Author: 壬

The Fallacy of Freedom as Identified by Jiwei Ci

Jiwei Ci identifies two ways by which human beings acquire agency and constitute their own subjectivity, “agency-through-freedom” and “agency-through-identification.”1 Throughout his book, Moral China in the Age of Reform, Ci pays more attention to “agency-through-identification” because he sees this method as characterizing Chinese society. However, an analysis of Ci’s claims concerning “agency-through-freedom”, which he presents as an ideal type of modern liberal societies, provides some useful insights into the nature of liberal democratic rule. In addition to illuminating some surprising characteristics of this type of governance, Ci’s discussion of freedom in liberal societies reinforces the pessimistic outlook that characterizes the whole of his work.

Ci argues that political contestation over the socialization process of an individual can result in the production of concrete “socially delineated freedoms” that are evidence of “relations of domination”, therefore, “the fact that freedoms can be framed by relations of domination, along with the fact that people can be ideologically induced to turn a blind eye to such framing, is the Achilles heel of a society marked by agency-through-freedom.”2 It is therefore the appearance of choice, not the actual existence of which, that creates a society where citizens are said to enjoy freedom. This claim relates to an earlier one made by Ci, that freedom as a mode of subjection is the “secret of liberal society” because it “simultaneously helps give a specific expression to the human need for agency and bring[s] agents into line with the particular kind of order that prevails in their society.”3 Citizens are empowered as agents who are supposedly “free”, but in reality their activities are influenced by the nature of the prevailing form and content of order in their society. This creates the impression that liberal societies are characterized by the least repressive form of governance, despite the fact that each citizen must formulate their ideas and actions according to a set of options which are constructed as socially acceptable by the powers that be.

There is another important stipulation, which is that the construction of societal values must be done in an indirect way which avoids alerting its citizens to the existence of this process: “under modern conditions, the struggle for domination can be won only when the hand that imposes values is able to render itself invisible.”4 In order for a set of values to be successfully adhered to in a society, they must be imposed in a way which reinforces the concept that citizens are free – both in content and in manner of implementation. This vision of liberal society as essentially a fallacy, is incredibly disheartening, especially considering that Ci positions liberal democratic societies as much more beneficial to the everyday citizen than the kind of authoritarian government found in China. This leaves the reader with the impression that Chinese society is in a crisis which cannot easily be escaped, and even if it is, the result will be a freedom that is far from perfect.

Bibliography

Ci, Jiwei, Moral China in the Age of Reform (New York, 2014). 

 

  1. Jiwei Ci, Moral China in the Age of Reform (New York, 2014), pp. 93-94. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 97. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 49. [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 197 [↩]

Kuki Shūzō and Nishida Kitarō – Fascists or Subjects of Ideological Manipulation?

Christopher Goto-Jones makes the convincing argument that Nishida Kitarō did not promote facist ideologies, but instead that he expressed opposing political views with philosophical language. Goto-Jones argues that Nishida employed orthodox vocabulary in his political texts from the 1930s and 1940s in order to ensure that his texts would be published and also to avoid punishment from the increasingly totalitarian government.1 Nishida is often regarded as the founder of the Kyoto School, however unlike other groups of thinkers who are unified by an academic institution or an official organization, the Kyoto School can be used to loosely group together a diverse set of thinkers who did not formally organize.2 Although historiography on the Kyoto School is varied, the dominant view is expressed by James Heisig, who defines the school in terms of three central contributors: Nishida, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji.3 Although these figures may all be thought of as belonging to the Kyoto School, their philosophical thought differed greatly. This had adverse effects on Nishida in particular, the oldest of the three scholars, whose words were quoted out of context, thereby “manipulating his linguistic and ideological conventions into forms that resonated much more closely with the ultra-nationalist orthodoxy.”4 The language used by Nishida, necessitated by security concerns due to an overbearing government, created the possibility for ideological manipulation which resulted in Nishida’s thought being viewed as fascist.

The framework that Goto-Jones uses to exonerate Nishida from claims that he supported Japan’s brutal imperialism is a useful tool which can be instrumentalized in a discussion about Kuki Shūzō to show how the representation of Kuki’s ideas as fascist resulted from a lack of contextualization. Kuki is described as having been on the fringe of the Kyoto School, probably due to his teaching position at Kyoto Imperial University more so than due to similarities in philosophical orientation.5 Despite the fact that Kuki is not considered a central figure in the Kyoto school, and that his philosophy was markedly different than Nishidas, his ideas were also taken out of their original context and used to support facist ideologies. Similar to the process of de-contextualization of Nishida’s works which Goto-Jones describes as contributing to the false classification of this scholar as a fascist, Kuki’s writings have been taken out of their original context in order to support the claim that he was an active supporter of the fascist policies of the Japanese government.

In the case of Nishida, this ideological manipulation was undertaken by his fellow Kyoto School scholars, whereas in the case of Kuki it was done by scholars such as Leslie Pincus. Pincus argues that “By the late 1930s, Kuki had enlisted the tripartite structure of iki in the service of an ultranationalist imperial state.”6 In this view, Kuki’s vision of the aesthetic style of pre-Westernized Japan which he saw as a signifier of Japan’s capacity to excel in the modern world, as described in Iki no kōzō, provides an philosophical basis for Japanese domination in East Asia. As Yukiko Koshiro observes, Pincus’s failure to include Kuki’s other philosophical works in her study “dilutes the overall validity of her analysis.”7 Similar to the way in which Nishida’s works were taken out of the political context in which he wrote them to demonstrate his supposed support for fascist policies, Pincus uses Kuki’s Iki no kōzō without locating the text among his other contributions to show how it was used as a tool of cultural fascism. The alternative view, that “Kuki was unlikely to have been a willing and active conscript in serving the ideology that fueled Japan’s imperialism”, is more convincing because it accounts for the scholars lack of control over the ideological manipulations that their work is subject to.8 Goto-Jones’ analysis of Nishida’s works is a useful framework for an investigation into the political orientation of Kuki because it demonstrates how a philosopher’s work can be enlisted in fascist state policy, regardless of the author’s intentions.

  1. Christopher Goto-Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School and Co-Prosperity (London, 2009), pp. 81-86. [↩]
  2. Bret Davis, ‘The Kyoto School’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2019, [accessed 14 November 2020]. [↩]
  3. James Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (University of Hawaii Press, 2001), p. 3-7 and 275-278 as cited in Davis, ‘The Kyoto School.’ [↩]
  4. Goto-Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan, p. 105. [↩]
  5. James Heisig, Thomas Kasulis, and John Maraldo (eds.), ‘Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School’, in Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Honolulu, 2011), p. 829 [↩]
  6. Leslie Pincus, ‘In a Labyrinth of Western Desire: Kuki Shuzo and the Discovery of Japanese Being’, Boundary, 18: 3 (1991), p. 154. [↩]
  7. Yukiko Koshiro, ‘Review of Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shūzō and the Rise of National Aesthetics (Berkeley, 1996), by Leslie Pincus’, The Review of Politics, 59: 3 (Summer, 1997), p. 607. [↩]
  8. Hiroshi Nara, The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo (Honolulu, 2004), p. 6. [↩]

The American Encounter with Buddhism: What it tells us about Japan and it’s Pursuit of Modernity

In the second chapter of The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent, Thomas Tweed discusses American engagement with Buddhism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Tweed explains that, “This study analyzes the public conversation about Buddhism (in English) and focuses on Euro-American Buddhists.”1 The author describes a contradictory engagement with Buddhism in America: the chapter starts off with evidence of Buddhism’s proliferation in America, but quickly turns to consider the many factors which limited American support of Buddhism. In addition to shedding light on American reactions to Buddhism, Tweed’s chapter, “Shall We All Become Buddhists?” points to major differences in Japanese and Chinese engagement with overseas populations, and illuminates in particular the Japanese relationship with modernity. 

In his discussion about Asian-American Buddhists, Tweed asserts that “The Japanese provided greater support for their immigrant Buddhist communities than the Chinese. They apparently did so, in part, in response to Christian missionary efforts.”2 As evidence for this assertion, he points to the 1898 decision by the Japanese Jodo-Shin-shu (True Pure Land Sect) to send two representatives to the United States to study immigrant spiritual practices and the subsequent move by the Kyoto headquarters to send two missionaries, officially recognizing the Buddhist mission in America. Tweed’s observations are useful in a discussion of Japanese reactions to Western industrialization and modernization. Just as the arrival of Mathew Perry’s “black ships” in 1854 threatened Japanese sovereignty, Christian missionaries’ attempt to convert Japanese immigrants in America jeopardized the future of one of the major Japanese religious traditions. Japanese powers intervened to preserve Pure Land Buddhism in America and therefore prove that it was a religion suited for the modern age. Tweed points out that as opposed to Japanese powers, the Chinese did not send missionaries to their American immigrant communities.3 The resulting poor adherence to Buddhism that Tweed notes among Chinese-Americans mirrors China’s failure to institute the systematic program of modernization undertaken in the Meiji era in Japan.  

Both the adoption of Western ideas about Chinese-Americans and the copying of certain Western elements of Buddhism that Tweed observes also represent manifestations of Japan’s pursuit of modernity. Although they largely arrived after the Chinese, “Japanese immigrants, often repeating American criticism of the Chinese, tried to distinguish themselves from the “lower class” Chinese who seemed unable to assimilate.”4 This adoption of western beliefs allow Japanese-Americans to elevate themselves to a status above Chinese-Americans, and therefore separate themselves from a “less developed” nation. In addition, Tweed comments that “A limited amount of Americanization and Protestantization also occurred in Japanese Pure Land Buddhist communities before World War I.”4 The construction of Buddhism along Western lines demonstrates Japan’s attempt to Westernize within the traditional Japanese framework of Pure Land Buddhism. Modern Western powers attained global primacy through intense industrialization and a Christian civilizing mission, Japan sought to do the same by utilizing the discursive tradition made available by Buddhism. 

This pattern is indicative of the new conceptualization of religion which emerged in mid nineteenth century Japan “as both transcending the profane society and responsible for improving and ‘civilizing’ its mores.”5 Religion was now seen as a force separate from the state, that could be used as a tool in Japan’s civilizing and modernizing mission. The Japanese policy regarding Buddhism in America mirrors the propagation of Christianity as a “civilizing religion” by Western powers and is a reaction to the introduction of Western modernity which reached Japan, along with Perry’s ships, in 1854. 

 

Bibliography 

Tikhonov, V. M, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea – The Beginnings, 1883-1910: Survival as an Ideology of Korean Modernity (Brill, 2010). 

Tweed, Thomas, The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent (UNC Press Books, 2005). 

 

 

  1. Thomas Tweed, The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent (UNC Press Books, 2005), p. 38 [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 36 [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 35 [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 37 [↩] [↩]
  5. V. M. Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea – The Beginnings, 1883-1910: Survival as an Ideology of Korean Modernity (Brill, 2010), p. 113. [↩]

The Tonghak and the Chinese Communist Party: Parallels in Tactics and Historiography

A comparison can be drawn between the evolution of the Tonghak movement from 1894 to 1910 in Korea and developments in the family reform debate in China from 1915 to 1953, particularly in reference to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) role in this debate. Although these two historical developments might appear unrelated, in both of the periods examined a radical reformulation of important precedents takes place. The Tonghak religion “presented itself as incarcerating the best of Korean and Eastern tradition in a new and accessible way to regenerate both individuals and society.”1 In China, the CCP propagated a new version of the xiao jiating ideal which has been introduced decades earlier by New Culture intellectuals. While the specific policies of the Tonghak and the CCP differed, both groups sought societal regeneration, largely in the form of modernization, as their final goal. Key to both Tonghaks and the CCP was the importance of individual change and societal change. What differentiated the CCP, however, is their linking of these two factors in a casual relationship. 

In both cases, the strategy employed to achieve this goal was ideological manipulation according to what the historical moment made available to that group. In the Tonghak’s case, an ideological repositioning took place under the leadership of the third patriarch, Son Pyong-hui, in which the group abandoned it’s former anti-foreign stance in favor of Japanese intervention in Korea. Carl Young points out that the activities of the Chinbohoe, an offspring of the Tonghak which merged with the Ilchinhoe in 1905, “saw the war between Russia and Japan as an opportunity to advance their agenda by using Japanese support to overthrow the conservative government surrounding Emperor Kojong and take over government”2 The anti-foreign sentiment of the Tonghak gives way to a policy of supporting Japanese rule due to a desire to realize its goal of preserving Korean sovereignty. Just like the Tonghak reformulate their policy in order to best position themselves for success, the xiao jiating ideal is adapted by the CCP to serve their political and social goals. While the Tonghak engaged in ideological repositioning, the CCP re-imagined the ideological underpinnings of an existing ideal in order to subsume the activities of individuals under the interest of the state: “the state became the beginning and the end, the mode of social organization, and the object of all energies and loyalties.”3 This allowed the CCP to exert control in every aspect of its citizen’s lives under the guise of family reform. The ideological manipulation pursued by the Tonghaks and the CCP allowed both groups to formulate policies which were most beneficial to them at the time.  

In addition to similar ideological tactics employed by the Tonghak and the CCP, what this discussion reveals is a tendency to disregard specific historical trends in order to preserve an all-encompassing narrative. In his work on the split in the Tonghak religion, Young observes, “the fact that there were some elements of Tonghak that actively cooperated with the Japanese is disturbing and is often not discussed because it does not fit with the simple structure of history that has often been framed by Korean political ideologies.”4 In relation to Chinese visions of family and state in the early 20th century, Susan Glosser points out that there has been a lack of scholarship which connects the New Cultural intellectual’s linking of the individual and the state in their propagation of the xiao jiating ideal in the early twentieth century, with the CCPs subsequent policy. Glosser argues that this provides the basis for CCP policy, “although the CCP was most effective in lengthening the reach of the state, the invasive potential of the state was not peculiar to the CCP.”5 Despite similarities discussed above, the Tonghak and the CCP are very different organizations which existed in distinct contexts. However, a close analysis reveals a connection between the ideological distortions pursued by each group and the treatment of these in historical writing on the topic. 

  1. Carl Young, ‘Eastern Learning Divided: The Split in the Tonghak’, in Emily Anderson (ed.), Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea (Springer, 2016), p. 80. [↩]
  2. Young, ‘Eastern Learning Divided’, p. 83. [↩]
  3. Susan Glosser, Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953 (University of California Press, 2003), p. 186 [↩]
  4. Young, ‘Eastern Learning Divided’, p. 80. [↩]
  5. Glosser, Chinese Visions of Family and State, p. 200. [↩]