"Return to the starting point of thought and pay attention to the uneven possibilities that can go in any direction when the mind breaks out of its shell."
"Loyalty and Rebellion: The State of The Spiritual History of Japan's Transition Period" was selected as one of the top ten good books of the year by the Economists' Reading Club and the 2021 "Baoma" annual book list.
explanation
Text by Osamu Kawasaki
One
The book "Loyalty and Rebellion" is the last book that Maruyama Masayoshi personally participated in compiling (except for the Maruyama Makoto Collection), which mainly contains Maruyama's representative papers from the 1960s and 1970s.
Whether affirming or denying Maruyama's achievements or various statements, few people will not recognize him as a representative scholar and intellectual after the war. So, for the reader, what kind of author is Maruyama?
As we all know, Maruyama began his academic career as a researcher on the history of Japanese political thought. The essays included in the book "Studies on the History of Japanese Political Thought" are the results of his representative work. For researchers of the history of political thought, Maruyama is first and foremost a researcher of the history of Japanese political thought. Maruyama himself repeatedly stressed during his lifetime that this was his original field of activity. Moreover, Maruyama's achievements in this field were undoubtedly of landmark significance at that time.
However, what makes Maruyama's influence beyond his professional field, that is, as an "intellectual", has a great influence on lovers of political science and other humanities and social sciences other than the study of the history of Japanese political thought, as well as the mass media and the general public, is Maruyama's analysis of the political situation at home and abroad at the same time, as well as his speeches on real politics (representative results such as "The Logic and Psychology of Supranationalism" are included in "Thoughts and Actions of Modern Politics"). The so-called "Maruyama politics" – although Maruyama had been rejecting this phrase during his lifetime – refers precisely to Maruyama's work in this field.
Indeed, after a certain period, Maruyama himself began to refer to activities in this field as "side business", constantly emphasizing that this was not his job. However, in reality, "Thought and Action in Modern Politics" was once a "must-read document" for students, and the appreciation and criticism of Maruyama by contemporaries also pointed to the work he called "side business", which is also an indisputable fact.
So, what is the relationship between Maruyama's "main business" and "side business"? It is true that the relationship between the two can be said to be work for connoisseurs versus work for general, or work as professional researchers and work for intellectuals.
Further, as Maruyama repeatedly emphasized in his later years, "side hustle" can be said to be his temporary business trip to the field in the 1940s and 1950s when there was a lack of professional researchers in the field of analysis of the political situation in Japan.
However, there is a fuller and more organic link between the two. First, Maruyama's discussion of the situation itself is clearly based on his knowledge of the history of political thought in Japan, China, and the West. In this sense, without one's own job, there is no doubt that one cannot carry out a "side business".
However, in the case of Maruyama, isn't the same thing to say about the reverse? In other words, if there is no charm of "side business" and the ability to carry out "side business", then I am afraid that there will be no "Maruyama Maruo" and his job that continues to attract us. This is closely related to Maruyama's consistent grasp of the history of ideas as a "history of problems" and its practice.
As early as the various papers in the "Study of the History of Japanese Political Thought", he consciously grasped the history of ideas as a history of problems, and these papers were an attempt to save Japan from the picture of The history of Japanese thought from the imperial view of history. Moreover, "The Thought of Japan" and his repeated fukuzawa Yukichi theory are undoubtedly the results of this study of "problem history".
"History is a never-ending dialogue between the present and the past" is the first time to write about it. H. Carr's famous quote, there are very few intellectual historians like Maruyama who consciously and openly put this into practice.
The papers included in this book, Loyalty and Rebellion, vividly demonstrate Maruyama's power and charm as a problematic intellectual historian.
Two
In this sense, this book is the most characteristic work of Maruyama Maruo. However, it is quite paradoxical, and because of this reason, this book, especially the core thesis "Loyalty and Rebellion", has a different side from the widely circulated image of Maruyama Maruyama. At least that's what I think.
In short, this paper attempts to reconstruct, in a hermeneutical way, the original and rooted samurai spirit ("the spiritual temperament of the samurai who is a warrior") that was "bureaucratized" by the "bureaucratization of family property" in the Edo period and completely forgotten in modernization.
That is to say, it is a "monumental history" (in the Nietzsche sense) that excavates the "civic virtues" of Japanese history, a "narrative poetry theory" that pretends to be forgotten by history and a "narrative poetry theory" that has summoned the soul of their spirits in the same era (in the sense of Sheldon Wolin).
This is reminiscent of are the growing "history of ideas" of Arendt, Heidegger, and Nietzsche, and is very stimulating in political theory. However, the image of Maruyama Maruo that emerges here is completely different from the popular image of Maruyama Maruo as a "modernist" that is widely shared by people who have mixed opinions and criticisms (although they use different expressions).
This difference is embodied in the following aspects in the paper "Loyalty and Rebellion".
First, the paper takes a "conservatism" approach. Admittedly, Maruyama (not "hating Japan" in the general sense) has been painstakingly searching for positive content in Japanese thought, and those familiar with his evaluation of Ogi and Fukuzawa Yukiyoshi are not unfamiliar with this.
However, rather than discussing eminent thinkers with a "modern" character, the paper rediscovers in a hermeneutic way the "admonitions" that are regarded as orthodox political practices or traditions of Japanese samurai society (of course, "traditions" are often created, so it is natural to argue here about what constitutes orthodox traditions) and to criticize Japan's "modernization" and current situation.
From the perspective of ideological content, this can be said to be the Japanese version of "republicanism", and its narrative can even be said to embody a kind of conservatism.
The second point is that the "barren" soul lurking in Maruyama's thought has come to the fore in this paper. As mentioned earlier, this paper confronts the spirit of bureaucracy in the spirit of "samurai".
It is true that Maruyama's strong antipathy to the spirit of bureaucracy can also be seen in his fierce attacks on the "banal evils" of the japanese militarist guides (as arendt later discovered in the middle management of the Nazis) in his two articles, "The Logic and Psychology of Supranation" and "The Spiritual Structure of the Militaristic Dominator"; the militancy implicit in the modern citizens outlined by Maruyama is also consistent with his emphasis on the "spiritual aristocracy" that underpins democracy in works such as "Thought in Japan".
However, in the article "Loyalty and Rebellion", these spirits appear in a more direct way than in any other work.
Third, from the above two points, it is not difficult to find that Maruyama's thought is very contemporary with European thought in the 20th century (especially in the 1920s and 1930s) and contemporary political philosophy.
The scholarly methods and existential figures shown in the article "Loyalty and Rebellion" are completely different from the popular "modernism", which is obviously embedded in a kind of ideological questioning of modern times that was born out of the ideas of the 1920s and 1930s. From these characteristics, the paper can also be seen as the kind of social critique that michael Walzer advocated in recent years in his book Interpretation and Social Critique, an attempt that is extremely rare in Japan.
Three
Another core paper in the book is "The "Paleosphere" of Historical Consciousness, which is Maruyama's masterpiece of the 1970s.
The picture of the history of Japanese thought presented here, i.e., the picture of the history of Japanese thought in which unchanging entities ("potentials") unfold in history while flexibly changing their forms ("successive changes")," is "super" historicist in a double sense: on the one hand, this makes infinite "historical relativism" possible; on the other hand, by denying history as an independent past, the idea of "history" itself becomes impossible.
This is a unique aerial view of the history of Japanese thought, but at the same time with a tone of total criticism of the history of Japanese thought, and it is itself a kind of historical existentialism that exudes gloom and boldness. This paper is not so much a study of intellectual history texts in general as it is a discussion of the paradigm of thinking in the history of Japanese thought itself, a unique approach that accentuates its historical philosophy.
In the discussion of the paper "Loyalty and Rebellion", the influence of ideas in the 1920s and 1930s on Maruyama was mentioned, and in a sense, such an influence can also be seen in the "Paleo layer" paper.
For example, the shadow of the philosophy of life can be clearly seen in the existential theory of "potential (いきほひ)", especially the reference to Nietzsche in the "Epilogue" section of the text.
(As an aside, this subsection is reminiscent of Alexander Kojève's "The End of History" and the much-to-do "Japan is the most advanced postmodern state theory," which is very interesting.) ）
However, as far as the "influence relationship" of this paper is concerned, the ideological factors of the 1920s and 1930s stored in Maruyama's literacy warehouse do not seem to appear on the surface by accident. Both the philosophy of life and "Nietzschean" nihilism undoubtedly played a specific political role in Japanese thought in the 1930s and 1940s. It's hard to imagine Maruyama not being aware of this layer of background.
If so, we can speculate that the "influence" of these ideological factors was the result of Maruyama's intentional actions in his awareness of contemporaneous thought. In this way, the "paleolayer" theory will naturally have some similarity with the ideas of the 1920s and 1930s. But is that the question? In fact, this seems to be related to the later evaluation of the "Ancient Layer" of Historical Consciousness itself.
"The "Ancient Layer" of Historical Consciousness is probably one of the most fascinating and magical works in Maruyama's few papers. Admittedly, this work has the courage to expose the hidden secrets of Japanese intellectual history. But on the other hand, it also seems inextricably linked to a fatalistic despair– although Maruyama himself vehemently denied this.
As Maruyama himself wrote in his essay "Archetypes, Paleolayers, and Obstinate Bass," he began his investigation of the "paleospheres" out of a methodological concern for how to explore the history of Japanese thought.
According to him, it is not only possible to trace the inherent "vertical" changes in the history of Japanese thought in chronological order, but also to consider the opportunity of "cultural contact" and discuss ways to deal with the "horizontal" impact, otherwise it is impossible to accurately outline the picture of Japanese intellectual history.
Maruyama's concern for "cultural contact" is also reflected in papers such as "Founding the Nation" included in this book. So what is the unchanging nature and "personality" of Japanese thought that is constantly changing in repeated "cultural encounters"? Maruyama's "paleo-layer" theory is precisely a way to answer this question. However, this idea is reminiscent of the idea of dividing the history of ideas into Japanese "native" ideas versus "foreign" ideas (Kokushiro!). ) schema.
However, Maruyama's intentions were certainly not here. Maruyama not only has a deep understanding of the original heterogeneity of Japanese culture, but also has a deep understanding of the original heterogeneity of all cultures with complex structures. And, according to Maruyama, this "archaic" approach is a means of overcoming the dualism of internal and external hair.
That is to say, this method is not intended to distinguish between "indigenous" and "foreign" elements of Japanese intellectual history, but is concerned with the unique personality exhibited by Japan in the method of accepting "foreign" ideas. In other words, it is not opposing the unchanging and the changing, it is concerned with the immutability of the changing paradigm, and the unchanging accepting paradigm of foreign ideas that runs through Japanese history is the "archaic" (or "archetypal" and "stubborn bass"). This can be said to be an attempt to super-dimensionalize "Japanese-style things".
Thus, through the "archaic" approach, Maruyama discovered a unique Japanese way of thinking, which is fundamentally opportunistic, and which makes it possible to make endless opportunist reactions to foreign ideas.
As mentioned earlier, the "paleolayer" approach was originally intended to overcome the dualistic approach of internal and external hair. In this sense, as Maruyama himself said, it is not cultural determinism. However, as often pointed out, it is not difficult for us to feel from this article that Japanese thought and history cannot escape "fate". And it is precisely this that makes the paper uniquely appealing, and even carries a kind of "dangerous" nature.
The problem is that the realism of the "paleo layer" is too strong. In other words, the intimidating and dangerous atmosphere of the "paleolayer" theory stems from the opacity of the origin and generation of the "paleolayer". In a sense, this is also rare in Maruyama's work.
This is because the charm of Maruyama's intellectual history, or "political science," lies precisely in the fact that he decomposes objects that are considered "real" into related elements and elucidates the logic of their generation and disintegration. In today's parlance, the essence of Maruyama lies in "anti-essentialism."
For example, the article "Loyalty and Rebellion" plays this point vividly. That is to say, there is a perspective that what seems to be a national tradition is actually the interaction of various conflicting ideas or concepts (competitive opportunities!). ）。
In contrast, the "paleo- and" theory is much more "essentialistic." Admittedly, as mentioned earlier, the "personality" of the Japanese-style thing is transcended. But doesn't this also mean that, on the other hand, the dualism of "foreign" and "internal" is also preserved in the dimension of the superdimensional dimension?
If this were not the case, given the heterogeneous nature of the Paleolay itself, an analysis of it would have been possible and necessary (exploring the logic of its generation and disintegration).
However, the discussion of the "paleolayer" itself in the "paleolayer" paper is only a "description". The "ancient layer" is regarded as a "real" "thing". And there is no such thing as creation or disintegration, that is, "essence" or "existence."
But, in the end, does advocating an immutable "paleosphere" necessarily mean a priori? If not, how convincing is the reason for asking it? I'm afraid there's a lot to discuss.
Loyalty and Rebellion: The State of The Spiritual History of Japan's Transition
Sun: Written by Masao Maruyama
Translated by Lupin
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
Loyalty and Rebellion: The State of The Spiritual History of Japan's Transition period is the last book compiled by the Japanese intellectual historian Maruyama Masao. Maruyama carefully selected six papers and two articles on methodology from the perspective of intellectual history to analyze japan's modern transition period. The earliest one was published in 1949, and the latest one was published in 1977, spanning nearly 30 years. The papers included in the book are all independent, but the historical periods and concerns involved are the same: from the end of the shogunate to the formation of the modern state, in the face of Japan's involvement in the international community and its transformation into a modern country, how the various subjects of Japanese understanding have understood and responded ideologically.
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