Fukuzawa Yukichi's Bourgeois Liberalism

The Betrayal of the East Asian Enlightenment

Minhyuk Hwang

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030215293
• eBook ISBN: 9783030215309
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Japanische Geschichte

Fukuzawa Yukichi's Bourgeois Liberalism introduces readers to the East Asian Enlightenment led by Fukuzawa Yukichi, one of the most important figures in the intellectual history of modern Japan. Despite his impact on political theory and modern Japanese history, Fukuzawaremains under-researched in Western academia, and while a few English-language books have been written about Fukuzawa, none have dealt with his political theory. This book describes Fukuzawa as a character with universal relevance and a unique view of the Enlightenment tradition. Emphasizing the power of bourgeois liberalism and the debate regarding its potential for transforming the strict class-caste society of Tokugawa Japan, Hwang discusses Fukuzawa's belief in the significance of individual autonomy, progress, and liberal rule of law in developing his project of the East Asian enlightenment, as well as his supposed "betrayal" of his early commitments due to his existential desire for Western recognition of Japan's greatness. The book ends with an analysis of the complex relation between liberalism and progress in the East Asian context. ?

© The Author(s) 2020

Minhyuk HwangFukuzawa Yukichi’s Bourgeois LiberalismCritical Political Theory and Radical Practicehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21530-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Minhyuk Hwang¹

(1)

Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Minhyuk Hwang

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

This study explores the intellectual tradition initiated by Fukuzawa Yukichi,¹ a renowned nineteenth-century Japanese political theorist. Despite his having developed a distinctive brand of liberalism and enlightenment tradition, there has been little research into his life and theories. My primary aim in this study is, therefore, to address the significance of comparative political theory by introducing this fascinating theorist of the enlightenment in Asia.

The main purpose of comparative political theory has changed little since Fred Dallmayr persuasively summarized its goal: Western political theory should abandon its “monologue” approach and start engaging in cross-cultural “dialogue” to find “truly universal” ideas.² However, compared with the traditional focus on the ancient tradition of the East, very little attention has been paid to the modern tradition that emerged from the experiences of Asian intellectuals who struggled with the divide between Confucian tradition and modernity. These intellectuals, who constituted what I call “East Asian enlightenment,” had to confront imperialism and also Western modernity, which encouraged them to actively engage in the theory and practice of two fundamentally different traditions of political theory.³

Further, the enlightenment tradition that emerged in Japan, which changed the course of history by quickly modernizing the country into the only world power in Asia, remains somewhat under-researched. These intellectuals of the East Asian enlightenment were the first to seriously engage in “cross-cultural dialogues,” perhaps addressing far more serious and urgent political concerns than any political theorist of our time. In order to truly engage in cross-cultural universality, then, comparative political theory should rescue the great modern theorists in Asia from obscurity. This study begins the task by introducing an extraordinary political theorist who initiated the East Asian enlightenment, from a small island in the East: Fukuzawa Yukichi.

Fukuzawa is generally respected in Japan as a pioneer of liberalism and enlightenment. His face is still featured on the 10,000 yen bill, which makes him, so to speak, the Ben Franklin of Japan. Outside of Japan, however, his legacy is often considered controversial and is sometimes even denigrated. He was not only the proponent of liberalism whose Western ideas spread to East Asia, but also the most representative liberal of his time, for better or worse. His life and thought reflect the general history of East Asian liberalism—its rise, frustration, and betrayal. Most scholars acknowledge Fukuzawa’s contribution in spreading liberalism and enlightenment in his early life and awakening the dormant masses in Asia to face the modern world. Fukuzawa, however, later betrayed transnational solidarity in Asia and encouraged the rise of imperialism in Japan, which naturally drew heavy criticism, particularly in Korea and China. Understandably, postmodernists regard Fukuzawa’s betrayal as a fundamental failure of Western modernity and, further, as the problem inherent in the idea of enlightenment and “progress” as such. Confucianists and nationalists in Korea and China also frequently link the “failure” of (Western) modernity with Fukuzawa. For them, Fukuzawa is no more than a betrayer of the harmonious and orderly tradition of East Asia in favor of Western philosophy, which they believe would fundamentally encourage aggressive and expansionist politics.⁴

This study is an attempt to defend Fukuzawa’s project of East Asian enlightenment against the postmodern critique introduced above and to highlight the universal significance of the tradition—not just in the Asian context. Of course, even within the non-Western context, Fukuzawa’s enlightenment project is worthy of Western political theorists’ attention. While many countries outside of Western Europe and North America are still struggling with modernization, Japan rapidly modernized itself with minimal sacrifice in the nineteenth century, and Fukuzawa Yukichi played a significant role as the most respected educator during that period. In the urgent moment of the Western invasion of Asia, Fukuzawa did not waste any time on “harmonizing” different traditions and philosophies. He directly addressed the most serious issue: the creation of a rational bourgeois class that would be an agent for modernization and general social reform. Constantly under threat of assassination, Fukuzawa bravely criticized the samurai class’s irrational obsession with loyalty to the Emperor and encouraged them to be reborn as a new, rational class, armed with what he often called “a spirit of individual independence and self-reliance.”⁵

The most important lesson of Fukuzawa’s liberalism is that it tries to use tradition as a practical resource to promote the universal ideal in liberalism and the liberal rule of law instead of being obsessed with retaining the “spirit” of Japan. Fearing revolt by the reactionary traditionalists, many non-Western liberals compromised with conservatives who refused to accept the possibility of universal rights in favor of defending the particularity of their “culture” or “identity.” By contrast, Fukuzawa courageously criticized this conservative obsession with identity as a “credulity” and reinterpreted the tradition from the perspective of the universal progress of history. Even some feudal traditions in Japan, Fukuzawa argued, prepared Japan for the liberation of individual rights and the cultivation of individual autonomy, which would be realized in the course of history.

Due to the dynamic change that occurred in his thoughts and politics, however, a discussion of Fukuzawa’s life and thought cannot be merely limited to an Asian context. He was a liberal but also a nationalist. He was a rationalist but also had an irrational existential desire to have the West recognize the greatness of Japan. He was a stubborn individualist but also encouraged individuals to unite under the banner of “National Rights,” as his contemporaries in Japan would call national sovereignty or their national interest.⁶ He constructed his own idea of progress based on individual rights and the liberation of individual autonomy, but later became increasingly skeptical of the idea of progress. His life was filled with desperate struggles between the realistic goal of preserving Japanese sovereignty and the more idealistic goal of bringing about progress.

Fukuzawa’s internal contradictions are reflected in the serious questions that modern liberals face today. The role of liberals and their relationship with the idea of “progress,” derived from the Enlightenment, increasingly became challenged and obscure.⁷ As liberals abandoned their commitment to progress, the heritage of universal individual rights and the belief in progressive history was thought to be collapsing in the West. The democratic procedure, one of the few remaining values that modern liberals have defended faithfully, is unable to stop the far right from encroaching on mainstream politics. This situation makes Fukuzawa’s betrayal of his own enlightenment project even more relevant for our time. Despite what postmodernists argue, the impulse toward imperialist expansion and totalitarianism came out of the frustration of enlightenment rather than its continuation and extension, or as Horkheimer and Adorno would say, the “dialectic of enlightenment.” As this study will show, the frustration of the Enlightenment and liberalism was the result of liberals’ failure to maintain their own commitment to progress and universal rights.

A great many liberals, like Fukuzawa, have betrayed the progressive cause when the left needed their support the most. For example, the rise of neoliberal solutions, or “the Third Way,” to the Reagan–Thatcherian market fundamentalism further intensified the problem it sought to remedy. At the same time, neoliberal governments and politicians frequently engage in aggressive foreign policies based on dubious ideas, such as “expanding democracy.” Conversely, the left, frustrated by the neoliberals, often attack modernity and the idea of progress itself. Neither position is an intelligent one. The political compromise of neoliberals cannot be identified with the rational consequence of the original egalitarian impulse in liberalism. The more important question is “what is the key mechanism that brought about such a compromise in the first instance?”

This study suggests that Fukuzawa’s struggle between liberalism and nationalism helps explain not only the cause of such compromises but also the consequences. His life shows how the idea of progress and liberal universalism is important in keeping politics rational and humane in a troubled time while also demonstrating what liberalism often lacks—a strong commitment to its own principles.⁸ In Fukuzawa’s case, the extraordinary Japanese liberal ended up compromising with militarist expansionism in order to unify the “will of the people.” His infamous semi-fascist slogan, “domestic peace [for] external competition [or aggression],” would be one of the most unthinkable remarks for a “liberal” to utter.

Fukuzawa was certainly not a fascist. Just like the classical Scottish liberals, he decried government interference in the private life of the individual, especially when such interference was not duly mediated by the liberal rule of law. It is still questionable, however, why Fukuzawa and his fellow Japanese liberals—and other Asian liberals in general—could not stop their totalitarian enemies and sometimes even actively supported parts of the totalitarian cause. As the starkest example, Yi Kwang-su, a Korean liberal writer who openly paid homage to Fukuzawa as the single most respectable intellectual, later became an active supporter of Japan’s totalitarianism in the 1930s, encouraging his fellow Koreans to “fight for the Emperor” until the West perished before the glory of Greater East Asia. Hu Shih, a Chinese liberal intellectual who led the enlightenment movement in the early twentieth century, later supported Chiang Kai-shek’s anti-communist totalitarianism on the condition that Chiang would implement Western democracy after communism was crushed. This promise remained unfulfilled until the deaths of both Hu and Chiang.

Although some Western readers may wonder why Asian liberals should betray their own cause, in fact, the same has occurred in the European context as well. German liberals’ betrayal of their initially revolutionary cause is especially astonishing. The impetus for social reform was hindered by the German liberals’ obsession with social harmony and national “greatness” that would eventually support imperialism. The liberals commonly dreamed “of a state or of a political party which would create social harmony out of conflict, which would be guided by cultural and ethical objectives and by the ideal of German greatness in world affairs.”⁹ Indeed, as Fritz Stern argues, the German liberals encouraged rather than hindered the growth of the distinctive German “illiberalism.”¹⁰ Looking at the historical re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Social Background: Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Transformation of Japan
• 3. Learning to Reason: An Encouragement of Learning (Gakumon no susume)
• 4. Progress for National Autonomy: An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (Bunmeiron no gairyaku)
• 5. Existential Turn: Seeking National Recognition
• 6. Conclusion
• Back Matter