham war, an initially reserved affirmation of the “purity of war” over a “chaotic, dark peace.” A young critic has interpreted Takasugi’s recollections as follows: “This experience tells us that at a time of overwhelming crisis, even intellectuals sought out

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For form’s sake, let me cite here the names of the writers who contributed to this “Will to Fight!” special issue of Literary Arts (January 1942): Chô Kakuchû, Ueda Hiroshi, Shimizu Ikutarô, Hino Ashihei, Akiyama Kenzô, Mizuhara Shûôshi, Tsumura Hideo, Nakagawa Yoichi, Shimaki Kensaku, Honda Akira, Tomizawa Uio, Sai Shôki, Kamei Katsuichirô, Yasuda Yojûrô, Ishikawa Tatsuzô, Maruyama Kaoru, Saitô Fumi, and Asano Akira. Illustrations were done by Nakamura Kenichi, Koiso Ryôhei, and Noma Hitone.

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and embraced such mythical symbols as ‘holy war,’ ‘the whole world under one roof,’ and ‘Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’” (Etô Jun, “The Overcoming of Myths” [Shinwa no chôkoku]). Having lived through and experienced many of the same things as Takasugi, I find this interpretation to be not exactly mistaken, but insufficient. There was absolutely no desire to “seek out” and “embrace mythical symbols” on the part of intellectuals. Rather there was a consistent aversion to or refusal of myths, but these myths came to be so twisted that we were ultimately enveloped by them. The strike of “December 8” was not met with chauvinistic fervor so much as a spirit of gloom. As Takami Jun recalls, “I remember even now the unspeakable sadness I felt when shown the Imperial Declaration of War that began ‘Blessed with the grace of the gods. . . . ’ While this feeling did not spring from any inner hatred or opposition to the war, neither did it come from any joy or glorification of it. This feeling was one of unspeakable sadness for Japan” (The Rise and Fall of Shôwa-era Literature, vol. 2). Takami sympathizes with the recollections of Ôya Sôichi and Kuwabara Takeo, and adds his own. Ôya writes, “I felt that what must come had come,” whereas for Kuwabara, “I thought that something great had begun. Frankly, I did not feel that Japan had started something terrible. Strangely enough, I was relieved when the English battleship ‘Prince of Wales’ was sunk three days later.” While Takami works these recollections over from the vantage point of the present, they are close to the original. I have some reservations about Takami’s characteristic “unspeakable sadness for Japan,” but I too “felt that what must come had come.” Perhaps the crux of the problem is related to how one understands the nature of the war. The war did not suddenly begin on December 8, 1941; rather it continuously progressed to that point from long before. Its beginnings can be traced back to 1937, and even to 1931. At these stages there was still opposition to the war. It is a historical fact that this opposition lagged behind the changing nature of the war, thus making any kind of effective front impossible. This led to the events of 1941. It was virtually common knowledge among intellectuals at the time (including the members of Literary World) that the state of war called the “China Incident” was in fact a war of invasion against China. But this knowledge was not powerful enough to oppose the force of that apparent reality which supported the “lifeline” discourse constitutive of their sense of national duty. On the other hand, the Communist rejection of Japan’s war of invasion revealed a rigid adherence to principle and an inability to adapt to changing circumstances. The decade of 1931–1941 largely corresponds to the time of Literary World’s activities. With the continuous if seesaw advance of war and fascism, the most

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active intellectual moderates at the time were made aware of how changing circumstances shaped intellectual conditions. Literary World is a record of the desperate struggle against these conditions. Without this background, the conflict between our “Japanese blood” and “westernized intellects” problematized by Kawakami Tetsutarô would not have taken place. Why didn’t the Literary World group or those intellectuals represented by it organize a struggle against war and fascism at this stage? What prevented them from effectively organizing such a struggle when they had intended to do so? Abe Tomoji provides an answer: “I am ashamed to say that while I feared the war and generally hated fascism, I lacked the ability to historically analyze these and grasp their true nature. For example, without clearly articulating it as such, I somehow felt that nothing could be done about war since it took place like a natural disaster in all societies at all times. I was a mere liberal who could not understand the force of resistance against fascism and war” (“Retreat and Advance” [Tairo to shinro], Literature, April 1958). Another answer is provided by Kamei Katsuichirô: The Sino-Japanese War began in 1937. The Japanese Romantic School died out that year. . . . I immediately became a member of Literary World. That year marked the beginning of my pilgrimage to old temples in Japan. In thinking back, however, I recall that there was an enormous vacuum. Although the Manchurian Incident had taken place only a few years before, I remained largely ignorant of and indifferent toward “China.” And not only “China.” For example, I had absolutely no sense of solidarity with Asia as a whole. It seemed that the Japanese “sense of superiority” that had developed from the Sino-Japanese and RussoJapanese wars and continued through World War I had become deeply embedded within me. At this time I was entirely unable to conceive that the Manchurian Incident and China Incident would prove fatal to Japan. Of course when I recall my gross—indeed, deadly—mistake now, I see that I made light of China. At this time I continued my studies of the Japanese classics and ancient temples during the revival of “nationalism,” and these came to be linked with the counterattack against “pro-westernism.” This counterattack represented a will to distrust and overcome the “European modernity” that we had incorporated. (“Recollections” [Kaisô], Literature, April 1958) Since the final part of these remarks involves a justification of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, let us listen further:

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At this time I believed that the war signified resistance to and recovery from the spiritual sickness of “modernized” Japan. It signified a will to overcome the various crises of which I have spoken; it contained a prayer for the nation’s revival. The war was an entreaty for the nation’s rebirth, an “overcoming of modernity.” In my eyes, the innumerable men who died in the war had attained “purity” through their direct acts, they had become holy. In 1942 we held the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. . . . In brief, this was an inquiry into the true nature of the “crises” that I mentioned earlier. And yet when I think back upon it now, it is surprising that “China” was in no sense problematized. (The Task of Contemporary History [Gendaishi no kadai] [Chûôkôronsha, 1957]) Kamei’s present standpoint is that the issues raised at the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium were correct, and are indeed still pertinent today. He further claims that the symposium’s affirmation of the war was endorsed at the time. This seems natural, since rejection of the symposium would have necessarily entailed rejection of the idea (not the fact) of the war. Because the passage of a decade after the war was required in order for Kamei to make this claim, however, it can be said that his viewpoint represents a new problematization of the issue. Since this also relates to Sako’s and Usui’s demand for the symposium’s rehabilitation, Kamei’s remarks are important in showing that this issue of the symposium necessarily involves a reinterpretation and reevaluation of the war. Kamei excludes the question of the war in general, extracting from it the aspect of Japan’s war of invasion against China (and Asia), for which alone he feels responsible. It is strictly in this regard that I agree with him. The Greater East Asian War was at once a war of colonial invasion and a war against imperialism. Although these two aspects were united in fact, they must be separated logically. Japan had no intention of invading the United States and England, and while it usurped control of the Dutch colonies, it never attempted to take over Holland itself. While imperialism cannot be overthrown by imperialism, it is nevertheless also true that imperialism cannot be judged by imperialism. Such judgment requires a standard of universal values (e.g., the Tokyo War Tribunal’s values of freedom, justice, and humanity), but these are not recognized in Kamei’s logic. Universal values that encompass both East and West represent a severance from tradition, and are thus of a piece with the project of “civilization and enlightenment.” These values can never become the “original.” Kamei’s discussion is helpful in reexamining the symposium today. It also provides an apt historical explanation for the weakness of resistance from the years 1931–1941. However, it is not a rationalization of the symposium. The

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Pacific War’s dual aspects of colonial invasion and anti-imperialism were united, and it was by this time impossible to separate these aspects. Indeed, we only first learned of this possibility in the postwar period with the minority opinion of Judge Pal at the Tokyo War Tribunal. No one at the symposium had explored this possibility. I believe Kamei’s viewpoint is highly useful in today’s reevaluation of the Greater East Asian War, but that it cannot be projected back into the concrete movement of history at the time. In terms of the reasons behind the destructive total war, I think it is correct to refer to both Abe’s point about the weakness of “liberalism,” and particularly the neglect of its relation to science, and Kamei’s point about the impoverished knowledge of Asia, and especially the lack of understanding of Chinese nationalism. This is not to say that the war could have been avoided had these things been different, but at least certain aspects of wartime thought could have been saved from ruin. The “Overcoming Modernity” symposium would then not have suffered the fate of a divided and fruitless end, swept along by the current of the times. Abe’s and Kamei’s remarks serve as explanations for both the weakness of resistance and the failure of the idea of the war. The Greater East Asian War clearly contained a double structure, one that stemmed from modern Japan’s tradition of war, beginning with the plan to invade Korea. This double structure involved the demand for leadership in East Asia on the one hand and a goal of world domination by driving out the West on the other. These two aspects were at once supplementary and contradictory. For while East Asian leadership was theoretically grounded upon the European principle of opposition between the advanced nations and backward nations, this was opposed in principle by Asian decolonization, which saw Japanese imperialism as equivalent to western imperialism. Japan’s “Asian leadership” had to be based on this latter Asian principle in order to gain recognition from the West, but because Japan had itself abandoned this principle, it had no real basis of solidarity with Asia. Japan advocated Asia on the one hand and the West on the other. This impossibility produced a constant tension, with the result that the war spread beyond all bounds without any resolution in sight. The fate that led the Pacific War to become an “eternal war” was determined by tradition. This represented the “glory of the state.” Only absolute pacifism can in principle reject war in general. But such pacifism lacks the ability to adapt to concrete circumstances. Although the war continued, its nature changed at every stage; it progressed on the basis of a choice of several possibilities. Until about 1940 there was a power balance in Japan as to whether the final part of the war should begin with strikes against the Soviet Union or the United States and England—this was virtually a random decision. The antiwar position must be evaluated on the basis of what stage and nature of

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the war was being opposed at any given moment. The anti-Communists were among those who opposed the outbreak of war on “December 8,” which even gave rise to the theory that the Pacific War was actually a Communist plot. If the final part of the war had begun with strikes against the Soviet Union, this group of “pacifists” would perhaps be the ones being questioned today on the issue of war responsibility. By focusing only on the Pacific War, it is thus impossible to consider the cause and effects of the war as a whole and to discuss the issue of war responsibility. Through such a focus, however, it is possible—and even necessary—to arrive at a general determination of the war based on its results. This theorization of the war should not lead us to unconditionally condemn the intellectual activities that took place therein, as this would be irresponsible. While the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium appears farcical today, this does not mean that it was lacking in all intelligence—for, if so, it would not have generated any energy that could be exploited by war and fascist ideology. We cannot inherit or succeed to the thought of the symposium today without clearing up the confusion and grasping its meaning. What must be problematized is how this “Conference for Intellectual Cooperation” fended off pressures from the war, how it interpreted these pressures on the basis of its own subjective aims, and to what degree those aims were realized. In other words, we must consider how the participants grasped the intellectual structure of modern Japan. While the phrase “intellectual trembling during the first year of the war” is an exaggeration, an expression of anxiety in not wishing to miss the bus, it also reveals the atmosphere of tension and liberation that characterized this time of “ideas.” It contains an urgency that cannot simply be caricatured or ridiculed today. Each of the structural elements of the symposium must be further analyzed on the basis of their correspondence with the war ideology that lies opposite them.

IV. The Idea of Total War I embraced the extreme notion that the war must be continued to the end. Death was already taken into account. I believed at the time that I had thoroughly analyzed (in terms of my crude thoughts, emotions, and judgments) my wish to die young in the war. For of course death could not be affirmed if I were unable to conceive of it logically. I was not afraid to die. I did not even imagine that it was intellectually possible to oppose war or grow weary of it. I knew that such attitudes as indifference or escapism were based on material privilege, but I felt only antipathy and scorn for

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them. I believed in my own way the tennô-fascist slogan that Japan’s defeat in the war would mean that Asia would never be liberated from colonialism. And I felt that this would render meaningless the deaths of those who had sacrificed themselves. (Yoshimoto Takaaki, Takamura Kôtarô [Iizuka Shoten, 1957]) Yoshimoto represents one type of mind—and an excellent one, I might add—that was formed by the Fifteen-Year War. This excellence lies in his intellectual clarity. If the postwar discourse on war responsibility can be divided into such types as those of enmity, hatred, indignation, and scorn, then Yoshimoto represents indignation. This philosophy of indignation was formed as follows: “My thought was primarily influenced by right-wing terrorists. In terms of literature, I spent the years from childhood to my early youth under the influence of the Japanese-style modernist Takamura Kôtarô, the utopian socialist Miyazawa Kenji, the modernist-radical fascist Yasuda Yojûrô, the art-for-art’ssake writer Dazai Osamu, and such intellectuals of the common people as Kobayashi Hideo and Yokomitsu Riichi.” Yoshimoto’s view of thought is that it “provides a ground for practice.” That which has no effect upon reality is not thought. “I dwell on Takamura rather than the many technicians of poetry not because he was a poet, but because throughout his life he always appeared as a resolute man of practice.” Equipped with such a view of thought, Yoshimoto “was astonished at the postwar emergence of a generation of people who claimed that they had resisted the war. If this generation had existed, I should have met with or heard news of them during the war.” Like Yoshimoto, I do not believe that resistance as distinct from “indifference or escapism” took shape along generational or group lines. Even among individuals, resistance was extremely rare. It involved a program to change the very war system from within, and this was not merely a factual but a logical impossibility. For the war was actually a total war, and as an idea it represented eternal warfare. The only positions that rejected the war in toto were those of absolute pacifism and communism (the latter hoped to change the war into internal rebellion). But pacifism was so weak as to be ineffective in Japan, while communism may be seen retrospectively to have been in a state of dysfunction. Not only was there no philosophy of resistance during the total war, there remains none in the postwar period. Those who claim to have resisted did so on the theoretical basis of relative indifference or escapism, or else they turned the impressions of the military police and special political police to their own advantage. In either case, this is not the kind of resistance referred to by Yoshimoto.

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The intellectual character of the Pacific War remains poorly understood. While the postwar period has seen several works on military technology appear, there has as yet been no work done on wartime thought—and with the exception of the records of the Tokyo War Tribunal, no materials have been collected. While I cannot deal with this important issue here, I can for our present purposes give a rough summary of the war’s intellectual character by reference to the Imperial Declaration of War as an instance of official thought. The following quotations are taken from Japan’s past three major wars (set phrases have been omitted apart from those that appear in the central text). The Emperor of Japan, blessed with the grace of the gods and representing an unbroken imperial line, announces to you the faithful and brave people. We hereupon declare war against China. In full compliance with our wishes, our officials have agreed to engage China on land and sea, and shall thus endeavor to achieve the nation’s goals. Be sure that we shall exhaust all means in accordance with our powers without in any way violating international law. . . . (Omission) matters have already reached this stage. Although imperial glory is only promoted to the world by ongoing peace, we must formally declare war. We rely upon your faithfulness and bravery in promptly restoring everlasting peace, thereby preserving the glory of the empire. (Sino-Japanese War, August 2, 1894) The Emperor of Japan, blessed with the grace of the gods and representing an unbroken imperial line, announces to you the faithful and brave people. We hereupon declare war against Russia. Our army and navy have agreed to engage Russia with all possible effort. Our officials shall perform their duties in full accordance with their powers and endeavor to achieve the nation’s goals. Be sure that we shall exhaust all means entirely within the scope of international regulations. (Omission) matters have already reached this stage. Security for the future through peace negotiations can at present only be sought on the battlefield. We rely upon your faithfulness and bravery in promptly restoring everlasting peace, thereby preserving the glory of the empire. (Russo-Japanese War, February 10, 1904) The Emperor of Japan, blessed with the grace of the gods and representing an unbroken imperial line, explicitly announces to you the faithful and brave people. We hereupon declare war against the United States and England. Be sure that the nation is united in its total force to achieve our goals in this war: our soldiers and sailors shall engage in battle with all possible effort, our officials shall assiduously perform their duties, and our

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populace shall fulfill their various tasks. . . . (Omission) matters have already reached this stage. For the sake of its self-preservation, the Empire must now resolutely rise up and destroy all obstacles. The souls of our Imperial ancestors are above us. We rely upon your faithfulness and bravery to extend upon the great deeds of our ancestors by promptly cutting off the trouble at its source and establishing everlasting peace in East Asia, thereby preserving the glory of the empire. (Greater East Asian War, December 8, 1941) (All emphases and punctuation marks mine—T.Y.) Several differences already appear between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, but these differences are minor: the expression of sovereign will is muted and a distinction made between the military and “officials.” In comparing these two with the “Greater East Asian War,” however, the differences are considerable. First, not only the “officials” but also the “populace” are included within the imperial “we,” “national unity” is expected, and the nature of total war is delimited in the words “total force of the nation.” Second, the subject whose will it is to go to war is neither the sovereign nor the nation-state but rather the “souls of our Imperial ancestors,” and war is necessary in order to “spread the great deeds of our ancestors.” Third, observance of international laws and regulations is not given as a condition. This may have been spontaneously omitted since it was no longer necessary for Japan to consider the watchful eye of the powerful nations. But it may also be understood alongside the superfluous emphasis on “self-preservation” (subjectively, all war is an act of self-preservation), such that the “obstacles” in the phrase “destroy all obstacles” includes the already existing order of law. Thus it is action that makes law. In other words, war itself has become the goal. Fourth, consequently, is that the idea of eternal warfare can be sensed throughout the entire passage. The ultimate goal of the war is “establishing everlasting peace in East Asia,” it is not peace in general. These lines can be read as presaging Japan’s desire for world domination.8 Although mutually contradictory, total war, eternal warfare, and the ideals instituted at the “nation’s founding” united to form the official system of war thought. All intellectual projects during the war can be summarized on the basis of how they interpreted this thought, how they either balanced or intensified the contradictions among these three aspects, and finally, which aspect they them8 Drafts of the Imperial Declaration of War were discussed and meticulously worked over after mid-November 1941 under the name of “Main Points Concerning the Reasons for War” at the liaison conferences of the Imperial Headquarters and the Cabinet (Hattori Takushirô, Daitôa sensô zenshi [Complete history of the Greater East Asian War], vol. 1 [Tokyo: Masu Shobô, 1953]).

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selves emphasized. In short, these projects tried to work out the logic with which to grasp the complexity of these aspects of total war, eternal warfare, and “nation founding”—aspects around which, moreover, all intellectual struggle was waged. Each intellectual project positioned itself on the basis of its relation with this official thought, and indeed no reflection was possible entirely apart from it. Of course a place for escape was afforded behind this thought. However, those who opposed such escape could not ignore official thought without thereby abandoning all actual influence. For this was the very nature of total war: not only was the body drafted for service, the spirit was also appropriated by war thought. Life thus had to be risked in order for thinking to be creative. No ideas were possible without such risk. It was not a few militarists who fought behind the “total force of the nation,” but rather most good citizens. It is wrong to think that the people obeyed the militarists’ orders. Rather they exerted their “total force” for the fate of the ethnic-national community. Today we can distinguish between the symbolic emperor, the nation-state as subject of authority, and the people as ethnic-national community. Yet this distinction has become possible only as a result of the defeat; it cannot be projected back to the time of total war. Here lies the difficulty of distinguishing between wartime flattery, opportunism, and servility—the sham ideas that represent the abandonment of thought—and a thinking that is independent, creative, and responsible to the people. Apart from those prophets who would have been stoned by the people, there is at times only a thin difference that separates resistance and submission. In the context of world history, Japan today possesses the greatest originality in terms of its abilities and activity. War itself has also become much more massive and complex. “Military depth” has shifted from the battlefront to international relations, the vanguard and rear are now inseparable, and fighting against enemy “plots” has become an everyday task for people at the home front. If Itô Sachio’s Russo-Japanese War poetry or Saitô Mokichi’s poem “My Elder Brother at the Front” [Senjô no ani] still reverberate as narratives today, then the present war is so massive and complex as to be only partly visible in prose—hence it requires a far higher poetic form and unity. Perhaps this explains the current (1941) national outpourings of war poetry. In light of the several collections on the China Incident, those on bereaved families, and the war poems of the tanka poets, it seems that the war is capable of summoning up the people’s poetic voice on a national scale. This quotation is from Nakano Shigeharu’s Notes on Saitô Mokichi [Saitô Mokichi nooto] (Chikuma Shobô, June 1942), which is regarded as one of the

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primary texts of wartime resistance. Its vocabulary is closer to the “WorldHistorical Standpoint” symposium than to “Overcoming Modernity,” and this is of a piece with its profound grasp of the total war situation. That is precisely why it fulfills one of the conditions for being a text of resistance. The people can only be organized by passing through the war, or by passing through their lives since they are actually fighting the war. Without this experience, in other words, one cannot engage in intellectual production. This experience is the minimal condition for thought. To negate war poetry because it is war poetry is to negate the people’s lives. The moment of resistance emerges when one decides to change the very nature of the war by accepting war poetry as such but then criticizing both its dependence on the old notions of war and its misunderstanding of the nature of the war being fought (which is not that of imperialist war). This helps create a war poetry that is appropriate to the total war. Scribbling “Oppose the war of invasion!” on bathroom walls or popularizing such witticisms as “Down with British planes/Hideki!” is not resistance but the dissolution thereof. It is dragging thought down to its most pedestrian level. The Kyoto School did the most to logically explain the relations among total war, eternal warfare, and the ideal of “nation founding.” This was especially true of the three-part “World-Historical Viewpoint and Japan” symposium, which was skillfully organized by four of the school’s representatives. The first session, entitled “Thirteen Days Prior to the Imperial Declaration of the Greater East Asian War” [Daitôa sensô no taishô kanpatsu ni sakinzuru jûsan nichi] (which appears in the introduction to the book edition), was published in the January 1942 issue of Chûôkôron. “The Greater East Asian War broke out when the proofs of this issue were being finished. With a sense of gratitude and resolution that is difficult to express, we saw that our reflections would be judged by the severe court of world-historical reality. Yet the glory of our dignified national polity has only increased with hardship, and the grandeur of the imperial army and navy has struck the hearts of people throughout the world. With the decree of (blank) His Majesty the Emperor, as well as the cooperation of our fellow countrymen and brave soldiers, and in profound recognition of the great benevolence of the Japanese Empire, we secretly content ourselves with the truthfulness of our remarks” (Ibid.). While it is true that the manner of speech here somewhat resembles that of Tôjô Hideki, the pride that the Kyoto School takes in “the truthfulness of our remarks” was justified. This first session virtually foretold the war’s outbreak and to a certain extent predicted the nature of the war as it further developed. “The other day I was asked by someone about Japan’s philosophy of history. I had difficulty responding, but this philosophy can be said to have passed through three stages. The first stage was the era of Rickertian historical epistemology, which

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now seems quite outdated. Next was the period in which the philosophy of history was conceived on the basis of hermeneutics and Dilthey’s philosophy of life: this more or less represents the second stage. Now, however, we have taken a step further and realize that the philosophy of history is necessarily the philosophy of world history. This is the third stage. But why have we realized this? I think it is due to Japan’s present position in world history. . . . In terms of Japan’s mission in the context of world history . . . the Japanese must think with their own heads. This is the reason why the philosophy of world history is so necessary today.” “I completely agree with this. The other day . . . ” Discussion was thus carried out in a refined, salonlike atmosphere. For example, the following issue was raised: “Isn’t the course of world history quite different when viewed from the vantage points of East and West?” This issue then developed into a discussion of “European crisis consciousness and the Japanese consciousness of world history,” after which appeared one of the prototypes of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium: “The anti-European consciousness of Japan or Asia is actually at the same time a consciousness to negate that modern Japan—i.e., the Japan of the Meiji and Taishô periods—which exists within Japan itself.” The topic then changed to moralische Energie (moral energy) and “so-called Staats Räson as the means by which to link kratos (power) and ethos (morality). Since Staats Räson alone is unable to link these two together, however, moralische Energie is required as mediation.” Discussion soon returned to the “creation of a new global Japanese culture” and the “establishment of a new principle of world history.” Then: “the act of founding the eternal nation,” “world history is the purification of guilt,” and “when man becomes angry, his anger is absolute. He is angry in mind and body. This is the case with war: heaven and earth become angry. Man’s soul is then purified. This is why it is war that determines the crucial turning points in world history. Hence world history is purgatory.” With this the session came to a close. This first session of the symposium was highly regarded. The second and third sessions appeared in the same journal under the respective titles of “The Ethics and Historicity of the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” [Tôa kyôeiken no rinrisei to rekishisei] (April issue) and “The Philosophy of Total War” [Sôryokusen no tetsugaku] (January 1942 issue). I shall not give a detailed introduction of their content here. But let us look at their grounding of the idea of total war by focusing on several remarks from the third session. For the notions of total war, eternal warfare, and the “founding of the eternal nation” are skillfully tied together, and there is something admirable in this skill. “It is an indubitable fact that history is primarily shaped by war,” “War is the most vital force of history,” “As a rule, total war arises when modernity reaches an impasse, that is, total war represents the overcoming of modernity,” “War

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begins with a declaration of war and ends with negotiations for peace, after which the original order of peace is restored—while such an understanding of war is still quite influential, it is extremely dangerous to understand the present war in this manner,” “War is in no way a temporary aberrant phenomenon,” “War will not return to an original prewar state through peace; rather something new will be established,” “‘Total war’ is an expression meaning that all things will change,” “It is absolutely impossible to conceive of the absence of war from a positivist viewpoint,” “Moreover, war is necessary. War is eternal,” “The ground of war as such lies in war itself,” “Just as the idea of eternal peace is empty, so is the notion of eternal war impossible given man’s natural needs. But by changing the very concept of war, there emerges a new idea of war as creative and constructive in which the opposition between war and peace is sublated,” “The notion of eternal peace is wrong, but so too is the notion that war is to be glorified, for these two positions are the same, albeit opposites. In short, these positions represent a vulgar kind of thinking in which one chooses either war or peace in the context of their oppositionality. But this oppositionality disappears when we realize that war is essentially guidance. A truly profound peace is not opposed to war. A truly great peace—‘Yamato,’ the great peace. Here the opposition between war and peace will ‘find its proper place’ for the first time,” “Japan’s leadership and subjectivity as revealed in the Greater East Asian War had in fact existed latently long before the China Incident. Already in the RussoJapanese War . . . ,” “Traced back even further, the completion of the Meiji Restoration,” “The Meiji Restoration marks the restoration of imperial rule, in which shines the true nature of the national polity,” “Japan’s eternal prosperity has been promised by the oracle,” “The truth lies in Japan’s national polity,” and “This war will certainly be won.” These are brilliant illustrations. Nothing throughout the entire war explains more perfectly the Imperial Declaration of War. A better explanation could not be given, not by Tôjô Hideki, Okumura Kiwao (vice-director of the wartime Cabinet Information Board), or indeed even by the Imperial School philosophers who after one year denounced the “philosophy of world history,” and whose tyranny over the Kyoto School was such that they would have had the entire group arrested were it not for the protection of the navy. As dogmatists, the Kyoto School philosophers were perfect. Because of this, the remarks quoted above in a sense foretold the future of the war. That is to say, the war itself could no longer be dealt with on the basis of the “vulgar opposition between war and peace,” thought fell into confusion, and the goals of the war were lost. As if collapsing from hunger, there came about in the ruins of Asia a state in which “absolute action is absolute nothingness,” “‘ought’ is ‘is,’ and ‘is’ is ‘ought,’” and “external force is internal force, and internal force is external force.”

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For Takeuchi Yoshitomo, the “philosophy of world history” came into being as the “subjective” legitimation of the imperialist war that was World War II. The idea of the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” was contradictory in the sense that it advocated freedom from imperialism while at the same time enforcing a war of imperialism. The “Kyoto School” understood the war of invasion that was World War II in terms of an “ought” that represented freedom from western imperialism. They claimed that “subjective” devotion to this “ought” would eliminate the “opacity” that lies in “misinterpreting the Sino-Japanese War as equivalent to western imperialist invasion.” In order to “think in a noncontradictory manner” the contradiction between “ought” and “is,” the Kyoto School created the notion of “moral energy” from Ranke’s moralische Energie. . . . In so doing, they worked to conceal the war’s nature of invasion. Despite the elaborateness of their philosophical concepts, their “philosophy of world history” was a shallow defense of the fait accompli that might makes right; it was nothing but an instance of Japanese imperialism and tennô-fascist ideology. (Introduction, Shôwa Intellectual History) As with Odagiri’s assessment of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, these lines are absolutely correct as ideology critique. However, I think it is a mistake to say that the Kyoto School “worked to conceal the war’s nature of invasion.” The war itself began as an attempt to “conceal this nature of invasion.” It is an overestimation of the Kyoto School to claim that its dogmatism was able to conceal it. The Kyoto School did not produce war and fascist ideology; they merely expounded official thought, or perhaps they interpreted it. It is due to other factors that these interpretations functioned ideologically, as the force of their ideas did not change reality. As proof of this, it is doubtful that the symposium’s first session would have been so influential had it not taken place immediately before the start of the war. For example, it was argued throughout all three sessions that the theoretical ground of Japan’s East Asian leadership consisted in its status as the only “modern” nation in Asia.9 For ten years prior to this, however, the Chinese people refused in practice to recognize Japan as such a “leader.” The Kyoto School’s claim was merely empty theory. Had Japan not gone to war with the United States and England, the Kyoto School would sim9 This logic still lives on today among Foreign Affairs officials as well as certain critics from the “Japanese Culture Forum,” which serves as the spokesman for the Foreign Affairs office. I shall return to this point later.

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ply have added to the stock of empty theories. They would certainly not have drawn such public attention. Such empty theories were revived because the war happened to break out at this time. The first session of the symposium was thus timely in that it anticipated the Imperial Declaration of War; it did not function to resolve the facts. Resolution of the China Incident was merely indefinitely postponed. Because of this, the facts released the Kyoto School from the responsibility of substantiating their empty theories. For the Kyoto School, it was dogma that was important; they were indifferent to reality. I don’t even think that they represented a “defense of the fait accompli that might makes right.” These philosophers disregarded the facts. “I do not think I was mistaken about the basic idea of world history. For I did not conceive of this idea as dependent upon either the existence or the outcome of the war” (Kôyama Iwao, “The Idea of World History” [Sekaishi no rinen], Ideals [Risô] [June 1951]). This was certainly the case. The China Incident was irresolvable, and the Pacific War began as a means to indefinitely postpone its resolution. Hence the war could of course only be eternal warfare. While the Kyoto School was able to explain this eternal warfare on paper, they were incapable of resolving it. Could it have been resolved by calling for “opposition to the war” or by uniting the antiwar forces? Yes, perhaps so. But how could these forces be united from within the total war? On the basis of what logic could the war be changed to peace? Perhaps it was possible to conceptually transcend the “inferior oppositionality between war and peace” through a philosophy of “absolute nothingness,” but this was not the issue. What logic is required for thought to act effectively on reality? Such logic was never discovered during the war, and it remains undiscovered even now. Although this logic was never discovered, efforts were made to discover it. This would have been possible by driving a wedge within the double structure of the war and changing its nature. Kamei Katsuichirô’s self-criticisms represent the discovery of this possibility in the postwar period. But even during the war, there emerged the anguished voices of those true fascists who had themselves outlined the war. If this were China at the end of the Qing Dynasty or during the era of the warlords, then it would have promptly surrendered after the fall of Nanjing, or when it had lost Hankou and Guangdong. Yet in the face of certain defeat it continued its war of resistance for seven years. Despite China’s recognition of Japan’s absolute military superiority, having witnessed its achievements during the first six months of the war, and despite the unlikelihood of receiving much-needed British and American aid, it did not cease its war of resistance. Here we must recognize the extreme changes that have

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taken place in China during the past quarter century. Japan must immediately change its view of present-day China if it regards the country as identical to the China at the end of the Qing Dynasty or during the warlord era. How long must Japan and China continue fighting? This is deeply saddening for the whole nation. Japan is torn in fighting against its ally China while at the same time fighting against England and the United States, Asia’s worst enemies. An argument has been put forward in various quarters that finds the China Incident to be part of the World War ever since the conclusion of the Japan–Germany–Italy alliance, and this means that the two wars should be resolved on the same basis. This argument is half right and half wrong. That is to say, it is right in that the China Incident must not be understood simply on the basis of Sino-Japanese relations. Other powerful nations stand in the background that see Japan as an enemy, and they have used all manner of treachery in their ambition for hegemony in the Orient. We know that the China Incident has progressed to the point where we must finally battle these other nations, i.e., England and the United States. The incident has in fact already developed into war with these nations. Nevertheless, we find it absolutely unconvincing that it should be resolved as part of the World War. (Ôkawa Shûmei, Establishment of the Greater East Asian Order [Daitôa chitsujo kensetsu] [Daiichi Shobô, 1942]) Beginning with Satô Nobuhiro’s theory of “combined secret plans,” Japan’s state policy traditionally saw world domination as its final goal. In these lines from Ôkawa, however, we can hear a sigh of “infinite regret” that this policy is about to collapse on the verge of attaining that goal. Ôkawa differs from the Kyoto School in that he is keenly aware of this failure. His is a thinking that in its own way bears responsibility for action. Ôkawa laments the impossibility of resolving the China Incident in 1941, but it was still unresolved in 1945. And it is well known that the incident remains unresolved even today in 1959. Why is this? Because people have tried to forget it without understanding the double structure of the Pacific War—or going back even further, the double structure of the Meiji state. Japan’s basic state policy throughout the Meiji period was the realization of complete independence. The complete repeal of the unequal treaties forced upon the country at the time of its opening up (tariff autonomy) had been put off until 1911. Meanwhile, however, Japan forced unequal treaties upon Korea as early as 1876. This imposition of unequal treaties upon Korea and China corresponded with Japan’s own attempt to free itself from those unequal treaties imposed upon it. From this tradition was formed the utopian notion of the “East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the indispensable condition of which was the “Greater East Asian War.” Just as

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the Kyoto School’s “philosophy of total war” ended in the empty notion of “absolute nothingness,” however, the “East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” ended in the empty rhetoric of the “Greater East Asian Joint Declaration” (November 1943). Takami Jun’s literary premonition at the time of the Imperial Declaration of War regarding his “sadness for Japan” was correct. Ôkawa presents the issue of the China Incident as irresolvable, and he was not mistaken. The issue has been deferred until today, and it stands as a task before us. It took fifty years for Japan to free itself from the unequal treaties, but its way of resolving that problem was mistaken. We must go back in history in order to discover the site of this mistaken logic. The present problematization of the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium will provide a key to this.

V. The Role of the Japanese Romantic School I have stated that the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium consisted of three intellectual elements or lineages, the uniting of which proved to be a failure. As I have written, these were the Literary World group, the Kyoto School, and the Japanese Romantic School (represented by Yasuda Yojûrô). I also remarked that the Literary World group and the Japanese Romantics cannot be treated as one. Here I would like to enter upon an examination of the Japanese Romantics, and I shall do so not by deducing their thought on the basis of Yasuda’s ideas, but rather by focusing upon the role that those ideas played in the symposium. In other words, I shall consider Yasuda through his influence upon the symposium. Naturally, this approach is also related to an exploration of the symposium’s intellectual sources. By way of preparing the ground for an examination of the Japanese Romantics, let me once again return to the problem of the present situation. It will be easier to trace the logic of the Romantics if I go back into history from this point. I shall again take Odagiri Hideo’s essay as a key. The following passage appears immediately prior to those lines already quoted above: As Takeuchi Yoshimi wrote immediately after the Korean War, “The ideologues of modernity, including the Marxists, have shunned blooddrenched ethnic nationalism. They define themselves as victims, and deny all responsibility for the intensification of nationalism into ultranationalism. . . . And yet the Japanese Romantics were overturned not by them but by an outside force” (Takeuchi, On National Literature [Kokumin bungaku ron]). Subsequently, several works on the Japanese Romantics appeared by such people as Nakano Shigeharu and Hashikawa Bunzô—

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and Hashikawa’s recent work in particular marks a major development in this direction. Such work should long have been done on the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, yet it was not. . . . Still, it should be noted that Etô Jun wrote an excellent critique some time ago for Japan Readers’ News [Nihon dokusho shinbun] on the new version of “overcoming modernity,” in which he focused on Yamamoto Kenkichi. As the following will show, despite the fact that the symposium was intimately related to the standpoint and development of the Japanese Romantics, the recent reexamination of the Romantics has left this relation largely unproblematized. Yet the new version of “overcoming modernity” was directly bound up with a recent revival of a Japanese Romantic style of thinking and feeling, as can be concretely seen in Yamamoto’s essay “Classical and Contemporary Literature” [Koten to gendai bungaku]. In other words, there appears at the end of “overcoming modernity” a unity based on what Yamamoto calls premodern “communal sociality.” Yamamoto still restricts this unity to the sphere of literature, presenting it as the site of tradition and creation. And yet if he were pressed for a more expansive definition of the social content of this notion (the term “communal sociality” itself requires a concrete social definition), wouldn’t it be equivalent to Yasuda Yojûrô’s and Kamei Katsuichirô’s wartime view of the tennô state? What would be the relation between this “communal sociality” and the current system of rule? In the early stages, antiestablishment elements were present within Yasuda’s and Kamei’s thought as well. But as certain factual conditions were required in order for that thought to develop into an antiestablishment force, we must clarify things on the basis of these conditions. The danger of the Japanese Romantic School has reemerged today as an issue. Odagiri says many things here. His argument is in parts disordered and difficult to follow, but if one were to extract the facts being recounted, it would appear first that scholarship on the Japanese Romantics has recently witnessed a “major development.” At the same time, research on the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium—which was “intimately related to the standpoint and development of the Japanese Romantics”—has as yet neglected this relation between the symposium and the Romantics. That is true. Certainly I have done nothing further on this topic, and Hashikawa’s work (“Introduction to a Critique of the Japanese Romantics” [Nihon romanha hihan josetsu], currently serialized in Contemporaneity [Dôjidai], and “Problems of the Japanese Romantics” [Nihon romanha no shomondai] [Literature, April 1958], etc.) has focused solely on the Japanese Romantics, and Yasuda Yojûrô in particular, without any direct reference to the symposium. But in defense of Hashikawa, it should be

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said that the methodology of his work on the Romantics is such that there is no need for him to treat the symposium independently. Second, Odagiri sees Yamamoto Kenkichi as exemplifying a “recent revival of a Japanese Romantic style of thinking and feeling,” which represents a “new version of ‘overcoming modernity.’” I too find Yamamoto’s thinking to be antimodern. Yet such antimodernity in “thinking and feeling” can be found not only in Yamamoto but also in Karaki Junzô, Usui Yoshimi, and the aforementioned Sako Junichirô. Odagiri might wish to include me (Takeuchi Yoshimi) on this list as well. However, I cannot agree with Odagiri’s claim that all these people are akin to the Japanese Romantics. This point is related to the present problem of understanding the essence of the Romantics. Quite simply, while this group contained such elements as Japanism, reactionism, a yearning for community, and skepticism of rationalism, what above all defined it as such was its quality of radical romanticism. In this sense, the Japanese Romantics are decisively different from Yamamoto’s antimodernism. Third, Odagiri regards the notion of “communal sociality” as anticipatory of the “tennô state,” wherein lies the “danger of the Japanese Romantic School.” I cannot agree with this point either. Why must “communal sociality” lead only to the “tennô state”? Couldn’t it just as well lead to primitive communism or a people’s commune? If this is described as a lesson of history, then history is being misinterpreted. Here too Odagiri views history from a position of monistic ideology in which ideas are evaluated solely on the basis of their “antiestablishment elements.” This seems to result in a kind of persecution mania, as seen in his phrase “danger of the Japanese Romantic School.” Fourth, Odagiri agrees with Etô Jun’s critique of Yamamoto Kenkichi. Let me introduce this critique in passing: Yamamoto, who shows tremendous sensitivity in his appreciation of the classics, is attacked for being an “impatient theoretician,” who “atemporally divides eras according to the criterion of community consciousness.” Etô finds that Yamamoto’s understanding of reality is mistaken since “reality lacks what T. S. Eliot calls ‘tradition’” and because “‘community’ has not actually collapsed.” Referring to the Usui Yoshimi–Katô Shûichi debate in the Tokyo News, Etô argues against Usui’s claim that “modernity cannot save man” in favor of Katô’s view that “modernization is necessary.” Since the brandishing of such concepts as “tradition” and “community” “invariably leads to the cultivation of the premodern, which is the hotbed of fascism,” Etô writes, “we must agree with Katô that the Declaration of the Rights of Man is more essential to present-day Japan than the ‘discourse on tradition’” (“Discourse on Tradition and the Trend of Rejecting Modernity” [Dentôron to kindai hitei no keikô], in Pirates’ Song [Kaizoku no uta] [Misuzu Shobô, 1958]). The Japanese Romantic School is equally if not more “notorious” than the

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“Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Whereas the symposium suffered from notoriety at the hands of the left, which enjoyed a postwar revival, the Japanese Romantics were unpopular with both leftist and centrist intellectuals from the moment of their inception. As Yasuda writes, “From about 1934 I fought alone against countless adversities and criticisms. . . . In this respect, I don’t know any recent writer who has withstood such attacks and ill will as myself” (“Notes on the Standpoint of Literature” [Bungaku no tachiba oboegaki], 1940). These lines are quite close to the truth, although we can sense here both Yasuda’s characteristic pathos and the inferiority complex of the literati. It was only after the war was well under way that Yasuda became the favorite child of journalism and his unique illogical prose style gained wide appeal. Given its notoriety, the Japanese Romantic School is still insufficiently researched regarding its identity and activities. Odagiri refers to my argument that the group’s merit lies in its demand that the category of the ethnic nation be thought in addition to that of class. Odagiri partially affirms this point, but Nakano Shigeharu registers doubts about the course of my research (“On the Second Bungakkai and the ‘Japanese Romantic School’”). The issue vanished at about the same time as the collapse of the debate on “national literature.” Yet with Hashikawa’s subsequent research, several things had become clear by this point: the Japanese Romantics could not be comprehended merely on the basis of the journal The Japanese Romantic School [Nihon romanha] (which ran from March 1935 to August 1938)10 and its membership; the group wielded greater intellectual influence after the dissolution of its membership; and Yasuda Yojûrô was its chief representative, rather than the older Kamei Katsuichirô or Asano Akira. Sugiura Minpei soon proposed that Yasuda be recognized as the representative figure of the Romantics. And Hashikawa wrote, “For us, the Japanese Romantics meant only Yasuda Yojûrô. From our youthful perspective, Kamei Katsuichirô and Haga Mayumi were merely obscure literary journalists, and anyone lower than Asano Akira was mostly ignored. In short, we saw Yasuda as completely unrelated to the rest of The Japanese Romantic School group” (Contemporaneity, 5). Here, “we” refers to those of Hashikawa’s generation. In other words, it might be best to conceive of Yasuda Yojûrô as representing a certain style of thought at a certain period, a thought that came to be called the Japanese Romantics since Yasuda was its main advocate. This “certain period” was that of the war. The difficulty in understanding the Japanese Romantic School may perhaps derive from its designation as romanticism. The Japanese Romantics were not romantics in the general sense. It seems that this confusion has quite skewed 10

A full account can be found in Saigusa Yasutaka, The Japanese Romantic Movement.

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current assessments of both the Japanese Romantics and the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Hashikawa lists the constitutive elements of the Japanese Romantics as Marxism, National Learning, and German Romanticism. He analyzes the Romantics on the basis of the hypothesis that communism (the proletarian movement) and the phenomenon of tenkô stand side by side as the “basic forms of experience that shaped Shôwa-era intellectual history.” This is correct as far as it goes. In contrast—and this can hardly be called a hypothesis—I believe that the Romantics’ relation to the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium can be understood in part by contrasting their direct ancestors to Ikuta Chôkô. I also feel that the Romantics’ sense of aesthetics can be more clearly grasped through Munakata Shikô’s woodblock prints than through Yasuda’s prose style, which Etô Jun described as less the “language of men” than the “voice of nature” (“The Overcoming of Myths”). The following views are helpful in understanding the identity and activities of the Japanese Romantics from a hostile perspective. No one was more eagerly anticipated at that time than Yasuda Yojûrô. The entrance of this lead actor filled out the cast for what became a great farce. Yasuda was truly a genius who naturally far outshone Bakatan (i.e., Haga Mayumi—T.Y.) and even such showy writers as Asano Akira and Kamei Katsuichirô. A model of impudence, master plagiarist, and born demagogue with the most vacuous ideas—just look at his sensationalistic and utterly foppish prose style!—Yasuda was the most flagrant spokesman for Japanese imperialism. And yet his greatest achievement does not lie in the fact that he published dozens of books each year falsifying the thought of Nietzsche and Origuchi Shinobu, thus inciting young people to war with his alluringly strange prose. Rather it was his spying, in which (like the economist Naniwada Haruo) he sniffed out communism with a canine sensitivity and reported his findings to the General Staff Headquarters. It also seems that the reason he adopted the pseudonym “a commoner” was so that he could transform himself from a spy into a writer like a fox hiding in the grass. (“Yasuda Yojûrô,” in In Commemoration of Dark Times [Kurai hi no kinen ni] [self-published, 1946]) They (the Literary World group—T.Y.) were overwhelmed by such shameless spokesmen for the imperialist war as Yasuda Yojûrô. This would be bad enough had they kept silent, but they praised and worshipped Yasuda like the Bible. I was dumbfounded that such people as Kobayashi Hideo, Kawakami Tetsutarô, and Funabashi Seiichi were so lavish in their praise of Yasuda. (“Reflections on and the Task of Cultural

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Struggle” [Bunka tôsô no jisei to kadai], in In Commemoration of Dark Times [Kurai hi no kinen ni] [self-published, 1946]) This is how Yasuda appears to Sugiura Minpei, who wrote, “The fighting had ended when I arrived at the battlefront, and the army of beasts had begun their victory march in the fields with a great flourish of drums and bugles” (Ibid.). Here Sugiura offers no evidence that Yasuda was a “spy” and so forth, but that is not something for which evidence could be given. This is probably only a personal impression, in which case I shouldn’t quote it here given the atmosphere in which these lines were written. I am suspicious of this accusation given Yasuda’s weakness of character (what Hashikawa refers to as his absence of courage) and the lack of praxis in his thinking and writing. And yet if such qualities were seen to be those of a spy, I would be unable to refute this point. On the other side of this grand enemy treatment of Yasuda stands Takami Jun, who once engaged in heated arguments with the Japanese Romantics from the standpoint of the “People’s Library” [Jinmin bunko]. Takami’s remarks are strangely balanced. As regards “Yasuda’s extraordinary mind,” he states, “Yasuda was seen as a god during the war, and yet immediately after the war when he was denounced as a war criminal, I wrote that he was second only to Kobayashi Hideo in the history of modern Japanese criticism. I wanted to protect his ‘spiritual treasures’ from vulgar political attacks. I believe in his ‘spiritual treasures’” (The Rise and Fall of Shôwa-era Literature, vol. 2). Kawakami Tetsutarô, speaking from a perspective that views history as a series of alternations, writes in the postwar period of the circumstances in which Literary World gradually came to be influenced by the Japanese Romantics, much to the despair of Sugiura: “Very generally speaking, recent changes among the intelligentsia of the post–Taishô period can be understood as follows: if liberalism was overthrown by the left, then what took the place of the left was intellectualism, which in turn has been overpowered by Japanism.” Kawakami explains the weakness of resistance against this Japanism: “Rather than directly reject Japanism, I attempted to expose myself to its training” (“Thoughts at the End of the War” [Shûsen no shisô], in Postwar Truths [Sengo no kyojitsu] [Bungakkaisha, 1947]). Abe Tomoji recalls these same events as a member of Literary World: “The Japanese Romantics’ gradual influence over Literary World cannot be understood simply as an external force that overwhelmed the resistance of the journal’s members. While such a description is not entirely false, there was at the same time a growing tendency among these members to sympathize with the ideas of the Japanese Romantics. At meetings Yasuda Yojûrô was increasingly referred to as the greatest of critics, an assertion that came to be rejected less and less” (“Retreat and Advance,” in Literature, April 1958).

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Although the words “master plagiarist,” “born demagogue with the most vacuous ideas,” “model of impudence,” and “spiritual treasures” represent contrary assessments, they are in fact two sides of the same coin. Therein lies the difference in considering August 15, 1945 as either the fall of the Japanese empire or the revival of the Japanese nation. Yasuda was at one and the same time a “born demagogue” and a “spiritual treasure”; he could not have been a spiritual treasure were he not also a demagogue. This is the Japanese spirit itself. Yasuda represents something illimitable, he is an extreme type of Japanese universalist from which there is no escape. His ideas were “vacuous,” but without this vacuity he could not have become immortal. Both Sugiura and the members of Literary World failed to understand Yasuda because they tried to see him as something substantial or delimitable. The intellectual role played by Yasuda was that of eradicating thought through the destruction of all categories. In this respect, he went even further than the Kyoto School, who subordinated categories to the arbitrariness of concepts. Yasuda advocated the complete rejection of “civilization and enlightenment.” For him, “civilization and enlightenment” both was and was not a trend of thought, a fashion, and a logic; that is to say, it was the entirety of modern Japan. Hence it naturally contained the self. For Yasuda, the self could not easily be thetically posited, for through this positing it became relativized, was brought into relation with the other. His method was to reduce the self to zero by means of its infinite expansion, and here he went beyond Kobayashi Hideo. Yasuda put forth the notion of absolute exclusion of foreigners, but such absolute exclusion was relative exclusion; that is to say, it represented the antithesis of what he called “situation theory.” Since this position avoided oppositional notions, its content expanded indefinitely and so became contentless. No matter how skillfully the Kyoto School dogmatically explained the war and national polity by linking them together, Yasuda saw this as nothing more than a kind of “situation theory” to be denounced. His judgment was not categorical. What appeared to be an extremely strong assertion of self was in fact the absence of self. In his writings there is no grammatical subject. What seems to be the grammatical subject is another self, one internal to his thinking. Hence those who read his work always feel that they are being given the slip. Although Yasuda is seen as a “model of impudence,” he was actually a coward. It seems that, in a certain sense, my writing is said to be self-complacent. This might be due in part to the fact that it is done quickly, but I think that it might also derive from the way in which I conceive of this thing called criticism. One reason for this is that I seem to think that it is not without value to bequeath my inspiring notes to others strictly in their form as

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notes. But the more basic reason is that I believe this is what will happen to my way of thinking in which I think about this thing called criticism. (“My Recent Literary Standpoint” [Waga saikin no bungakuteki tachiba], 1940; emphasis mine) Ideological warfare is today thought to be an extremely novel conception. There is not the slightest bit wrong with thinking like this; it is good, all things considered. Previously I wrote that at such times as these I would like people to carefully read Gyojû gaigen. The essay in which I introduced this book appeared in a monthly journal in the very same month that the war was declared. Apart from the question as to what extent people today think about ideological warfare, I have come to think that I would like to fully consider the scope and depth of those ideas of the people called National Learning. (“The Idea of Excluding Foreigners” [Jôi no shisô], 1942; emphasis mine—T.Y.) This may be the voice of heaven or earth, but it is not human language. It must be a revelation of the “souls of our Imperial ancestors.” There is not even any usage of the “imperial we.” This is a medium. And the role that everyone had “eagerly anticipated” was that of the medium itself, who appears at the end as the “lead actor in a great farce.” Yasuda played this role brilliantly. By destroying all values and categories of thought, he relieved the thinking subject of all responsibility. He leveled the ground for the Imperial Rule Assistance Association of ideas. Ideological warfare is not the issue; it is the “thinking” about ideological warfare that is at issue. Not war but one’s war “view” is the issue. Hashikawa refers to the fact that “Yasuda was working on a leisurely (?) essay entitled ‘Play and Literature’ [Asobi to bungei] at the end of the war” (Literature, April 1958). The war was a “phantom that floats before the eyes,” it was not real. Moreover, Yasuda “did not conceive of his ideas as dependent upon either the existence or the outcome of the war.” Naturally, this logic was related not to the problem of the defeat but rather to that of the “defense of the national polity.” Yasuda was the Konoe Fumimaro of thought. Literary World was, of course, unable to resist this invasion from Yasuda, who represented the very embodiment of the “national polity.” For the journal’s intelligence was such that it was incapable of producing universalists who could oppose the notion of “national honor.” Kobayashi Hideo was able to divest all meaning from facts, but he could not go beyond this. Literary World could only wait for the “medium” that was Yasuda to come and announce the disarmament of ideas. And come it did, together with an “intellectual tremor.”

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I dealt with the war as a politically ignorant citizen, through silence. Today I have no regrets for this. A debate always takes place afterward in which it is argued that the trouble would not have occurred, or would have been different, given such and such factors. This kind of thinking represents man’s revenge against necessity—a vain and fleeting revenge. Was the war caused by certain people’s ignorance and ambition, without which it could have been avoided? I myself don’t hold to such a naïve view of history. For me, historical necessity is much more frightening. My ignorance prevents me from self-reflection. Far better that someone clever do this. (Kobayashi Hideo, February 1946 Modern Literature roundtable discussion) These words were seen at the time as representing a change in attitude for Kobayashi, but in fact they are the “defeated general’s” honest confession. At most, Kobayashi could say only that “the notion of national polity lives simply through the naked love we bear for our nation’s history” (“History and Literature” [Rekishi to bungaku], 1941). In sum, the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium marked the final attempt at forming thought, an attempt that, however, failed. Such formation of thought would at least take as its point of departure the aim of transforming the logic of total war. It failed in that it ended in the destruction of thought. Intellectually, the symposium brought together the Literary World group, the Kyoto School, and the Japanese Romantics. As the most active forum for centrist intellectuals after the defeat of Marxism, Literary World sought both to exploit and to defend itself against the Romantics’ notion of national polity. The symposium represented the journal’s last resort of intellectual struggle. The Literary World group did not necessarily trust Kyoto School dogma, but they couldn’t ignore it since it was an expression of public ideas. Here the group risked subjectively transforming this dogma into thought. To this effect, they believed it necessary to exploit the Romantics’ eschatological thinking. In the context of the symposium’s ideas, the Romantics functioned not as reactionism but as eschatology. While this eschatology was absolutely necessary in order to reinterpret the idea of “eternal warfare” not as dogma but as the free act of the thinking subject’s responsibility, such thinking was foreign to the intelligence of the Literary World group. Thus they sought help from the Romantics, they in a sense tried to contain the poison with poison. In so doing they produced the caricature that is “Overcoming Modernity.” In a way, the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium represented a condensed version of the aporias of modern Japanese history. Faced with the urgent task of interpreting the idea of eternal warfare at a time of total war, the symposium

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marked the explosion of such traditional oppositions as those of reactionism and restoration, reverence for the Emperor and exclusion of foreigners, isolationism and the opening of the country, ultranationalism and “civilization and enlightenment,” and East and West. It was thus correct to raise these issues at the time, all the more because they aroused the concern of the intelligentsia. That the symposium produced such poor results is unrelated to the raising of these issues itself, but rather stems from the symposium’s failure to dissolve the war’s double nature, that is to say, its failure to objectify the aporias of modern Japanese history qua aporias. Hence it was impossible to produce a strong thinking subject who could exploit Yasuda’s destructive force toward other ends. These important aporias thus vanished into thin air, and the symposium became nothing more than a published commentary on official wartime thought. Combined with the postwar atrophy, the disappearance of these aporias prepared the intellectual ground for Japan’s colonization. We do not yet fully understand the diverse meanings of the symposium (i.e., “Overcoming Modernity”—T.Y.). At the very least, however, we should note that it was organized not by the Japanists who participated in it but rather by the leading theorists of western-style “modernism.” In a way, the symposium was set up so that these modernists could acknowledge their own defeat. I would like to call attention to the fact that we Japanese have not once defeated our “myths” since their decisive victory over us in July 1942. At the same time, the western-style modernists who were forced to acknowledge their decisive defeat generally did not rehabilitate themselves singlehandedly. (Etô Jun, “The Overcoming of Myths”) I think that this view somewhat oversimplifies matters; it makes the changing situation appear too one-sided. In my opinion, these “western-style modernists” did not “acknowledge their decisive defeat.” For although they advertised an “overcoming of modernity,” no intellectual struggle actually took place. It is unlikely that they feel a sense of defeat—and this is precisely the issue facing us today. In other words, the disappearance of the aporias of modern Japanese history with the defeat has allowed the state of intellectual ruin to freeze over. Creativity of thought is now hardly possible. If we are to restore creativity to thought, we must unfreeze this state of ruin and rethink these aporias. In order to do this, we must at the very least return to the point at which Ôkawa Shûmei became speechless, and presently resolve the irresolvable question of the “China Incident.” If all the energy invested in the war had been wasted and there were no possibility of inheriting it today, then any intellectual formation

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through tradition would also be impossible. The problem facing Japan today is not the dominance of “myths,” but rather the fact that that quasi-intelligence that could not overcome “myths” has been rehabilitated, and not “singlehandedly.” Surely the “modernists” and “Japanists” have today come together to make of the future an unprecedented utopian era of “civilization and enlightenment” which we shall applaud and rejoice: “present-day Japan is truly a civilized and enlightened Japan,” and this is a “fortunate and joyous situation” (Fukuzawa Yukichi, Autobiography [Jiden]). The volume edited by the Japanese Culture Forum entitled Tradition and Change in Japanese Culture [Nihon bunka no dentô to hensen]11 is proof of this. Such national duties as claiming a position of leadership in Asia and “overcoming” western modernity are in principle opposed to each other. Equating Japan with the West revives the former duty and abandons the latter. This represents a deviation from tradition and is not a true resolution. For the Japanese Culture Forum, the aporias of modern Japanese history do not exist. “In our hearts we refuse the bad company of Asia and the East” (Fukuzawa Yukichi, “Escape from Asia” [Datsu-A ron]). According to these new proponents of “civilization and enlightenment,” however, Fukuzawa’s facts were mistaken in that Japan was never part of Asia. It thus follows that the notion of “national independence” over which he labored is meaningless, which in turn means that there has been no history since the Meiji Restoration. Ironically, the Japanese Romantics’ aim of destroying ideas has in this way been accomplished in the opposite direction.

11 Takeyama Michio wrote an article entitled “Nihon bunka no ichi” [The position of Japanese culture], around which a debate took place over a course of two days in the summer of 1957, with seventeen scholars in attendance. Shinchôsha published an account of the proceedings in May of the following year. In addition to Takeyama, participants included: Takayanagi Kenzô, Kimura Takeyasu, Kôsaka Masaaki, Suzuki Shigetaka, Nishitani Keiji, Hirabayashi Taiko, Hayashi Kentarô, Seki Yoshihiko, Ôhira Zengo, Kawakita Michiaki, Karaki Junzô, Ishii Ryôsuke, Naoi Takeo, Herbert Passin, Edward Seidensticker, and Joseph Roggendorf.

Chapter 6 asia as method

I I initially declined the invitation to speak here today on the grounds that I was unsuitable, for I am not someone who can discuss things systematically. Since this was an urgent request for a small audience, however, I decided to come, even though I now feel slightly out of place surrounded by so many prestigious scholars. Let me proceed by first presenting my own ideas and then taking your questions and comments so as to open up the floor to discussion. As a China scholar, I would like to begin by speaking somewhat personally about what interests initially led me to this course of study. I was graduated from college in March 1934, after which I decided to form a group called the Chinese Literature Research Society. This was an extremely small group devoted to the study of Chinese literature. We continued our activities during the war, but finally decided to disband in 1943 when escalating tensions made publication of our journal too difficult. After this I served in the military and experienced the defeat, but what I felt during the society’s activities (and actually even before this time) was the presence of a great gap or discrepancy between China as it really existed and China as conceived by us Japanese. My field is literature, which I define quite broadly. Here I take as my object of study a nation’s people in regard to their thoughts and feelings and, through this (although at a much deeper level), their everyday existence. It is the task of literature to examine this everyday life or existence

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from the perspective of the heart as opposed to from that of things, and I have sought to maintain this attitude throughout all of my work. Although I was graduated from what was then the Chinese Literature department of Tokyo Imperial University, I was actually a lazy student who rarely attended classes—such that I think I did well just to get my diploma! Of course this was partly due to the tediousness of the lectures, but the fact is that I did not enter college with the intention of studying Chinese literature. I confess that at that time I didn’t even want to go to college. If I didn’t, however, then it would have been difficult to receive school expenses from my parents, leaving me forced to support myself. So I went off to college with the idea that I would register for classes and simply use my parents’ money for my own enjoyment. The literature department was the easiest to enter, and in this Chinese literature was especially easy, so I enrolled in that. But I am unsure whether you people here will take courage from these remarks or whether they’ll spoil your love of learning. I was classmates with Takeda Taijun, but the fact is that we rarely saw each other, as neither of us ever attended classes. We only first met and began to discuss things after I had formed the Chinese Literature Research Society. I decided to study Chinese literature after graduation because of a trip to China I took while in college. I had really wanted to leave Japan at that time, and it was quite easy to travel to and from China. No passport was necessary; one simply paid for one’s passage, embarked, and then arrived in either Shanghai or Tianjin. These cities were closer to Nagasaki than was Tokyo. I went to China during the summer vacation of my sophomore year. Although registered for Chinese literature, I really had no intention of studying it seriously. I traveled to Manchuria with a tour group and then went on to Beijing alone. Upon arriving there, however, I suddenly felt as if I had discovered the dream or vision that had all this time been lying dormant inside me, a longing within my heart. This was not simply a matter of my being taken with the city’s natural scenery; rather I felt extremely close to the people there. I was moved by the fact that these people seemed to have the same ideas as I did. Although my classmates and I were all registered for Chinese literature, not one of us had imagined that there were actually people on the Chinese mainland who resembled ourselves. In thinking about this afterward, I acutely realized that this was due to the kind of education we had received. This would be different in the case of other countries, particularly those in the West. If one went to Europe or the United States, there would be a sense that the people there are superior to or better than oneself. Why then didn’t we know that there are people in China like ourselves? When we study Asian history or geography at school, no one teaches that there are actually people there—or at least that is how I remember it.

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I was thus shocked when I arrived in China. I saw with my own eyes the many people there who were spiritedly living their everyday lives. I wanted to know what these people were thinking, but unfortunately I was unable to understand their language. Although there did exist Chinese language courses at college, these were merely formal and unhelpful—although it might have helped had I actually attended them. I was unable to speak the language, but I felt as if therein lay a clue to my own problems, that is to say, to the problems of literature. Prior to this time I had come across modern literature in books, doing some reading in modern Japanese literature, and so I had my own views on this topic. These views were rather questionable, however. In reflecting upon how to resolve these questions, I felt that it was a fatal problem on my part that I was unable to enter into the hearts of the many people who were living similar lives in the neighboring country. It was then that I decided to study Chinese literature. Since my stay in Beijing was for only one month, I promptly moved into a Chinese boarding house and hired a private tutor so as to learn the language. One month proved to be insufficient, however, and so upon returning to Japan I began attending lectures and studying Chinese on my own. Gradually learning to read, I slowly worked my way through contemporary Chinese literature. At that time there were as yet few translations or introductory works of Chinese literature in Japan. This gradually began to change in the early Shôwa period, but there were still only a very limited number of works available—unlike the wealth of materials available today. Furthermore, no attention was given to contemporary Chinese literature in the university. The only thing left for us was to form our own group for reading Chinese literature, and thus began the Chinese Literature Research Society. We published some very small pamphlets, but during this time the war gradually began to spread, with the invasion of China progressing from Manchuria to Huabei. It was extremely painful for us that Japan, the land of our ancestors, was invading China, a country to which we had all grown close through our studies. Yet we were unable to think about this situation in depth. It was all we could do to retreat and protect our own narrow scope of research. I thought about a great many things at this time, and with the expansion of the war into the Pacific War and finally the defeat in 1945, reached a major turning point in my research. Until this time my aim in studying China had been to correct the gaps and errors in knowledge of China on the part of the Japanese, to change the nature of such scholarship. Previously there had existed such disciplines as kangaku and shinagaku, but I had no desire to undertake this kind of dead scholarship. Rather I wanted to change the very way we studied China by exploring the hearts of those actually living people who were our neighbors. With the defeat,

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however, I felt that this alone was inadequate, and that it was necessary for me to enter into this problem more fully. As to how to enter into this problem, I realized that while it was necessary to study China as a specialized field of knowledge, this was not enough. Such a framework might have been acceptable had the history of modern Japan gone smoothly, beginning with the Meiji period. Yet it was this very history that had led Japan into a wrongful war, ending with a bitter defeat. In order to shed light on the grounds upon which we now lived, therefore, it was necessary to first determine where this history had gone wrong. It was on the basis of this fundamental self-reflection that we, along with many other Japanese, stepped forth into the postwar period. Communism was the first movement in the postwar period to clearly articulate a standpoint critical of the war. During the war, Japanese communists criticized and fought against the war effort, and this served as the basis for communism’s postwar revival. There were many people slightly older than myself who had participated in this movement before the war, and they sought to reconstruct Japan by returning to communism after the war. I was unable to do this, however, despite the fact that many my own age or younger did rush in and embrace this movement. My refusal was based on differences in temperament, experience, and generation. Having been graduated from college in 1934, I lacked such beautiful memories of communism. I had in fact seen quite a few former communists commit tenkô during the war, after which they collaborated more actively than did many noncommunists. Thus I did not join in when communism became popular after the war but rather stood back and kept an eye on the movement, all the while feeling myself slightly old-fashioned. Although it was impossible for me to fully endorse communism, I did see its revival as a positive sign. From the beginning, however, I had my doubts as to whether it was able to effectively keep the war in check. Speaking from my own experience of history, I was unable to find any proof of its effectiveness in this regard. Thus I observed the movement with some skepticism, and you all know how things eventually turned out. In thinking about what lessons could be drawn from that misguided course of war and the defeat, or again how best to incorporate these topics within one’s research, I saw that there were many people who suddenly turned to communism. These people reflected upon things in their own fashion. But I kept my distance, for I suspected that the roots of the problem lay deeper. In other words, what continued to preoccupy me during my study of Chinese literature grew somewhat clearer in my mind on the basis of the defeat. This thinking was articulated in a hypothesis that I put forth after the war, which argued for the existence of at least two different types of modernization

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processes among backward nations. What was so striking about Japan’s modernization following the Meiji Restoration was that it spurred on the liberation movements of those backward and colonized nations of the Orient. If these movements had been successful, Japan could have become the sole model for Oriental modernization. In the end, however, Japan failed by going in the very opposite direction. When seen from the point of this failure, it seemed to me that Japan’s case exemplified only a single type of modernization, one that in no way represented the sole or absolute path of modernization for all other Oriental nations. There existed many other possibilities and paths of modernization apart from this. In comparing Japan and China, I came to realize that various qualitative differences existed among the several types of modernization processes. In the form of a hypothesis, I compared Japan and China as representative types of Oriental modernization. I don’t really know much about the modernization processes of other nations, but if pressed, I would say that Turkey resembles the Japanese type of modernization whereas India is closer to that of China. In effect, there are at least two different types of modernization in the Orient, and this will be my main topic today. What then is the difference between the Japanese and Chinese types of modernization? While it is of course impossible for me to approach this problem without casting doubt on my own prior thinking, I would nonetheless first like to refer to John Dewey as a key here. John Dewey, the American philosopher and educator, never really achieved wide-ranging influence in Japan, but he was read by some. His work was mainly introduced in the postwar era by such people as Tsurumi Shunsuke, Shimizu Ikutarô, and Kuno Osamu, as well as by Kuwabara Takeo in the field of literature. Although I am no expert on Dewey, I have long been interested in his work. Taking advantage of a one-year leave of absence from Columbia University, Dewey in fact came to Japan with his wife in February 1919, where he was invited to lecture at Tokyo University. Throughout his stay he was warmly received by many people. In May he left Japan for China, arriving in Shanghai on May 1— May 1919 of course being the time of the May Fourth movement. Thus on May 4, two or three days after they arrived in Shanghai, events took place in Beijing. Demonstrations gradually spread to Tianjin and Shanghai, culminating in the nationwide mass campaign against imperialism that is today known as the May Fourth movement. This all took place during Dewey’s stay in China. Dewey had disciples in China, such as Hu Shi, who arranged for him to lecture in Shanghai and Beijing. Although he had originally planned to stay in the Orient for one year, Dewey became extremely interested in China, occasionally finding himself witness to the demonstrations. He decided to extend his leave of absence for another year, thus staying in China for a total of two years. During

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this time he wrote many articles comparing Japan and China, and these I first read after the war. In addition to these articles, he (along with his wife) wrote letters back to his children that were subsequently collected and published in the volume Letters from China and Japan. Here Dewey initially speaks very highly of Japan. This was his first visit to the Orient, and so everything appeared to him quite new and exotic. Also he was very warmly received here: the Japanese being a friendly people and Dewey a famous American philosopher, he was treated extremely well. Quite comfortably situated, Dewey praised the Japanese for their aesthetic refinement and kindness. Upon arriving in China, however, he criticized things in the harshest of terms, declaring that next to Japan the country was unspeakably filthy and disordered. Yet interestingly enough, this impression of China gradually changed. While this change is not immediately apparent in his letters, it can be seen in his book Characters and Events: Popular Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, which represents a collection of the essays he wrote on Japan and China from 1920 to 1922. I borrowed this text from someone and read it after the war, and found myself in profound agreement with his comparison of Japan and China. I learned a great deal from these essays, which deal with things much more deeply than do the letters. Here Dewey very aptly compares Japan’s modernization with the nascent modernization of China. This comparison made a strong impression upon me at the time, particularly since this was already after the defeat. Nearly all of Dewey’s predictions had proven correct. While Japan appeared on the surface to be quite modernized, the roots of this modernization were in fact shallow. If this were not corrected, he warned, Japan would almost certainly come to ruin. Indeed, many foreigners as well as Japanese have foretold Japan’s ruin. It is well known that Natsume Sôseki, for example, warned of Japan’s downfall, as can be seen in his novels The Heart [Kokoro] and Sanshirô as well as in the famous speech at Wakayama. For Sôseki, Japan’s modern civilization was a failure in that it was not internally generated; rather it remained an external affectation through and through. Sôseki sought in vain for a way to transform the modernizing process into an internal one. I don’t really know anything of Dewey’s philosophical system, but I take my hat off to his comparison of Japanese and Chinese modernization. His warning about Japan’s modern civilization as an external affectation has proven absolutely correct. Of course it was not Japan but China that appeared at this time to be in a state of disorder, as China was still in the middle of the warlord period in 1919. The Nationalist government was then in its eighth year. The nation was formally a republic, with a national assembly and cabinet. Its political system was

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similar to that of postwar Japan, but this was in name only, for actually it was the powerful that controlled things. This meant the warlords, who in turn were the puppets of foreign governments. There is a well-known account of a debate that took place in the League of Nations around the question of whether China could be understood as a nation, to which, however, no one was able to offer a response. The country’s divergent and arbitrary actions suggested that it lacked the requisite unity to qualify as a modern nation-state. Yet Dewey was sensitive enough to see through this disorder and glimpse a new spirit emerging, for he had witnessed the May Fourth student movement with his own eyes. The May Fourth movement must be understood in the context of World War I, at which time Japan tried to force China into accepting the terms of an extremely harsh treaty that would make it the exclusive colony of Japan. This took place against the background of armed force, as China was then still in the warlord period. Japan leveled its final warning to China, threatening war if it did not sign the treaty: this was the notorious Twenty-one Demands of 1915. Various movements sprang up in China opposing this treaty. They began with the students before gradually expanding to a national level, where they exploded four years later in 1919, ultimately forcing the government to submit to the demonstrators’ demands. At this time the Versailles Conference was taking place around the issue of how to deal with World War I. China attended in full force and fought extremely hard for its demands, but Japan along with the world powers saw that these demands were not met. Upon this refusal, the Chinese delegation immediately broke off all talks. The May Fourth leaders then issued their own demands that the delegation withdraw from Versailles, the peace treaty be rejected, and the diplomats responsible for this failure punished. These demands were met. Consequently the May Fourth movement came to be seen historically as having achieved the first victory on the part of the people’s movement in China. At the time of this movement, Dewey wrote that he was very moved by the fact that the students participating in the various marches and demonstrations all carried their personal effects with them in their pockets, for they knew that they would be arrested. He saw this as the emergence of a new spirit and modernity in China. At this time China was viewed on the international stage as being in such a state of chaos that it was on the verge of breaking up. So it was that the students rose up to take the fate of their nation upon their own shoulders. It was on the basis of this youthful energy that Dewey was able to discern the essence of Chinese civilization beneath its apparent chaos. He predicted that China would ultimately have a voice in world affairs. In contrast, Japan’s apparent progress served only to mask its weaknesses, for the nation could collapse at any time.

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Dewey remarked then that modernization in China was internally generated; in other words, it was something that emerged from its own demands, and hence was sound. I find it remarkable that Dewey could have had such foresight back in 1919, for I myself (as a Japanese scholar of Chinese culture) didn’t grasp this point until 1945. My oversight was really quite unforgivable here, and yet it is silly to compare myself with such an important thinker as Dewey. From that point onward, however, I became increasingly convinced of the need to think about Japan and China in comparative terms. Many others were also raising this issue of Japanese and Chinese modernization. For instance, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell stayed in China at about this same time and wrote The Problem of China. In this book Russell offers a detailed comparison of Japan and China, and expresses many of the same views as Dewey. This was a period in which Japan seemed to be thriving— it was then boasting of its status as part of the Big Three—and yet from the perspective of the West (i.e., England and the United States) it was China that was seen to have greater potential. And this is what history has since borne out. While this turn of events might be extremely disconcerting for us Japanese, it must nevertheless be acknowledged. In reflecting on these two different types of modernization, I realized that we must not always compare Japan’s case with that of the advanced nations of the West, as had traditionally been done. This way of thinking could be seen among scholars and laymen alike. Politicians and businessmen, for example, would automatically compare Japanese political institutions with those in England, just as Japanese art would simply be compared with French art. We had to cease such comparisons, for these were inadequate to the task of grasping our own position. It was then that I began to realize the importance of conceiving of Japan’s modernization trilaterally by reference to different types of modernization, such as, for example, that of China or India. Others were also making this same claim, such as Tsurumi Kazuko, who edited the book Studies on the Work of John Dewey [Dûi kenkyû]. In fact, I contributed a piece to this volume entitled “Hu Shi and Dewey” [Ko Teki to Dûi]. Tsurumi herself argues this point about Japan’s modernization in her essay “Dewey and Japan” [Dûi to Nihon]. In Pearl Buck [Pâru Bakku], later published in the Iwanami Shinsho series, she writes how Pearl Buck, an American citizen born and raised in China, was able to observe both China and the United States. As a Japanese educated in the United States who moreover writes on Pearl Buck, Tsurumi has tried to reflect upon contemporary issues on the trilateral basis of Japan, China, and the United States. In her book she argues for the value of just this kind of approach, and I am in complete agreement. It is important in analyzing Japan to refer to the United States and Western Europe, for

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they represent the advanced nations of modernization. Nevertheless, we must also look elsewhere. In studying China, for example, we should not limit ourselves to seeing this nation only vis-à-vis the West. It was at this time that I realized the importance of conceiving of modernization on the basis of a more complex framework than that of simple binary oppositions. Had I more fully gathered materials and organized my ideas, I would have liked to systematize this notion of Japan and China as representative of different types of modernization. I am lazy, however, and there is much that I have yet to study. But I would like to correct the oversimplified aspects of my hypothesis, particularly given the various questions concerning Japanese culture and scholarship in light of the troubling international situation today. Also, a great deal remains to be known about China. Yet such knowledge is not to be gained by studying China alone; rather this nation must be situated within a larger framework such as would exceed the efforts of any single individual. There must thus be collaboration. But such collaborative research has not really gotten off the ground, as Asian Studies continues to be neglected both deliberately and institutionally. Let me provide just one example of such an institutional difficulty. There are currently hundreds of colleges and universities in Japan, among which even a few teach Chinese—such as my own Tokyo Metropolitan University. However, there are no universities here that teach Korean. (Tenri University, where Korean is required for missionary work, is the sole exception.) Korean used to be taught in the prewar period at Tokyo University, but that has changed since the war. We Japanese really don’t know anything about Korea, despite the fact that it is geographically closest to us. Indeed, we don’t even try to know it, as evidenced by the fact that there are no universities here that teach Korean. How strange this is! In fact, I would suspect that Japan is the only nation in the world whose universities do not teach the language of that country which is closest to it. Asian languages have been taught extensively in China of late, whereas in Japan there is not even any teaching of Korean. Furthermore, Russian is taught here only in a few schools. Apart from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Hokkaido University and Waseda are the only places where courses are offered in Russian literature. However, English has spread to such an amazing degree since the war that it is now taught everywhere. First of all, the establishment of English, German, and French as specialized disciplines is rather strange to begin with. These fields can be traced back to the tradition of English Studies, German Studies, and French Studies of the early Meiji period, and they have in fact not changed at all since that time. It is really quite odd that English literature, German literature, and French literature are all taught separately from one another, and that “literature departments” focus on them all together.

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Even those within the university setting who speak about the need for reform can do nothing, for their hands are tied by this university structure. And yet the problem goes beyond the teaching of Asian languages to include European languages as well: hardly any of these are taught in Japan other than English, German, and French. Only a very few scholars here can teach the languages of Eastern Europe. How strange this is! I certainly don’t have to refer to Dewey to show how strange this is—but also how wrong it is. In fact, there are many such strange things about the whole university and research system. How can these be changed? We are steering a wrong course for the future if things simply remain as they are. So it is that the wrong course for Japan was revealed in 1945, and yet we’ve since refused all self-reflection as to why it was wrong. I have serious misgivings about the growing tendency now to do things the way they used to be done in the past. This tendency has come to affect both our research and our approach to scholarship.

II Many of you were kind enough to offer comments on my presentation, and these have helped to deepen the issues I’ve raised. I would now like to elaborate upon some of my ideas by addressing your questions. Having already discussed such figures as John Dewey and Bertrand Russell, I shall now turn to Rabindranath Tagore, who has been important to my thinking on this issue of Oriental modernization. Tagore visited Japan in 1916, 1924, and 1929, and the lectures that he gave here have been published in book form. He also visited China, where his influence, particularly among writers, was considerable. This cannot be said for Japan, with the possible exception of Noguchi Yonejirô, who is known for having criticized Tagore during the war for misunderstanding Japan’s mission in East Asia. Tagore was warmly received in this country, particularly among religion scholars and the more celebrated Buddhist priests. This reception did not include the common people or masses, however, and in this respect his visit was similar to Dewey’s, for Dewey was also received by such elites as famous scholars and businessmen. However, in China it was the writers in their role as spokesmen of the people who not only introduced Tagore but also raised many of the same issues as he did. Tagore was regarded in Japan as a poet of a ruined nation, one who wrote of India’s demise. But in China he was seen as a champion for the cause of national emancipation. These different readings pose a problem for us. In China, Tagore was studied by such diverse writers as Guo Moruo (who recently visited Japan), Xu Zhimo, and Xie Bingxin. Furthermore, a special issue on Tagore’s work was published by

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China’s most influential literary journal. Suffering under the same kind of oppression, many Chinese writers identified with Tagore’s opposition or resistance from their position as fellow colonized. Although Tagore spoke only obliquely of this colonial oppression in public, his words concealed a profound anger about this and indeed all forms of social injustice. This anger was understood in China yet ignored in Japan. At this time Tagore was seen here as merely a poet of a ruined nation, whose poetry represented the grievances of the weak. Tagore regarded Japan as imitating western-style modernization solely on the basis of its military force, and warned that the nation must not use this force to attack its neighbors. However, he realized that the Japanese press saw this warning as nothing more than the complaint of a poet from a weak nation. In contrast, China interpreted it as a sign of Tagore’s anger. This discrepancy between Japan and China seems to me to point to a fundamental difference between the two nations. The Japanese translation of Tagore’s collected works is now being published. This translation is from the English, as there appears to be nobody in Japan who translates Bengali. Tagore himself wrote in both Bengali and English, however. Next year or the year after marks the centenary of Tagore’s birth, with events being planned in Japan and elsewhere. For quite some time now, Japan has been home to various Tagore-related groups, found in Buddhist circles as well as among artists (e.g., the Yokoyama Taikan school) and politicians (e.g., Kôra Tomi). Apparently these are the kinds of people preparing for Tagore’s centenary. This is all as it should be, I suppose, and yet there is hardly any critical interest in understanding Tagore vis-à-vis the comparison between Japan and China—just as there is none in the case of Dewey or Russell either. Let me say a few words now about the relation among the following three topics: 1) the distinction between internal and external generation in culture; 2) the people as the principle of all cultural formation; and 3) the role of intellectuals. While it is unclear whether the topic of internal and external cultural generation coincides directly with the notion of the people as cultural ground or basis, these two topics are nevertheless related. In principle, I agree with the theory that culture as a whole is fundamentally determined by the people. The foundation of culture is nothing other than everyday life, in which things are made. Although it is true that culture contains both matter and spirit, nevertheless its ultimate source is man’s activity of production. Hence the sole basis of culture is the people, for they are most in touch with production. At the same time, however, various cultural specialists must also exist whose role it is to maintain or even improve the level of culture: these are the so-called intellectuals. The makeup of intellectuals varies depending upon the historical period. When intellectuals are radically separated from the people, cultures become

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isolated. Since the people are kept occupied by their labor, however, they are unable to take charge of more specialized tasks. There then comes about the relation between the people and cultural specialists, which can be seen throughout all of history. Putting aside for a moment this question of the true source of culture, let me point out that my notion of culture as either internally or externally generated refers to Japan’s modernization process since the Meiji period. It has often been said that from this time forward Japan modernized through its reception of western culture, and this is certainly true enough. But this manner of reception was only skin-deep. Japan’s incorporation of western technology was such that it viewed this latter as a mere finished product; hence it utterly failed to grasp the scientific spirit that produces this technology. While many have pointed this out, no one has yet proposed that we see this tendency in terms of a type. If we were to determine the starting point of Japan’s modernization as the Meiji Restoration, then it would be the year 1868. There are various theories about when modernization began in China, but assuming it began with the May Fourth movement, then that would be 1919. This is a difference of fifty years. Modernization took place very early in Japan and yet very late in China. This difference has been explained by the fact that Japan was much more adaptable than China: unlike the forced colonization of China and India, for example, Japan succeeded very early on in eliminating feudalism, establishing a modern nation-state, and incorporating modern culture. But this is only one part of the problem. Another part concerns the quality of such modernization, for in fact Japan maintained its feudal structure and merely sugarcoated its outside with western civilization. In contrast, the presence of strong and durable Chinese elements made it difficult for China to adapt to modernization, as Dewey had noted. Once this process got under way, however, it destroyed all remaining structures and produced a spontaneous force from within. It is here that we can see a qualitative difference between Japanese and Chinese modernization. Although China appeared to be in a state of disorder, westerners have regarded modernity there to be much more essentially rooted than in Japan. This is a very difficult question, however, and I am unable to assert anything with certainty here. Nevertheless, it does seem to me to deserve our attention. I am not saying that our nation is a failure, for indeed there are things that we can be proud of as Japanese. If nothing else, it was a tremendous achievement that the Meiji Restoration and the Meiji state helped stimulate change in Asia. Sun Yat-sen, for example, said as much when he remarked that the Meiji Restoration served as the model for China’s reform movement, despite the fact that this movement took place after both the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese

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wars. Today the Russo-Japanese War is seen quite negatively, yet it was crucial for the Orient as a whole. Sun Yat-sen was in Europe during the Russo-Japanese War and returned to China thereafter. On his return journey the ship stopped in Suez, where an Arab longshoreman came on board and asked Sun if he were Japanese, for Japan had defeated Russia in the war. The man went on to say that while nonwhites had previously resigned themselves to the fact of white superiority, Japan’s victory had now given them hope for liberation. Hence the founding of the Japanese modern nation-state was validated by the war, for it had played a large role in the decolonization movement. After the Taishô period, however, things changed for the worse. From the perspective of Sino-Japanese relations, World War I marked a major turning point. Prior to this time, relations between our two nations were generally good. Now, however, the growing invasion of China on the part of Japan (which had since become part of the Big Three) converged with the sudden rise of Chinese nationalism. Thus can be seen the Twenty-one Demands and the resistance against it that was May Fourth. In other words, although the Meiji Restoration served as the model for Asian modernization, those nations that sought to reform on this basis met with severe difficulties, and so were forced to work out a different type of modernization. Yet Japan insisted that the sole type of modernization was its own. The result of this can be seen today in the internal division within Japan of the Asian and the nonAsian. At present, Japan is in some ways more western that the West. This is not altogether a bad thing, however, since certain conditions have made it like this. But the fact is that similar examples can all be found in colonial situations. As a colony, for example, Shanghai was also more western than the West. While it might be wrong to judge our nation in these terms, this view does have some truth to it. I believe that Japan is part of the Orient, but there are currently certain influential views that do not see Japan like this, as for example that of Umesao Tadao. Umesao’s research, which sees itself as an application from the field of ecology, separates the Old World (excepting the United States) into periphery and center, or what he calls the first region and second region. Hence Japan is grouped together with England and France, as these nations are located on the outskirts of Europe. These peripheral nations are said to be entirely different from those at the center, i.e., the mainland. Umesao has also applied this unique hypothesis to history, for which parts of it do seem to be valid. Certainly Japan is very different from China: linguistically, for example, Chinese does not have the same word order as Japanese. Also in regard to everyday life and culture: Chinese people sit on chairs whereas the Japanese do not. The manner of applying force

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varies as well, for the Japanese pull whereas the Chinese push—as can be seen, for instance, in the different types of saws, planes and kitchen knives used in the two countries. Of course similarities can be seen in skin color and facial features. The historical influx of both the Mongol and the Southeast Asian lineal groups into Japan brought about miscegenation and thus certain facial similarities. Nevertheless, vast differences exist at the level of thought and lifestyle between Japan and China. While there has been extensive cultural exchange between these two nations for the past thousand years, it is yet extremely difficult to see them (as well as India) collectively as one cultural entity outside of their resistance to Europe. Hence I find myself in partial agreement with Umesao. Let us next turn to the issue of the war. Earlier I remarked that Japan’s defeat in 1945 marked a major turning point in my research. I would now like to return to this point in regard to the Japanese consciousness of the war in general, or the consciousness of its own defeat. As was touched upon in your questions, it seems indisputable that the Japanese lack any sense of having been defeated by China. Why is this? Although Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers, this term referred at the time mainly to England, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. There remains a strong sense that Japan surrendered to the United States alone, however, just as there is hardly any sense that it was defeated by the Soviet Union, much less by China. Certain complex reasons have been put forth in order to explain this phenomenon, most pointing to the presence of the American Occupation. Yet we can also see here the Japanese contempt for China. It is believed impossible that defeat could have come at the hands of the Chinese, and certainly this is true militarily, for Japan was at the time much the more powerful. Hence the defeat is attributed to America’s overwhelming military superiority. While this explanation allows people to see how useless fighting with bamboo spears would have been, what then happens to the idea of Japan’s spiritual force? Given that during the war this spiritual force was said to lead Japan to victory, it seems wrong to now attribute the defeat to mere material force. On the contrary, now is the time to return to this idea of spiritual force. For China, it was precisely such spiritual force that ensured victory. In his Discourse on Protracted Warfare [Chijiuzhan lun], Mao Zedong explains China’s victory over Japan in a theory that has since been confirmed in the postwar period. This text, which derives from Mao’s lectures of 1938, offers a glimpse of what global warfare will be like in the future. At that time the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party joined together to form a united front against Japan. Speaking from the point of view of China as a whole, Mao wrote that the

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nation would gain victory. While international conditions were then favorable to China, Mao explained theoretically that China would prove victorious on its own even if conditions were unfavorable. Acceptance of this theory in no way requires that one agree with communist theory. Today history can be seen to have confirmed Mao’s prescience, which is to say that it is important to read him even if one does not subscribe to communism. In Japan, however, there was no such theoretical prescience of victory, for any thinking of defeat was steadfastly avoided. All theoretical discourse on war was grounded upon the dogmatic premise that defeat was impossible, and this conviction grew stronger as the war proceeded. But if victory is possible, then defeat must be possible as well. Defeat has already taken place if one avoids thinking about it, for this means that one has not resolved it theoretically. There are various historical reasons behind Japan’s refusal to admit defeat by China, and yet this very refusal helps explain the defeat itself. Let us recognize here and now that we must change our way of thinking about the war. Many millions of Japanese soldiers (of which I was one) went off to war in China, but they all saw nothing. Man’s powers of observation are extremely unreliable. One sees nothing if one simply goes somewhere without problematizing oneself. Thus the Japanese understood nothing of China no matter how many went there, and indeed many Japanese still continue to go there now in the postwar period. Perhaps I shouldn’t say such things, but the majority of these people see nothing: they may eat well and enjoy themselves, but really they don’t see anything. They cannot see China because they refuse to problematize themselves. Apart from the soldiers, this is a real difficulty among politicians. And it is a shortcoming among us China scholars that we have been unable to change the people’s mindset in this regard. I should also mention something about the Chinese view of Japan. Much could be said here, but certainly the Chinese bear a deep hatred for not only Japanese soldiers but also those Japanese civilians who wreaked violence in China while under the protection of the military. Indeed, if it had been our families who were killed or whose homes were burned and pillaged, there would be no question of suddenly overcoming our bitterness. I suspect that the Chinese still bear a deep-seated hatred for us, even if for political reasons they now deny it and claim that the Japanese people themselves are innocent. This hatred will last for another ten or twenty years, if not for an entire generation or even longer. Indeed, it might well increase, given the current state of relations between our two countries. If a single Japanese commits a crime, then it is perfectly natural for the victim of that crime to hate all Japanese. The problem thus becomes one of atonement, which is, however, gradually disappearing due to both conscious and unconscious acts. This is true in regard

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to Japan’s sense of atonement for crimes committed against China, but even more so in the case of Korea. It might well be that Japan’s poor diplomatic relations with Korea are due to President Lee Sung-man’s intransigence, but let us not forget the terrible oppression that Koreans suffered under Japanese rule. These poor diplomatic relations might last another ten or twenty years. We must continue trying, however, for it would be shameless to do otherwise, and a shameless nation can never take its place in world affairs. Fortunately, relations with the United States remain extremely good. Yet the fact that Japan enjoys good relations only with the United States while peace remains to be made with the other Allied Powers means that the war is still unresolved. Japan is still at war with China. Although we have issued a joint statement with the Soviet Union declaring an end to all hostilities, the fact is that we are still at war with China. Indeed, we are not even aware of this situation on an everyday level. It is thought to be enough that Japan has made peace with the Chiang Kai-shek government of Taiwan, but this is really to get things backward since it is this very peace with Taiwan that prevents all peace with China. The root of the problem here goes back to the San Francisco Peace Conference, where Japan decided to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China when it really would have been better to defer this issue. This could have been done by claiming to wait until the end of the Korean War when the world was at peace. Japan has not dealt well with such political issues. But as politics is something that people can change, it is up to us to reflect upon Japan’s position and do all we can. Of course there still remains some bitterness against Japan at the level of ethnic-national feeling, but that cannot be expected to disappear overnight. In closing, I must respond to a very important question that was raised. The main point about Japan’s modernization is that it was introduced externally as a western type. Chinese modernization, however, was forged on the basis of its own ethnic-national characteristics, and this is what allowed China to modernize more purely. Given that Japan and China here represent distinct cultural types, could one then say the same thing about distinct human or individual types? This question then went on to focus upon the problem of postwar education in Japan, suggesting that the American educational system had in fact been smuggled in under the name of democracy. Like democracy as a whole in Japan, the many incongruous elements visible in education today were seen as proof of the failure of this move. Was it thus wise to introduce democratic laws here, as such democracy is premised upon a notion of the western individual? Shouldn’t Japan rather stop pursuing the West and ground itself on Asian principles? These are important questions, ones that I have made the theme of all my work. Yet my thinking is slightly different. I do not make distinctions on the basis

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of human or individual types, for I would like to believe that men are everywhere the same. While such things as skin color and facial features are different, I would like to think that men are substantively the same, even in their historicity. Modern societies are thus the same around the world, and we must recognize that these societies produce the same types of people. Likewise, cultural values are everywhere the same. But these values do not float in the air; rather they become real by permeating man’s life and ideas. In the process by which such cultural values as freedom and equality spread from the West, however, they were sustained by colonial invasion—or accompanied by military force (Tagore) or by imperialism (Marxism). The problem is that these values themselves thus came to be weakened as a result. For instance, although equality might exist in Europe, one glance at the history of Europe’s colonial exploitation in Asia and Africa reveals that equality has not been attained by all. It is extremely difficult to imagine that Europe would be capable of effecting such global equality, and nowhere is this better understood than in Asia. Oriental poets have grasped this point intuitively, as can be seen in Tagore and Lu Xun. These poets feel that it is their role to achieve such global equality. Such ideas as Arnold Toynbee’s are currently fashionable, in which the Orient’s resistance against western invasion is said to lead to the homogenization of the world, but here as well one can discern the limits of the West. Asians today would disagree with this view. Rather the Orient must re-embrace the West, it must change the West itself in order to realize the latter’s outstanding cultural values on a greater scale. Such a rollback of culture or values would create universality. The Orient must change the West in order to further elevate those universal values that the West itself produced. This is the main problem facing East–West relations today, and it is at once a political and cultural issue. The Japanese must grasp this idea as well. When this rollback takes place, we must have our own cultural values. And yet perhaps these values do not already exist, in substantive form. Rather I suspect that they are possible as method, that is to say, as the process of the subject’s self-formation. This I have called “Asia as method,” and yet it is impossible to definitively state what this might mean.

glossary

Abe Tomoji (1903–1973), novelist, critic, translator, and scholar of English literature who was a member of the Literary World journal; author of Happiness (1937). Akutagawa Ryûnosuke (1892–1927), short-story writer and essayist known for his social criticism; author of Kappa (1927) and “In a Grove” (1922). Aono Suekichi (1890–1961), Marxist literary theorist whose writings were informed by an attempt to apply Lenin’s political theories to the field of literature. Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725), Confucian scholar who played a central role in forming government policy under the Tokugawa Bakufu. Arishima Takeo (1878–1923), novelist whose humanist beliefs can be seen in his bestknown work A Woman (1919); associated with both the Shirakaba School and the proletarian literature movement. Asano Akira (1901–1990), nationalist poet and critic who committed tenkô while imprisoned for his left-wing activities; leading member of the Japanese Romantic School. Atatürk, Kemal (1881–1938), founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, known for his resistance against western imperialism and national modernization program. Bergson, Henri (1859–1941), French philosopher most noted for his theories of duration, memory, and vitalism. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. Buck, Pearl (1892–1973), American novelist raised in China and best known for her writings on Chinese life. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

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Cai Yuanpei (1863–1940), revolutionary and educator who served as chancellor of Beijing University from 1916 to 1926. Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), established New Youth journal, where he argued for intellectual revolution; later cofounded Chinese Communist Party in 1920. Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), head of the Chinese Nationalist government from 1928 to 1949; he continued to lead in exile in Taiwan. China rônin, refers to the many Japanese who traveled to China in the early twentieth century for personal adventure, economic exploitation, or participation in Chinese politics. Dazai Osamu (1909–1948), novelist whose dark writings on failure and isolation are exemplified by The Setting Sun (1947) and No Longer Human (1948). Debate to Invade Korea (1873) (Seikan ron), a plan initiated by Saigô Takamori as a means both to assert Japan’s emerging power in Asia and to restore samurai power, but opposed and finally overruled by other members of the new Meiji government. Democratic Literature (minshushugi bungaku), leftist literary movement that emerged in the immediate postwar era, associated with the New Japanese Literature Association. Dewey, John (1859–1952), American philosopher and educator who helped found the pragmatist movement; spent the years 1919 to 1921 in China. Teacher of Hu Shi. Dilthey, Wilhelm (1833–1911), German philosopher who sought to understand man and the human sciences primarily on the basis of historical change. Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich (1821–1881), Russian novelist, author of such works as Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Eliot, T. S. (1888–1965), American-British poet, critic, and dramatist; author of the poem “The Waste Land” (1922). Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Etô Jun (1933–1999), literary and social critic whose writings focus on such figures as Natsume Sôseki and Kobayashi Hideo. Eucken, Rudolf (1846–1926), German idealist philosopher who argued that man’s duty was to overcome nature and attain the spiritual life. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1908. Freedom League (Ziyou datongmeng), organization set up in 1930 by the Chinese Communist Party to resist oppression by the Nationalist government; members included Lu Xun and Yu Dafu. Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901), social reformer, author, and educator; one of the leading advocates of Japan’s “civilization and enlightenment.” Founded Keiô University in 1868. Funabashi Seiichi (1904–1976), novelist and playwright known for his participation in the prewar action movement and his erotic fiction in the postwar period. Futabatei Shimei (1864–1909), novelist and translator of Russian literature; best known for writing one of Japan’s first modern novels, Drifting Clouds (1887–1889).

Glossary

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genbun itchi (lit. “unification of speech and writing”), attempt to replace classical literary language with modern idiom, generally associated with Futabatei Shimei and Yamada Bimyô. Gorky, Maksim (1868–1936), Russian writer who emerged from the ranks of the proletariat; author of The Lower Depths (1902). Helped found socialist realism. Greater East Asia Writer’s Congress (Daitôa bungakusha taikai), literary organization set up in the 1940s to resist western colonialism in Asia and to spread proJapanese ideology among Asian writers. Guo Moruo (1892–1978), Chinese writer, scholar, translator, and high government official in the People’s Republic of China. Haga Mayumi (1903–1991), critic and scholar of German literature who was a member of the Japanese Romantic School; author of The Nation and Friendship (1942). Hashikawa Bunzô (1922–1983), political scientist and critic who also wrote on such diverse figures as Mishima Yukio and Yanagita Kunio; author of Introduction to a Critique of the Japanese Romantic School (1960). Hayashi Fusao (1903–1975), one of the leading writers of the proletarian literature movement of the 1920s; noted for refusal to renounce his tenkô after the war. Cofounder of second Literary World journal. Hearn, Lafcadio (1850–1904), writer and teacher whose works introduced Japanese culture abroad. Preceded Natsume Sôseki as professor of English at Tokyo University at the turn of the century. Heine, Heinrich (1797–1856), German poet and journalist whose works are generally associated with the German Romantic movement. Hu Shi (1891–1962), writer, social reformer, scholar, and philosopher who introduced American pragmatism to China. Leading advocate of the vernacular movement. Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693), haikai poet and writer of Edo merchant life whose humorous tales often deal with the themes of sex and money. Ikuta Chôkô (1882–1936), literary critic and influential translator of Nietzsche, Flaubert, D’Annunzio, Marx, and Dante. Inoue Tetsujirô (1855–1944), philosopher, government official, and professor at Tokyo University who sought to preserve Japanese tradition and promote reverence for the Emperor. I-novel (watakushi shôsetsu, shishôsetsu), dominant form of modern Japanese literature characterized by extended focus on the narrator’s own perspective, which was commonly identified with that of the author. Ishikawa Takuboku (1886–1912), poet and diarist known for his startlingly modern compositions of tanka poetry. Itô Sachio (1864–1913), poet, senior disciple of Masaoka Shiki; founded leading tanka journal Araragi in 1908. Japanese Romantic School (Nihon roman-ha), a group of nationalist writers and critics affiliated with the Japanese Romantic School journal (1935–1938), whose leading members included Yasuda Yojûrô and Kamei Katsuichirô.

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Japanism (Nihonshugi), the nationalist belief that the Japanese traditional spirit must serve as the foundation for all aspects of Japanese society; generally traced back to 1888 and the founding of the journal The Japanese. Kamei Katsuichirô (1907–1966), nationalist critic who committed tenkô in 1935, the same year he cofounded the journal The Japanese Romantic School. Kang Youwei (1858–1927), social reformer and scholar of Buddhism and Confucianism; attempted to modernize Chinese government and society using Meiji Japan as model. Karaki Junzô (1904–1980), critic who studied philosophy at Kyoto University under Nishida Kitarô; wrote on such literary figures as Akutagawa Ryûnosuke and Mori Ôgai. Katô Hiroyuki (1836–1916), writer and political theorist; introduced European notions of government and political science. First president of Tokyo University in 1890. Katô Shûichi (b. 1919), literary critic, scholar, and physician who argued against Japanese particularism; known for his encyclopedic knowledge and embrace of western culture. Kawakami Tetsutarô (1902–1980), critic, scholar, and cotranslator (1934) of Lev Shestov’s influential Philosophy of Tragedy; organized “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Kikuchi Masashi (1902–1974), atomic physicist who served as the first director of the Tokyo University Institute for Nuclear Study; participant in the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Kitamura Tôkoku (1868–1894), poet and essayist who developed a notion of subjective interiority based on humanist values; associated with the first Literary World journal. Kobayashi Hideo (1902–1983), influential literary and social critic whose major works focus on Dostoevsky, van Gogh, Mozart, and Motoori Norinaga. Cofounder of second Literary World. Konoe Fumimaro (1891–1945), aristocrat and prime minister of Japan (1937–1939, 1940–1941) whose weak rule contributed to the expansion of the Pacific War. Kôra Tomi (1896–1993), activist for the peace movement and the women’s rights movement known for her work as an international delegate. Kôyama Iwao (1905–1993), Kyoto School philosopher and participant in the “WorldHistorical Standpoint and Japan” symposium; noted for his wartime writings on the problematic of world history. Kropotkin, Pyotr Alekseyevich (1842–1921), Russian prince and social philosopher most famous for his development of anarchist theories. Kuno Osamu (1910–1999), philosopher and critic known for his writings on fascism, nationalism, and the Japanese constitution. Kurahara Korehito (1902–1991), proletarian literary critic jailed in the 1930s for his political activities who became one of the leaders of the Japan Communist Party after the war.

Glossary

171

Kuriyagawa Hakuson (1880–1923), literary critic and scholar of English literature who criticized Japanese values on the basis of European ethical concerns. Kuwabara Takeo (1904–1988), literary critic, scholar of French literature, and translator of Stendahl and Alain whose postwar writings attacked traditional Japanese culture. Kyoto School (Kyôto gakuha), the group of philosophers and other intellectuals centered around Nishida Kitarô and Tanabe Hajime at Kyoto University. Lamarck, Chevalier de (1744–1829), French naturalist who developed theories on biological evolution. League of Left-Wing Writers (Zuoyi zuojia lianmeng), organization set up by the Communist Party in the early 1930s to educate writers in Marxist literary theory; members included Lu Xun and Yu Dafu. Lee Sung-man (1875–1965), also known as Syngman Rhee; first president of South Korea who, with U.S. support, installed a virtual dictatorship in the country from 1948 to 1960. Liang Qichao (1873–1929), eminent scholar and social reformer; disciple of Kang Youwei who sought to assimilate western modernity within a traditional Chinese framework. Li Dazhao (1888–1927), cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party (1921) whose theories of class and revolution influenced Mao Zedong. Li Shiceng (1881–1973), Chinese anarchist thinker and scholar of biology and sociology who organized work-study programs in France. Lin Yutang (1895–1976), scholar, translator, and writer of both Chinese and English works; introduced Chinese culture to an American readership. Literary Revolution of 1917 (wenxue geming), movement to transform Chinese literary language from classical written language to one of colloquial speech; associated with Hu Shi and Lu Xun. Literary World (Bungakkai), influential journal of literature and culture founded in 1933 by Kobayashi Hideo, Hayashi Fusao, and Takeda Rintarô; hosted “Overcoming Modernity” symposium in 1942. Lunacharskii, Anatolii Vasil’evich (1875–1933), Russian philosopher, art theorist, and public official whose ideas influenced Lu Xun. Lu Xun (1881–1936), the pioneer of modern Chinese literature whose works enormously influenced Takeuchi; the subject of Takeuchi’s early writing. Mao Zedong (1893–1976), chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1959. Matsuo Bashô (1644–1694), foremost haiku poet whose travel accounts, especially The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694), are widely known. May Fourth movement (wusi yundong), movement of social reform and intellectual revolution in China from 1917 to 1921 that sought national independence and modernization of values. Miki Kiyoshi (1897–1945), philosopher and critic whose thought represented a synthesis of Marxism and early Heidegger; helped organize the government commission, the Shôwa Research Association.

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Glossary

Miyamoto Yuriko (1899–1951), Marxist-feminist writer whose major works include Nobuko (1924–1926) and The Banshû Plain (1946). Cofounder of the New Japanese Literature Association. Miyazawa Kenji (1896–1933), poet noted for his rural existence and highly imaginative use of language, in which he combined scientific and Buddhist terminology. Miyoshi Tatsuji (1900–1964), leading poet and translator of Baudelaire, founder of the poetry group Four Seasons in 1934; fervent Japanist. Mori Ôgai (1862–1922), physician, translator, and pioneer of modern Japanese literature; author of “The Dancing Girl” (1890) and The Wild Geese (1911–1913). Moroi Saburô (1903–1977), composer and music scholar who participated in the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium. Motoda Nagazane (1818–1891), Confucian scholar and tutor-advisor to the Meiji emperor; helped draft the “Imperial Rescript on Education” (1890). Munakata Shikô (1903–1975), internationally known woodblock artist noted for his unusually vigorous style; awarded Japan’s Order of Culture in 1970. Nagayo Yoshirô (1888–1961), writer and member of the Shirakaba School noted for his humanism and interest in China; author of The Bronze Christ (1923). Nakajima Kenzô (1903–1979), critic and scholar of French literature known for his writings on such topics as André Gide, music, and the Shôwa period. Nakamura Mitsuo (1911–1988), literary critic, scholar of French and Japanese literature known for his intellectual biographies of such figures as Futabatei Shimei, Tanizaki Junichirô, and Shiga Naoya. Nakano Shigeharu (1902–1979), poet, novelist, and critic, leading figure of the proletarian literature movement. Helped found the New Japanese Literature Association in 1945. Naniwada Haruo (1906–1991), economist who taught at Tokyo University known for his strong nationalist views; critic of modern rationalism. National Learning (kokugaku), intellectual movement that from the late seventeenth century to the end of the Tokugawa period promoted study of the Japanese classics and sought to exclude all foreign (Chinese, Korean) influence. Natsume Sôseki (1867–1916), one of the founders of modern Japanese literature in his capacities as novelist, scholar, and critic; author of such works as The Young Master (1906) and Kokoro (1914). Naturalism (shizenshugi), dominant literary movement in Japan that began in the early twentieth century; characterized by confessional realism and plain, unadorned language; includes such authors as Shimazaki Tôson and Tayama Katai. New Japanese Literature Association (Shin Nihon bungakkai), left-wing literary journal founded in 1945 by such former members of the Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio as Nakano Shigeharu and Miyamoto Yuriko. Sought to create a “democratic literature.” New Sensationalist School (Shinkankaku-ha), literary group active in the 1920s that introduced European modernist techniques to Japanese fiction; leading members were Yokomitsu Riichi and Kawabata Yasunari.

Glossary

173

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900), German philosopher who criticized systematic philosophy and Christianity for its rejection of life; author of Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–1892). Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio (Japanese Proletarian Writers Foundation), proletarian literature organization founded in 1928 whose members included Nakano Shigeharu and Miyamoto Yuriko. Nishida Kitarô (1870–1945), foremost philosopher of modern Japan, founder of the Kyoto School. Taught at Kyoto University from 1910 to 1928. Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), Kyoto School philosopher and professor of philosophy at Kyoto University who participated in both the “Overcoming Modernity” and the “World-Historical Standpoint and Japan” symposiums of 1941–1942. Noguchi Yonejirô (1875–1947), poet and essayist who composed verse in both Japanese and English; also known for his studies of Japanese art. Norman, E. Herbert (1909–1957), Canadian diplomat and scholar of Japanese history persecuted for his criticisms of U.S. Occupation policy and leftist sympathies. Nouvelle Revue Française, French journal of literature and the arts founded in 1909 by such leading writers as André Gide; became pro-fascist during the German Occupation. Odagiri Hideo (1916–2000), Marxist literary critic and one of the original members of the journal Modern Literature (1945). Ôkawa Shûmei (1886–1957), right-wing ultranationalist writer and activist and one of the foremost critics of European colonialism in Asia; author of Japan and the Way of the Japanese (1926). Okumura Kiwao (1900–1969), public official during the prewar and wartime eras who authored several books on Japanese politics. Origuchi Shinobu (1887–1953), famed native ethnologist and folklorist, disciple of Yanagita Kunio; attacked homogenizing effects of modern rationalism. Ôya Sôichi (1900–1970), Marxist critic and journalist known for his attempts to ground art on a notion of social reality characterized by the people. Pal, Radha Binode (1886–1967), Indian justice at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal who dissented from the majority opinion in finding all of the accused innocent. People’s Front (renmin zhanxian), coalition first proposed by the Comintern in the late 1930s for the Chinese Nationalist and Communist parties to cease civil war and present a unified resistance against Japanese aggression. political literature (seiji bungaku), form of Meiji fiction at its height in the 1880s that combined elements of earlier gesaku works with modern political philosophy. proletarian literature (Japan) (puroretaria bungaku), movement that began in the 1920s with the journal The Sower that sought to create a socialist literature written by the workers. proletarian (revolutionary) literature (China) (geming wenxue), literary movement generally associated with Guo Moruo that began in the mid 1920s; viewed literature as a site of class struggle. Ranke, Leopold von (1795–1886), German historian whose meticulous research and

174

Glossary

analyses can be seen in his History of the Popes (1834–1839); set forth notion of “moral energy” later incorporated by the Kyoto School. Rickert, Heinrich (1863–1936), German neo-Kantian philosopher who wrote on the question of the objectivity of historical values; teacher of Heidegger. Rolland, Romain (1866–1944), French novelist, dramatist, essayist, and music scholar whose best known work is Jean Christophe (1904–1912). Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), Swiss-French philosopher, political theorist, and writer whose ideas of nature and the role of emotions anticipated French Romanticism. Russell, Bertrand (1872–1970), British philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer; awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Saitô Mokichi (1882–1953), leading poet known for broadening the scope of subject matter and vocabulary of the tanka form; fervent nationalist during the war. Sako Junichirô (b. 1919), literary critic and religion scholar known for his writings on such figures as Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, Natsume Sôseki, and Dazai Osamu. San Francisco Peace Treaty, pact signed in 1951–1952 between the Allied Powers and Japan that formally concluded World War II. Sata Ineko (1904–1998), feminist-Marxist writer widely criticized for her wartime collaboration with the military government; author of Crimson (1936–1938). Satô Nobuhiro (1769–1850), nationalist scientist and political advisor who advocated westernization of social and political institutions so as to promote overseas expansion. Saud, Ibn (1880–1953), Muslim leader who helped unify and modernize Saudia Arabia. Seinan War (Seinan sensô), also known as the Satsuma Rebellion; civil war fought in 1877 between the followers of Saigô Takamori and the central Meiji government, in which the latter proved victorious. Shaw, George Bernard (1856–1950), Irish playwright, essayist, and social reformer known for his socialist views and attacks on conventional morality. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. Shimazaki Tôson (1872–1943), poet and Naturalist writer whose works chronicle the tensions of modernization in society; author of The Broken Commandment (1906) and Before the Dawn (1935). Shimizu Ikutarô (1907–1988), thinker, sociologist, and journalist who authored the influential Lectures in Sociology (1950) and Social Psychology (1951). Shimomura Toratarô (1902–1995), Kyoto School philosopher and participant in the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium; noted for his writings on science, history, and art. Shirakaba School (White Birch Society), leading Taishô period journal of literature and art that rose up against Naturalism and advocated humanism; numbered Shiga Naoya and Arishima Takeo among its members. Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich (1905–1984), Russian novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965; author of The Quiet Don (1928–1940).

Glossary

175

Sugiura Minpei (1913–2001), novelist and literary critic; author of Revolutionary Literature and Literary Revolution (1958). Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), Chinese political thinker and activist who served as leader of the Nationalist Party; set forth the “Three Principles of the People” (nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood). Suzuki Shigetaka (1907–1988), Kyoto School historian who wrote on Ranke and world history; participated with Nishitani Keiji in both the “Overcoming Modernity” and the “World-Historical Standpoint and Japan” symposiums of 1941–1942. Tagore, Rabindranath (1861–1941), Bengali poet, novelist, and essayist known for his writings on nature as well as his status as spokesman for Indian independence; awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Takami Jun (1907–1965), left-wing novelist, poet, and scholar famous for his tenkô novel, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (1935–1936). Takamura Kôtarô (1883–1956), poet known for both the ultranationalism of his wartime verse and the love poetry he devoted to his wife. Takasugi Ichirô (b. 1908), novelist, critic, and translator known for his study on the Russian activist Vasilij Eroshenko as well as his participation in the Esperanto movement. Takeda Rintarô (1904–1946), tenkô writer whose short stories deal with the sordidness of urban life; founded the journal People’s Library (1936–1938). Takeda Taijun (1912–1976), novelist, critic, and China scholar who remained one of Takeuchi’s closest friends throughout his lifetime; author of Luminous Moss (1954). Takeuchi Yoshitomo (1919–1991), philosopher who studied with Tanabe Hajime at Kyoto University known for his writings on Marx and Nishida Kitarô. Takizawa Bakin (1767–1848), major writer of the Tokugawa period whose wrote in a tone of high seriousness and didacticism; author of Biographies of Eight Dogs (1814–1842). Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), leading Kyoto School philosopher who succeeded Nishida Kitarô at Kyoto University; developed notion of the logic of species. Taut, Bruno (1880–1938), German architect of the “New Objective” school who lived in Japan from 1933 to 1936. tenkô (ideological conversion), the forced recantation of political beliefs on the part of Marxist and left-wing writers in the 1930s. Tôjô Hideki (1884–1948), soldier and prime minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944 who was later executed for war crimes. Tokutomi Sohô (1863–1957), writer and journalist who helped found the influential magazine, The Nation’s Friend (1887); known for his radical change in politics from liberal humanism to imperialist nationalism. Tolstoy, Leo (1828–1910), Russian novelist and humanist thinker; author of War and Peace (1864–1869) and Anna Karenina (1873–1876). Toynbee, Arnold (1889–1975), British historian who viewed history in terms of the processes of growth and decay; author of the monumental A Study of History (1934–1961).

176

Glossary

Tsuboi Shigeji (1897–1975), poet of the proletarian literature movement and member of the New Japanese Literature Association. Tsumura Hideo (1907–1985), film critic who participated in the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium; author of Film and Criticism (1939). Tsurumi Kazuko (b. 1918), scholar of American literature and society and cofounder of the Institute of the Science of Thought (1946); elder sister of Tsurumi Shunsuke. Tsurumi Shunsuke (b. 1922), philosopher and social critic who wrote on such diverse topics as American pragmatism, tenkô, and popular culture; cofounder of the Institute of the Science of Thought (1946). Twenty-one Demands (1915), list of concessions China was forced to make to Japan, granting the latter extensive imperialist privileges. Ueda Bin (1874–1916), poet famous for his influential translations of modern European verse, with particular emphasis on the French Symbolists. Umesao Tadao (b. 1920), scholar of social anthropology and ethnology known for developing theories of ecology to interpret history. United Front (tongyi zhanxian), coalition set up in the late 1930s between the Chinese Nationalist and Communist parties to coordinate resistance against Japanese aggression. Usui Yoshimi (1905–1987), literary critic who served as chief editor of the journal Outlook after the war. Valéry, Paul (1871–1945), French poet and essayist influenced by the Symbolists whose writings often deal with the opposition between reason and passion. Voltaire (1694–1778), French philosopher, dramatist, and poet; central figure of the Enlightenment and author of Candide (1759). Wang Guowei (1877–1927), historian and scholar of Chinese classical literature who utilized western scientific methods in his research on ancient artifacts. Wu Zhihui (1864–1954), Chinese anarchist thinker and member of the Nationalist Party known for his attacks on traditional Chinese culture in favor of scientific materialism. Xiao Jun (1908–1988), proletarian writer known for his 1935 work Village in August as well as his friendship with Lu Xun. Xie Bingxin (1900–1999), writer, poet, and translator whose children’s stories are known throughout China; lectured at Tokyo University from 1946 to 1951. Xu Zhimo (1896–1931), poet and translator who played a central role in modernizing Chinese poetry; highly influenced by Tagore. Yamamoto Kenkichi (1907–1988), literary critic known for his notion of aesthetic archetypes as well as his knowledge of waka and haiku. Yan Fu (1853–1921), writer and translator who rejected Chinese tradition in the name of science and social Darwinism; translated Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Yasuda Yojûrô (1910–1981), nationalist leader of the Japanese Romantic School who wrote on German aesthetics and traditional Japanese culture; editor of the journals Cogito (1933–1944) and Japanese Romantic School (1935–1938).

Glossary

177

Yokomitsu Riichi (1898–1947), novelist and founder of the New Sensationalist School whose work is notable for its abstract use of imagery; author of Shanghai (1928–1931). Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958), painter who attempted to revolutionize Japanese art by shifting emphasis away from lines toward color. Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–1945), Catholic theologian and participant in the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, where he argued for a return to medieval spirituality. Yoshimoto Takaaki (b. 1924), poet and literary critic known for his concepts of the people, emotion, and authentic communality. Yoshino Sakuzô (1878–1933), Christian political thinker who advocated parliamentary government and universal suffrage. Zeng Guofan (1811–1872), Chinese public official known for his Confucian morality and loyalty to the imperial regime; leader of the military force that suppressed the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Zhang Dongsun (1886–1973), philosopher known for his studies of Kant as well as his translations of Plato and Bergson. Zhang Junmai (1887–1969), also known as Carsun Chang; journalist and critic who studied under both Eucken and Bergson in Europe; known for his attacks on western materialism. Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), essayist, translator, and scholar of Japanese literature; younger brother of Lu Xun.

index of names

Abe Tomoji, 106, 112, 123, 125, 142 Akiyama Kenzô, 121 Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, 48, 74 Aono Suekichi, 119–121 Arai Hakuseki, 77 Arishima Takeo, 48 Asano Akira, 121, 140–141 Atatürk, Kemal, 79 Bergson, Henri, 98 Buck, Pearl, 156 Cai Yuanpei, 98–99, 101 Chang, Briankle G., 36 Chen Duxiu, 98 Chiang Kai-shek, 164 Chô Kakuchû, 121 Dazai Osamu, 49, 127 de Gaulle, Charles, 65 de Lamarck, Chevalier, 98 Derrida, Jacques, 37–38 Dewey, John (Dûi), xii, 2, 12, 14, 35, 37, 94–97, 100–102, 153–156, 158–159 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 132

Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich, 73–74 Eliot, T. S., 139 Endô Shûsaku, 35 Etô Jun, 122, 138–139, 141, 146 Eucken, Rudolf, 98 Fukuda Tsuneari, 106 Fukuzawa Yukichi, viii, 67, 94, 147 Funabashi Seiichi, 141 Furubayashi Takashi, 109 Furuta Hikaru, 109 Futabatei Shimei, 46–47, 56, 74, 76, 91 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 79 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 47 Gorky, Maksim, 79 Guo Moruo, 158 Haga Mayumi, 140–141 Harootunian, Harry, 39 Hasegawa Saiji, 106 Hashikawa Bunzô, 137–138, 140–142, 144 Hayashi Fusao, 111–112, 116–117 Hayashi Kentarô, 147

180

Index of Names

Hearn, Lafcadio, 81 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 12, 17–23, 27–28, 32, 37–41 Heidegger, Martin, 38 Heine, Heinrich, 46 Hino Ashihei, 121 Hirabayashi Taiko, 106, 147 Hirano Ken, 109 Honda Akira, 121 Honda Shûgo, 36 Hsu Tong, 77 Hu Shi (Ko Teki), 2, 12, 14, 35, 37, 49–50, 74, 76, 94–99, 101–102, 153, 156 Ihara Saikaku, 79 Ikuta Chôkô, 141 Inokuma Genichirô, 106 Inoue Tetsujirô, 107 Ishii Ryôsuke, 147 Ishikawa Takuboku, 40, 74 Ishikawa Tatsuzô, 121 Itô Sachio, 130 Itô Sei, 30, 106 Kamei Katsuichirô, 105–106, 111–113, 116–117, 120–121, 123–125, 135, 138, 140–141 Kang Youwei, 49, 77 Kant, Immanuel, 6, 36–37 Karaki Junzô, 139, 147 Karatani Kôjin, 9, 36, 40 Katô Hiroyuki, 75 Katô Shûichi, 139 Kawakami Tetsutarô, 106, 111, 113–121, 123, 141–142 Kawakita Michiaki, 147 Kawamori Yoshizô, 106 Kikuchi Masashi, 111–112 Kimura Takeyasu, 147 Kitamura Tôkoku, 40, 74 Kobayashi Hideo, 106, 111, 113, 116–117, 127, 141–145 Koiso Ryôhei, 121 Kon Hidemi, 106 Konoe Fumimaro, 144 Kôra Tomi, 159 Kôsaka Masaaki, 113, 147 Kôyama Iwao, 104, 113, 135 Kropotkin, Pyotr, 98 Kuno Osamu, 153 Kurahara Korehito, 44

Kuriyagawa Hakuson, 48 Kurosawa Akira, 39 Kuwabara Takeo, 30, 122, 153 Lee Sung-man, 164 Lenin, Nikolay, 74, 79 Li Dazhao, 98 Li Shiceng, 98 Li Shou, 83–84, 86–91 Liang Qichao, 94 Lin Yutang, 49–50, 74, 99 Lisse, Michel, 37 Lunacharskii, Anatolii, 47 Lu Xun (Ro Jin), x–xi, xiii, 2, 7, 15–16, 20–21, 26, 32, 35–36, 38–39, 43–53, 60, 62–64, 66, 70–81, 165 Mao Zedong, 40, 65, 162–163 Maruyama Kaoru, 121 Maruyama Masao, 2 Marx, Karl, 12, 32, 38, 165 Masaoka Shiki, 40 Matsumoto Kenichi, 34, 37 Matsuo Bashô, 79 Miki Kiyoshi, 112 Minamoto Ryôen, 39 Miyagi Otoya, 106 Miyamoto Yuriko, 44, 83–85 Miyazawa Kenji, 127 Miyoshi Tatsuji, 111, 119 Mizuhara Shûôshi, 121 Mori Ôgai, 47–49, 74, 76 Moroi Saburô, 111 Motoda Nagazane, 79 Munakata Shikô, 141 Nagayo Yoshirô, 43 Nakagawa Ikurô, 37 Nakagawa Yoichi, 121 Nakajima Kenzô, 112 Nakamura Kenichi, 121 Nakamura Mitsuo, 30, 105, 111, 113, 115, 117 Nakano Shigeharu, 44, 74, 85, 118, 130, 137, 140 Nakano Yoshio, 106 Nakayama Ichirô, 106 Nancy, Jean-Luc, 37 Naniwada Haruo, 141 Naoi Takeo, 147 Natsume Sôseki, xii, 40, 154

Index of Names Nietzsche, Friedrich, 12, 46, 48, 141 Ninna Makoto, 107–108, 110, 113, 117 Nishida Kitarô, 11, 37–39, 104 Nishitani Keiji, 111–113, 116, 147 Niwa Fumio, 106 Noguchi Yonejirô, 158 Nohara Shirô, 95 Noma Hitone, 121 Norman, E. Herbert, 76, 80–81 Odagiri Hideo, 24, 108–110, 113, 134, 137–140 Ôhira Zengo, 147 Okakura Tenshin, 40–41 Ôkawa Shûmei, 136, 146 Okumura Kiwao, 133 Olson, Lawrence, 36, 38 Ôoka Shôhei, 106 Origuchi Shinobu, 141 Ôya Sôichi, 122 Pal, Radha Binode, 125 Passin, Herbert, 147 Ranke, Leopold von, 134 Rickert, Heinrich, 131 Roggendorf, Joseph, 147 Rolland, Romain, 47 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 98 Russell, Bertrand, xii, 101, 156, 158–159 Sai Shôki, 121 Saigô Takamori, x Saigusa Yasutaka, 109, 140 Saitô Fumi, 121 Saitô Mokichi, 130 Sakai, Naoki, 37, 40 Sako Junichirô, 109–110, 117, 124, 139 Sata Ineko, 83 Satô Nobuhiro, 136 Saud, Ibn, 79 Seidensticker, Edward, 147 Seki Yoshihiko, 147 Shaw, George Bernard, 48 Shimaki Kensaku, 121 Shimazaki Tôson, 74–75 Shimizu Ikutarô, 121, 153 Shimomura Toratarô, 111, 113, 116 Sholokhov, Mikhail, 121 Stalin, Joseph, 65 Sugawara Tadashi, 106

181

Sugiura Minpei, 140, 142–143 Sun Yat-sen, 35, 48–49, 76, 79, 160–161 Suzuki Shigetaka, 111–113, 115–116, 147 Tagore, Rabindranath, 32, 79, 101, 158–159, 165 Takami Jun, 118, 122, 137, 142 Takamura Kôtarô, 74–75, 127 Takasugi Ichirô, 120–122 Takayanagi Kenzô, 147 Takeda Rintarô, 117 Takeda Taijun, 1, 150 Takeuchi Yoshitomo, 109, 134 Takeyama Michio, 147 Takizawa Bakin, 79 Tanabe Hajime, 11, 37–39, 104 Taut, Bruno, 81 Teraoka Mineo, 120 Tôjô Hideki, 65, 80, 131, 133 Tokutomi Sohô, 107 Tolstoy, Leo, 47, 73 Tomizawa Uio, 121 Toynbee, Arnold, 32, 165 Tsuboi Shigeji, 87 Tsumura Hideo, 111, 117, 121 Tsurumi Kazuko, 156 Tsurumi Shunsuke, 2, 153 Ueda Bin, 47 Ueda Hiroshi, 121 Umesao Tadao, 161–162 Uramatsu Samitarô, 105 Usui Yoshimi, 109, 124, 139 Valéry, Paul, 47, 118, 121 Voltaire, 98 Wang Guowei, 98 Watsuji Tetsurô, 11, 37 Wu Zhihui, 98 Xiao Jun, 44 Xie Bingxin, 158 Xu Zhimo, 158 Yamamoto Kenkichi, 138–139 Yan Fu, 77, 98 Yasuda Yojûrô, 111–113, 116, 121, 127, 137–138, 140–144, 146 Yokomitsu Riichi, 127

182

Index of Names

Yokoyama Taikan, 159 Yoshikawa Itsuji, 106 Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko, 111, 116 Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro, 39 Yoshimoto Takaaki, 38, 127 Yoshimura Kôsaburô, 106

Yoshino Sakuzô, 102 Zeng Guofan, 49 Zhang Dongsun, 98 Zhang Junmai, 98 Zhou Zuoren, 48