Author: Jack Englehardt

When reading Kevin Doak’s Dreams of Difference in week 9, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the Japan Romantic School and the French Annales School. In their novel approach to the study of history (informed by economics, sociology, and anthropology), the historians of the Annales School opened Western historiography to a wealth of new disciplines. Though ostensibly a literary group, the Japan Romanic School shared the same multi-disciplinary approach. Their reservations about modern Japan were articulated through a variety of mediums, including historical fiction, poetry, and aesthetics.

In particular, I’d like to draw a parallel between the work of Jinbō Kōtarō and Fernand Braudel, who independently confronted the dominance of narrative time in their respective societies. Jinbō understood that poetry was a “revolutionary epistemology… central to the romantic vision.” As “the voice of youth”, poetry “signified an artistic space in which the romantics could act on their revolutionary impulses.”¹. To Jinbō, words possessed spiritual power and had the power to elucidate meaningful change (similar to the concept of kotodama mentioned during our readings on Japanese Nativism and Oomoto).

Kōtarō’s faith in poetry extended beyond mere literature. He felt poetry was the key to a new logic of spatiality. In his short essay titled “The Acquisition of New Time”, Jinbō suggests nothing less than the “supplanting of narrative history, the logic of developmental time, that lies at the center of modernity.” Like the rest of the Japan Romantic School, Jinbō felt that ancient space had to be defended against the dissociative effects of the modern world. A new conception of poetic time would be the newest weapon in their arsenal.

Braudel approached history from a similarly radical perspective. His groundbreaking history of the medieval France was one in which “the individual was subsumed by the environment”. Philip II was swallowed by the Mediterranean world, in an epic history whose heroes were not men but “grain and cereal crops, disease, technology, and transport, money, housing and clothing.”² Braudel’s Annales schools aimed for nothing less than the “take-over of historical production: a rejection of narrative (histoire événeémentielle)”.³

With his rejection of the history of ‘great men’ and their crowning achievements, Braudel cut a bold course through the study of Western history. The introduction of ‘geologic time’ in its immense impersonality was a way to champion the everyman, and draw new fields of study into the historical discourse. Jinbō shared the same ambition with his suggestion of ‘poetic time’, which he felt could save the soul of Japan through the revival of ancient space. Both men would leave measurable impacts not just on their respective movements, but on the way we measure and memorialize the past itself.

1. Kevin Michael Doak, Dreams of Difference: The Japan Romantic School and the Crisis of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994),28. [↩]
2. Olwen Hufton, “Fernand Braudel,” Past & Present no. 112 (August 1986): 209-211. [↩]
3. Ibid, 208. [↩]

At the invitation of Sukarno, the charismatic leader of newly independent Indonesia, delegates from twenty-nine Asian and African states converged on the city of Bandung in April of 1955. Its leaders, who included Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru, hoped to form a new trans-national axis to better serve the needs of developing states (many of whom had only very recently thrown off the shackled of colonialism). The ‘Bandung Spirit’ wasn’t concerned with the communist internationalism of the Soviet Union or the strategic militarism of the United States. Bandung was “the first inter-continental conference of coloured peoples in the history of mankind”, determined to unite against colonialism and shift the international dialogue away from its exclusionary Cold-War construction¹ .

Sunil Amrith’s article in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (assigned as further reading from week 8) gives an excellent introduction to the ideological forces at play during this symbolic assertion of post-colonial power on the global stage. The principles of the United Nations, so recently enumerated, explicitly delegitimized race as grounds for political discrimination, and forever placed human rights into the international mainstream. Globalism was a powerful force, but it had become “the almost exclusive province of the dominant, mostly Anglophone, elite of development managed, technocrats, strategists and financiers”² . The common people of Asia and Africa had rallied around state-centric nationalism, which had largely delivered them from colonial rule. Interestingly, this relationship had been reversed before the war, when aristocrats clung to national glory and the working class expressed their discontent through anarchist and communist internationalism. Ultimately, the state-centric model of national development would prevail, newly clarified through the experiences of ‘third world’ states.

Kita Ikki was active several decades before the Bandung Conference, but his advocacy of a ‘people’s state’ would nonetheless inform and inspire the ‘Bandung Spirit’ of later years. Much like the fathers of postcolonial Asia, Kita was disappointed with what he saw as a reactionary, undemocratic international order. The West had dominated Asia’s development with its singular pursuit of capital, perpetuating inequality not just between classes, but between nations within the international order. Kita understood that “the question of Japan’s relations with its neighbors was inextricably bound with how to secure its position against the Western powers”, and felt a bulwark of Asian states (united under Japan) was essential for their continued survival³ . The sensation of Asian resurgence would resurface in Bandung, whose community of states represented more than half of the world’s population and all its “spiritual, moral, and political strength”⁴ . In Bandung as in prewar Japan, there was a sense that the West was morally bankrupt, leaving Asia to fill the void with an ambitious new direction for mankind.

For Kita, the salvation of humanity would be achieved through the realization of a people’s state (komin kokka), regulating private wealth while also respecting the democratic principles later enshrined in the United Nations Charter⁵ . Intended as a manual for the the strengthening of Eastern states, Kita’s Reorganization Plan elucidated several elements of Pan-Asianism which would come to force during the Bandung Conference. Most significant, however, was Kita’s awareness of the “crucial task of overturning the authority of the European theories of revolution… (and) advancing a theory founded on indigenous ideas.”⁶ Having realized a reformed ‘Asian’ revolution, Kita hoped Japan could aid the independence of China and India and establish a new world order. Kita’s radical proposals ultimately led to his execution in 1937, but, as Bandung proves, his model of leadership survived long beyond his short life.

 

Bibliography

Amrith, Sunil S. “Asian Internationalism: Bandung’s Echo in a Colonial Metropolis,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6, no. 4 (December 1, 2005): 557-69.

Tankha, Brij. Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of Empire. Kent: Global Oriental, 2006.

1. Sunil S. Amrith, “Asian Internationalism: Bandung’s Echo in a Colonial Metropolis,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6, no. 4 (December 1, 2005): 557. [↩]
2. Ibid, 567. [↩]
3. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of Empire (Kent: Global Oriental, 2006), 18. [↩]
4. Amrith, “Asian Internationalism,” 557-58. [↩]
5. Tankha, The Making of Modern Japan, 34. [↩]
6. Ibid, 129. [↩]

Liu Shifu was a revolutionary and anarchist who rose to prominence during a time of great political upheaval in China. The combined failures of the First Sino-Japanese War (1895) and Boxer Rebellion (1900) had sent shock waves through Chinese society, exposing vulnerabilities in the old Confucian-Imperial order. During his lifetime, Shifu would become the central figure in Guangzhou Anarchism, defining an ideology which would have far-reaching impacts within his native China.

In Japan (where Shifu had been exposed to much of his revolutionary thinking), Deguchi Onisaburō was hard at work elevating the Oomoto faith to national renown. He, too, had become disillusioned with the march of history in his native country. Industrialization had alienated many in Japan, and while the nation was undoubtedly at the height of its power, some felt a degree of social cohesion had been sacrificed.

Both the revolutionary Shifu and the religious Onisaburō felt that communal living was the path to civilizational progress and world peace. Both were raised in times of political turmoil and social alienation, which informed and focused their ideologies into practical manuals for the salvation of humankind. In researching the readings from Week 4 (Shifu) and Week 8 (Oomoto & Onisaburō), I will draw parallels as well as distinctions between their separate proposals for communal living.

Shifu was heavily influenced by the work of “National Essence” writers, who glorified early China as a pristine anarchist society. They taught that Confucians had failed China by tolerating the Manchu (Qing) invaders, sacrificing morality for power and self-enrichment. Buddhism was also a major source of inspiration, as it preached equality between the sexes and various ethnic groups. Nonetheless, Shifu disavowed organized religion, politics, and capitalism in favor of ‘humanity’ (renge), which he felt had been deprived by exploitative forces. Communal living, collective ownership of property, and total adherence to a twelve-point lifestyle pledge were the keys to China’s salvation. Several Guangzhou-based organizations, such as the Conscience Society and Cock-Crow Society, actively sought to bring about these changes through printing anarchist material and establishing utopian communes .

Shifu’s conception of communal life centered around social equality and collectivized  property, housing, education, and childcare. He hoped to emulate the intensive enterprises described by Kropotkin in his Fields, Factories, and Workshops – that is to say, efficient, limited projects capable of combining agriculture and industry¹ . To preserve cleanliness, meals would be served Western-style (in individual portions, contrary to the typical Chinese use of common serving bowls). Knives and forks would be used, as well as a tablecloth and napkins² .  The twelve-point pledge of the Conscience Society forbade the consumption of meat, liquor, or tobacco, which were all known to be harmful to health. Shifu wrote that “those who would improve society must treat their own bodies in accordance with these scientific findings… their behavior is also part of the moral example they must provide”³ . All of these prescriptive regulations would improve one’s renge, thereby assisting the progress of society and mankind as a whole.

By 1913, Shifu and his followers in the Cock-Crow Society had selected an ideal spot for their commune at Red Lichee Bay, on the eastern shore of the Pearl River Delta. Unfortunately, political revolution intervened and Shifu’s utopian project was never fully realized. Had they succeeded in their mission, their anarchism may have “developed a  rural orientation and eventually fostered a peasant-based revolution.”⁴

Deguchi Onisaburō shared Shifu’s romanticization of the ‘ancient way’, which he felt could be replicated through a communal, agricultural lifestyle dominated by hard work and worship. His philosophy was influenced by 19th-century Nativism (kokugaku), which rejected Chinese formalism and rationality in favor of Japanese emotion, beauty, and poetry. Much like European Socialism and Communism, Onisaburō’s Kōdō program advocated revolutionary action to rid society of evil and inequality. The program nonetheless remained true to its Nativist roots, preaching that Japan was uniquely endowed with a special place in the world (from where it could leading a sort of world-family in governance and peace).

At the center of Onisaburō’s ideology was a return to the land. Agrarianism (nōhonshugi) celebrated the economic and social merits of rural life, and was especially strong in Japan from the 1900s to the 1930s⁵ . Onisaburō himself described how farmers of his youth “gathered firewood from the mountains, brewed homemade soy sauce, and recycled straw into useful craft items for sale”⁶ . In their attachment to rural living, popular religions like Oomoto tended to valorize human endeavor, rice production, and daily morality over established religious or state authority⁷ .

Onisaburō was generally suspicious of Western influence, which he felt had inspired Japanese farmers to prioritize profit and maximize their yields (often at the expense of tradition). Yet he was no enemy of innovation. His call for a rural, communal lifestyle may have emphasized thrift and hard work, but Onisaburoō also supported the development of new crop strains, increased access to modern transportation, specilized education, and media reforms⁸ . His goal continued to be revolutionary economic and social leveling.

Onisaburō’s rural communalism shared a number of features with the anarchist projects of Liu Shifu. Both were staunchly anti-authoritarian, preferring self-reliance and local autonomy over established hierarchies of power. They shared a concern for social welfare and equality among subjects, which inclined them toward collectivism and trans-national projects like Esperanto.

Onisaburō, who taught that “humans were charged with the divine task of stewardship over nature”, certainly elevated spirituality to a more central role than did Shifu⁹ . His assertion of a traditional agricultural lifestyle, grounded in spirituality, was perhaps more conservative than Shifu’s anarchist internationalism, but this did not make him anti-progressive. Onisaburō’s Japan was in many ways a contrasting model to Shifu’s China: a modern state which had recently joined the ranks of the world powers. Nostalgic agrarianism seemed an appropriate response to the alienating effects of industry and global capital. China’s humiliating treatment by the West demanded a more revolutionary re-awakening, and Shifu did not shy from emulating Western science or praising radical European thinkers. In their respective countries, Shifu and Onisaburō would be remembered as visionaries who spoke truth to power and stood up for the disaffected in society. Their assertion of communalism, though its origins were ancient, represented a radical break from an oppressive social order, and continues to inspire their countrymen today.

 

Bibliography

Krebs, Edward S. Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.

Stalker, Nancy K. Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

 

1. Edward S. Krebs, Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 117. [↩]
2. Ibid, 114. [↩]
3. Ibid, 103. [↩]
4. Ibid, 117. [↩]
5. Nancy K. Stalker, Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008), 65. [↩]
6. Ibid, 66-67. [↩]
7. Ibid, 65. [↩]
8. Ibid, 66. [↩]
9. Ibid, 67. [↩]

Through his efforts to re-interpret the study of Confucius, Robert C. Neville has become one of the most important philosophers and theologians in recent memory. ‘Boston Confucianism’ is the slightly tongue-in-cheek moniker Neville uses for his branch of the Confucian discourse, first formulated in New England in the late 20th century.  It’s also the title of his seminal work on the subject, which advocates a more serious examination of Confucian teachings in a Western context. To Neville, Confucianism belongs not within academic cloisters, condemned to sinological scholarship, but in the schoolrooms and homes of modern America, where it can complement existing traditions to form a more inclusive global religion.

Neville’s attempts to bridge the divide between East and West are not unlike the efforts of early Christian missionaries in China, who used religion as a means to unite the two disparate cultures. In particular, I feel similarities can be drawn between Neville and Samuel W. Williams, a pioneering sinologist active during the middle 19th century. Born in Utica, New York in 1812, Williams arrived in China during a time of great philosophical debate and political upheaval. At the time, he was one of only two missionaries in the entire country. Williams’ sympathy toward locals distinguished him from many Western colleagues – he felt the opium trade was unjust and was poisoning Chinese civilization (a belief common among nascent Chinese political and faith traditions). Published in the wake of the First Opium War, The Middle Kingdom was Williams’ finest work and was considered the authoritative survey of Chinese civilization for many years. For most intellectuals in the West, The Middle Kingdom was their first introduction to the Confucian precepts Neville would later try to revive.

The Middle Kingdom describes the leading features of Confucianism as “subordination to superiors and kind upright dealing with our fellow-men”, which resembles the ‘humanness’ inherent in Neville’s concept of ren. Williams also clarifies that Confucianism is “destitute to all reference of an unseen power… (its followers) look only to this world for their sanctions”¹. In distinguishing Confucian thought from religious doctrine, Williams allows other scholars (including Neville) to bring it into the philosophical mainstream. Williams understood the centrality of Confucianism to Chinese life, and considered its eminent practicality to exceed the contributions of any Western philosopher.

Much like Neville, Williams had become something of a public intellectual. He was a prolific lecturer in the United States, and had mastered a good bit of the Chinese language (he would later become the first professor of Chinese at any American university). Williams even helped to author one of the earliest English-Chinese dictionaries. This background in linguistics drew him to primary sources, especially the ‘Four Books and Five Classics’ that form the core of Confucian thought. His admiration was boundless – Williams felt the Confucian texts exerted an “incomparable influence… which no book, besides the Bible, can claim.”² Neville shares this appreciation for classical scholarship, which forms a core element of any transported philosophical or religious culture. Beyond primary and secondary scriptures, Neville also highlights the ‘interpretive context’ behind Confucianism, which Williams (as a scholar of language and history) would have well understood.

Both scholars share a particular fascination with the concept of li, described by Neville as ‘ritual propriety’. Boston Confucianism calls for a revival of ritual propriety, or the “focus (of) ethical life on the development of social forms and styles that properly humanize people”.³ Neville echoed the Confucian understanding that people could not cooperate, nor be properly governed, without elaborate learned ways of behaving within a culture. Williams focused especially on the The Book of Rites (one of the five classics), which he knew to be critical for the healthy functioning of Chinese society. He wrote that “the religion of the state is founded upon it, and children are early instructed in all the details it contains… (the book is) singular in its object and scope among all the bequests of antiquity”.⁴

Williams had traveled to China to convince its people to accept Christ, but during his stay he would come to preach to a new audience: Americans. His work did invaluable service in extolling the “richness, the complexity, the flaws… the overall worthiness of Chinese civilization” to a nation largely ignorant of its finer points⁵. While recognizing the peculiarities of China’s civilization, Williams felt they masked a deeper similarity between China and then West – an “innate sameness of the peoples of the earth”⁶. Neville echoes the same sentiment when he writes that the first meaning of Boston Confucianism is “bringing the Confucian tradition into play with the other great civilized traditions in the creation of a world religion”⁷ . The higher purpose behind Boston Confucianism – the application of Confucian thought beyond an East Asian ethnic context – certainly exceeds Williams’ passive observation. Nonetheless, both men understood that Confucianism was the best bridge between the disparate cultures of East and West. Close study of the Confucian tradition deserves to be more than an academic curiosity – it has the potential to be the cornerstone in the construction of a more inclusive world.

 

1. Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (London: Wiley & Putnam, 1848), 530, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002008743776&view=1up&seq=638. [↩]
2. Ibid, 531. [↩]
3. Robert Neville, Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 7. [↩]
4. Williams, The Middle Kingdom, 510. [↩]
5. John Rogers Haddad, The Romance of Chine: Excursions to China in US Culture, 1776 to 1876 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 263. [↩]
6. Ibid, 308. [↩]
7. Neville, Boston Confucianism 1. [↩]