1 Introduction
Creating a Context for Thinking for Oneself
Key termsâThe terms early modern(ity), individuality, and ideology figure prominently in this volume, making it helpful to have, if not actual definitions, then at least an understanding of what I intend when I use them. This also requires me to acknowledge at the outset that each of these terms has an extended, richly contested tradition, and in the explanations that follow I aim for an almost stick-figure simplicity and clarity that is not a reflection of the sophisticated theoretical debates that inevitably swirl nearby.
In terms of early modernity, I follow Björn Wittrock (1998) in appreciating that there are multiple models of early modernity but that they generally share a significantly higher capacity for resource mobilization than in the preceding âmedievalâ or âlate medievalâ period, and similarly exhibit a new level of collective identity largely absent in earlier times. Since in this volume I argue that collective identity and individual identity emerge in tandem, I could as well argue that a new level of individual identity is equally prominent in early modern Japan specifically and early modern societies generally.
To put approximate years on this in Japan, I would date the beginnings of Japanese early modernity with the ascendance of the warlord Oda Nobunaga (çčç°äżĄé· 1534â82) in the 1570s and its conclusion with the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Examples of monumental resource mobilization would be the construction of Osaka Castle begun in 1583, and the ill-advised invasion of Korea in the 1590s; collective identity emerges roughly a century later but takes yet another century to develop into theories of Japaneseness. In this volume I tend to use the terms early modern, Tokugawa period, and Edo period in ways that are essentially synonymous but with slightly different nuances: âearly modernâ when I wish to emphasize a comparative dimension; âTokugawaâ when the state is part of the issue being discussed; and âEdoâ when my interest is more social and cultural than political.
I use individuality to refer to an acceptance and appreciation of human difference, i.e., what distinguishes one person from another. One cannot discount the effect of extant source materials on our understanding of individuality in Japan, but the image that emerges of early modern individuality is that it has antecedents in the honorific culture of samurai elites and in the elitism of Buddhist and Kyoto courtier custodians of culture, as well as in patterns of medieval reclusion. A central contention of this volume is that this earlier exceptional individuality becomes commonplace during the Tokugawa period. Please note that I generally do not use the word individualism, which I understand to be the advocacy and promotion of human difference, as well as the assertion of supremacy of individual self-interest over the interests of the collectivity. The distinction is important for this study.
I use ideology, in turn, to refer to any corpus of secular thought intended by those in authority to influence the behavior of individuals and groups. I exclude religiousâin early modern Japanâs case principally Buddhistâthought and organizations from consideration because religions by their very nature seek to influence the behavior of groups and individuals, and thus render any definition of ideology that includes them overly broad.1 When bodies of social thought are subject to either indifference or disapproval from the state, I refer to them as counter-ideological. Generally, from the Genroku years (ć
çŠ 1688â1704) through the end of the Tokugawa in 1868, the Bakufu (ćčćș) or central government in Edo had relatively clear ideological preferences but at the same time tended toward cultural liberality, by which I mean it was generally indifferent to cultural expressions and social mores that it did not perceive to be threatening or destabilizing.
Individuality and ideologyâFor decades and with virtually one voice, descriptions of modern and contemporary Japan maintained that Japanese society after 1890 exhibits low levels of individuality relative to its European and North American counterparts, and that this is largely a consequence of exceptionally effective ideological production (DeVos 1985). In this volume I do not take issue with this, but I would add that for individuality to emerge, i.e., for there to be an affirmative acceptance in society of individual difference, a society has to overcome those state-sanctioned ideologies which are intended to harness collective energies and to subordinate the behavior of both groups and individuals in service to the state.
Bertrand Russell (1872â1970) traced the philosophical roots of the modern British respect for individual difference of perspective to RenĂ© Descartesâ (1596â1650) dictum, âI think, therefore I amâ (Je pense, donc je suis), which validated the notion that since each person has their own existence as the starting point for knowledge, each personâs basis for knowledge is different (Russell 1946: 579). This is consistent with what I am calling individuality in this volume, where I will argue that in Japan during the period under consideration such individuality was prominent and widespread but is not to be confused or conflated with individualism of the sort described above and that one might find in contemporary North America.
There are excellent analyses in English of ideological formation in Japan for the years 1570 to 1680 (Ooms 1985) and again for 1890 to 1912 (Gluck 1985), and the nearly two centuries from 1680 to 1870 on which I focus are bracketed chronologically by Oomsâ and Gluckâs contributions. But my interests are less in the state-sponsored and endorsed ideologies that form the topic of Oomsâ and Gluckâs brilliant studies, and more in the socially generated counter-ideological forces that both allowed for and reflected individualityâs emergence. In this volume I offer evidence of a new, more widely experienced and accepted individuality, the counter-ideological behavior it exhibited, and the values that supported it, by focusing on those intervening years which may have been individualityâs heyday in Japan. At least in Japan during the years on which this volume concentratesâand perhaps as a universal condition of modernityâindividuality and state ideology coexist in an uneasy but creative tension as each seeks to improve its stature relative to the other. That the process remains ongoing is the subject of this volumeâs Afterword.
Thinking for oneselfâAn explanation of the several associations of this volumeâs subtitle, âThinking for Oneself,â is also in order. In the Analects (2:15) Confucius is quoted, âLearning without thinking is wasted; thinking without learning is dangerousâ (ćžèäžæćçœ, æèäžćžćæź). Confuciusâ gist is that learningârote memorization and textual study aloneâis by itself not worthwhile unless one reflects upon what one has studied and through this reflection is transformed by it. Alternatively, giving free rein to oneâs thoughts without the grounding of knowledge rooted in a classical tradition can lead one astray into profoundly dangerous territory. Confucius of course was right: A balance between learning and thinking is optimal, since thinking for oneself is essentially counter-ideological and can easily become or at least appear to be subversive. However, learning to think for oneself is one of the founts of individuality: It questions and challenges received wisdom and is at the very heart of critical thinking.
Written sources make it clear that this kind of thinking forâand aboutâoneself is evident in all of Japanâs major metropolises by the end of the Genroku era and was supported by the same societal conditions that allowed for the emergence of a vibrant and self-sustaining popular culture: relatively high levels of literacy; surplus wealth distributed broadly if not equitably; cultural liberality of a sort that challenged the boundaries of what the state deemed acceptable; and high levels of urbanization that brought the best and brightest into cross-fertilizing contact with one another (Nosco 1990: 15â40). These same factors likewise provided a fertile environment for the construction of both individual and collective identity, for the nascent individuality that accompanied this construction, and for an abundance of heterodox thought in a marketplace of ideas. The dynamism that facilitated these social and counter-ideological transformations would not long remain constrained to these hyper-urban environments, and from roughly the mid-eighteenth century âthinking for oneselfâ would spread to regional centers in the countryside, using existing information and communications networks to spread the word (Ikegami 2005; Beerens 2006: esp. 195â219).
A second source for this volumeâs subtitle derives from the work of my former teacher and mentor Wm. Theodore de Bary, and especially his 1991 Learning for Oneself: Essays on the Individual in Neo-Confucian Thought. Is there something different about Japanese individuality from individuality elsewhere in the world, and especially within the East Asian cultural orbit? Writing on traditional China, de Bary observed:
There is, first of all, the individualism of the hermit or recluse, who has largely withdrawn from society. This we might call a detached or âprivateâ individualism⊠. By contrast, there is a more affirmative and socially defined individualism which seeks to establish the place of the individual or self in relation to others, to secure his status in some institutional framework or on the basis of widely declared and accepted principles.
(1991: 5)
Later in this volume we briefly examine the Japanese tradition of reclusion, which is among the most immediate antecedents for the subsequent emergence of eccentricity and strangeness, and we also more closely examine various rationales for self-cultivation in Japan, where the transparently self-ish aspect of the exercise required numerous apologists.
However, lest one conclude that Japanese individualism was merely a parochial version of a broader Confucian and hence East Asian phenomenon, let us continue with a second quotation from Prof. de Bary on how individuality was expressed in the cultural activities of a Chinese scholar during the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. This individuality, he writes, is a reflection of âthe special status and functions of the scholar-official class, the general affluence of the times, the influence of a religious atmosphere pervaded by Buddhist preoccupation with the problem of the self, and the interaction of these with a humanistic tradition that attached special importance to the cultural and political roles of educated manâ (ibid: 69). The Japanese early modern context for the emergence of individuality shared this general social affluence and increasing prosperity but otherwise differed fundamentally from the Chinese context as just described: 1) there was no scholar-official class in Japan despite efforts at Bakufu and domainal (Han è©) levels to represent the samurai (棫) as an approximate counterpart; 2) the medieval Buddhist agnosticism regarding the self had to be overcome if individuality was to radicate in Tokugawa soil; 3) there was no comparably deep-seated humanistic tradition in Japan prior to the Tokugawa; and 4) education would only gradually emerge as a qualification for a political role, and this only among those already privileged by samurai birthright. Individuality in Tokugawa Japan does indeed emerge, but it does so in a very different context from its counterpart in China.
Yet a third source for this volumeâs subtitle is the Japanese title for Tadano Makuzuâs (ćȘéçè 1763â1825) most important work, her 1817 Hitori kangae (çŹè), which has been rendered into English as âSolitary Thoughts.â Owing to the circumstances surrounding its compositionâMakuzuâs service to a royal princess at 16, her ill-fated marriage at 25, and her subsequent move to Sendai following remarriage to a Sendai samurai whom she saw infrequentlyâthis is an altogether appropriate rendering of the title and her life. But owing to Makuzuâs radical observations, which we return to in greater detail on several occasions in this volume, her title could equally as well be rendered âThinking (kangae) for Oneself (hitori),â something of which she is a superb exemplar. Tadano Makuzu had an uncanny ability to comment on the mores of her own times as if she were a distant observer, reflecting her capacity to think for herself without regard for the consequences.
Good Meiji, bad TokugawaâMy interest in this subject of individuality and counter-ideological behavior and values has a genesis of sorts in the fact that Japanese history looked quite different when I began the study of modern Japan as an undergraduate in 1970. It was customary in those days for studies of Japanâs Meiji period (ææČ» 1868â1912) to juxtapose it against a pre-modern Tokugawa, celebrating the former for its embrace of âcivilization and enlightenmentâ while critiquing the latter as a time of backward feudal repression. As Philip C. Brown, the editor of Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal, has described this:
The predominant image of early modern Japan⊠was negative⊠[and] owed much to the self-justification of victorious parties in the Meiji Restoration. To legitimate their capture of political power they painted their immediate Tokugawa predecessors as backward and inept.
(Brown 2009)
Writing in 1872 just four years after the ârestorationâ of monarchical rule, Fukuzawa Yukichi (çŠæČąè«ć 1835â1901), a paragon of and spokesman for Meiji civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika ææéć),2 set the tone for this perspective as follows:
In the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the distinction between samurai and common people was sharply drawn. The military families recklessly brandished their prestige. They treated the peasants and townsfolk as despicable criminals. They enacted such notorious laws as that which gave a samurai the right to cut down a commoner (kirisute gomen ćæšćŸĄć
). According to these laws the lives of the commoners were not truly their own, but merely borrowed things (karimono ćç©)⊠. [The Shogunate and the 300 Daimyo] treated the peasants and townsfolk despotically. They sometimes seemed compassionate to them, but they did not really recognize their inherent human rights (mochimae no kenri tsĆ«gi æćăźæš©ć©é矩).
(Dilworth and Nishikawa 2012: 14; Komuro and Nishikawa 2002: 20)
Fukuzawaâs influence and importance in the Japan of the 1860s and 1870s was such that works about the West came to be popularly known simply as âFukuzawa-bon,â and we will return to him frequently throughout this volume (Blacker 1964: 27; Storry 1965: 428). For now let us simply note that the textbooks used in Japanese secondary schools in these early years of the twenty-first century continue to emphasize a contrast depicting the Edo (or Tokugawa) period as a dark time of oppressed and overly taxed peasants, famines, economic and social inequality, a general hostility toward science, and a general backwardness relative to the âbrighterâ (akarui æăă) civilizations of Europe and North America (Nishio 2007: 10â26; Brown 2009: 73â75).
In Japan this view has been supported by two main tropes with quite different interests. On the one hand we find the Meiji oligarchs, who sought to represent the new state in ways that they hoped would conduce toward the revision of unequal treaties and Japanâs entry into the first rank of the worldâs nations. On the other hand, we find Marxist historians for whom representing the new state as the culmination of revolutionary forces conformed more closely to their desired model of history (Dower 1975). These two combined to form a view of a âgood Meiji, bad Tokugawa,â which has by no means disappeared, and especially when the topic of individuality arises. One of Japanâs most distinguished twentieth-century intellectual historians, Matsumoto Sannosuke (æŸæŹäžäčć© b. 1926), has written of how it was not until after the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894â95 that one finds the rise of individual consciousness as something meaningfully distinct from national consciousness. Matsumoto maintains that prior to that war, individual and national consciousness were conflated in Meiji discourse as symbolized by such slogans as ârich country, strong army (fukoku kyĆhei ćŻćœćŒ·ć
”),â ârespect officialdom above the people (kanson minbi ćźć°æ°ć),â âbe loyal to your lord and love your country (chĆ«kun aikoku ćż ćæćœ),â and âachieve success by leaving self behind (risshin shusse ç«èș«ćșäž).â According to this view, oneâs individual interests were perceived to be best served by promoting the collective interests of the nation-state (1996: 191â211), just as one finds expressed in the 1890 Rescript on Education, which asserted a subjectâs filial obligation to loyally serve a paternalistic state.
As late as the 1960s the common wisdom regarding the Tokugawa remained that owing to a policy of national isolation and the Bakufuâs iron-fisted authority over the regional barons, or Daimyo, Tokugawa Shoguns maintained a remarkably orderly and stable polity for over two centuries. The Shoguns were eventually undone, the story continued, in the mid-nineteenth century by their inability to manage an eruption of internal pressures and a series of foreign policy crises. The subsequent collapse of the Tokugawa regime, in turn, was seen as opening the way for the liberal and humanistic reforms of the progressive Meiji state.
This view ...