We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Menneisyys nykyisyyden palveluksessa: bushidô kansallisen identiteetin rakentajana 1800-luvun lopun Japanissa.
- Authors
Fält, Olavi K.
- Abstract
present-day problems. We examine things only in the present light. On the other hand, it is also true that we knowingly seek to utilise the past, for example when pushing domestic or foreign policy objectives that we hold important. Because of the difficult relationship between the past and the present, there is reason to examine its different sides. This study focuses on the relationship between the past and a national identity or national self-image. This study utilises the basic principle of the theory adapted by Robert P. Clark to historical research from the theory of thermodynamics that cultures have constantly needed new resources to counterbalance the continuous threat of entropy. For a national identity, one such resource is the historical image created from the nation's past. According to the theory of images, the emphases of such a historical image may change due to the effects of different interests and circumstances. The current study approaches the historical image as a builder of a national identity from the perspective of a moral system situated in the past, using as an example the utilisation of the bushidô concept in Japan after the country experienced the strong influence of western culture as a consequence of the Meiji restoration in 1868. The problem is examined at both a general level and through the interpretations of one individual, Nitobe Inazô (1862--1933), who had a samurai background. First this article takes a look at the historical background of the bushidô concept and its use in social discourse in late 19th century Japan. Then it examines Nitobe as a person and finally it analyses how he utilised the bushidô concept in his book Bushido, the Soul of Japan. An Exposition of Japanese Thought, which was published in English in 1900 and received much international attention. The historical image of bushidô clearly was a central resource that was used to try to reinforce Japan's national identity in the midst of the major social upheaval that began in the 1870s. According to the theory of image research, by emphasising different sides of the historical image it could be exploited to promote very different--even contradictory--objectives. Thus, the historical myth created in the 1600s and 1700s was still living reality as a reinforcer of a national identity in late 19th century Japan. For Nitobe Inazô, bushidô served the same purposes during the years of change as with other authors. He sought to use it to reinforce the national identity so much that at times it even superseded his Christian views. Like others, he was proud of the military success in the Sino-- Japanese War (1894--1895), which according to him was expressly based on bushidô's ethical and moral system, even though he felt that a state built upon military virtues was not permanent. He felt bushidô's concrete future was disappearing, however, like a cherry blossom in the breeze. Nevertheless this did not signify its total erasure, as Nitobe found such similarities in the deepest messages of both bushidô and Christianity that bushidô would thereby become something that belongs to all mankind, not as a concrete doctrine but as a faraway scent carried by the breeze. This way bushidô would continue to be a resource that reinforces Japan's national identity. The Bushido book was intended for Westerners, to whom Nitobe sought to explain what Japan was. In the end, he created with his book an image of Japan that fundamentally was not as strange and different from the western world as the starting points for writing the book would have suggested. His purpose had been to find similarities between the West and Japan and thereby connect Japan to the western world in such a way that also Japan would have something to offer to the new world. Thus, in this way he sought to create a new globalised world of interdependency to which resources were brought by both the western world and Japan.
- Publication
Faravid, 2016, Vol 42, p49
- ISSN
0356-5629
- Publication type
Article