The Problem of Japanese Modernity

An Overture: Japan and World Modernities 

Tani Buncho (1763-1840) A view of Xiao and Xiang rivers, 1788

One of the biggest problems in discussing any topic in cross-cultural philosophy is the basic assumptions that we have about the history of philosophy. When we ask fundamental philosophical questions—such as “what counts as philosophy?” “what do we mean by secularization?” and “how did modernity come to be and shape our lives today?”—we usually look at a historical narrative to define these terms. Then, we apply these definitions to other intellectual and cultural contexts. In other words, historians of philosophy construct genealogies of terms such as “modernity” and “secularization” in relation to the context of one relatively coherent history of ideas and almost immediately assume that it makes sense to apply the same genealogy to other intellectual and cultural histories.

This approach is certainly beneficial when we try to make sense of other cultures from a specific viewpoint. In fact, precisely for this reason, most countries in the world recognize the value of systematic study or scientific investigations set forth in the rich intellectual history of Europe. However, if we adopt this method for our exploration of the histories of world philosophies, we risk various kinds of “colonial” thinking, which François Laruelle has warned may result in what he calls philosophical “cloning.” Such an investigation may appear to be a genuine comparative study. But, in fact, one side repackages the other as if it were the same thing as itself. It becomes what Nishitani Keiji and William Desmond have described as a “closed dialectic,” which is a clever repetition of the same narrative in different languages where a cultural essentialism is disguised as benign universalism of (Anglo-European) ideas. Simply put, if our investigation into the notion of “modernity” in the intellectual history of Japan only affirms the same notion preconceived in reference to the Anglo-European philosophical context, then it will not discover any genuine cross-cultural or comparative understanding of “modernity.”

So, when we are talking about Japanese philosophy, we must approach the fundamental philosophical questions with some cross-cultural sensitivity: Does it make sense for us to apply the concept of “modernity” to the intellectual history of Japan? If so, how should we frame our questions concerning this concept in relation to the history of Japanese philosophy? 

Maruyama Masao and the Question of Japanese Modernity

Maruyama Masao

While this article cannot singlehandedly answer the question of Japanese “modernity” (kindai 近代) or “modernization” (kindaika 近代化), a helpful place to start will be to examine how previous philosophers have talked about this issue within their historical and cultural contexts. One of the most prominent thinkers on Japanese modernity is Maruyama Masao 丸山眞男 (1914–1996). Though his theories are mainstream in Japan, his work has managed to stay outside the bounds of philosophical scholarship in English (perhaps because we are busy “cloning” the history of European philosophy here in Europe. Or, maybe because Maruyama’s critique of Japanese academia as forming a “closed society” ironically applies to his own work). At any rate, it does not take much to prove the impossibility of expanding the Genealogy of Modernity project to Japan without reflecting on the ideas in Maruyama Masao Shū, among his other writings.

What I would like to achieve in this and subsequent articles is not to give a simplified overview of Maruyama’s theory of modernity as a whole, but to look more specifically at passages from his oeuvre, which have never been translated into English and which exhibit his understanding of a specifically Japanese modernity. This approach will also familiarize the reader with the web of the historical narratives that compose the intricate portrait of Japanese modernity.

Japan’s Modernity as the “Composite of Super- and Pre-Modernity”

Koga Harue’s Sea (1929). Oil on canvas. The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

A general understanding of modernization in the history of Japan must consider what the Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō 和辻哲郎 (1889-1960) once called the “tragedy of Japan”—namely, Sakoku 鎖国. The Tokugawa shogunate closed its borders to the rest of the world between 1639–1854, and their limited commercial relation with China and the Dutch East India Company was meant to nurture its dictatorial strength within its territory. The decline of the military government in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, led to a revolution by the “supporters” of the Japanese Imperial Court, which is now known as the “Meiji Restoration.” During this period of political reformation, we observe a rapid process of “modernization” with an unprecedented influx of Anglo-European ideas, words, values, ways of life, and technologies. Some scholars have pointed to 1868 as the year Japan became “modern,” thereby strictly equating Japanese modernization with westernization.

Maruyama contests this simplistic view in his essay “Japanese Thought” (1957). He argues that there cannot be a clear division between the Japanese and the western when we look at the process by which Japanese intellectuals made sense of western ideas. Moreover, the opening of the national borders (kaikoku 開国) also required the Japanese to reflect—probably for the first time—on the distinct identity of their country vis-à-vis others. According to Maruyama this self-reflective motion in the process of modernization/westernization is unique to modernization in Japan, which clearly deviates from the linear development of a civilization from the pre-modern to the modern, such as we see in history of Europe. Precisely because Japan had grafted what was available in Anglo-European modernity—without paying attention to its pre-modern roots—onto its socio-political and cultural milieu (i.e., fūdo 風土), the Japanese people, in Maruyama’s view, had no choice but to end up with a strange mixture of “super-modernity” and “pre-modernity” as their peculiar form of “modernity.”

How do “super-modernity” and “pre-modernity” appear (and reappear) in the history of “modern” Japan? Over the course of his career, Maruyama gave many examples of this in Japanese history. However, I would like to close this article with one remarkable example from the abovementioned essay, “Japanese Thought.” In the middle of the nineteenth century, Japanese makers of the constitutional monarchy had to define the basic principles of governing, which were to put the whole of the new political system in motion. However, since these revolutionaries were trying to “resurrect” the ancient monarchy after overthrowing the shogunate, they did not discuss the “rise of the decision-making-subject” in the very socio-political context in which they had waged and justified the revolution. Their liberation from dictatorial feudalism, in other words, did not lead, as we might expect, to the establishment of a new government that would guarantee popular sovereignty. Maruyama sheds light on this peculiar end-result of “restoration” by focusing on the dialogue concerning the function of laws, which was famously debated between two Meiji intellectuals and statesmen, Itō Hirobumi 伊藤博文 (1841–1909) and Mori Arinori 森有礼 (1847–1889).

Mori raised an objection to the draft of the Meiji Constitution when he was ruminating on the clause about the “rights and responsibilities of the people” (shinmin 臣民). Given that they were aiming at launching the Imperial Constitution, he said, the “people” here must refer to the subject who is subordinate to the imperial court: hence, it does not make sense to talk about their rights in the constitution. Contra Mori, Itō argued that the establishment of the constitution primarily aims at the limitation of the imperial prerogatives and the protection of people’s rights: hence, “if we only list the responsibility of the people and not their rights, there is no need to create a new constitution.” To this, Mori (who was well versed in the Constitution of the United States) responded: “property rights and freedom of speech are naturally given” and “it would be impossible to talk about the rise of these rights with the establishment of the new constitution.” Mori lost this debate and Itō’s interpretation became the basis of the new political and judicial system in Meiji Japan.

Harue Koga’s Woman Sitting on the Veranda

Maruyama argues that this dialogue is far more complex than it looks on the surface and also that it represents the ambiguous nature of Japanese modernity. On the one hand, Mori, adhering to the public-private dichotomy, held that the constitution applies only to the public sphere, while the rights and freedoms of the individual transcend the bounds of the human law. Itō, on the other hand, held that the only individual who can freely stand outside the relation of rights and responsibility, articulated in the constitution, is the emperor, thereby sublating the rights and freedom of the people into the edict of the Meiji constitution. Interestingly, as Maruyama rightly observes, “Mori leaves the question of who can make the ultimate decision about the ruler–subject relation unanswered” while Itō gives a much more “consistent” representation of the imperial reign. However, as Maruyama insightfully points out, “nobody was thinking about the idea that the people themselves should achieve the ground of judgment concerning the validity of the whole judicial system that protects the private and ordinary rights and freedom of the individuals.”

This debate between Itō and Mori over the establishment of the modern Japanese constitution does not paint a simple picture of Japanese modernity. It does not end with the complete liberation of the people from the feudal, dictatorial past, nor with victorious freedom fighters, establishing the government that is answerable to the people as the shinmin. It gives a strange admixture of super- and pre-modernity. It is super-modern because, at one point, the foundation of human rights is said to fall outside the human-made constitution such that the unalienable rights and freedom of the modern subject is seen as the absolute. Mori’s stance in this sense was far more modern than what the historical context of Japan at that time was able to dream of.

Jun Inoue Live Painting at Backwoods Gallery

Yet, this nation was still pre-modern because the freedom from the feudal system concluded with a systematic sublation of individual rights and freedom to the edict of the new state. Modernity that ends with a structural violation of individual rights and freedom, for Maruyama, is far from being modern but implies a reversion to pre-modernity where the possibility of military dictatorship is left unchecked. The Meiji period is certainly called “modern” (kindai) in Japan today. Maruyama’s concern is that the term in Japanese is somehow truncated from the European genealogy of modernity such that it cannot mean the same thing as it does in European languages. Anglo-European modernity, for him, is characterized by the emergence of the self-reflective and autonomous subject who recognizes his or her unalienable rights and freedom. On the basis of this self-awareness, the constitution should be drafted to protect and guarantee popular sovereignty, limited government, and separation of powers, etc. The establishment of Meiji constitution, however, shows that the Japanese lawmakers in the nineteenth century did not justify their overthrow of the previous shogunate and establishment of a new government (by and for the people) by appealing to this understanding of modern subjectivity. On the one hand, the people of Japan did not reflect on the rights and freedom of individuals. On the other, the constitution was not designed in substance to protect their rights and freedom at all costs. Thus, they ended up with a constitutional monarchy that appeared to undermine the rights and freedom of the people in the same way as the dictatorial feudalism did. In this sense, even though the Japanese term, kindai, sounds as though it means the same thing as its Anglo-European counterpart, “modernity,” they are far from communicating the same thing. Otherwise, Maruyama thinks, the Meiji constitution would have accounted for a robust sense of modern subject and successfully subverted the rise of Japanese imperialism in the following century.

Takeshi Morisato PhD is a Visiting Researcher, at KU Leuven in the Department of Japanese Studies.