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Xu Li/Wen
If you list five of Japan's important post-war thinkers, Maruo Maruyama, Shunsuke Tsurumi, and Takeuchi would probably be on the list. In contrast to the widespread academic attention of Maruo Maruyama and Takeuchi, japanese academic circles have hardly seen research related to Tsurumi Shunsuke. In Chinese academic circles, the popularity of the three is positively correlated with this situation. In April 2021, the magazine "Intellectuals" edited by Xu Jilin specially planned the album "Maruyama Mamao - Modernity Between Universality and Particularity"; Takeuchi Yoshitomo became famous in China because of Sun Ge's promotion, and was continuously concerned by his "Lu Xun Theory", "China Theory" and "Asian Speech"; as for Toshisuke Tsurumi, although two monographs have been published in China ("The Spiritual History of Japan during the War Period 1931-1945"). History of Postwar Japanese Mass Culture 1945-1980"), an interview ("What the War Left Behind", the translator Qiu Jing confessed in the afterword of the book, "I like Maruyama Mamao, and I don't have any feelings for Tsurumi Shunsuke"), but to this day, he is still unknown in China, so much so that Baidu Encyclopedia Zhang Guan Li Dai was accompanied by a photo of Mei Zhongzhong. Guangxi Normal University Press recently launched the "Biography of Tsurumi Junfu", which is the best choice for understanding the biography and speech activities of the owner. The author, Kurokawa, is one of the few disciples of Tsurumi Shunsuke, and not only cherishes the teacher's writings, but also has "exclusive memories" of close people. In this way, while approaching the "thinkers of history," we can re-examine the social and political changes in Modern Japan, especially after the war, using the actions and reflections of Shunsuke Tsurumi as a method.
"The Created Man" vs. "The Created Man"
The philosophers of the Kyoto School, Shunzo Karagi, regarded Natsume Soseki, Mori Ouwai, and Kitaro Nishida, who were born around the Meiji Restoration, as the "Literacy Generation", and Jiro Abe and Tetsuro Watsuji, who were born around the 20th year of the Meiji Era (1887), as the "Correctional" generation. The former had already "read" the Four Books and Five Classics before absorbing Western culture, forming a fixed "paradigm" of Confucianism and Bushido thought, while the latter had received a civilized schooling education from beginning to end, so it had a cosmopolitan "upbringing" (苅部直, "Hikari Kingdom", Iwanami Shosho, 2010). According to this division, Tsurumi Shunsuke's father, Tsurumi Yusuke, as a contemporary of Jiro Abe and Tetsuro Watji, would be a "correctional faction". However, in the long run, neither Nishida Nortarō nor Tetsuro Tsuji and Yusuke Tsurumi had all echoed the situation and assisted in the war to varying degrees during the Fifteen Years' War, in other words, "paradigm" and "upbringing" had not become a solid spiritual foundation for Japanese intellectuals.
When Thinking about modern Japanese people, Tsurumi Shunsuke once proposed a similar interpretation to Spinoza's "created nature" and "created nature" - "the created person" and "the created man". Taking the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 as a watershed in modern Japan, Tsurumi Shunsuke refers to the people who created the system from the Meiji Restoration to 1904 as "the creators", and those who grew up after 1905 under the education of the established system as "the created people". This unique perspective stems from Toshisuke Tsurumi's analysis of Nobu's "first disease". Yusuke Tsurumi was a student with honors who graduated first and second from Tokyo Daiichi High School and the Department of Political Science of Tokyo Imperial University (the predecessor of the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo) with the first and second places respectively, and then passed the senior civil service examination of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology with the second place, and followed the standard path of Japanese intellectuals into the bureaucracy. Yusuke Tsurumi was a former advocate of "neoliberalism," but after the rise of militarism, he quickly changed his ways and participated in the "WingZan Election" of Hideki Tojo's cabinet, for which he was dismissed from public office in the early post-war period. However, in a petition to the Allied Command for revocation of public office, Yusuke Tsurumi claimed to be a liberal. His father's frequent "turning" made Tsurumi Shunsuke feel the pathology of the Japanese bureaucracy and intellectuals, and he has been very cold to his father since his defeat, and even when the main creator of the magazine "Science of Thought" is struggling, he is reluctant to accept some help from nobita (after his father fell ill and lost his political identity). Tsurumi Shunsuke, by contrast, had a crush on Reijiro Wakitori (1866), the "creator" before the Russo-Japanese War.
The interpretation of "the created man" and "the man who created" is reminiscent of Tsurumi Shunsuke's analysis of the authority of the modern Japanese emperor. In 1956, Shunsuke Tsurumi and Hisano's new book, Thoughts of Modern Japan, sold 350,000 copies. In his book, when interpreting "Japan's Supranationalism : Showa Restoration Thought", he adopts the schemes of "xianjiao" and "occultism" in religion:
The authority of the emperor is interpreted in two ways, "manifest" and "occult" at a popular and advanced level. The Meiji state created by Ito (Hirofumi) was based on a subtle reconciliation of the two. "Xianjiao" refers to the interpretation mechanism of the emperor as an absolute monarch with unlimited authority and power, and the occult refers to the interpretation mechanism that regards the authority and power of the emperor as limited by the Constitution and other restrictions on the monarch. That is, the Emperor, who has made all the people believe in the absolute monarch, applies the energy of this national to the government, and uses the theory of the constitutional monarch, the theory of the highest organ of the state of the emperor, as the secret of governance ("Modern Japan Thought", Iwanami Shokan, 1957).
In fact, the system of interpretation of "Xianjiao" and "OccultIsm" was a "traditional invention" of Japanese Shinto by meiji founders such as Ito Hirobumi and other Meiji countries, referring to European and American religious ethics. Although it can not only gather the spiritual strength of the people with a high degree of "emperor worship", but also adopt a cabinet system based on "constitutional monarchy", it is an exquisite design to promote the rapid development of the country. But running this mechanism requires the master's superior intelligence and flexibility. As a result, Japan adopted the "explicit teaching" interpretation of the emperor in elementary schools, middle schools, and the military, and used the Edict of Education and the Gift of Soldiers to promote allegiance to the absolute emperor. On the other hand, in the Imperial University and Higher Civil Service Examinations, the secrets of "occultism" are taught, and the helmsman who uses the dual explanatory mechanism is trained ("Modern Japanese Thought"). But the fatal flaw in the dual interpretation mechanism of "xianjiao" and "occultism" is that for graduates of Imperial University and those who pass the examination for higher civil service in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the secret they impart is only the "knowledge" that makes them "stand in the world" (through academic qualifications and examinations to achieve class leaps), and does not have a solid foundation of faith. Therefore, when fanatical young generals appeared in school and militarism was rampant, in the face of the witch hunt campaign of "prominent" believers such as the "National System Mingzheng Movement" against the "occult" believers, intellectuals were silent and frequently "turned" around. Although they have been given the highest secret to operate the dual interpretation mechanism, they are nothing more than "created people" cultivated by the established system.
Tsurumi named his son after the word "Shunsuke" from Ito Hirobumi's youth name, and expected him to follow the standard path of "Ichigao - Tokyo Emperor" to ascend to the high position of prime minister in the cabinet, which is his own dream. However, under the pressure of his father's high expectations and his mother's strict discipline, Tsurumi Shunsuke did not become an "honor student", but instead skipped school, committed suicide, had sex with older women, and became a bad teenager. In desperation, Tsurumi Yusuke had to send his young son to study in the United States. However, Sai weng lost his horse and knew that it was not a blessing, and Tsurumi Shunsuke was able to withdraw from the "manifest" education system of "emperor worship" and receive higher education at Harvard University in the United States, taking a crucial step toward becoming a "creator".
"From Evil"
Around 1940, the philosophy department of Harvard University was full of famous teachers, so Tsurumi Shunsuke had the privilege of attending a course with Rudolf Carnapp, the representative of logical positivism, following professor Charles Morris to study the pragmatic philosophy of Charles Sanders, William James, and john Dewey, and reading the Complete Works of Pierce under the guidance of Quine. Shunsuke Tsurumi was fascinated by the logical deduction of semiotics, and later, he envisioned the title of the magazine he had created after the war, Science of Thought, "Semiotic Studies".
However, from the academic training received at Harvard University to the post-war approach to learning, Tsurumi Shunsuke's philosophical outlook has taken a leap forward, and the main reason for this change is the experience of war. In April 1943, Tsurumi Shunsuke took a "Japan-U.S. exchange ship" when Japan was about to be defeated, but did not want to return to Japan with the American army as a victor. In an interview with Eiji Kobe, he admitted that such a naïve idea was not only surprising to the Japanese rulers' hesitation in the face of a fiasco, but also absurd that he was seriously ill but still passed the conscription examination. However, at that time, Japan's anti-European and American nationalism was rampant, and it seemed not difficult to understand that the upper-class children who had returned from studying in enemy countries were sent to the battlefield "out of the box" (Shunsuke Tsurumi et al., "What was Left by the War", Social Science Literature Press, 2015).
Shunsuke Tsurumi ushered in the darkest moment of his life. With the belief that he would not kill, he chose to become a naval civilian. He had secretly prepared a small piece of opium in order to end himself when he had no choice. The colleague next door received the order to kill the captive, and afterwards informed Tsurumi Shunsuke of the specific process and details: poison, spitting foam, the pit where the body was buried, the groaning sound, the pistol shooting... He seemed to see the scene when the captives were killed. What choice would you make if you received this order? If a captive is killed as a last resort, how should he deal with himself? This became a question that haunted his soul for the rest of his life. Rudolf Karnap's logical positivism, however, does not answer these questions. Tagore's view that the meaning of language is difficult to explain by the exhaustion of logical interpretation systems is much more instructive to him—philosophy should focus on non-falsifiable propositions. During his studies in the United States, he was also fascinated by Kant's classification of goodness and truth because of the fit of Rudolf Karnap's propositional classification with Kant's philosophy, but he unexpectedly left people to say that "if it is me, start from evil." Through such and such a war experience, Tsurumi Shunsuke understood the true meaning of "starting from evil.". Thinking about the killing of prisoners of war is reminiscent of Hannah Arendt's "banal evil", but he is not in a state of "no thought", considering that after the war he was silent about the killing of prisoners of war in order to save his colleagues from trial, and always hated the "national evil" that issued the order to kill, we have reason to think that the two people think differently about "evil". However, Shunsuke Tsurumi and Hannah Arendt have similarities in thinking philosophically about "starting from evil". Hannah Arendt also proposed "extreme evil" without noticing that Kant's framework of "man is not a means, but an end" could not explain the evil deeds of the Nazis. "After Auschwitz, it was barbaric to write poetry", and after the Nanjing Massacre, it was also barbaric to write poetry. "Evil" is an unfalsifiable proposition given to philosophers in The Second World War.
Through the influence of this experience of war on the philosophy of Toshisuke Tsurumi, we can understand why he favored William James and John Dewey, who were also pragmatic philosophies. Tsurumi Shunsuke's first major book, American Philosophy, reconstructed pragmatism as an introductory book to pragmatism by excluding John Dewey (the title of the second edition was "Pragmatism", and the title of the third edition was changed to "Introduction to Pragmatism"), a philosophical stance that may be unimaginable. However, in the inaugural issue of The Science of Thought in the same year, two papers critical of John Dewey's philosophy were published, and he particularly endorsed the philosophy of the newborn, which was cut into the concept of religious analysis by William James. The author, Gertrude Jaeger, who regarded John Dewey as a "onceborn," that is, "one who places too much emphasis on the religious aspects based on a sound mindset, and becomes a person who denies or ignores the sins implied therein," an optimism about human nature that is reminiscent of Toshisuke Tsurumi's mother, a person who was too pure to tolerate others to lie, who once said to her son who stole waffles: "You are a bad boy, I am sorry for my ancestors, I killed you and died" ("What the War Left Behind"), the mother said" Violence in the name of "goodness" became a distant cause of Tsurumi Shunsuke's lifelong hatred of "justice." Childhood experiences and experiences of war made Tsurumi feel that John Dewey's philosophy of the "nascent" was too naïve, and that he was interested in the philosophy of the "twiceborn" of "those who demanded that religion consider the existence of evil." The fact that takahiko O, a disengaged soldier in the Burmese battlefield, became the chief of the Kachin tribe attracted the attention of Shunsuke Tsurumi, who believed that the "international community" constructed by Takahiko Tsuruhiko had effectively implemented the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and was "the best example of deriving 'goodness' from his existing idiomatic words of 'evil'" (Eiji Kogum, Democracy and Patriotism, Vol. 2, Social Science Literature Press, 2020). After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Takeuchi, who had always kept a distance from the current situation, "abruptly" wrote the article "The Great East Asian War and the Determination of Me and Others", and in Tsurumi Shunsuke's view, Takeuchi's good intention was to bring about the collapse of the Japanese War and achieve a reshaping, and the so-called "Japanese suicide theory" is an alias for "rebirth". In this sense, he also lamented that Takeuchi had read a new meaning from the "modern supergram" theory of beautifying war during the war. In particular, in the representative "turn to research", Tsurumi Shunsuke has always "confronted abstract 'justice', 'sympathizing' with everyone while groping for the principles of return and connection" (Democracy and Patriotism, vol. 2). All of this reveals to us the inner path of Tsurumi Shunsuke's "born again" philosophy.
State vs Sex
Tsurumi Shunsuke had an early sexual experience, and when he was about fourteen years old, he had many physical relationships with older women at Shibuya bars or cafes. The gentle treatment of the older woman made him feel a kind of care similar to maternal love, and at the same time, it also constituted a rebellion against the mother's strict discipline. His father, Yusuke Tsurumi, was conservative in sexuality, unlike his father, Ryoken Tsurumi, and his father-in-law, Shinpei Goto, who specifically consulted the English Encyclopedia Dictionary for this purpose, suspecting that his son's sexual confusion was inherited from generation to generation. Soon, Tsurumi Shunsuke discovered that older women might accept themselves out of their aristocratic status and suffer from severe depression. From this period onwards, self-loathing was almost always associated with his sexual desires. For more than twenty years, he lived a life of strict abstinence, and it is said that he could control his sexual desires as long as he kept his eyes rolling.
In battlefield Java, in addition to collecting information on the war, Tsurumi Shunsuke was sometimes responsible for going out to find "comfort women" for officers. He himself did not once go to the battlefield "comfort station" to satisfy his sexual desires, so he was at the top of the "virgin ranking table" in the army. Tsurumi's choice is not only related to the life of abstinence since studying in the United States, but also the rebellion against state violence based on personal desires, that is, the opposition of "state" vs sex that he later proposed in the Dictionary of War. In an interview with Eiji Koma, Tsurumi confessed that this formula was inspired by the anarchism of Mistreso, and that by linking "sex" with "freedom," it had the meaning of not subordinating the will of the individual to the Japanese state system. Shunsuke Tsurumi was exposed to anarchism early on, and at the age of fifteen he read Kropotkin's Memoirs of a Revolutionary and avoided police stations because of his dislike of the state. While in the United States, he was also imprisoned by the Immigration Bureau for the answer that "I am anarchist in my own heart, so no country supports this imperialist war." From this, we can understand that returning to the home country at a time when Japan is about to be defeated does not mean the slightest support for the militarist government.
In 1943, Tsurumi wrote in his secret notes on the battlefield: "At the end of this war, at that time, my war against the United States began." Separating the individual's war against the United States from the War between Japan and the United States shows its anarchist undertones. Tsurumi Shunsuke did resent the "racial conceit" and "self-satisfaction" of the United States, but he was not tortured in the United States prison, and his thesis was passed in the case of not enough school years and the outbreak of the Pacific War, which was in stark contrast to the atmosphere of surveillance, whistle-blowing, and "ghost animals and britain" that he felt after returning to Japan, so it can be seen that the judgment that "the United States is not an enemy country, Japan is an enemy country" is mostly based on democracy. After the war, although he refused to assist the occupying forces because of his antipathy to "justice" and "the first disease", he was satisfied with the performance of the United States in occupying Japan, believing that it reflected the "noble national character" of the United States. He had planned to go to Stanford University to complete his doctoral dissertation in semiotics on crosstalk, and after being rejected by the United States for the signature of the atomic bomb exhibition, he felt humiliated by the country, which became the cause of his severe depression again, and he never set foot on American soil for the rest of his life. Incidentally, Doshisha University, where Tsurumi Worked, also enjoyed this "honor" of not being forgiven, and after the professor at Doshisha University decided to let the mobile team enter the school and beat the students, the school also entered his blacklist: "I can hear the shield beating the student's body." Unpleasant sounds. Therefore, I will no longer go to Doshisha, and I will not even pass by him."
In 1960, he participated in the anti-security movement with a death mentality, and later organized the "Yue Ping Company" to oppose the Vietnam War and assist American deserters, always adhering to the position of opposing japan and the United States government. However, Tsurumi Shunsuke has always had a "patriotic" feeling toward his host family when he studied in the United States. It is strange to have a "patriotic" feeling for a foreign people, but for him, "patriotism" has a world that transcends national boundaries. Maruo Maruyama said in mourning Takeuchi, "Humans are Mr. Bear and Mr. Hachi next door. Mr. Xiong is both a fellow villager and a member of the human race, and it is absurd to regard human beings as an abstract concept... The place where you are is the world, and the world is not 'outside' of Japan, which is true cosmopolitanism" (Maruyama Tsuruo, "Maruyama Tsuruo's Writings Collection 10", Iwanami Shosho, 1996). Tsurumi Shunsuke has quoted this passage more than once, arguing that it implies the possibility of cosmopolitanism that does not take the framework of the world's nations. Since reading Kropotkin as a child, Tsurumi Shunsuke has hated the state and dismissed the internationalism on which it is based. In the postwar decade, Orwell's distinction between nationalism and patriotism inspired him: "Nationalism is a conceptual, large category that always undermines the work of many other systems. But patriotism is love for the village in which you live, for your neighbors, for the mountains and rivers" (What the War Left Behind). In his view, if we abandon the abstract signifier of "nationalism" and base ourselves on concrete local "patriotism", we can also find a path to cosmopolitanism. The self-universalization of I am a member of humanity has the potential to transform "patriotism" into cosmopolitanism. It does not originate from the cosmopolitan upbringing that Yusuke Tsurumi imported from the West, but from cosmopolitanism that is based on daily life and rooted in one's own body.
This biography is the first complete biography of Tsurumi Shunsuke, and the author intends to complete it while the person close to him is still alive, and to avoid direct verification from him as much as possible, and strives to write a biography that can stand up to verification. In his writing, he adhered to the "judgment with dates" proposition advocated by the master, and recounted history as history, which greatly avoided hindsight. Compared with the thought of Toshisuke Tsurumi, this biography focuses more on his life and actions. If you want to know more about the ideological roots of his post-war actions, you can read it together with "What the War Left Behind" and Eiji Koji's "Democracy and Patriotism" Volume 2 Chapter 16 "The Crossing of the Dead".