Global Journal of Human Social Science, D: History, Archaeology and Anthroplogy, Volume 23 Issue 3

Volume XXIII Issue III Version I 32 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 D © 2023 Global Journals “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword”: Popular Ethics in Edo Period Japan Confucianism, Shinto, and even Buddhism, H ane distills the essence of National Learning down to “an attempt to free Japanese learning from its excessive dependence on Chinese philosophy and literature.” 46 Maruyama calls Motooria Norinaga (1730–1801) “the man who perfec ted National Learning.” The full intellectual impact of its influence, though, would not be felt until the Meiji era when it emerged as the philosophical foundation for the nationalisti c i ntellectual movement. 47 He began his education in Kyoto under the Confucian scholar Hori [Kutsu] Keizan, whose teaching was similar in many ways to that of Sorai. 48 For example, both argued that li (Principle) was not an absolute a priori standard, but was derived from human enquiry and teaching. Yusa claims that Norinaga’s philosophical lineage, and thus the start of the Kokugaku movement, however, can be traced back to Kada Azumaro (1669–1736), the head priest of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. Through an extensive study of classical Japanese literature, Azumaro decided that the study of ancient Japanese literature deserved its own scholarly tradition. Azumaro’s disciple, Kamo Mabuchi (1697–1769), taught that the essential Japanese ethos ‘masuraoburi’ (masculinity, candor, and honesty) was distilled in the Man’you-shu (an eighth-century compilation of Japanese poetry). Mabuchi’s disciple, Motoori Norinaga, took on the project of interpreting another ancient Japanese literary work, the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki) . This occupied hi m for the next thirty years. Through his study, he claimed to have found the original pure Japanese spirituality, free of Confucian and Buddhist influences. 49 National Learning scholars tried to free Japanese spirituality of Confucian and Buddhist influences in both defensive and reactionary ways. Since both traditions used the “ancient learning” moniker, National Learning defended the autonomous nature of its discoveries through an expressed disavowal of any association with the Confucian school of “ancient learning” (e.g., It ō and Sorai). But scholars of National Learning also reacted directly against Confucian scholars. While some made Dazai Shundai “the object of particularly severe criticism,” Nor in aga did not directly attack Dazai or Sorai, but “it is clear that in his acid criticisms of the thinkers who worshipped China, he had 46 Mikiso Hane, Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 167. 47 Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Mikiso Hane, trans.; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 144. 48 Maruyama ( Studies in the Intellectual History , 148) writes that “we should not overlook the fact that Norinaga spent the impressionable years of his youth under this teacher [Keizan].” 49 Norinaga embraced the view that “the Japanese and their Shinto, when purged of all foreign accretions and influences, represented the pure, and therefore the best, inheritance of humanity from the divine ages” (Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History , 148). Norinaga’s Japano-centric focus finds its genesis in Mabuchi’s demythologization, so to speak, of the Chinese Confucian Way of the scholars. Mabuchi taught that “Man makes transitory institutions, but these must differ according to each country and each place…[Therefore] it is foolish to think t hat when institutions are once established they should be upheld by the people under heaven for ages to come.” 51 Norinaga took Mabuchi’s insights one step further. Like Sorai, Norinaga “demoted” the sages from an otherworldly status to a simply political one. Thus, their Way was also reduced from a metaphysical category to an ideological c on struct for political control: “conquer the land of others, and prevent others from conquering one’s own land.” 52 While both Norinaga and Sorai saw the Way as an invention of the sages, for Sorai this fact is what made it absolute, while for Norinaga this same fact became his reason for rejecting the Way. Keizan’s separation of poetry from ethics was also a ke y f actor in the development of Norinaga’s thought and in the growth of the popular ethics movement. 53 While this relativization of the Way freed the human spirit from socio-political constraints, it also freed the human intellect from the constraints of philosophical absolutism, a fact that worked against the success of National Learning in pre-modern Edo. Maruyama observes that since the “positivist and objective spirit [of National Learning] was inseparably linked to an apolitical outlook…its sad dilemma…[was that] it could not defend its right to survive in the new era by raising itself to the level of an exclusive political principle [as Confucianism had].” Art should be expressed for its own sake— subjective, passionate expression of the human condition without any necessary ethical or socio-political constraints or pragmatic purposes. 54 50 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History , 145. 51 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History , 149, 150. 52 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History , 150. 53 Norinaga writes that “in studying the Confucian classics, I follow more or less the Chu Hsi school, but where the interpretation of poetry is concerned, I find that Chu Hsi’s commentaries fail to grasp the essence…Of course we consider poems that do not stem from evil intentions to be good, but among the three hundred verses in the Book of Odes , there are many poems which were the products of evil intentions…Regardless of good or bad intentions, these poems are spontaneous expressions of the true sentiments of the composer ” (editor’s emphasis) (Ibid., 148). 54 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History , 176. The purity of National Learning’s scholarly methodology limited its argumentation in two significant ways: negatively, to a rejection of the Chinese Way, and positively, to an acceptance of many political ideologies (e.g., “‘Buddha and Confucius are also gods, the Sorai school primarily in mind.” 50 This direct critique of Confucian teachings was continued by Norinaga’s disciple, Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), whose first scholarly foray, Kam ō sho (Critique of a misguided work), was a rebuttal of Sorai’s Bend ō sho .