Author｜Maruyama Mako (1914-1996)
Famous Japanese political thought history scholar, Honors of Tokyo University Honors Professor
The investigation of The nationalism in Japan is particularly difficult. This comes from the extremely unique development form of Japanese nationalism. If we look at it further, it can ultimately be attributed to the specificity of Japan's own development when it entered the ranks of modern countries. It is difficult for people to position it in world history. In fact, the fact that politicians and scholars and experts have not yet established a clear understanding of the direction and form of political and social evolution in the past, today and future of Japan also illustrates this difficulty. This cannot be solved by the problem that the Japanese ideology ideology is too wide in opposition. As evidence, we can see that even the Japanese Communist Party, which formulated its strategies and tactics according to the clearest world outlook and theory, has major differences of opinion on fundamental issues such as the historical laws of imperialism or the class relations in rural areas? Since the launch of criticism of the International Intelligence Bureau, the most critical issue in repeated debates is that the Japanese Communist Party repeatedly exposed their lack of unified grasp of the form of the Japanese revolution. This is by no means just a matter of the party, but there are deeper issues hidden in it. The divergence of my country's ideology and ideology mentioned above, and the diversity of are in turn caused by the chaos in Japan's status in world history. The complexity of Japan's nationalist problem is ultimately due to this. The difficulties faced by
when grasping Japanese nationalism can be temporarily attributed to the two points of its composition and its fluctuation in time (of course, there is also a relationship between the two). In terms of the first point, the content of the composition, because it is first restricted by social organizations, political structures and even cultural forms, Japanese nationalism is different from European classical nationalism on the one hand, and in this sense it has the commonality of Asian nationalism; but on the other hand, it has a specific nature completely different from China, India, and Southeast Asian nationalism. It may be said that it has a side that can be regarded as a variant form of European nationalism; thus forming its complexity. The second point is, what does the characteristic of fluctuating with time refer to? This means that the stage and background change before and after this striking climax point on August 15, 1945 has become extremely troublesome to examine the problem. This creates a subtle relationship between the future characteristics of Japanese nationalism and other countries in the Far East. The nationalist trends in Asia today, especially since the North Korean incident, can be said to have become the most attention of the world. The national movements in North Korea, Central and Southeast Asia are thriving as huge revolutionary forces. Not only did people put a big bet on war and peace, that is, people need to face an imminent choice, but no matter which direction (war or peace), the world politics in the second half of the 20th century would probably operate with the rise of Asian nationalism as the main axis.
At that time, what content and direction would Japanese nationalism have be of great significance. In a sense, from the climax of August 15, Japanese nationalism took on roughly the same subject as other Far East countries that were colonies or semi-colonial very early on. "National independence" has become a slogan shared by all political parties, including the Liberal Party, on the surface, which reflects that the above-mentioned new situation has been instinctively intuitively by some politically conscious people. However, let alone other countries in the world, even within Japan, people are hesitant to generalize Japan's future nationalism with other nationalisms in the Far East. Why is this? It is naturally because Japan used the highest degree of nationalism to describe it as "extreme" before August 15, and then suddenly suffered a bleak and pitiful ending.
Among the Asian countries, Japan is the only country that has lost its virginity in nationalism. In other Far East regions, nationalism is energetic and energetic, and the internal chaotic nature of adolescence is enshrined; in contrast, Japan has completed its cycle of aging and decline early. Since there is no complete severance in history, we cannot put aside previous nationalism and think about its future development. New nationalism always carries its own past imprint, whether it arises as a rebellion of old nationalism, or after compromise with it or as its regeneration. And no matter which form it appears in, in general, in terms of the world pattern, in terms of the small, its results will change significantly in the Far East situation. In this way, since there are many possible ways to combine the known number of extreme nationalism and the unknown number of commonality of Asian nationalism in the future, it can only be said that it is still difficult for us to look at its prospects at a glance.
Therefore, I will limit the problem below. First, select the materials in , after the Meiji Restoration , grasp the characteristics of Japan's nationalist development process and pay attention to them, and use them as the initial clue to examine future development forms. These characteristics are of great significance in terms of spiritual structure for the development of relationships before and after the war. Of course, the discussion is just an overview of extremely thick lines.
It goes without saying that the nationalism in modern Japan is affected by the impact of European forces at the end of the Makuma. This situation is roughly the same in various regions of the Far East. Under such circumstances, not only were various nationalist embryos with different traits from Western European formed, but the different ways of responding to the impact also made Japan face a historical issue that was obviously different from other Far Eastern countries, especially China.
Europe already had a universalism before the creation of modern nation-states. This foundation was originally established by , the Roman Empire , and later inherited by the European community, symbolized by the Roman Catholic Church and , the Holy Roman Empire . The development of modern nation-states starting from Renaissance and Reformation is the divergent division that takes place within this originally integrated world. Therefore, it can be said that nationalism has become more prosperous since the beginning, with international social consciousness as the backstage background. The struggle of sovereign states is the struggle between independent members of the international community, which is an obvious premise; for this reason, since Graucius , war has gradually occupied an important position in the international legal system. Rousseau said: "The European countries formed an invisible state between each other"; Finnell said: "All countries adjacent to each other and formed commercial relations are a large group, and they form a community. For example, they formed a republic with common interests, universal terrorism and vigilance out of Christian influence." These discourses point out the characteristics of the universalist traditions that remained continuous after Europe was divided into several sovereign states. So, what about the so-called Asian world? The debate about whether the "Oriental" exists is well known, and no matter what its result, India, China, and Japan, which are highly self-sufficiency in history and tradition, exist together; and regardless of the various interactions they have had, it is a fact that they do not form a European-style community or an international community. Not only that, it is better to say that for these different degrees of blockades, the "international community" is embracing it into a group to force it to "found its country". In other words, the Eastern countries are not awakened within the international community, but they may be said to be forced into it under the force or threat of force of the "international community".
Therefore, the simple national feelings of the Eastern countries are first manifested everywhere as resistance to oppression of foreign European forces. What is most sensitive to this in China and Japan are the privileged ruling classes of the old countries.The most obvious feature of their "national consciousness" is to defend traditional politics, namely the social system, from the infiltration of European Christianity and industrialism. (This is in direct contrast to Europe, because the aristocrats in Europe as the old ruling class were exactly the cosmopolitan , and the emerging bourgeoisie was the main force of the nationalist movement.) If we distinguish this first-stage nationalism from modern nationalism and call it "early" nationalism, then its typical manifestation is the idea of "expelling the barbarians". What are the characteristics of this idea of expelling the barbarians?
When we discuss the expulsion of the barbarians in the late Qing Dynasty and the end of the Muwu, we will find that the following commonalities are particularly prominent. First, its emergence is inseparable from the ruling class's desire to maintain its privileged identity. Therefore, the national consciousness is thin. On the contrary, it is more likely to be an exclusion, alienation, and even hostile attitude towards the common people who occupy the majority of the people. The term "traitor and cunning" often appears in documents such as Mitoku. In other words, this title itself shows the ruler's suspicion and fear of the people's affair with the enemy. Here, an important point is that "traitorous people" are regarded as a problem of the same nature as "crawling". Second, there is no sense of reciprocity in international relations in "extinguishing the barbarians". On the contrary, since people view international relations from the perspective of domestic class rule, it was a matter of choosing one of the two from the beginning, that is, either the one-sided government annexed the other party or being defeated and controlled by the other party. In this way, once the normative awareness that restricts international relations at a higher level is thin, the negative defense awareness based on the existence of power relations yesterday will immediately transform into unlimited expansionism tomorrow. There, the special complex psychology intertwined with primitive fear and arrogance when facing completely unknown things will naturally become the dominant force. Of course, the above is just an extremely general statement. There will be various subtle differences when it comes to individual countries, and they are factors that are somewhat similar to most nationalism, namely, the factors that are somewhat similar to nationalist . However, compared with European nationalism, which originally came from a common normative consciousness, the nationalism of Eastern countries must be rational, especially to maintain a basic balance with internationalism, and it is necessary to overcome great difficulties. Among them, one thing is undeniable, that is, the differences in the conditions for the emergence of nationalism in various countries have played a considerable role.
However, after being the main force of nationalism in the early stage, the privileged class, in fact, faced the overwhelming advantage of the European world in industry, technology and arms, was forced to realize that in order to achieve the goal of defending the new world and defending the old world, they must also use the "enemy" civilization to arm themselves. But in fact, there is an extremely difficult problem. The reason for saying this is that although in fact, if the ruling class does not absorb European civilization, it will be difficult for them to maintain their original world, once fully absorbed, the result will be the transformation of the old system, which will lead to the loss of their own power. There is only one way to get rid of this contradiction, that is, the introduction and absorption of European civilization is limited to the so-called "material civilization" such as industry, technology, and arms, while various infiltrations in ideological and political principles such as Christianity, individualism, and liberal democracy and must be curbed to the minimum extent. If we describe this distinction, if we use ancient style, it is what Hashimoto Zuo'uchi calls "taking that equipment art, keeping my benevolence, righteousness, loyalty and filial piety", or "Oriental morality, Western art" of Sakuma Xiangshan (the art here naturally refers to technology). However, even in such distinction, there are obvious problems that are difficult to solve. This is because the so-called material civilization cannot be easily separated from the modern spirit that gave birth to it. What's more, even if the separation is achieved, it is extremely difficult to prevent the modernization of the material living environment from affecting thoughts and consciousness.The differences between China and Japan on the path of historical destiny and the huge differences in the development forms of nationalism between the two countries formed as a result are precisely due to the different reactions made by the old ruling classes of the two countries to the test of that period of history.
Whether in China or Japan, the relative progressive elements in the statistical class have made great efforts to "distinguish and treat" under the slogan of "rich country and strengthening soldiers". Moreover, in Japan, as we all know, the Meiji Restoration prompted the success of the top-down revolution, in any case, it finally established the first centralized nation-state in the East. It not only resisted the infiltration of European power, but also developed at a speed that shocked the world and became one of the imperialist powers. However, in China, a series of top-down modernization attempts, including the "Western Affairs" movement of Zeng Guofan and others, to Kang Youwei's " Reform Reform ", eventually succumbed to the strong conservatism within the Qing Dynasty, which led to China being concentratedly eroded and divided by imperialist powers in the second half of the 19th century, and falling into a tragic situation of "subcolonial" as mentioned by Sun Yat-sen. Of course, various other influencing factors can be listed around the difference in fate between China and Japan, such as the geographical location of the two countries, the time of "founding the country", the differences in the disintegration of the old society, the different historical personalities of the ruling class, etc. However, these causes are not the main problem here. The important thing is that the differences in these starting points ultimately put an almost completely opposite mark on the nationalism of the two countries and also had a key impact on the current situation.
This means that due to the failure to reorganize the internal structure of the ruling class to achieve modernization, China has been deeply penetrated by the imperialist powers, including Japan, for a long time. However, this in turn has indisputable assigning a task to the nationalist movement that resists imperialist rule to transform the old society and the old political system from their own way. In order to avoid destruction, the old social ruling class would inevitably collude with foreign imperialism to a greater or lesser extent and embark on the so-called "compradorization" path, so it is impossible for them to emerge an anti-imperialist national independence movement. The peace between the old ruling institutions and imperialism often inevitably leads to a combination of nationalism and social revolution. There is probably no need to trace the series of revolutionary processes from Sun Yat-sen to Chiang-Mao. However, this internal combination of nationalism and revolution is naturally the most typical in today's China, and in fact it also appears in Asian nationalisms such as India, French Indochina, Malay , Indonesia , North Korea, etc., except Japan. It can be said that it constitutes the historical characteristics of the nationalism of these countries that are somewhat similar.
only the Japanese Empire in the Far East took the opposite path. There, the "reformation" regime that overthrew the Tokugawa political system and controlled the unified state power was itself a component of the old ruling class. Their desire was nothing more than to focus on improving Japan's status to "confronting all countries" and "joining with overseas countries", thus quickly dismantling the feudal forces in many domestic areas and unifying them under the authority of the emperor. It is precisely they who skillfully implemented the above-mentioned "discrimination treatment" while implementing the policy of "rich the country and strengthening the army". The modernization success achieved on this basis is indeed quite amazing. In this way, Japan not only became a member of the "international community" while preserving its sovereignty and independence, but also achieved the status of a "great power" half a century after its founding.
However, at the same time, since modernization is subordinate to the supreme purpose of "riching the country and strengthening the army" and is achieved at an astonishing speed, as we all know, there are tilts or imbalances in all areas of Japanese society. In addition, Japan's nationalist thought and movement showed a trend to correct this tendency in its early days, and later gradually gave up trying. Although there are various differences in the reasons, the fundamental significance lies in the legitimization of Japan's development towards the empire.Therefore, not only will it not be combined with social revolution from the inside, but as shown by the series of developments of the Xuanyang Society - Black Dragon Association - - the Great Japanese Production Party, for the revolution - it may even be said that it directly suppresses the potential possibilities of the revolution at some point, and at other times it plays the role of a revolutionary force converter. On the other hand, Japanese nationalism also knows little about the "happy marriage history" that combines classical nationalism in Western Europe with the principles of popular sovereignty or general bourgeois democracy. It is better to say that it is a collusion with the deteriorating form of modern nationalism, that is, imperialism, while remaining strongly retained by the above-mentioned characteristics of "early" nationalism. In this way, Japan's nationalism bid farewell to the principle of national liberation from the early days, and in turn, it often restrained the latter in the name of national unity. This situation has also made serious discussions on issues such as "national consciousness" and "patriotism" in this country's "democratic" or workers' movements for a long time, and even regarded them as challenging cosmopolitan trends. In addition, it has led to a vicious cycle in which the ruling class or reactionary elements monopolize various symbols of nationalism.
Japan's nationalism early gave up the task of national liberation and elevated nationalism to nationalism, or even extreme nationalism. However, this not only restricts the narrow sense of democracy and the way of activities of the workers' movement, but also a question deeply related to the construction of the national spirit. In other words, people know that Japan's modernization process has developed very rapidly because of the successful application of the above-mentioned "differentiation treatment", which has made the modernization of the general basic life of the people obviously lag behind in both speed and degree, but this has also given a decisive mark on the ideological structure of nationalism and even the content of consciousness. The top often competes in the world's first-class rankings, while the bottom is stubbornly occupied by traditional methods. The structural laws of this unbalanced Japanese society also run through the nationalist ideology itself. The amazing leap development of the Japanese Empire was prepared for its equally amazing rapid decline because of its internal contradictions that were difficult to resolve. In line with this, Japanese nationalism, which was famous in the world, seemed very strong and powerful because of its abandonment of cooperation with democratization, but in fact, it would be its most insurmountable weakness in the end. The patriotism of the Japanese who were once so famous in the world realized that they quickly disappeared from the surface after the war. Just as the neighboring ethnic groups in East Asia burst out with their rushing national enthusiasm, the Japanese citizens instead showed their sick prostitute nature or blindly pursued explicit individualism, which made both the radical camp and the Taoist technicians in conservative . The secret that led to this situation has actually been rooted in the structure of pre-war nationalism. Let’s take a look at its main factors.
First of all, the first point must be pointed out that in Japan's nationalist spirit structure, the state tends to manifest itself as a direct extension of the first group (family and tribe) buried by individuals, and patriotic enthusiasm is particularly reflected in a rural feeling that loves the environment. This was originally the origin of all nationalism, that is, the common element of "tribalism". But in modern nationalism, especially the patriotic enthusiasm known as the "son of the French Revolution" (George Peabody Gucci), is by no means a simple emotional dependence on the environment. It is accompanied by a high degree of spontaneity and subjectivity, as Ernest Lehn's famous saying "The existence of the nation is a general vote every day." This is the most valuable historical gain obtained after the combination of nationalism and the principle of popular sovereignty. (So this aspect is also shown in the nationalism of the early Meiji freedom and civil rights movement , although it is very incomplete.) Since Japan's reform was in such a form, the mentors of the Meiji government could not rely on the active national joint consciousness of spontaneous growth among the people, but they realized from the constant sense of external crisis that aroused the patriotism of the people, so they would inevitably complete this topic from top to bottom through national education. The organized implementation of this process was after Mori Yuli, Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Culture, which was that Japan's "modernization" had been continuously moving forward on the basis of the cruel suppression of the freedom and civil rights movement. Therefore, the irrational love for the first group, especially the traditional, feudal and even the loyalty of the patriarchal system, was greatly mobilized and concentrated on the emperor, which is a concrete symbol of national unity, and is instilled in this way. Here, there is probably no need to repeat the concept of "loyalty to the emperor and patriotism" (loyalty to the emperor is patriotism), the view of family and state with the emperor as the general of the people. Regarding such ideological education, many of the intellectuals who experienced the Meiji era pointed out that today's people are too exaggerating their effects. They believe that the implementation of " national " education is a phenomenon that only occurred in the recent extreme nationalist stage. The Meiji era must be far free and have more "enlightenment" characteristics.
But in this way, wouldn’t the commentators tend to shrink too much about the previously mentioned imbalance problem of the top and bottom sides? Naturally, among the knowledge layer to which the theorist belongs, the immersion of the national system thought is indeed not so thorough. This is exactly the same as the intellectuals during the Tsarist Russian period, whose knowledge education accounted for the overwhelming majority. However, the common people who live on the dark and stuffy bottom of the society - although Fuze is determined to take "the idea of the country in the hearts of all people" as a lifelong topic, the result is still the "national concept" of the principle - it is through such a "compulsory" state sports education that he has both loyalty to the country and the minimum necessary industrial and military technical knowledge, and has grown into a generation of imperial subjects who have both "magic practice and scientific practice" as Frans Hals calls "magic practice and scientific practice". And that's how the national consciousness that has been effectively promoted has been continuously strengthened under the continuous foreign victory and the expansion of the empire. This expansion of the Japanese Empire, which is actually a projection of self-emotion, is naturally supported by fanatical support as self-expansion, while the frustration caused by the narrow-mindedness of citizens' freedom and the embarrassment of economic life may be regarded as the psychological cost of the country's external development. Constantly promoting a sense of external crisis - and the imperialist era since the end of the 19th century has provided it with the right soil - the ruling class has used clever national techniques that are rare in history to successfully mobilize the feelings of its own people, and prevent all signs of social division before it happens. So much so that almost all foreign Japanese study books have to write a special book about the "Spirit of Unity of Japanese Nationals".
However, even in this case, we cannot forget to look at the back of the medal. First of all, it is clear that national consciousness is not a overcome traditional social consciousness. Its indoctrination results are obtained through organized mobilization. As it is often pointed out, a large number of loyal and humble servants have been generated, and they will only entrust everything to their "superiors". As for the choice of direction, they rely entirely on authoritative decisions. This shows that modern citizens as the political responsible subject have not been produced. Secondly, the family and the village party's consciousness does their own way and has not been extended to the national consciousness. On the contrary, there are many occasions where its roots of occupying mountains and making the kings spread, which will inevitably destroy the connection between the people. Therefore, familyism has become a shackle for the implementation of the "national policy".
As we all know, for a long time after the implementation of the conscription system, the policy of the eldest son not joining the army was implemented to respect the family system. Later, it was used the opposite way by the following, and the male child below the second son entered his family to escape the recruitment.Jingzi's poem "Your Please Don't Die" is not a linguistic anti-war poem, but rather a simple expression of the persistent love of the first group, and a bold indication of the "blatant secret" of the national feelings. It is precisely because of this that it gives people a huge shock. It is not uncommon that Su Feng pointed out in "Taisho Youth and the Future of the Empire" that "the patriotism of our people is patriotism in a crisis, rather than a common thing when walking and sitting and lying down." This can be said to be the natural result of the national consciousness not exists in the lives of citizens, but is manifested externally as a projection or compensation of self-feeling. This negative in the "early" characteristics of Japanese nationalism was not long ago when it was time to fully advance the war, and even required the comprehensive organization of national life to be fully organized, it was exposed inversely proportional to those clamoring slogans. It is enough to think about the compulsory implementation of evacuation plans, the allocation of labor force, and the expansion of industrial productivity because of the existence of familialism "agricultural-based thought" or "hometown-loving consciousness".
When the Tojo Assistance Election was held, the Omama Assistance Election Tour repeatedly emphasized in live dramas everywhere, "We must resolutely abolish the evils of voting and favorable votes, and select candidates from the standpoint of the state and public." Ironically, this is actually in line with the spirit of modern elections. These are the prices that must be paid soon because the ruling class of Japanese imperialism does not pay attention to the rationalization of nationalism, but instead is keen on taking advantage of the unreasonable origins of nationalism. They noted the incredibly high cost when the situation developed until the national mobilization stage, but it was too late.
—End—
This article is selected from "Thoughts and Actions of Modern Politics", and the notes are omitted.
included in the collection
#Nationalism 26
#Open society 61
#Open society
#Human disaster 4
#Open society
#Open society 61
