This is part 8 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the other parts here.
Shinron: “Introduction”
In the introduction of Shinron, we get a great view of how Aizawa sees the world. With the emperor as a direct descendant of Amaterasu, Japan is the head and shoulders of the world. Underneath them are the “barbarians”. Yet, over time the barbarians have forgotten their place in the universe and how now become so very rude, that they dare challenge Japan. This can be avoided if the leaders make the moral values “pure” and the traditions “beautiful” through their leadership and reforms. Through Shinron Aizawa intends to share his point of view on how to do this.
Shinron:” What is Essential to a Nation?”
The emperor descends in an unbroken line from Amaterasu (the Shinto sun goddess). They have kept this heritage by worshipping their ancestors, performing state rituals, and praising Amaterasu. According to Aizawa, these traditions must be picked back up to regain the people’s trust and familial loyalty. It is through loyalty from the people that the emperor truly unites with Heaven (Heaven in the Confucian sense). The result of this union between the emperor and Heaven is that the world will be brought to balance and “The Great Way of Heaven” will result.
Besides having granted humans her godly genes, Amaterasu also gave them fertile land and rice. Through these, the Japanese lived with enough food, and the four classes (Warrior, Craftsman, Farmer, and Merchant) worked hard. But, the people started using more than they produced and the court got extravagant and expensive habits. Inequality arose. This inequality is now so great, that the
lowest people are becoming desperate. This has happened because of a misunderstanding about “The Great Ways” meaning to finance.
Aizawa then goes into detail about how the sale of rice to buy other things with paper money, is the reason for this decay. This is why the leaders of the nation must teach the people to keep their rice and not care unnecessarily for material goods.
Shinron: “The Barbarians Nature”
In chapter six Aizawa details how foreigners, or in his words the “barbarians”, long have tried to gain influence in Japan. He explains how the barbarians will try to conquer a country with military might if the country is weak in this aspect. If this is not the case, they will instead try to spread Christianity to take over the country from the inside out. Aizawa lays out several examples where he means the barbarians have tried this and failed because of the alertness of their leaders. He points out that when the barbarians are at war with each other, Japan is allowed to be left alone. But when they are at peace, they continue to try their invasion. They do this by first mapping the coast and trade, to see how they best plunder the country. In later years the barbarian’s ships started to get closer and closer to land. Even though it is law to shoot upon unknown ships, this has not been done. If it continues, Aizawa fears that the barbarians will win the people over to their side. If this happens, he feels all is lost.
The last part of the chapter focuses on the arguments he has heard used to convince the people that they have nothing to fear from the barbarians. For example, the argument that Japanese warriors are undefeatable. However, it has been a long time since Japan’s warriors have been to war and they don’t know how the “barbarians” fight. Therefore, Aizawa believes that it is foolish to believe that it would deter the barbarians. Another argument is that the barbarians haven’t been aggressive up until now, and so there is no reason to think that they will become aggressive. Aizawa counters this by theorizing that it could be part of the plot. By making the Japanese believe that they are here with good intentions, it will be easier to overwhelm them when the time comes. There are many more of these “conversations”, but they all lead in the same direction, Japan must be prepared for barbarian attack in any form. This chapter then leads directly to the next chapter; how can Japan prepare?
Shinron: “National Defense”
The last part of Shinron is also the longest. It’s dedicated to Aizawa’s suggestions about which reform would be necessary to defeat the barbarians. He suggests reform in “Internal Administration, Military Leadership, The Finances of the Realm and National Defense”. As if that wasn’t enough these are all segmented into further groups. I won’t spend much time on this part, despite its length because it doesn’t introduce anything new. But I will summarize Aizawa’s general view on Japan’s defense and state as it was.
Aizawa finds the Japanese defense lacking in every way. He thinks the leaders of the country, as well as the leaders of the domains, spend too much money on frivolous things. They care too much about material goods. The military is too arrogant and overbearing, lacking morals and respect. The training is too easy and doesn’t prepare the troops for war. And finally, the coastal defense is also weak and lacking. There aren’t enough watchtowers, and they are placed too far from each other, they are too far from where the troops are stationed, the communications network is bad, and there is no way to engage the enemy on the sea. It seems nothing is working for Aizawa. So Aizawa suggests changing all this, together with much more I won’t get into. His general solution to the military issues is to focus on it more and buy more weapons. On the social and financial areas, Aizawa suggests stopping nepotism within the government and instead using the best candidates. Besides this, he also recommends that punishment and reward apply to anyone regardless of class. He wants this to ensure that the nobles don’t get too arrogant.
At the same time, it should give the nobles a sense of shame, which should result in better morals and respect.
Aizawa argues for these changes by referring to a time when they were used in China or Japan with great success.
Conclusion
The story Aizawa tells in Shinron includes many of the same elements we’ve already met with Atsutane.
He writes “Our Emperors, descendants of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, have acceded to the Imperial Throne in each and every generation, […]. Our Divine Realm rightly constitutes the head and shoulders of the world and controls all nations. […]. But recently the loathsome Western barbarians, unmindful of their base position […], have been scurrying impudently across the four seas, trampling other nations underfoot.”.
And so, we see again how Japan’s emperor descended from the kami and how Japan is destined to lead the world. But Aizawa is more focused on the Western influence than he is on the Chinese. This makes sense as Aizawa is a follower of a Confucian school, something that is very famously Chinese in origin. Besides this Aizawa also includes Confucian elements in his theory, such as the Confucian concept of “Heaven”. Aizawa also criticizes the kokugaku scholars for ignoring Confucianism’s positive influence on Japan. Unlike Kokugaku scholars Aizawa is only interested in Shinto because he believes it might have the potential to push Christianity out of Japan. With the right encouragement from the government, that is.
Aizawa also omits history like the kokugaku scholars. Yet in contrast to them, he sees value in several different eras of the past besides the “Divine Age”. He isn’t interested in creating a counter-narrative like in kokugaku. Instead, he wants to reform Japanese culture and society directly. His history of Japan after “the Divine Age”, is therefore not only negative. He includes many positive things which happened after “the Divine Age”, that he thinks can help Japan better its current society.
Shinron is also a much more concrete attempt at making Japan able to resist the “barbarians” influence than Kokugaku. Besides these differences, both Kokugaku and Kokutai end up becoming a part of Restoration-Shinto. By joining kokugaku’s religious counter-history and Aizawas political reform-thinking Restoration-Shinto gained a strong foundation from which its followers could gain the authority necessary to make a civil religion.
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Sources
Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The “New Theses” of 1825. 1st ed., vol. 126, Harvard University Asia Center, 1986.
Theodore De Bary, William(ed.). Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume Two 1600-2000. Colombia University Press: New York, 2005. Print.
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