The Political Thought of Mori Arinori by Alistair Swale

Author:Alistair Swale [Swale, Alistair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138978638
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

The purpose of education, in other words, is simply to train people to be responsible citizens and pursue their own wellbeing effectively. This follows the intent of the first section where the parallel promotion of the interests of nation and individual was recognized. Here, it becomes clear that it translates into balancing the right of individuals to fulfil their own ends with one's obligations to society, i.e., the common good.41

In the final version, however, a new nuance is added. The reference to citizens is replaced by a reference to the people as 'subjects' and an obligation to behave 'morally' is conjoined. The reference to 'subjects' is possibly problematic in terms of its imperial associations, however, given the gist of the Outline in the opening section on 'Direction', it is difficult to construe anything more than the reference to the Japanese as'subjects'as mere political fact; the Japanese lived in an Empire. Furthermore, laying preconceptions based on developments in education after Mori's death in 1889 aside, there is arguably a more neutral and universal nuance to 'ethical responsibility' than in the previous draft. Indeed, as will be demonstrated in the next chapter, that is more or less the conception of ethics that Mori arrived at in his later years of office.42

Consequently, the Outline presents a political perspective that broadly balances the interests of the nation with those of the individual. It could be argued that adding 'duty' to the nation and an 'obligation' to conduct oneself morally was an endorsement of freedom with'strings attached', nevertheless, it is extremely hard to find any genuine evidence of the kind of 'statist' tendencies that later came to be attibuted to him. The object for Mori is balancing those polarities of interest so that neither are given exclusive endorsement. As has been demonstrated, even the terms kokka and kokutai, which denoted the entity towards which the people were to perform these duties and obligations, clearly signified the nation and not the state as such. Within this context the intent is a statement of a commonsensical truism about the conditions for successfully living in any society. Indeed, as Mori was to write clearly in English in his outline of the new ethics textbook, the aim was the inculcation of 'common sense' morality, not a blind, state-worship ping cult.43

Incidently, there is a further aspect of continuity with the proposal for a representative system of government penned several years earlier which should not be lost sight of, In the earlier document Mori made it very clear that, although he regarded the institution of the Emperor as being very significant and an indispensible element in any consideration of rearranging or formalizing Japan's political institutions, he had no intention of aggrandizing the office of the Emperor. It seems plausible to conclude that, just as the Emperor was an important motif in Japanese political culture which could be cultivated to advantage, so too was the notion of the 'subject' an important device for raising national consciousness. Ultimately, it could be said that

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.