Kokugaku and an alternative account of the emergence of nationalism of Japan

Abstract

Out of a concern with the often implicit western‐centricity of theories of nationalism which are currently dominant, the article proposes to shift the focus of analysis onto the working of human agency in our understanding of nations and nationalism. Drawing from insights from the history of ideas, it argues that, contrary to the modernist account, the rise of nationalism of Japan can be traced back to the rise of Kokugaku in the eighteenth century when westernisation/modernisation had not yet reached Japan. Kokugaku scholars were engaged with intense collective self‐reflection and proposed answers to the question who the Japanese were and what Japan should be without adopting the formula of national imagination generated in the West. The article suggests that a focus on human agency has the potential to free inquires into non‐western parts of the world from the deeply embedded western‐centricity of conventional social theories, thus enriching our understanding of the world.

Nations as Zones of Conflict, Nations as Zones of Selection: A Darwinian Social Evolutionary Engagement with John Hutchinson's ‘Culture Wars’

“…Sand (:54–62) points to the way that intellectuals are also involved in this process, linking again with the points made by Ichijo () in regard to the Kokugaku School. Whilst the Kokugaku School offered a nativist interpretation that would inform elements of Japanese nationalism ( ibid .…”

“…Debates over what nations are, and what nationalism is, have abounded in the field for many years, without a settled definition. Traditionally, the divide is drawn between primordialists, who hold that nations have always been a part of human history, and modernists, who believe them to be recent constructions that are produced by the modernizing process (Ichijo :3–4). Within this ethno‐symbolism, Hutchinson's approach straddles the two perspectives in claiming that nations are (mostly) a modern phenomenon, but they have important antecedents from the past that inform and shape them (Smith ; ).…”

“…Rather, there were a succession of competing images and ideas about the form that the Japanese government should take, a process that continued well into the Meiji period, before the country settled on the emperor system (Gluck ; Howell ). Nor, as the conventional image suggests, was this purely a case of imitating Western ideas (Ichijo :1–2). The Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigō Takamori in 1877, was an attempt to push through an alternative to the prevailing system that was eventually defeated.…”

“…More than this, however, the creation of Japanese nationalism was not built out of nothing. As Atsuko Ichijo outlines (), in an agency‐focused appraisal of nationalism in Japan, the Kokugaku School set about attempting to recover a native Japanese tradition that supposedly existed before the importation of Chinese traditions. This would represent the ‘true heart’, or the true uncontaminated spirit, of Japan (Ichijo :13–14).…”

“…An issue that will not be dealt with directly in this paper is the way in which this view is Eurocentric, in seeing nationalism as a phenomenon that begins in the West and then spreads elsewhere, with other places simply being passive followers. The paper will explore aspects of this critique, but a fuller review can be found in Bhambra ; (in relation to social theory) and Ichijo ; (in relation to nationalism).…”