Shigeki Uno: Liberty is Born Amidst the Clash of Pluralistic Elements

Image: Provided by the Keio Institute for Fukuzawa Studies

I once edited an anthology of Fukuzawa Yukichi's works. It was quite a long time ago when I was asked to handle the "Fukuzawa Yukichi" volume for the "Modern Japanese Thought Selection" series published by Chikuma Gakugei Bunko, and to pack the essence of Fukuzawa's work into it. I remember thinking at the time, "This is a bit of an unreasonable project."

One reason was my specialization. Having started with research on Alexis de Tocqueville, the French thinker who wrote "Democracy in America," I am strictly a researcher of Western political thought and political philosophy. I am not a researcher of Japanese intellectual history, let alone Fukuzawa. However, the editor persuaded me by saying, "I want you to choose from a different professional perspective," and I gradually warmed to the idea.

That said, Fukuzawa has many excellent works. It is no easy task to extract the essence from them into a single paperback volume. First, in the sense that Tocqueville appears, "On Decentralization of Power, Advocating Less Centralized Government in Japan" was indispensable. "Teichu Koron" and "Yasegaman no Setsu" are also favorites of mine. Nevertheless, I could not leave out "Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning)" or "Datsu-A Ron." My thoughts were pulled in a thousand directions.

The particularly difficult part was "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization." As is often pointed out, Fukuzawa referred to François Guizot's "The History of Civilization in Europe" when writing this. A young Tocqueville attended Guizot's lectures at the Sorbonne and was struck by the overwhelming breadth of his vision. For Tocqueville, who came from the aristocratic class overthrown by the French Revolution, Guizot's lectures discussing why the feudal system declined were truly important. There is also Masao Maruyama's "Reading 'An Outline of a Theory of Civilization'," and what one chooses from "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization" could determine the evaluation of the book itself.

However, due to space limitations, only a small part of the whole could be included. Chapter 1, "Establishing the 'Basis' of Argument," is exactly the methodological manifesto for the entire book. And of course, Chapter 8, which adapts Guizot's ideas to freely discuss the development of "Western Civilization," is extremely attractive. But I decided that I should, after all, include Chapter 9, "The Origin of Japanese Civilization." I made up my mind.

Needless to say, "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization" is a masterpiece of Western civilization theory. Fukuzawa took in the arguments of Guizot and others and made them his own. But what is amazing about Fukuzawa is that he did not stop there; he used the format of civilization theory to begin telling the history of Japanese civilization himself. There are many researchers who have directly engaged with superior Western scholarship and insights, but there are very few intellectuals in all of modern Japan who used them to analyze Japan and whose analysis itself is so compelling.

Fukuzawa analyzed that the development of Western civilization did not come from being dominated by a single principle, but rather from pluralistic principles competing with each other (this was, of course, an insight gained from Guizot's "The History of Civilization in Europe"). In contrast, he criticized the "imbalance of power" that dominates Japanese society.

According to Fukuzawa, in relationships such as teacher and student or master and servant, "the imbalance of power in Japan permeates every aspect of jinkan kosai (society) without exception." People find hierarchies everywhere and submit servilely, which was unbearable for Fukuzawa, who preached "independence and self-respect." In Japan, too, there were various ups and downs as the world moved from the aristocracy to the samurai, and even within the samurai era, but the relationship between the ruler and the ruled did not change. Even when Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from a peasant to become Kanpaku (Imperial Regent), only he became great; the status of peasants in general did not rise.

The same applies to scholarship. Independent scholarship is absent in places dominated by "mental slaves" who yield to authority. Fukuzawa explains, "Western civilization is something in which various theories stood side by side in their jinkan kosai (society), gradually approached each other, and finally merged into one, thereby preserving liberty in between. (...) Looking back at the state of our Japan, it is greatly different from this."

While Europe developed because pluralistic elements clashed and liberty was born in between, Japan also must have had pluralistic elements clashing, but they simply remained fragmented and failed to produce liberty. A tradition of competing ideas that do not negate each other but seek consensus through free dialogue was never formed.

I cannot help but wonder if these observations by Fukuzawa have truly become a thing of the past. Or does the "imbalance of power" still dominate among us today? Has being obsessed with hierarchy and "going with the flow" become our mode of behavior? Furthermore, have we lost the spirit of liberty and fallen into being "mental slaves"?

Liberty is born amidst the clash of pluralistic elements. Having diverse ideas is not a hindrance to the development of civilization, but rather its driving force. These points made by Fukuzawa seem to issue a sharp warning to a world and a Japan that tend to fall into "country-first" mentalities.