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- Title
The Kingly Way Begins with Regulating the Family: Thought and Discourse on Family Ethics in Datong Period Manchukuo.
- Authors
Liu Heng-hsing
- Abstract
The tendency in Datong period Manchukuo 滿洲國 to emphasize the importance of tradition and society in discourse on family ethics doubtlessly made possible the oppression of individual identity. But it is worthwhile re-exploring how this oppression is actually created. The view that it is the direct result of a nationalist or patriarchal system has proven to be overly simplistic. According to Michel Foucault, power is generated through the distribution, ordering, assimilation and mixing of the forces of production, family, institutions and organizations; rule emerges as a result of conflicts between, and combinations of, these forces. Should autocratic oppression exist, there still exists space for dialogue with individuals. But, as Gayatri C. Spivak warns, without considering the subaltern consciousness, and the possibility that the subaltern lack a voice in society, any discourse that challenges the hegemony will fall into deception, and could even help secure a new balance of hegemonic relations. This paper first explores how Manchukuo officials sought a stable foundation that legitimized the regime by combining different strands of cultural thinking and integrating the strengths of organizations across different social issues. Secondly, it also explores how the family and social ethical discourse of the period contained flaws that disempowered the subjective consciousness, and paved the way for further subsequent changes in Manchukuo’s social ethics wrought by the influence of Japanese culture.
- Subjects
DATONG (Shanxi Sheng, China); CHINA; FAMILIES; FAMILY &; ethics; DISCOURSE -- Social aspects; JAPANESE occupation of Manchuria, 1931-1945; THOUGHT &; thinking; POWER (Social sciences); CONSCIOUSNESS; GOVERNMENT policy; TWENTIETH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Chinese Studies / Hanxue Yanjiu, 2014, Vol 32, Issue 2, p231
- ISSN
0254-4466
- Publication type
Article