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War of a modern female thinker ─Focusing on Tadano Makuzu thoughts on governing the world view and nation state　─

  • Journal of Japanese Culture
  • 2019, (83), pp.269-288
  • DOI : 10.21481/jbunka..83.201911.269
  • Publisher : The Japanese Culture Association Of Korea (Jcak)
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Received : October 13, 2019
  • Accepted : November 6, 2019
  • Published : November 30, 2019

KIM Harksoon 1

1고려대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

While many suggest that a nation’s merits and demerits are directly linked to its ruler, Takizawa Bakin’s theory of ethics directly connects the merits and demerits of a nation to life and death itself. Theories that try to confirm the dominance of Japan through its merits and demerits suggest that Japan is simply a foreign nation that is in the background, while the Chinese empire is at the center of the world. Some even suggest that Japan is a nation of uncivilized barbarians. Bakin, however, uses the term “barbarians” to describe the great Western powers, suggesting that the quality of being barbaric lies in the limbs. Despite having a similar cultural background as China, Japan is often considered to be a foreign, barbaric nation. Bakin recognized the discriminating structure of Western powers as their core, and implied that civilized societies were also discriminated against by the superior consciousness of the Chinese, who discarded them as inferior barbarians. Upon re-examining this notion, Bakin frees Japan from this structural discrimination by attaching significance to the Sinosphere of Japan, his homeland, which shares a rich culture with China, particularly in terms of kanji, the traditional script. If being uncivilized stems from the limbs, Bakin views Japan at par with China, or focused detachment-in this case, from the traditional concept of China. In this way, Bakin describes China as an abstract, intellectual, and cultural concept, and by this logic, places Japan at par with China, conquering the traditional worldview.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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