Introduction:what’s modern about modern Japan?
For many people today,modern Japan is best recognized as an economic powerhou.According to many commentators,Japan is today’s most successful industrial(or even post-industrial) economy,combining almost unprecedented affluence with remarkable social stability and apparent harmony.Despite its recent economic troubles,and despite the rapid ri of China, Japan remains the cond largest economy on the planet according to most indicators,behind only the United States. Japane goods and cultural products are consumed all over the world,ranging from animated movies and Playstation games,
to cars and miconductors,to management techniques and
the martial arts.
In many ways,this image of Japan makes it into an icon of
‘modernity’in the contemporary world,and yet the nation itlf remains something of an enigma to many non-specialists,who e it as a confusing montage of the alien and the familiar,
the traditional and the modern,and even the‘Eastern’and
the‘Western’.As we will e,part of the reason for this confusion lies in the assumption that whilst modernity generates little cultural dissonance in the so-called‘West’,in Japan and elwhere the trappings of modernity appear incongruous or even inexplicable.At the ba of this assumption is the deeply felt
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entanglement of modernity with European and American
history.Indeed,this perceived entanglement is at the core of
many of the world’s contemporary protests against globalization and capitalism:to many people the steamroller of the modern
looks like the expansion of the West.
As an example,let’s pau to consider a recent spectacle.
Perceptions of modern Japan:FIFA
World Cup2002
There was a measure of European scepticism when Japan and
Korea were chon to co-host the2002FIFA World Cupfinals.
Was thefirst World Cup in Asia going to be another World Cup like USA1994,when it was hosted by a rich country that didn’t really know anything about football(or‘soccer’)in an attempt
to make it more popular there?The European public knew even less about the‘Far Eastern’nations than they knew about the USA:they knew about Nintendo,Sony,and Daewoo;they knew about karate and taekwondo;they knew about Pearl Harbor,
Hiroshima,and the Korean War.They didn’t know that Japan’s ‘J-League’was one of the world’s most lucrative football leagues;
and they certainly didn’t know that Korea would make it红豆沙饼
through to the mi-finals(where they would lo to Germany), having beaten the‘Great Powers’of Italy and Spain on their way,finishing above pre-tournament favourites such as England,蒸鲫鱼的做法
空调除湿标志Argentina,and the reigning champions,France.In general,
the tremendous passion for(and ability in)football in Japan
and Korea took Europe by surpri.
科教兴国的意义It is interesting to reflect on why the scale of interest in football in East Asia was surprising to so many people.A partial
answer resides in the kinds of popular images of Japan to which the‘Western’public have been expod.During its coverage of
the World Cup,for example,the venerable BBC produced two
beautiful advertising quences for the games.Thefirst,screened
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in the weeks preceding the games,was a two-minute gment
in the style of‘anime’,the virally popular medium of Japane animation that currently accounts for60%of all televid cartoons in the world.The shortfilm commenced with a dramatic voice-over that would be familiar to fans of‘beat’em up’video games and martial arts movies:‘Every four years gr
eat heroes come from the four corners of the earth to compete for the greatest prize known ’.In the background,a stylizedflicker of kanji(Chine characters ud in Japan)and hangul(Korean characters)puld ominously.Then the advert exploded into life as a science-fictional spectacle:a ball is kicked into the air like
a rocket;computer screens and neon lightsflash and beep as they trace it;a futuristicflotation tank holds a man with a gleaming,metallic cyborg leg(he turns out to be the superhumanly talented French captain,Zidane);and then aflurry of anime football heroes(none of whom are Japane or Korean)
flash through the streets of a neon-riddled(Japane)city
in pursuit of the rocket.
初一音标The two-minute commercial was slick and stylized,full of references to popular culture,and riddled with implications that Japan was somehow a cool and futuristic utopia,a science-fictional realm of cyborgs and computerization of the kind that William Gibson famously depicted in his cyberpunk classic,Neuromancer (1984).In addition,none of the actual football emed to involve anyone from Japan or Korea,although there were lots of people in the streets watching the foreign football-heroes
appreciatively.
The cond quence was screened during the opening credits
of every match.This was a much more romantic montage of images:beginning slowly with a temple on a lake at sunri, followed by a clo-up of the eyes of a Buddha statue,afluttering Japaneflag,some sumo wrestlers,afluttering Koreanflag,
and then some koi carp.At this point,a football is kicked into
a light-blur that then guides us through the rest of the images: Buddha again,a cityscape(with neon lights and a temple),Introduction:
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初中数学所有公式
Japan?
a football stadium(with a Brazilian player),some traditional
Korean dancing,David Beckham,some more Korean dancing,
another sumo wrestler,another temple,a lingering shot of a
geisha(or gisaeng),and then a slow romantic shot of Mount
Fuji.At this point there is a sudden change of pace,as though we
are being brought into the modern era:a Shinkann bullet-train
explodes into view,more unidentified footballers,more trains,
more neon lights and crowded streets with illuminated screens
(showing footballers),more traditional Korean dancing,and
finally the ball-blurflashes between the uprights of a great torii
(sacred Shintoˆgateway)as though it were a goal.
Of cour,the imagery here is cliche´d and unimaginative,but
this is precily why it reveals so much about the ways in which
Japan is reprented in the so-called West.Leaving aside the
bizarre abnce of Japane football players in the
commercials,we e a characteristic mixture of traditional
culture(sumo,geisha,Fuji,Buddhist icons)and hyper-modernity
(bullet-trains,neon cities,cyborgs),of the mysterious and the
technological.Japan is reprented as an enigmatically different
‘other’that has somehow appropriated(and then transformed)
the trappings of modernity that should be so familiar to a
Western audience.The audience is suppod to be affected by
eing a sumo wrestler and a high-speed train in the same
quence.But why should this have an impact?
The point here is that it is not only Japan’s cultural difference
that makes it so intriguing,but also the fact that it is
simultaneously a modern,technologically advanced,non-Western
nation.At this vulgar level of analysis,Japan is prented as
intriguing becau it has a rich history of‘Eastern’traditions
and an oddly‘Western’prent:modernity and the West being
difficult for the audience(or for the BBC)to dintangle.
In other words,the questions of the meaning and integrity of
modernity gives the interested obrver an extra reason to
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通调水道consider Japan,which is widely regarded as being the first modern ‘non-Western’nation in history.Indeed,the history of modern Japan,since the end of its apparent international isolation in the mid-19th century to the prent day,is the document of a nation grappling with the effects of its encounter with Western powers and its simultaneous exposure to the ideas and
technologies of modernity.Negotiation,both in the political and intellectual ns,has been a key feature of this period.Indeed,the experience of Japan provides us with a fascinating lens on the myriad ways in which nations respond to the complex
problems of cultural,intellectual,social,political,and scientific change,especially as occasioned by the sudden (and uninvited)arrival of American gunboats.
This Very Short Introduction to Modern Japan cannot hope to rve as an adequate general survey of this exciting and important period in Japan’s history.Instead,it will consider a ries of questions about what it means to call Japan a ‘modern’society and what this category of ‘modern’has meant to different groups of Japane people at different times.Along the way,it will challenge a number of common assumptions about Japane history,such as the frequent claim that Japan was completely isolated from the outside world during its long period of isolation,or sakoku (17th to 19th centuries),a
nd hence that openness to other cultures was itlf a key feature of Japane modernity.We will consider some of the ways in which cultural and social continuity and change interact through the period,even over apparent singularities such as the catastrophic conclusion to World War II in the Pacific,hence challenging the assumption that postwar Japan is somehow discontinuous with its own traditions.
And finally,although much of the material here will inevitably focus on the ways in which political,intellectual,and social elites engaged with the profound transformations of Japane society and the question of its modernity,there is also a need to look at
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Introduction:what’s modern about modern Japan?
the ways in which the changes were experienced by the people at large,not merely as the passive recipients of grand historical trends but also as active agents involved in shaping their modern nation for themlves.In some ways this tendency towards national lf-determination is one of the key features (and core problematics)of modernity.
In other words,this is a little book about the ways in which Japan has engaged with modernity,but it is also a book about the ways in which the experience of Japan should help us to reconsider the meaning and dimensions of the ‘modern’itlf.It is not the ca that modernity happened to Japan,but rather through industry,toil,bloodshed,and creativity Japan forged itlf into the thriving,modern nation that we know today.Whilst the meaning of the modern remains controversial and contested,the example of Japan helps to illustrate the necessity of encompassing the varied experiences of many different
nations when trying to understand its dimensions and historical
1.A rooftop Shinto
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reality.Modernity and the West may be related,but they are
not identical.
What is ‘modern’anyway?
It is a common (mis)conception that ‘modern’is esntially a temporal or historical term,referring to a period of time that is clo to the prent.Whilst this meaning may rve in everyday usage,it is much more interesting and uful to consider a more technical and substantive n of the term.In this
framework,the term ‘modern’refers to a more-or-less specific constellation of intellectual,social,political,and scientific norms and practices.By identifying the modern as a cluster of related principles rather than as merely a period,we are able to trace its occurrence in different periods in different national or
cultural ttings:was Europe modern before Japan,for instance?Was Japan modern before Russia?If so,why?It also enables us to ask provocative questions about the prent:is Japan modern and,if so,how can we explain why it looks so different from,
say,the United Kingdom?To paraphra this important question:which elements of the modern are esntial,and which are culturally contingent?And finally,if the occurrence of the modern can be obrved in this way,does it become possible to identify conditions that are somehow ‘postmodern’?Is the modern already in the past in some places,and not in the
prent at all?Are there locations where it remains in the future?This approach opens up some rather dangerous ethical
problems:if we accept that the modern is effectively a stage of development,how can we avoid (and should we avoid)judging the development of nations against the standards?In other words,does the idea of the modern smuggle in a linear
conception of historical progress that culminates in contemporary Euro-American ideals?As we will e in Chapter 3,the
questions were of vital concern to Japane intellectuals as early as the 1940s,as they struggled to find ways to ‘overcome
Introduction:what’s modern about modern Japan?
modernity’.This call to overcome the modern was related in complicated ways to Japan’s project of empire-building in Asia.In the postwar period,it becomes linked to calls for Japan and Asia to ‘say no’to the USA.
Given how important the concept of the ‘modern’appears to be,what can be said about its meaning a
nd content?Unfortunately,there remains a lack of connsus about the exact dimensions of the modern,although most commentators agree about the kinds of symptoms that we should be able to u to diagno it.
A society might be considered modern,for instance,if it exhibits signs of industrialization and urbanization.An economic system might be modern if it boasts a market economy organized according to capitalist principles.A modern political system should be organized around a central nation-state,supported by popular nationalism,and a reprentative system of
government (perhaps a democracy)that gives voice to the will of the people.This political system rests upon a so-called ‘modern consciousness’that involves an awareness of the dignity of individuals and their inalienable rights.It suppos a level of literacy and access to information (via education and the public sphere)that enables people to make rational choices about their best interests.This emphasis on rationality is foundational:the modern era is held to be characterized by reason rather than superstition (or perhaps religion)and by the development of science and technology –the mechanization of society.Modern man holds the technological power to attempt to control nature,to unleash destructive weapons,and to save lives through modern medicine.Industrial machines make the world smaller and provide the conditions of the possibility of a
meaningfully global world:the train is the pervasive harbinger of modern times.
Many of the characteristics em to find their origins in
念珠球菌the European Enlightenment of the 18th century,and this is no coincidence since this is where many commentators locate the
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