Tag: Japan

Tanabe Hajime’s Logic of Species Contradiction – Outward Rejection and Inward Support of Ethnic Nationalism

Tanabe Hajime and imperial Japan utilized the Logic of Species argument to criticize and diminish the validity of ethnic nationalism, outwardly supporting individual freedom and the power to negate the nation, but inwardly promoted ethnic nationalism to support their expansionist ambitions.

Modernity made two historically constructed classifications, the nation and ethnicity, appear natural. The ‘territorial nation state’ as the ‘fundamental unit of the modern international world’ conveniently sorted individuals into ‘particular nationalities’.1 This classification of humanity by nationality thus comes across as the intuitive method to do so, yet Naoki Sakai argues that this ‘vision’ has only existed ‘since the seventeenth century’.2 Moreover, individuals are defined primarily by the nation to which they belong, similar to the actual biological classification of humanity, which ‘converge[s] in the topos of the logical algorithm of species and genus’.3 In other words, the classification also appeared natural as it mimicked the actual method of identifying and categorizing living organisms. These perceptions, especially during the 1930s and early 1940s, produced postwar myths and conceptions like tan’itsu minzoku, which stated that ‘Japanese society ha[d] been ethnically homogenous’ since premodernity—whereas the Japanese empire stated it was ‘explicitly created against the principle of ethnic nationalism’.4 Therefore, the classification of individuals into nation-states is a modern concept, which Tanabe Hajime argued was unnatural.

In Tanabe’s Logic of Species, his ontology rejects ethnic essentialism, arguing that identity exists only through a dialectic of belonging and negation. In contrast to the natural assumption, Tanabe insisted that the ‘individual’s belonging to the nation…must be “mediated” by his or her freedom’.5 In essence, ‘immediately’, individuals belong to no nation, and have the freedom to determine and mediate their nation.6 In addition, Tanabe contends that an individual must have their ‘own self-awareness, or jikaku’, prior to any social classification, as they can only be ‘classified into a species’ if they are ‘aware of belonging to’ the species.7 He argues that the freedom to ‘negate and disobey’ the requirements ‘imposed by’ the ‘totemic beliefs’ of a species is the true essential prerequisite for having a part within the species; individuals must be able to join and critique the species to make it relevant.8 Moreover, he holds that species (shu) is not biological and changeable thereby removing the view that it is natural and lifelasting.9 Tanabe uses the notion of genus (rui), which is an ‘essential moment in mediation between the individual and the species’, allowing the individual to exist ‘independent of the species’.10 If individuals can exist outside of the species through the mediating moment of the genus, then they are not inherently and immediately tied to a nation.

The Japanese imperial state appropriated Tanabe’s philosophy to enforce ethnic nationalism even though the philosophy itself denies the natural basis of nationalism. In his lecture at Kyoto Imperial University on May 19, 1943, he used his philosophies to justify patriotic devotion and wartime mobilization, emphasizing that individuals must be ‘committed to the state’s mission’ like himself.11 However, the Logic of Species, which he references ‘refute[s] and discredit[s]…ethnic nationalism’, and directly contrasts his statements, insisting that the individual must negate the nation.12 Tanabe’s arguments made ethnic nationalism impossible, yet they were still used to support Japanese nationalism during the war. As such, even though the Japanese imperial government publicly rejected ethnic nationalism, they still practiced it and had various officials supporting ‘total erasure of ethnic differences within the Japanese nation’ and ‘insistence upon racial purity’.13 For minority populations, this private embrace of ethnic nationalism through the Logic of Species ‘was nothing but an endorsement of colonial violence’, forcing them to be in the nation, stripping them of the promised freedom of individual choice.14

Tanabe argued that no individual belonged to a nation immediately or naturally, and that belonging must be achieved through the exercise of one’s freedom, to critique ethnic nationalism in support of Japanese imperialism. However, what imperial Japan required at the time for its military was the opposite: natural, fixed, and unquestionably loyal individuals, which, in contrast to Tanabe’s argument, was ethnic nationalism. The Japanese government used Tanabe and this rhetoric to justify, through philosophical argument, patriotism, militarism, and expansionism, which Tanabe supported even though it contradicted his philosophies.

  1. Naoki Sakai, ‘Ethnicity and Species: On the Philosophy of the Multiethnic State and Japanese Imperialism’, in Viren Murthy, Fabian Schäfer, and Max Ward (eds), Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy (Leiden, 2017), p. 146. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 144. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 147. [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 148. [↩]
  5. Ibid., p. 154. [↩]
  6. Ibid., p. 154. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 157. [↩]
  8. Ibid., p. 160. [↩]
  9. Ibid., p. 155. [↩]
  10. Ibid., pp. 163-165. [↩]
  11. Ibid., p. 151. [↩]
  12. Ibid., p. 170. [↩]
  13. Ibid., pp. 147-148. [↩]
  14. Ibid., p. 172. [↩]

Religion or Propaganda: The Red Swastika Society and the Conflict between Nationalism and Imperialism in Manchuria

The Red Swastika Society was founded in early twentieth century China as a philanthropic faith-based organization. However, with the encroaching Japanese militarism in Manchuria, the society was constantly drifting between being persecuted by the ruling authorities and being utilized by them for political purposes. So, to what extent did this organization actually partake in propagandistic politics? Although both Chinese nationalists and Japanese imperialists manipulated the Red Swastika Society to promote their ideals, the founding principles of the society, the persecution by the KMT, and the confusion of its classification under the Manchukuo regime all demonstrate the failure to successfully apply this organization as political propaganda.

In 1922, the Red Swastika Society was officially approved as a legitimate association with the goal of advancing social welfare and world peace. Its founding principles included ‘promoting moral virtue’ and ‘no involvement in partisan politics’.1 As a philanthropic group, the society desired a universal humanitarianism; they wanted to transcend national borders in the name of altruism. For instance, the Red Swastika Society held offices in Paris, London, and Tokyo—showcasing its international quality.2 Motivating certain ideologies would divide the organization from its original purpose. Therefore, at least in the beginning, the Red Swastika Society had little interest in politics.

Furthermore, the persecution of redemptive societies by both the KMT and the Japanese imperialists highlights their distrust of superstitious organizations—including the Red Swastika Society. Ultimately, this distrust hindered these authorities’ usage of the Red Swatika Society as propaganda. The Red Swastika Society is recognized as a redemptive society, which is a term for the religious organizations popularized in China during the early twentieth century. These religious organizations often followed local religions rather than the major groups like Buddhism and Christianity. For example, the Red Swastika Society combined Daoism and Buddhism practices.3 Along with its goal of transcending national boundaries, the superstitious character of the society marked it as a target of KMT’s persecution. The KMT focused on Chinese nationalism and modernity. So, the KMT was critical of superstitious religions, which conflicted with their idea of modernity; they were also threatened by the society’s challenge to nationalism. Therefore, the KMT banned redemptive societies in 1928.4 Although the Red Swastika Society was permitted to operate in the 1930s, this underlying distrust made it difficult for the two groups to work together. Thus, the Red Swastika Society was not completely politicized by the KMT.

While the Japanese imperialists had more success in transforming the Red Swastika Society into a propagandistic tool, they still faced difficulties due to their own troubles understanding how to treat the society. In 1932, Japan set up a puppet government (Manchukuo) in Manchuria. Unlike the KMT, the Manchukuo government sought to convert redemptive societies into jiaohua organizations by minimizing their religious qualities and emphasizing their welfare focus—rather than trying to simply eradicate the groups.5 This goal of transformation influenced the government’s classification of the Red Swastika Society, consequently causing it to be separated into three different categories. First acknowledging the society as a similar religion, the Japanese officials desired to restrict it for fear of encouraging political apathy.6 In this way, the society was treated as it was under the KMT rule. However, the Japanese realized that a manipulation of the society would benefit them. The second classification of the Red Swastika Society as a solely philanthropic entity, without religious connections, demonstrated the early changes to the society. By removing superstitious aspects of the society, the Manchukuo government could mold the society to promote their ideology. The third classification was as a moral suasion organization. With this classification, the society was overseen by the Union Society.7 The Union Society assisted the Manchukuo government in public security. Hence, the Red Swastika Society reinforced imperialist propaganda under the authority of the Union Society. These three different classifications of the Red Swastika Society exemplify how the Manchukuo government could not cohesively decide on a singular strategy for handling the society. This indecision weakened the society’s application as propaganda, for two of the three classifications understood it in non-political terms. Therefore, it was difficult to reconcile these conceptualizations and portray the society as motivating imperialism. Consequently, the Red Swastika Society did not interact with propagandistic politics to the extent in which it could have.

  1. Jiang Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion: The Red Swastika Society Under the Rule of Manchukuo’, Journal of Modern Chinese History, 7: 1 (2013), p. 110. [↩]
  2. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham, 2003), p. 105. [↩]
  3. Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 108. [↩]
  4. Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, p. 109. [↩]
  5. Ibid., p. 115. [↩]
  6. Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 117. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 122. [↩]

Nichiren’s Teachings in Modern Contexts – Tanaka Chigaku and Sōka Gakkai’s Misapplications of Nichirenism

The teachings of the thirteenth-century Buddhist thinker Nichiren inspired numerous twentieth-century intellectuals, who drew on his steadfast belief in the all-encompassing Lotus Sūtra to advance their contemporary agendas. However, their application of Nichiren’s teachings to modern contexts led to reworkings of their core principles and revealed inconsistencies with the Buddhist Dharma, which stemmed from Nichiren’s disloyal relationship with the Buddhist Dharma and that which he preached.

Nichiren believed that he was born in the ‘Final Dharma age’ prophesized by the Buddha, which meant that only the Lotus Sūtra could lead to Buddhahood.1 He regarded Japan as an ideal place to be born, as it had ‘an affinity for the Lotus Sūtra’, and sought to extend the teachings of it ‘worldwide’.2 However, in Nichiren’s time, Japanese expansion was unrealistic as they posed no ‘threat to other countries’.3 Moreover, Christine Naylor argues that many of his teachings opposed Buddhist principles, since Nichiren understood that ‘false teachings’ were leading the world to disaster, and could not ‘promise peace to his followers in this life’.4 Because of this opposition, he believed Japan and the world’s reluctance to follow solely the Lotus Sūtra had resulted in this ruin. Furthermore, Nichiren’s contradictions undoubtedly led to more difficulty in modern interpretations. For example, he initially believed the Japanese kamis protected the ‘devotees of the Lotus Sūtra’, but then ‘threaten[ed] them with punishment’ once he convinced himself they had betrayed him.5 Finally, adding to interpretation confusion, Naylor contends that the misunderstandings partially derive from Nichiren not following ‘the first of Śākyamuni’s precepts, which forbids the taking of life’, as he ‘sanctioned both secular and religious wars’.6

Tanaka Chigaku’s utilization of Nichirenism for imperialist Japan reworked its core principles as they were not intended for the modern context in which Tanaka employed them. As Japan struggled ‘to assume a place among the world’s powers’ during the Meiji era, Tanaka looked to Nichiren’s argument for Japan to globally spread the Lotus Sūtra as a means for expansion.7 Jacqueline Stone argues that Tanaka was possibly the ‘first person in modern Nichiren Buddhist history’ to believe that the worldwide spread of Nichirenism and the kaidan was truly achievable.8 Nichiren, confined to the contexts of his time, had not even thought such a thing to be genuinely realistic.

The major contrasts between Nichiren and Tanaka become apparent when considering the relationships of their principles with the imperial family. Where Nichiren disrespected both Amaterasu and Hachiman, a ‘tantamount irreverence to the emperor’, Tanaka connected Nichirenism with Shinto nationalism, making him ‘indissolubly linked to the modern imperial state.9 Nichiren’s principles opposed the imperial family, whereas Tanaka’s supported them. Moreover, Naylor argues that Tanaka read Nichiren’s passages out of context, which led him to believe Nichiren was ‘an ardent believer of the imperial system’, citing the confusion.10 The fact that Nichiren’s principles support Japanese imperialism ‘only if torn out of context’ supports the notion that Tanaka’s ‘loyalty was to Japan and the emperor, not to Buddhism’.11 Ultimately, the ‘tangled strands of [Nichiren’s] personality and ideas’ made his writings difficult to interpret and even more difficult to appropriately apply to modern contexts.12

Sōka Gakkai, a lay Nichiren Buddhist organization, in the postwar era interpreted Nichiren’s concept of kaidan not from an imperial perspective, but instead from a modern perspective within the limitations of the postwar parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Its second president, Toda Jōsei, believed it was the organization’s responsibility to prevent the ‘sufferings epitomized by the recent war’ from repeating through the supposed peace preached by Nichiren.13 Similar to Tanaka, the third president, Ikeda Daisaku, sought a true nationwide acceptance of Nichirenism and the Lotus Sūtra; he believed this could be achieved if two-thirds of the country supported Sōka Gakkai.14 However, despite these efforts, its core message of peace contradicts Nichiren’s teachings, as seen earlier in this post. Thus, both the imperialist and militaristic interpretations by Tanaka, and the peaceful interpretations by Sōka Gakkai, ultimately fail to understand Nichiren’s teachings, as they are nearly impossible to apply to modern contexts.

  1. Jacqueline I. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict and Shogunal Decree’, in Steven Heinen and Charles S. Prebish (eds), Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition (Oxford, 2003), p. 194. [↩]
  2. Christina Naylor, ‘Nichiren, Imperialism, and the Peace Movement’, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 18: 1 (March 1991), p. 67. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 66. [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 70. [↩]
  5. Ibid., pp. 61-62. [↩]
  6. Ibid., pp. 70-71. [↩]
  7. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict’, pp. 198-199. [↩]
  8. Ibid., p. 200. [↩]
  9. Naylor, ‘Nichiren, Imperialism’, p. 63. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict’, p. 203. [↩]
  10. Naylor, ‘Nichiren, Imperialism’, pp. 64-65 [↩]
  11. Ibid., pp. 73, 60 [↩]
  12. Ibid., p. 56 [↩]
  13. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict’, p. 205 [↩]
  14. Ibid., p. 211 [↩]

Uchiyama Gudō’s Anarchist Buddhism – The Impact of International Socialism on Japanese Buddhism

Anarchism, described by Fabio Rambelli as part of the international socialist movement, inspired Japanese Buddhist intellectuals to synthesize their respective philosophies for the benefit of the newly emerging working class. The Buddhist priest Uchiyama Gudō sought to utilize the revolutionary concepts of anarchism in order to implement theoretical Buddhist social principles. Gudō believed that both Buddhism and socialism, at their core, ‘aimed to improve the living conditions of the people’.1 Thus, the communication of both Buddhist ideas and socialist anarchism to the working-class villagers were not dissimilar; Gudō understood his Buddhist sermons to be inherently socialist, as well. Uchiyama Gudō’s background in Buddhism inspired his socialist beliefs; therefore, he understood socialism and anarchism not as departures from Buddhism, but as natural expressions of Buddhist egalitarianism. What he failed to grasp, however, were the conflicting natures of Buddhism’s inner liberation and anarchism’s outer revolution.

Rambelli’s Zen Anarchism: The Egalitarian Dharma of Uchiyama Gudō highlights Gudō’s connections between Buddhism and anarchism. In a 1903 serialization of Heimin shinbun, a socialist newspaper, Gudō cites three excerpts from prominent Buddhist sutras as his reasoning for becoming a socialist. However, Rambelli argues that the excerpts were taken ‘out of context and re-signified…in a socialist fashion’, highlighting Gudō’s core Buddhist beliefs, attempting to utilize socialist motivations for societal change.2 Moreover, Gudō established links between the social equality of anarchist communism and that of traditional Buddhist monastic life, still present in China. In doing so, Rambelli claims that Gudō shifted the ‘idealized utopia’ of the Buddhist sangha to a smaller scale to include a ‘self-contained social space’, more in line with the beliefs of socialist utopias.3

Gudō’s belief that social change begins through moral example reveals the Buddhist foundation of his activism. His support of the anarchist concept where the working class follows ruling-class leaders who renounce their property reflects his commitment to a radical, egalitarian ideal of shared equality.4 The working class should not revolt and take down the ruling class, as that would deem the latter as lesser than the former in the new anarchist society, according to Gudō. Furthermore, he firmly believed that the awakening of the masses by the aforementioned examples supports the ‘Zen Buddhist soteriology of…responsibility’; it was the responsibility of the leaders and workers5 Gudō’s ideological stances on these issues reveal his Buddhist core and depict him as a Buddhist involved in the anarchist movement.6

Gudō initially hesitated to support the anarchist violence necessary for a successful revolution, as it fundamentally opposed Buddhist principles. By the time Gudō fully accepted anarchism, however, the anarchist movement had begun to shift toward ‘direct, sometimes violent, action’.7 This shift had a clear impact on Gudō, as a key argument in his work Museifu kyōsan kakumei states that ‘readiness to use violence’ was necessary ‘to achieve’ a ‘revolutionary movement’.8 Despite his reluctance, the deteriorating medical condition of his socialist colleague Kōtoku Shūsui provided the final push toward his acceptance of the violence required to initiate a revolution.9 Gudō’s evident internal difficulty to accept violence revealed itself in his depiction of a god who ‘loves revolutionary martyrs’ in his writings, as no buddhas would love such individuals ‘in a modern Japanese context’.7 This internal difficulty demonstrates his inability to accept the inherent conflicting natures of Buddhism and anarchism.

Uchiyama Gudō’s growing acceptance of a violent revolution led him to distance himself from his original, more Buddhist understanding of anarchism. Gudō originally accepted socialism , and subsequently anarchism, as social methods for change and revolution, as they aligned well with his Buddhist beliefs. However, as he became more involved with socialism, it began to take precedence in his life, molding him into a Buddhist who was involved in the anarchist movement. Furthermore, Gudō came to embrace violence as necessary for a revolution and the success of anarchism in Japan. This acceptance created internal strife, as the anarchist path to outer revolution diverged significantly beyond the Buddhist path to inner liberation.

  1. Fabio Rambelli, Zen Anarchism: The Egalitarian Dharma of Uchiyama Gudō (Berkeley, 2013), p. 15. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 13. [↩]
  3. Ibid., pp. 20-21. [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 16. [↩]
  5. Ibid., pp. 27, 13. [↩]
  6. Ibid., p. 30. [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 23. [↩] [↩]
  8. Ibid., p. 18. [↩]
  9. Ibid., p. 26. [↩]

Actually existing dystopia: imagining Japan through science fiction under late capitalism

Japanese science fiction has become a global cultural phenomenon since the Second World War, evident in the popularity of novels like Sakyo Komatsu’s Japan Sinks (1973) and kaiju films such as Godzilla (1954). Yet, as these examples highlight, the Japanese science fiction genre has been dominated by dystopian “imaginations of disaster”1. Postwar Japanese science fiction and cyberpunk genres at once both reflect long-standing anxieties of the demise of Japanese cultural exceptionality in the confrontation with Western (capitalist) modernity since the 1910s, most famously articulated by Kyoto School debates about ‘overcoming modernity’ in the 1940s,2 yet also indicate a reimagining of Japan, from the Western perspective, as exemplifying “the postmodern present and near-future of the West”3, a “techno-Orientalist”4 imagination that has nevertheless been appropriated and rearticulated in Japanese science fiction itself.

Sato has argued that the fusion of American cyberpunk ideas with Japanese modernization has facilitated the reconstruction of an imagined Japanese unique identity (or, Japanism) that associates Japan with technology and correlates its technological modernization to a reclamation of its past.5 However, the uniqueness of Japan comes from its own monstrosity, its representativeness of a world falling apart. Mark Fisher, the British critical theorist, conceptualised the idea of ‘capitalist realism’, where, under contemporary late capitalism, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”6. Imagining disaster through science fiction becomes a cultural reproduction of a resurgent, techno-capitalist Japan from the 1980s where Japan itself was reimagined as the ‘terminator’, the monster, of world capitalism.7 Dystopia was thus “both frightening and exciting”8; Japanese science fiction epitomises what Walter Benjamin noted in 1936 where humanity’s “self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure”.9

Just as Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse described the ‘end of utopia’, where society could now actually achieve ‘utopian’ social transformation and thus negate utopia’s inherent impossibility,10 Japanese science fiction represents an ‘end of dystopia’. Now, dystopia is no longer imaginative but instead “an extrapolation or exacerbation of [reality] rather than an alternative to it”.11 In relating Japanese identity to science fiction themes of hyper-capitalism and technology, through techno-Orientalist tropes, Japan becomes an ‘actually existing dystopia’ where science fiction is no longer an imagination, but merely an extension of reality. In this way, postwar Japanese science fiction, in its imaginations of disaster, paradoxically both reflects the fears and anxieties of the realities of contemporary Japan, where Japanese culture and national essence is eroded by the onset of the ahistorical and culturally detached society of late capitalism and postmodernity, and simultaneously appropriates such dystopia by historically and culturally locating techno-capitalism in Japan in a rearticulation of Japanism as a unique ‘actually existing dystopia’. As Kawamura Takeshi, a contemporary Japanese playwright who gained notoriety in the 1980s for his dystopian and postmodern themes, has argued, “it is absolutely necessary for an age of monsters to put in an appearance” because “such an age has already come very close to us”.12

  1. Susan J. Napier, ‘Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira’, The Journal of Japanese Studies 19:2 (1993), pp.327-351. [↩]
  2. Kumiko Sato, ‘How Information Technology Has (Not) Changed Feminism and Japanism: Cyberpunk in the Japanese Context’, Comparative Literature Studies, 41:3 (2004), pp.343-344. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p.347. [↩]
  4. David Roh, Betsy Huang and Greta Niu (eds), Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History and Media (New Brunswick, 2015). [↩]
  5. Sato, ‘How Information Technology Has (Not) Changed Feminism and Japanism’, p.353. [↩]
  6. Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester, 2009), p.17. [↩]
  7. Napier, ‘Panic Sites’, p.349. [↩]
  8. Ibid. [↩]
  9. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, edited by Hannah Arendt (New York, 1968), p.242. [↩]
  10. Herbert Marcuse, ‘The End of Utopia’, lecture delivered at the Free University of West Berlin, July 1967. [↩]
  11. Fisher, Capitalist Realism, p.17. [↩]
  12. Peter Eckersall, ‘Japan as Dystopia: Kawamura Takeshi’s Daisan Erotica’, TDR 44:1 (2000), p.107. [↩]

Japan’s ‘Moral Re-Armament’ Movement: Continuity from World War to Cold War

After Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, many Japanese politicians and public figures revitalized militaristic language for the formation of a world federation to bring about global peace and for the defeat of Communism. This was the Moral Re-armament Movement and it was led by figures like Kagawa Toyohiko, the vice president of the League for the Establishment of World Federation (later called the World Federation Movement).1 Although Kawaga redeploys militaristic metaphors of war-time Japan, his domestic analogies were aimed for a spiritual (rather than literal) battle against communism. Through this anti-communist framing, he was able to avoid censorship from the US occupied force.2 His speech to an audience in Kobe was published in the local newspaper Kobe Shinbun despite being ripe with Showa Era imperial messaging.

‘If Japan disarms… it will perhaps shame the United States into abandoning its own weapons. Japan can lead the world, spark a moral movement, achieve the dream of a Greater East Asia, and bring all eight corners of the world under a single roof’ (Kagawa Toyohiko 1945).3

After seeing the devastation of war and the horror of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese thinkers increasingly embraced pacifism, disarmament, decolonization, and nuclear deproliferation. They also recognized the unique capacity Japan would have in bringing about international peace through the formation of a World Federation. Fascinatingly, this utopian vision echoes the pre-war universalism, manifested in Pan-Asianism, which justified the imperial expansion of Japan and its Greater East Asia C0-Prosperity Sphere for world peace.4

Although there are countless examples of Japanese thinkers (including Kagawa) across a range of political spectrums, adapting their universalist messaging for Japan’s Imperialism, none are as unique as Kita Ikki. Kita was a writer who is considered a core influence in the creation of Japanese fascism.5 Western historians often consider him ‘right wing’ but he doesn’t necessarily fit into these traditional categories.6 Ikki espoused ‘Social Democratic’ principles like social reforms, democracy, enfranchisement, and gender equality while also stressing the need for Japan, led by its emperor, to expand and protect these universalist ideals abroad, through force, especially in China.7

However this militaristic language for Japan’s expansion was also anti-imperialistic, criticizing the Western colonialists like Britain and the Meiji Restoration for replicating it.8 Kita Ikki’s Pan-Asianism stresses the unique capacity of Japan to protect Asia from the West through a Japanese led “Asian Monroe Doctrine”, allowing nations to come to their own ‘national awakening’, or revolution, without Western pressure.9 In this way Japan could progress world history by bringing world peace and prosperity to Asia through expansion – this being the nation’s “moral destiny”10.

This utopian vision, ripe with militaristic language and humanist idealism, emphasizes the complexity of the Japanese imperial ideology. Unlike other writers of the time, Kita stressed the reality of his ideals; Force and blood were needed to form an Asian Federation, however this would eventually create peace and prosperity.11

The legacy of Japanese militarism and its ‘moral’ role in the international community would persist post WW2. Kagawa would draw on the power of the Japanese national morality or ‘Kokutai’. However, just as the meaning of Kokutai changed to fit a war time expansionist agenda, Kagawa would use it for a demilitarized Japan and its Moral Re-armament.  The World Federation Movement, during the Cold War’s ideological ‘fight’ against communism, represents the adaptability of Japanese thought to fit new political contexts.

  1. Lawson, Konrad. ‘Reimagining the Postwar International Order: The World Federalism of Ozaki Yukio and Kagawa Toyohiko’ (2014):9 [↩]
  2. ibid., p. 12 [↩]
  3.   ibid., p.11 [↩]
  4. ibid., p.2 [↩]
  5. Wilson, George M. ‘Kita Ikki’s Theory of Revolution.’ The Journal of Asian Studies 26, no.1 (1966):89. [↩]
  6. ibid [↩]
  7. Tanka Brij, ‘Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan.’ Global Oriental (2006) [↩]
  8. Tanka Brij, ‘Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan.’ Global Oriental (2006): 200. [↩]
  9. ibid., p. 87. [↩]
  10. ibid., p. 212 [↩]
  11. Wilson, George M. ‘Kita Ikki’s Theory of Revolution.’ The Journal of Asian Studies 26, no.1 (1966):95 [↩]

Imperial Internationalism in Japan: The Bahai Faith Meets the Concordia Movement

The Bahai faith originated in Iran in the mid-19th century led by its living prophet Baha’u’llah. His teachings called for the unification of the world’s religions, viewing all faiths as different manifestations of God.1 The eldest son of Baha’u’llah, Abdu’l-Baha, succeeded his father and led a campaign to spread the teachings of Bahai to the United States and Europe. Agnes Baldwin Alexander, a young American woman from Hawaii, would spread the religion in Japan in the 20th century. The faith’s humanist, internationalist doctrine fit neatly within the nation’s imperial ideology.

In London in 1912, Agnes B. Alexander wrote an account of the meeting between Abdu’l-Baha and Jinzo Naruse, President of Japan’s Women’s College. Naruse was a liberal educator who sought support for Japan’s Concordia Movement, an internationalist project intending to find “Common ground on which all nations could harmonize”.2 Abdu’l voiced his support for Naruse’s movement, positioning the Bahai cause as central to the peace and unity of the human race while stressing the need for a “Divine Power” to put these principles into practice. He signed Naruse’s autograph book with the following prayer:

“O God! The darkness of contention, strife and warfare between the religions, the nations and the people has beclouded the horizon of Reality and hidden the heaven of Truth. The world is in need of the light of Guidance. Therefore, O God, confer Thy favor, so that the Sun of Reality may illumine the East and the West” (December 30, 1912. Translated by Ahmad Sohrab)

Abdu’l’s prayer demonstrates the faith’s capacity to justify Japan’s imperial internationalism. The symbolic power of light for human purification, “The Sun of Reality”, is central to the Bahai teachings. Likewise, the Sun has great symbolic importance in the history of Japan. The Japanese imperial army’s adoption of the ‘Rising Sun Flag’ illustrates the nation’s mission to bring peace, unification, and modernity to Asia. This ideology would materialize in the ‘Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,’ positioning the Japan as the protector Asia, uplifting the East (through political, social, and economic reforms) to make it competitive with the West.3  Similar to the imperial ideology, the Bahai faith is a humanist religion. Abdu’l-Baha shows his humanist values by denouncing the war and hatred that stems from national and religious differences. In ‘Bahai World Faith’ he argues the spread of Bahai to all nations will birth a unified “heavenly civilization” and saw the Japanese as possessing a unique capacity to enact it – unifying the East and West.4 Abdu’l-Baha’s successor, Shongi Effendi, gifted several Bahai books to Emperor Hirohito in 1928 with a message encouraging him to use the Bahai teaching as inspiration and to “arise for its worldwide recognition and triumph”5. The utopian vision of Japan leading world peace and unity aligns with Naruse’s Concordia Movement.

Historians like Mark Lincicome are critical of 20th-century Japanese liberal internationalists (like Naruse) for the paradoxical justification of imperialism on humanist, anti-war grounds. Lincicome shows how during the Taisho Democracy Era, educators advocated for Japan’s unique capacity in promoting world peace through the cultural, political, and economic assimilation (Doka) of weaker Asian nations.6 This internationalism adapted to become hyper nationalism after the Manchurian Invasion in 1931. The Concordia Association of Manchukuo, originally established to promote left-leaning ideas of Pan-Asianist racial equality (Pan-Asianism) and self-determination would become a totalitarian puppet regime after the Japanese Kwantung Army’s occupation of Manchuria.7 Like the Taisho educators, Naruse’s Concordia movement turned away from its liberal values through political pressure and liberal internationalism’s adaptability.

Both Naruse and Abdu’l-Baha viewed Japan as a unique, divine power to bring God’s purifying light for an international utopia. Combining Japanese exceptionalism with humanist logic explains Japan’s ability to justify “world war in the name of world peace”.8 Although Naruse and Abdu’l-Baha criticized war, nationalism, and militarism, it becomes clear how a nexus of universalist, cosmopolitan, and internationalist rhetoric in the Taisho Era would easily adapt and be consumed by the Showa Era’s Imperialist ideology, justifying a campaign for a Greater East Asia.

  1. Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith’ (1975), pp.254-257 [↩]
  2. Agnes B. Alexander “Abdu’l Baha meets President Naruse of Japan Women’s College.” Bahai Reference Library (1912) p. 113. [↩]
  3. Lawson, Konrad. ‘Reimagining the Postwar International Order: The World Federalism of Ozaki Yukio and Kagawa Toyohiko’ (2014):9 [↩]
  4.   Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith'(1975), pp.254-257 [↩]
  5. Barbara M. Sims, ‘Traces That Remain’ Bahai Publishing Trust of Japan (1989): 81 [↩]
  6. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009) p. 40 [↩]
  7. Young L., “When Fascism met empire in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.” Journal of Global History 12, no.2 (2017) pp. 282-283 [↩]
  8. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009):104 [↩]

Mark Lincicome’s ‘Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens’

Mark Lincicome’s Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens offers an account of the development of the doctrine of international education, spanning a century from the 1880s to the 1980s.1  He presents a radical reunderstanding of Japan’s pre-war education system, which he believes had previously only been written about as one that taught nationalism and militarism. His work seeks to bring to light the nuance and opposition that this system faced throughout the period. Furthermore, he argues that internationalism has been overlooked as a Japanese ideology, and his thorough analysis of the movement’s history certainly does it justice. However, one could argue that his work is overly conceptual, and fails to deal with the more practical consequences of educational reform.

To give a brief summary, the movement of international education begins in the 1870s, when reformers such as Tokutomi Soho, Egi Kazuyuki, and Saionji Konmichi argued that teaching of foreign languages and learning of other cultures should be implemented into the education system. However, these campaigns are swiftly condemned by the Meiji government and fail to take off. Only in the period of Taisho Democracy, the ‘high-water mark’ of the philosophy, do prominent writes and reformers set up institutions and physical schools which put this doctrine into effect.2 He pays particular attention to the thinkers of Noguchi Entaro, Sawayanagi Masataro, Shimonaka Yasaburo and Harada Minoru, and their organisations such as the International Education Society of Japan and the All-Japan League for World Federation. As their names suggest, these organisations were focused on encouraging collaboration, integration and familiarity in global education. Noguchi, in particular, wrote that a mutual understanding and point-of-contact between cultures would lead to global peace, the ultimate goal of humanity.

However, as Japan’s invasions and colonisations of parts of Asia grow, the doctrine begins to conform to the propaganda of the military government and espouse nationalist, imperialist and militarist sentiments. Noguchi becomes a ‘chauvinistic ultra-nationalist’ and dedicates his public writings to defending Japan’s imperialism; while Shimonaka writes that educators must reform Japan from within, removing European influence and realising Japan’s goal of conquering the eight corners of the world.3

Following the end of the Second World War the movement had another revival – or, perhaps, a renaissance of the 1920s – and once again becomes a movement advocating for global peace, prosperity and connectedness. Shimonaka, despite being ‘purged’ in 1947, championed world peace, nuclear disarmament and the liberation of colonised peoples in Asia and Africa until his death.4

Lincicome’s book mostly fails to engage with what one might consider the most important part of education; the children. He does not write about the number of children being taught according to the principles of the reformists, nor the impact their organisations had on the education system. Ultimately, it is an intellectual history of around a dozen thinkers spanning a century. For a study of the ramifications of the Japanese education which has been in use for the past century, perhaps another book is required; but for a deep analysis of one of Japan’s forgotten yet most interesting ideologies, Lincicome’s history of internationalist education should not be missed.

  1. Lincicome, Mark. Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Education in Japan (Lexington Books, 2009). [↩]
  2. Ibid, p. 87. [↩]
  3. Ibid, p. 91. [↩]
  4. Ibid, p. 116. [↩]

Tanaka Chigaku’s ‘The Age of Unification’ and its justification of Japanese militarism

Tanaka Chigaku was born in a staunch Buddhist family in 1868, only a few years before the Meiji Restoration.1 Disillusioned by the Meiji regime’s attack on Buddhism, he abandoned his priestly training to become a lay evangelist, preaching his doctrine of Nichirenism.2 In the 20th century, this doctrine would justify Japan’s militarism, nationalism and imperialism, through his belief that the entire world must be unified around Japan.3 An exert, ‘The Age of Unification’, from his seminal text – Nichirenshugi kyogaku taikan, or ‘An Overview of Nichirenshugi Doctrinal Studies’, originally published between 1904 and 1913 – perfectly describes and explains his desire for unity. While mostly discussing world unity in peaceful, religious terms, the ongoing background of Japan’s militarism and subsequent imperialistic expansion under these terms makes the text an important document of Japanese history.

 

Tanaka repeatedly stresses the need for a ‘world unification’ of religion, morality, society and government.4 He stresses that past attempts at world unification – through solely military means, such as those of Alexander or Napoleon, or solely diplomatic means, such as international law and peace conferences – were lacking in religion and morality.

He offers a few steps on how this can be achieved. First, Japan must have a coexistence between religion and government; ‘government must be subsumed within Buddhism, and then Buddhism must be applied to government’.5 Other religious practices, such as Shintoism (which he describes as the ‘barbarous practices’ of worshipping foxes and badgers) must be eliminated.6 As evidence, he recounts prosperous periods in Japanese history in which Buddhism and government were aligned, such as the reign of the Emperor Kanmu; and periods in which the government did not accept Buddhism, such as under Nobunaga, when ‘spiritual poison’ seeped into the nation.7 After the government has accepted the great dharma, Nichiren writes that the emperor must hand down an edict for an ordination platform to be built; Tanaka interprets this that, if Nichiren was writing about the shogunate or military government, then in Tanaka’s era a resolution of the National Diet would do.2

And what of resistance to world unification? Tanaka writes, euphemistically, that ‘debates are ultimately resolved by the power of finance or aggression’; thus Japan must strengthen herself both financially and militarily.8 He writes that, if Japan follows his instructions, during the ‘impending’ Russo-Japanese War the country will be able to deploy fleets in the Japan Sea, the China Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and send a division to Siberia – specifying for the first time his exact military desires.2 He makes it clear that when a priesthood ‘forgets the two great practical forces of financial power and military might’ it ‘becomes powerless to accomplish anything’.2

 

Tanaka’s doctrine of Nichirenism firmly justified Japanese military expansion and imperialism around the world. Although it predates the Russo-Japanese war, it both predicts and hopes for the Japanese Empire which in a few decades’ time would span from Alaska to Singapore.

  1. Jacqueline I. Stone, ‘Tanaka Chigaku on “The Age of Unification”, in Georgios T. Halkias and Richard K. Payne (eds), Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts: An Anthology (University of Hawai’i, 2019), p. 632. [↩]
  2. Ibid. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  3. Jacqueline I. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict and Shogunal Decree: Politics and the Issue of Ordination Platform in Modern Lay Nichiren Buddhism’ in Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish (eds), Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition (Oxford University Press), p. 193. [↩]
  4. Stone, Tanaka Chigaku, p. 650. [↩]
  5. Ibid, p. 640. [↩]
  6. Ibid, p. 646. [↩]
  7. Ibid, p. 644. [↩]
  8. Ibid, p. 647. [↩]

Paradise on earth: Uchiyama Gudō’s imaginations of a (Buddhist) anarcho-communist utopia

The utopian vision of Uchiyama Gudō (1874-1911), a Zen Buddhist priest who was executed for his purported role in the plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1910, offers a unique example of the fusion of Buddhist and socialist ideas in early twentieth-century East Asia. Throughout his writings, Gudō repeatedly imagines a vision of tengoku, explicitly evoking the Christian idea of “soteriological and eschatological” paradise rather than the Buddhist jōdo (Pure Land) or gokuraku (land of bliss).1 Although connections between Christianity and the development of socialist revolutionary thought in Meiji Japan by Rambelli help to contextualise the contemporary meanings and connotations of tengoku, it is arguably most significant in the negative sense; that is, the imagination of an earthly, anarcho-communist utopian ‘paradise’ over a Buddhist heavenly bliss.

Gudō’s (Buddhist) anarcho-communism formed part of a broader wave of emerging Radical Buddhism in late Meiji Japan. He was not alone in his focus on earthly paradise; contemporary anarchists like Tanaka Jiroku were similarly advocating ideas of genseshugi (‘this-world-ism’).2 In China, both Taixu (1890-1947) and Lin Qiwu (1903-1934)  developed similar imaginations of a “pure land in this world” where anarchist utopia and Marxism respectively were “one and the same” as the Buddhist Pure Land.3 Yet, not only do Gudō’s ideas predate many of these other anarchists, his utopian imagination also differs in a critical way in its absence of Buddhist spiritualism. Avoiding references to the pure land, Gudō situates his paradise purely in the earthly realm; in a way, he subverts Radical Buddhism, which views socialism and anarchism as paths to an explicitly Buddhist ‘pure land’, and instead proposes an anarcho-communist revolution in which consciousness and freedom is achieved through Buddhism (as Buddhism and socialism are two sides of the same coin) yet paradise itself is defined by its material, social and political conditions rather than ‘heavenly bliss’. For example, during his interrogation for his alleged role in the High Treason Incident of 1910, Gudo describes his intellectual conversion to anarcho-communism as a result of reading about the communal lives of the Buddhist sangha in Chinese monasteries4. However, this is framed from a specifically worldly perspective; it was the communal and egalitarian aspects of the sangha that appealed to Gudō, as opposed to their spirituality and religious practice. Thus, Gudō removes the distinction between Buddhism and anarcho-communism; he is not striving for a spiritual awakening to nirvana or pure land, but for a (Marxian) social revolution through labour unions to achieve “the ideal land of anarchist communism, where all are free and live a comfortable life”.5

As Rambelli emphasises, Gudō was seeking to transform the (earthly) world as a Buddhist anarcho-communist, rather than “striving for a socialist form of Buddhism”6. Paradise would be distinctively and exclusively anarcho-communist. Whilst inherently informed by the semantic, epistemological, and ontological frameworks of Gudo’s Buddhism, paradise on earth in its realised form seems more rooted in classical Marxism. Paradise would thus begin when the capitalist bourgeoisie “reject[s] the old crime of living out of his capital” and “realize[s] that all human beings must secure their clothing and food through their own labor”.7

Consequently, Gudō’s vision for paradise was both inseparable from his conception of Buddhism and yet fundamentally material. This fusion of Buddhism and socialism was the path necessary to achieve individual and collective consciousness to eliminate oppression and achieve freedom. Attaining social consciousness and establishing paradise would be achieved through Buddhism not because he imagined a future land of heavenly bliss, but instead because the worldly anarcho-communist ‘paradise’ envisaged by Gudō would be the true realisation of Buddhism on earth.

  1. Fabio Rambelli, Zen Anarchism: The Egalitarian Dharam of Uchiyama Gudō (Berkeley, 2013), p.31. [↩]
  2. Lajos Brons, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Santa Barbara, 2023), p.76. [↩]
  3. Brons, A Buddha Land in This World, pp.92-95. [↩]
  4. Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.20. [↩]
  5. Uchiyama Gudō, Museifu Kyosan kakumei, quoted in and translated by Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.50. [↩]
  6. Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.30. [↩]
  7. Uchiyama Gudō, Heibon no jikaku, quoted in and translated by Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.63. [↩]