Cultural Struggles Defining Modern Japan asive sense of profound change citement, fear invention of tradition, as respons obal process: OT peculiar to Japan, king place in global dialogue
Jan 21, 2016
Cultural Struggles
Defining Modern Japan
•Pervasive sense of profound change•Excitement, •and fear
•The invention of tradition, as response•A global process:
• NOT peculiar to Japan, •Taking place in global dialogue
Dramatic Cultural Change
The age of neo-logism
Religion: Shūkyō 宗宗Rights: Kenri 権利Society/social: Shakai 社会Philosophy: Tetsugaku 哲学Literature: Bungaku 文学Company : Kaisha 会社Science: Kagaku 科学Nation,People : Kokumin 国民Asia: Ajia 亜細亜 or アジア
Fukuzawa Yukichi
•Advocate of change, of“civilization and enlightenment”
•His critique: “Japan has a government but no‘nation’ ” (kokumin).
•Advocates individualindependence, but forsake of the nation
•Problematic relation toAsia
New Roles For Women
•Seeking freedom and rights
•Kishida Toshiko and Fukuda Hideko
New Roles For Women
•New Robes•Related new roles?
New Robes For Women
New Robes For Women
Fear of Political Disorder
Yamagata Aritomo
“Every day we wait,the evil poison [of popular rights] will spread more and more…
The fear of gender anarchy
-seen in Muragaki diary, 1860s
Fear of Westernization
Society for political education:The Japanese, 1888
“What is today’s Japan? The old Japan has already collapsed, but the new Japan has not yet risen. What religion do we believe in? What moral and political principles do we favor? It is as if we are wandering in confusion through a deep fog, unable to find our way”
Response: Re-inventing the Monarch•The Imperial institution enshrined at the heart of the the constitution (on website)
Emperor Meiji, 1872, age 20
1888•Defining the Imperial image
1872
Response: Re-inventing the Monarch•In ritual as well as in word
•Promulgating the constitution)
Proclamation of the Kaiser’s Reich, 1871
Response: Re-inventing the Monarch•In ritual as well as in word
•Promulgating the constitution)
•The imperial rescript oneducation (website)
Response: Re-inventing the Monarch•In ritual as well as in word
•The imperial rescript oneducation (website)
Alternative response
Response: Inventing the “Good Wife and Wise Mother”
Good wife and wise mother as a global tradition of modern times
Response: Inventing Japanese-ness •Articulating Japanese,
and Asian, aesthetics
Okakura Kakuzo,The Ideals of the East,
“Asia is One”