Why Japan Is Only Half-Modern
NAOI, TAKEO
The Occidental apparatus and the old Why Japan Is Tokyo Almost every visitor from abroad, driving from the airport to the center of this city, murmurs to himself: "This isn't Asia; it's Europe.''...
...Confucianism left little room for human dignity...
...Japan lacked this in the past...
...But this apparatus does not actually hold the country in its framework...
...Confronted by the modern technology of Western civilization, Japan was compelled to modernize herself rapidly in order to retain her independence...
...Only when the situation brought about by these leaders deteriorates hopelessly and becomes unbearable for the rank-and-file members are the voices of courageous individuals heeded...
...In painting, Ukiyoe flourished in the 17th century...
...Western writers and economists who have stayed here for several months often remark: "We feel quite at home in Japan...
...it's Europe.'' As his car rolls along the well-paved highway, he sees European-style, steel and cement buildings...
...Rationalism leads to science...
...Confucianism as adapted and developed by the Japanese has two distinct aspects...
...and among their elders, remnants of the old morals linger persistently...
...But its other main theme—loyalty to superiors and respect for hierarchy—did not...
...The question of how to adjust a moral structure drawn from the past to the new apparatus is crucial to Japan's present and future...
...We do not speak of supernatural powers or devils" was a motto of the Confu-cianists...
...cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles flowing in a continuous stream...
...After a dozen years of stupefaction and bewilderment as a result of the lost war, the Japanese themselves are at last beginning to ask the question...
...Aron is right...
...Indeed, the Bolshoi Theater ballet of Moscow has just finished a series of performances in Japan's principal cities, and the Berlin Philharmonia Orchestra led by Herbert von Kara-jan is arriving in a few weeks...
...If God is love, why did he create men liable to sin...
...In Europe, these institutions had been created and developed step by step over hundreds of years...
...The Shogunate, indeed, established a special institute for studying and translating foreign books more than a century before the Meij i Revolution...
...Typical of the spirit of the day was the five-point Imperial Written Oath, which sought "to destroy the old customs and follow the universal highway," and "to encourage public discussion in order to decide every issue by following public opinion...
...Religion in Japan had never been as entrenched as Catholicism in Europe, but in the 16th century the Shoguns smashed the power of the leading Buddhist temples and stripped them of their estates...
...But a new moral structure to make the apparatus function cannot be built overnight...
...In that year, the first dissection was performed on the body of an executed criminal, with the illustrations of a Danish anatomy text used as a guide...
...The concept of individual human dignity and inalienable human rights is a basic principle of modern society, which has underpinned the entire development of political democracy and social democracy...
...Powerful clans had established highly-developed educational institutions, some of which became high schools after the Revolution...
...The surprise of the medical scholars who witnessed it was beyond expression...
...They rushed to introduce these Western innovations, and in less than a century Japan was transformed into a land of modern political, social and industrial institutions...
...Even more important for Japan was Confucianism, a purely Chinese product, which became a practical social philosophy to regulate the feudal order...
...Among the younger generation, moral confusion prevails...
...Fukuzawa, not surprised at U.S...
...After one night in Tokyo, the visitor is convinced that he is in a Western city...
...Thus one of the pioneers of Japanese modernism, Yukichi Fuku-zawa, reported that he was not too surprised by the scientific achievements of the United States when he visited it in the mid-19th century...
...a small militant group can easily sway union meetings and conferences...
...But there was a difference...
...It will take a long time to build a new moral structure fitted to the modern apparatus of Japanese society—for the concepts of individual judgment and responsibility, human dignity and rights, are largely alien to Japanese cultural traditions...
...One is the teaching of loyalty to superiors: lords, masters, elders, parents and so on...
...Through reason, they attempted to show contradictions and inconsistencies in Christian doctrines of creation, sin, miracles and so forth: "It is said God created the world...
...Several conditions were favorable to modernization...
...The moral structure comes from the past...
...The\ laboriously translated the book in the next four years...
...Not only nobles, but the sons of merchants and farmers were attending these institutions in increasing numbers during the 19th century...
...Certaintly there was no Reformation to inculcate the concept of individual judgment and responsibility...
...Kabuki, originating from the Noh drama of the feudal lords, was firmly established as a bourgeois drama at this time...
...The institute lasted until the Meiji Revolution, was renamed Imperial University after it...
...And visitors from these other Asian countries are invariably impressed by the achievements of Japanese modernization, and seek to learn all they can from Japanese experience...
...Relying on rationalism, the Tokugawa authorities could fight Christian doctrines quite effectively...
...Foreign economists find, to their surprise, the most modern industrial enterprises living side-by-side with remnants of the precapitalist economy...
...The rationalism of Confucianism, as we have seen, favored modernization...
...A healthy union always seems to spring from the ruins of old leadership...
...The modern apparatus was supplemented by new political, social and educational reforms, while the old morals and institutions were thoroughly destroyed...
...scientific progress, was deeply impressed by American political and social achievements...
...That isn't true of other Asian countries...
...Buddhism, which became an important element in Japanese society, was transmitted through China, which had imported it from India...
...Foreigners who stay a while, however, soon become aware that there is something a bit "off" about this Japanese modernization...
...It should be noted that Japan was far ahead of other Asian nations, also, in the degree of its secularization...
...He added, however, that he was unprepared for the novel American social institutions: legislatures, banks, hospitals and so forth...
...By the middle of the Tokugawa Shogunate, at the close of the 17th century, enabled modernization to proceed so rapidly after the Revolution in 1868...
...Among other things, the problem of the Communist threat in Japan must be approached from this perspective...
...pedestrians, even women and children, wearing European clothes and shoes...
...It thus imported the whole apparatus of democracy but lacked the spirit which made it function...
...After the Meiji Revolution, the Tenno (lit., Heavenly Sovereigns Emperor) system—again demanding unconditional loyalty—worked unfavorably for the development of these concepts...
...Japan imported them ready-made...
...His friend here, perhaps an old Japanese hand, will add: "Not just a Western city, but an international city...
...Thus, one might say that in the Japan of the past vertical morals—demanding loyalty and sacrifice—were highly developed, but horizontal morals—evoking respect for individual rights and responsibilities—were not...
...If God is omnipotent, why has His love not reached the Japanese until now...
...She received these influences indirectly through the continent...
...In contrast with the Chinese, self-generating, self-contained and self-satisfied, the Japanese have been dynamic and open-minded in absorbing outside influences...
...Again, there was little room for the concepts of individual worth and human dignity—a sharp contrast to the Judeo-Christian doctrine that God created man in His own image...
...Thus, foreign influence never appeared in the raw form of political or military pressure...
...In Kabuki, religion plays a subsidiary role, and the drama turns chiefly on love, honor and money...
...its themes were taken from the every-day life of the plain people...
...The Zen variety, in particular, is close to outright atheism...
...The year 1771 was decisive in the development of science in Japan...
...Until 1945, Japan was never invaded or occupied by a foreign power...
...Along with rationalism and secularism among the conditions which expedited modernization after 1868 was a complex system of education...
...then who created God...
...It was the latter which is said to have turned even veteran Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits against Christianity...
...Japan was able to maintain her own traditions while accepting and digesting those of other civilizations...
...A state institute was established to teach this Confucian learning...
...Most of what Aron calls "the moral structure" of present-day Japan stems from this learning...
...You can see American films, British films, French, Italian, German and even Soviet films here...
...In addition to rationalism, secularism was already on the scene when modernization began in 1868...
...Other leaders of Japanese modernization who went to Europe during the 19th century received the same impression...
...The other is rationalism...
...By the close of the 18th century, virtually all the fundamental European works on astronomy, medicine, mathematics and natural history had been translated...
...Thus, in the trade unions, a few leaders command the entire situation...
...In significant contrast to many Asian nations contemplating modernization today, the trained personnel necessary to administer it were being prepared before the Revolution...
...In literature, we find Saikaku, who reduced all human conflicts to sex and money—a forerunner of 19th-century naturalism...
...and is now Tokyo University...
...Japanese taxis are nicknamed kami-kaze by foreign residents, and are notorious for their incessant honking...
...Though Japan never experienced the Protestant Reformation, with its attendant ethic, she may well have been the first modern country to free itself from clerical domination...
...The Japanese moral structure of the past was also framed in part by Buddhism—which is, in general, pantheistic...
...One after another, Japamoral structure Only Half-Modern By Takeo Naoi nese political leaders went abroad, to be astonished at and assimilate Western civilization...
...Completion of this work may be said to mark the dawn of modern Japanese civilization...
...First, the Japanese historically have not feared alien cultures, but have traditionally been ready to accept and assimilate them...
...It was a good example of Toynbee's theory of challenge and response...
...Secularization proceeded rapidly in the next century...
...Japanese modernization began with the Meiji Revolution in 1868, which ended the rule of the Shoguns (military governors), restored the power of the Emperor, and launched Japan on a program of economic expansion...
...At the end of World War II, the Japanese islands were occupied by American soldiers and ruled by them directly for seven years...
...it was used to justify the suppression of individual rights...
...And the maladjustment is most conspicuous in the country's political and social life...
...Your way of thinking and reasoning is like ours...
...Thus, Raymond Aron, who spent several months in Japan four years ago, summed up his observations (in The Mystery of Japanese Politics) as follows: "Elections, Parliament, political parties, trade unions, freedom of the press—the entire apparatus of Occidental democracy has been put into operation...
...They find Japan's cities the noisiest and least orderly in the world...
...So ran their reasoning, which prominent scholars had appeared in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, natural history, medicine and agricultural science...
...In the early Tokugawa Era, at the start of the 17th century, the Shogunate encouraged Confucianism as "stale learning," rejecting Buddhism and later Christianity...
...Japan's island status was critical in this regard...
...In regard to Western influences from olden times (Greek influence on Indian art, Persian influence on Chinese art), Japan stood, so to speak, at the end of the line...
...And here we return to the "moral structure" of the past and to the Confucianism which largely shaped the Japanese moral structure of the past...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 41
