Abstract
Fukuzawa famously said that he lived “two lives with one body,” and this reflected the character of Japan’s social transformation in his time. In addition to outlining how Japan transformed itself in Fukuzawa’s time, Hwang introduces the two primary enemies that Fukuzawa faced in his enlightenment project: first, Confucian scholars who promoted “Eastern Ethics, Western Practice,” and second, reactionary samurais who were willing to die for the “Japanese spirit” (yamato damashii). The former offered a conservative argument that accepted Western technologies but wanted to hold onto Confucianism and Japan’s class system, while the latter was a direct ideological predecessor of the Japanese totalitarianism that led to the Pacific War. Fukuzawa courageously criticized both as harmful to Japan’s modernization and the expansion of the freedom of the Japanese people.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The basic biographical information not cited in this study was based on Fukuzawa’s autobiography. See Yukichi Fukuzawa, The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, trans. Eiichi Kiyooka (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007). For the original Japanese version, see Fukuzawa Yukichi, Fukuzawa Yukichi Zenshū [Complete collection of Fukuzawa Yukichi] vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970), 1–260.
- 2.
The typical view of the Meiji Restoration as a reactionary “revolution from above” was most notably presented by Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). Such perspectives have also been challenged by many. For example, see Roger W. Bowen, Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan: A Study of Commoners in the Popular Rights Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) and Seong Heui Yeob, joyonghan hyeokmyeong: Meijiyooshin gua ilboneui geonguk [Silent Revolution: The Meiji-Revolution and Japan’s State-buildings] (Seoul: Somyung Books, 2016).
- 3.
Yukichi Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization , trans. by David A. Dilworth & G. Cameron Hurst III, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) 4. My translation from “It is as if…” to “…different bodies.”
- 4.
In fact, the “Confucian” metaphysics I am referring to here is actually “Neo-Confucianism,” which was first developed by the eleventh-century Confucian philosopher Cheng Yi and later integrated by the famous founder of Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi. Before them, Confucianism was generally a practical guide to politics and individual lives more than anything metaphysical. As an example of the excellent analysis of the transformation from Neo-Confucian metaphysics to modern thoughts in Japan, see Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans. by Mikiso Hane (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1974).
- 5.
The word Shōgun is an abbreviation of Seii Taishōgun, which means “the Great General who subjugated the savages.”
- 6.
The relationship between the Emperor and the Shōgun will be explained in due course.
- 7.
See Maruyama Masao, “Fukuzawa Yukichi no tetsugaku” [The Philosophy of Fukuzawa Yukichi] in Matsuzawa Hiroaki (ed.), Fukuzawa Yukichi no tetsugaku—hoka roppen [The Philosophy of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Six Other Essays] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001).
- 8.
Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (London: Routledge, 1960), 134.
- 9.
The use of the Chinese character “shi” in Japan provides the most striking example of the peculiarity of the ruling class in Japan. The Chinese character “shi” indicates the literary scholar-gentry that was the majority of the Confucian ruling class in Korea and China. It was the standard character of gentlemanship in Confucian beliefs, which essentially represents the academics who devoted their lives to studying Confucian philosophy. In Japan, however, the character “shi” mostly indicates the samurai class, and oftentimes the character “shi” itself was read as “samurai.” For a general study of the samurai class and how it became a ruling class in Japan, see Mitsuo Kure, Samurai: An Illustrated History (North Clarendon: Tuttle, 2001).
- 10.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598), often ranked by the Japanese public as one of the most respected persons in history, unified Japan for the first time since the Age of Warring States began. His ambition also led him to plan to invade Korea and even China, as evidenced by his efforts to learn Chinese. This plan was frustrated by the allied force of China and Korea and the great naval exploit of Yi Sun-sin, a Korean general who primarily led the naval force of Korea. Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea (1592–1598) is one of the most dramatic historical events showing the intricate international relationship and the balance of power among Japan, Korea, and China. See Samuel Hawley, The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China (Seoul: the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2008). Also see Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2000), 19.
- 11.
Ibid., 33.
- 12.
In the eighteenth century, there was a nationalist reaction to the domination of Confucianism led by scholars of “national studies,” with Motoori Norinaga at the forefront. Nonetheless, their “national studies” were still under the strong influence of Confucian ethics.
- 13.
Maruyama Masao and Katō Shūichi, Honyaku to nihonno kindai [Translation and Japan’s Modernity] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1998), 20.
- 14.
Jansen, 33.
- 15.
Since the Dutch merchants were enjoying the exclusive privilege of conducting business on Japanese soil, they became the only source of Western knowledge for many curious Japanese intellectuals before Commodore Perry forced the Shogunate to open the ports. Most of the Western books they were able to acquire were, naturally, written in Dutch, which makes any studies related to the West called “Dutch studies.”
- 16.
One might compare the Japanese case above to Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping Rebellion, which arose in southern China and almost completely destroyed the Qing dynasty. Unfortunately, the Taiping Rebellion had nothing to do with the enlightenment movement and remained a peasant-based uprising. None of Hong’s contemporary Chinese elites were sympathetic to his cause. As all intellectuals aimed to gain government employment, which was controlled by the central administration of the imperial court, very few intellectuals had any serious interest in the Western knowledge that they would have been able to access in southern China. In such a situation, what China could take from the Western merchants was not scientific reason but only mystical elements of Christianity, which would penetrate the consciousness of one of the most impoverished and oppressed classes in world history: the Chinese peasants. Even Kang Youwei, a reformer who rose to prominence after Qing China was defeated by Japan in 1895, had a limited and somewhat mystical understanding of modern science. See Li Zehou, Zhongguo jindai sixiang shilun [The History of Early Modern Chinese Thoughts] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1979), 7–30 and 92–181.
- 17.
See Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 112. It seems Wittfogel never gave any serious attention to Japan, except noting that material conditions there were not suited to the growth of typical hydraulic power. After all, Wittfogel’s goal was to complete the analogy between ancient Asiatic despotism and the bureaucratic rule of Stalinism, so too much attention paid to Asia, outside of the bureaucratic rule in China, would have been considered a digression.
- 18.
Moore, 260–262.
- 19.
Keiko Hirata and Mark Warschauer, Japan: The Paradox of Harmony (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 7.
- 20.
Moore, 233.
- 21.
Zenshū vol. 7, 11.
- 22.
To understand why Enlightenment philosophes were mischaracterized and caricatured as naïve optimists, see Stephen Eric Bronner, Reclaiming the Enlightenment (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 38.
- 23.
Masao Maruyama, “Theory and Psychology of Ultra-Nationalism,” trans. Ivan Morris, in Thoughts and Behaviors in Modern Japanese Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 18.
- 24.
Compare with Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: The Viking Press, 1963).
- 25.
See G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 126–139.
- 26.
Lu Xun’s most famous short story, The True Story of Ah Q, also points out the similar problem that Chinese peasants faced. See Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q: Chinese-English Bilingual Edition (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002).
- 27.
At least in South Korea, where one can still find remnants of the Japanese warrior spirit and class order due to the legacy of colonization, the “transfer of oppression” is rather easy to find. Every Korean male citizen who has finished his military service will easily understand what “the transfer of oppression” means. Although the situation is clearly improving with the consolidation of democracy in South Korea, the problem remains. It has been very common among lower-ranked soldiers in the South Korean military that they do not even know why they are being scolded by higher-ranked soldiers, because oftentimes higher-ranked soldiers simply “transfer” what they have endured from other higher-ranked soldiers and/or officers.
- 28.
dōri. Here, the translation could be slightly difficult because Fukuzawa may have used dōri as something similar to “rights” or perhaps recht in German. Nonetheless, “reason” seems to work as well in the context. See Yanabu Akira, Honyaku-go seiritsu jijō [The Establishment of Translated Words] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), 151–172.
- 29.
Fukuzawa, Civilization, 28.
- 30.
Maruyama Masao, Bunmeiron no gairyaku wo yomu [Reading An Outline of a Theory of Civilization] vol. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987) 1–8. Although politically a legitimist, Guizot’s idea of Western civilization had a profound influence on the liberal understanding of the history of Western Europe. There would be no disagreement that Guizot was one of the most important historians of his time. See Douglas Johnson, Guizot: Aspects of French History (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).
- 31.
Maruyama gave the example of Uemoto Katsumi, a Marxist philosopher who was active in the Japanese Communist Party in post-war Japan. Maruyama, Bunmeiron no gairyaku wo yomu, vol. 1, 153.
- 32.
The meaning of the word Zhongguo, the word for “China” in Chinese, is the “Central State,” which suggests the Sino-centric worldview of the tradition.
- 33.
See Maruyama and Katō, Honyaku to nihonno kindai, 19. Moreover, this pathetic attitude of the Chinese intellectuals was heavily criticized by Lu Xun’s A True Story of Ah Q by what he called a “spiritual victory” (jingshenshengli).
- 34.
Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition: Vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 446.
- 35.
Ibid., 634.
- 36.
Fukuzawa, Autobiography, 13. I slightly changed the translation.
- 37.
Fukuzawa recounted his fear of assassination during this period a number of times in his autobiography. He even dedicated a whole chapter to describing the frightening experiences. See ibid., 225–238.
- 38.
Maruyama Masao compared the late-Tokugawa samurais with modern white-collar salaried workers (sararii man, a Japanese expression based on a broken-English term). Maruyama and Katō, Honyaku to nihonno kindai 18.
- 39.
Moore, 233–238.
- 40.
For an example of how people who did not belong to the samurai class earned privileges, particularly the merchant class, see Charles David Sheldon, The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan, 1600–1868: An Introductory Survey (Locust Valley, J. J. Augustin Incorporated Publisher, 1958), 64–84.
- 41.
Although Moore believed that there was no socioeconomic equivalent of German Junkers in Japan, it is tempting to draw parallels between the parasitic status of the two reactionary classes in the advent of modernity. Moore’s opposition to this view is based on the fact that samurais were generally separated from land ownership. But he indeed recognized that small-scale landowners were abundant in Japan. See Moore, 276.
- 42.
For accounts of Confucian scholars, see Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, 123–124.
- 43.
King Wen of Zhou (1152–1056 bc) is considered a founder of the Zhou dynasty, which ruled China longer than any other dynasty in history and was the model for ideal politics in Confucianism. Although it was his son, King Wu, who defeated the existing Shang dynasty and unified China under Zhou, many Confucian scholars believed that King Wen prepared the foundation of the empire. Classic of Poetry, one of the most important Confucian canons, praised the self-renovation (ishin in Meiji ishin , weixin in Chinese) in King Wen’s politics as the following: “Although Zhou was an ancient state, its mandate was self-renovation (zhousuijiubang qimingweixin).” See Chapter Daya, Section King Wen (Wenwang) in Zhou Gong, Classic of Poetry (Shijing), (Milton Keynes: JiaHu Books, 2014) 112.
- 44.
Fukuzawa also wrote that the Shogunate wanted to “Expel the Barbarians” more than anyone else. See Zenshū vol. 5, 106–107.
- 45.
Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909). As one of Yoshida’s most prominent students, Itō was also devoted to his action-oriented philosophy and joined the anti-Shogunate force to overthrow the government, as did many of his fellow samurais from the Chōshū domain. After seeing the West with his own eyes as a participant in the Iwakura Mission, a diplomatic corps sent abroad by the Meiji government, he became increasingly more moderate and decided to westernize Japan. He enraged Koreans after he forcefully took Korea’s diplomatic sovereignty in 1905 and ended up being assassinated by a Korean pan-Asianist, Ahn Jung-geun, who remains greatly respected by North and South Koreans alike to this day.
- 46.
de Bary, Gluck, and Tiedemann, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition, 654.
- 47.
Ibid., 653. Emphasis added.
- 48.
Maruyama Masao, Bunmeiron no gairyaku wo yomu, vol. 3, 316.
- 49.
See Rikki Kersten, “Painting the Emperor red: The Emperor and the socialists in the 1930s,” in Rikki Kersten and David Williams eds., The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2006).
- 50.
This was one of the most famous propaganda slogans used by the government and the military of the Empire of Japan during the Pacific War. It was mainly promoted by far-right organizations such as the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei yokusan kai). For more about the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, see Jansen, 631.
- 51.
See the following excerpt from Fukuzawa’s autobiography: “When I asked a gentleman what the ‘election law’ was and what kind of institution the Parliament really was, … these were the things most difficult of all for me to understand. In this connection, I learned that there were different political parties—the Liberal and the Conservative—who were always ‘fighting’ against each other in the government. For some time it was beyond my comprehension to understand what they were ‘fighting’ for, and what was meant, anyway, by ‘fighting’ in peace time. ‘This man and that man are enemies in the House,’ they would tell me. But these ‘enemies’ were to be seen at the same table, eating and drinking with each other.” Fukuzawa, Autobiography, 134.
- 52.
Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore. Jr., & Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965), 81–117.
References
Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: The Viking Press.
Bowen, Roger W. 1984. Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan: A Study of Commoners in the Popular Rights Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bronner, Stephen Eric. 2004. Reclaiming the Enlightenment. New York: Columbia University Press.
de Bary, Theodore, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann, eds. 2005. Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 2, 1600–2000. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. 1969–1971. Fukuzawa Yukichi Zenshū [Complete Collection of Fukuzawa Yukichi]. 22 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
———. 2007. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Trans. Eiichi Kiyooka. New York: Columbia University Press.
———. 2008. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. Trans. David A. Dilworth and G. Cameron Hurst III. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hawley, Samuel. 2008. The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. Seoul: The Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hirata, Keiko, and Mark Warschauer. 2014. Japan: The Paradox of Harmony. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jansen, Marius B. 2000. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Johnson, Douglas. 1963. Guizot: Aspects of French History. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Kersten, Rikki. 2006. Painting the Emperor Red: The Emperor and the Socialists in the 1930s. In The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy, ed. Rikki Kersten and David Williams, 18–36. New York: Routledge.
Kure, Mitsuo. 2001. Samurai: An Illustrated History. North Clarendon: Tuttle.
Li, Zehou. 1979. Zhongguo jindai sixiang shilun [The History of Early Modern Chinese Thoughts]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House.
Mannheim, Karl. 1960. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. London: Routledge.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1965. Repressive Tolerance. In A Critique of Pure Tolerance, ed. Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, 81–117. Boston: Beacon Press.
Maruyama, Masao. 1969. Thoughts and Behaviors in Modern Japanese Politics, ed. Ivan Morris. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Trans. Mikiso Hane. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
———. 1986–1987. Bunmeiron no gairyaku wo yomu [Reading an Outline of a Theory of Civilization]. 3 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten
———. 2001. Fukuzawa Yukichi no tetsugaku—hoka roppen [The Philosophy of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Six Other Essays], ed. Matsuzawa Hiroaki. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Maruyama, Masao and Katō Shūichi. 1998. Honyaku to nihonno kindai [Translation and Japan’s Modernity]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Seong, Heui Yeob. 2016. Joyonghan hyeokmyeong: Meijiyooshin gua ilboneui geonguk [Silent Revolution: The Meiji-Revolution and Japan’s State-Buildings]. Seoul: Somyung Books.
Sheldon, Charles David. 1958. The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan, 1600–1868: An Introductory Survey. Locust Valley: J. J. Augustin Incorporated Publisher.
Wittfogel, Karl. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Xun, Lu. 2002. The True Story of Ah Q: Chinese-English Bilingual Edition. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Yanabu, Akira. 1982. Honyaku-go seiritsu jijō [The Establishment of Translated Words]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Zhou Gong. 2014. Classic of Poetry. Milton Keynes: JiaHu Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hwang, M. (2020). Social Background: Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Transformation of Japan. In: Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Bourgeois Liberalism. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21530-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21530-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-21529-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-21530-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)