Nationalist undertones are clearly evident in Kuki Shūzō’s Iki no kōzō, or The Structure of Iki; however, critiques on his exploitation of hermeneutic methodology and his universalization of a term concerning a minority for the whole of Japan undermine his book’s ability to serve as nationalistic ideology.
Published in 1930, Iki no kōzō explored the cultural meaning of iki in order to reconcile Japan’s past against the infringing influences of Western modernity. Kuki argues that iki is a Japanese sensibility of taste which can be symbolized through objectification but only truly understood by personal experience. In other words, one may be able to find attributes of iki in Western aesthetics, yet the works would lack the hermeneutic meaning of iki, ‘as a phenomenon of consciousness’.1 Thus, iki becomes a ‘distinct self-expression of an oriental culture,’ —a uniquely Japanese phenomenon.2 In this exposition as a Japanese exclusive taste, Kuki presents a nationalist view: the realization of iki separates Japan from the vulgarity of the West. Hence, in terms of aesthetics, Japan was culturally superior. Nevertheless, this nationalism fails to successfully manifest into nationalist ideology.
In her article ‘In a Labyrinth of Western Desire: Kuki Shūzō and the Discovery of Japanese Being’, Leslie Pincus critiques a paradox in Kuki’s employment of hermeneutics. Although Pincus’s interpretation is contested as ironic and overreaching— ‘[Pincus] removes Kuki’s work from the Japanese context… and tries to build a culturalscape of Japan’s fascism and imperialism in a discourse of Japan’s aesthetics, that may not have existed exactly as she portrayed’ —her evaluation of the hypocritical impact of hermeneutics in Kuki’s argument should not be discounted.3 The paradox stems from Kuki’s revelation that ‘iki has no place in Western culture as a certain meaning in its ethnic being’ and his assertion ‘the study of iki can exist only as a hermeneutic study of ethnic being’.4 The problem, then, lies in the fact that hermeneutics is a Western mode of analysis. Therefore, Kuki ironically ‘the terms in which he articulated Japan’s difference from the West were clearly marked by a long and productive apprenticeship to European letters’.5 If Kuki must rely on European methodology in order to extract Japan’s distinctive aesthetic, iki, then the question of whether this concept would exist without Western modernity emerges. Since Kuki posits iki in direct opposition to Western influences—that iki remains untainted by the West—this question undercuts his book’s appeal to nationalistic ideology. How can Kuki’s argument purport a superiority of Japanese aesthetics, or issue iki as a national defense, when the only way to comprehend this mode of being is through a Western lens. Thus, Western influence infiltrates the very thing Kuki argues it does not, ultimately weakening his nationalistic argument.
Moreover, Kuki’s decision to universalize a term pertaining to a small selection of Japan’s population, hinders his overall assessment of iki as a national mode of being. Iki, as an aesthetic, grew in popularity during the Edo period of Japan. Denoting a specific style of the mercantile class in the city of Edo, iki represented a resistance to the samurai bureaucracy.6 In other words, historically, iki resided in the sentiments and style of the Edo merchant class—a class holding great wealth but lacking status. By choosing a word associated with one social class in one city, Kuki severely limits the inclusive aspect of his argument. How can iki constitute the mode of being for all of Japan when it is only linked to a small percentage of the population? In employing iki as a cultural signifier, Kuki enlarges this minority group to portray Japan. He essentially fabricates a national identity. The lack of consideration for other groups diminishes Kuki’s declaration of iki as a national phenomenon, for iki does not truly represent all of Japan. Consequently, Kuki’s book is unsuccessful as nationalistic ideology.
- Shūzō Kuki, ‘The Structure of Iki’, in Hiroshi Nara, J. Thomas Rimer, and Jon Mark Mikkelson (eds), The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō (Honolulu, 2004), p. 58. [↩]
- Ibid., p. 17. [↩]
- Yukiko Koshiro, ‘Fascism and Aesthetics – Leslie Pincus: Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shūzō and the Rise of National Aesthetics’, The Review of Politics, 59: 3 (1997), p. 608. [↩]
- Kuki, ‘The Structure of Iki’, pp. 58-59. [↩]
- Leslie Pincus, ‘In a Labyrinth of Western Desire: Kuki Shuzo and the Discovery of Japanese Being’, boundary 2, 18: 3 (1991), p. 144. [↩]
- Ibid., p. 143. [↩]