The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by Неизвестный

  In this way, when something appears on the horizon that is superior by virtue of its ability, however small, to conserve energy, and this provokes a wave of disruption, a phenomenon resembling a kind of low-pressure zone occurs in the civilization, and until its components return to a state of balance and proportion, the people of that civilization have no choice but to continue in restless motion. Indeed, it is their very nature to do so. . . .

  Assuming, then, that the momentum of civilization consists of increasingly ferocious competition in both the positive and negative areas, it would appear that we have done our utmost over the ages to wring out some bit of wisdom, developing at last to where we are today, and yet it seems to me that the psychological pain that life thrusts upon us may be no more nor less than it was fifty or even a hundred years ago. Even with all the machines we have today to reduce our labors, even with all the means of amusement we now have for the free enjoyment of our vital energies, the pain of existence is far more intense than one would have imagined. Perhaps it would not be overstating the case to call the pain extreme. What else can we call it when we fail to appreciate the sheer fact of our having been born in an age of such vastly reduced labor and when the magnified means and scope of our amusements fail to arouse in us the appropriate sense of gratitude? This is the great paradox to which civilization has given birth.

  And now the time has come to discuss the civilization of Japan. If civilization in general is as I have described it, and Japan’s civilization is simply another example, that would pretty well take care of what I wanted to say, and I could end this lecture. Unfortunately, however, Japan’s case is special and cannot be dispensed with so easily. . . .

  The question facing us is this: How does the civilization of modern-day Japan differ from civilization in general as I have been discussing it? Simply stated, Western civilization (that is, civilization in general) is internally motivated, whereas Japan’s civilization is externally motivated. Something that is “internally motivated” develops naturally from within, as a flower opens, the bursting of the bud followed by the turning outward of the petals. Something is “externally motivated” when it is forced to assume a certain form as the result of pressure applied from the outside.

  Western civilization flows along as naturally as clouds or a river, which is not at all what we see in the case of Japan since the Meiji Restoration and the opening of relations with the West. Of course, all countries are influenced to some degree by their neighbors, and Japan is no exception: We have certainly not developed separately, relying exclusively on our own vital energies. There have been periods in our history when we were profoundly under the sway of foreign cultures—of Korea, for example, or China. But overall, viewed in the long course of events, we can say with some confidence that we have advanced to where we are today with a more or less internally motivated civilization. Certainly, Japan had never experienced any foreign influence as intense as that of the sudden influx of Western culture. There we were, slumbering for two hundred years in an atmosphere of sealed ports and foreign exclusion, when it jolted us awake.

  From that time on, Japan’s civilization began twisting and turning dramatically. The impact of the West was so great that we simply had no choice but to continue twisting and turning. To rephrase it in terms I used earlier, we were a country that had until then developed according to our own internal motivation. But then we suddenly lost our ability to be self-centered and were confronted by a situation in which we could not survive unless we began taking orders from the external force that was pushing us around at will. Nor was this by any means a temporary situation. The year is Meiji 44, after all: We’ve been bracing ourselves for close to fifty years. And not only have we been pushed and shoved along from that day to this, but unless we continue to be pushed along for years to come—perhaps forever—Japan will not be able to survive as Japan. What else can we call ourselves but externally motivated?

  The reason for this is obvious. If I may return to the definition of civilization that I formulated earlier at such length, Western civilization—this civilization we first collided with some fifty years ago and are incapable of avoiding contact with today—possesses labor-conserving means many times more powerful than our own, and it is equipped, too, with the ability to utilize its vital energies in the area of amusement and enjoyment many times more actively than we can. As a rough illustration, say Japan has gone along developing by internal motivation until, at long last, it brings its civilization to a complexity level of ten. We’ve just barely managed to reach that point when, all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, a civilization that has advanced to a complexity level of twenty or even thirty comes along and crashes into us. Because of the pressure this new civilization exerts on us, we have no choice but to develop in unnatural ways. And so the civilization of Japan today does not plod along at its own steady pace, but instead it leaps ahead from one desperate round to the next. Lacking the freedom to climb the stairway of civilization one step at a time, we take a stitch here and a stitch there with the biggest needle we can find. For every ten feet of ground we cover, we touch down on only one, virtually missing the other nine. Now, perhaps, you see what I mean by the term “externally motivated.” . . .

  Now, if we examine the group’s consciousness as a whole, I would conclude that there exists a clear consciousness that can encompass a long unit of time—be it a month, a year, or whatever—and that this consciousness ebbs and flows, moving in turn from one event to another. We all do this individually when we look back on our lives and discover distinct units of consciousness—our middle school years, say, or our university years: periods that stand out distinctly enough to have special names attached to them. A few years ago, from 1904 to 1905, the collective consciousness of the Japanese as a whole was focused exclusively on the Russo-Japanese War. Then came the period when we were occupied with a consciousness of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. When, through induction, we thus expand the psychologists’ analyses and apply them to the collective or longterm consciousness, we must conclude that the process of the development of man’s vital energies—that is, civilization—progresses in waves, stringing one arc after another in a constantly advancing line. Of course, the number of waves thus traced is infinite, the length and height of each potentially different from all the others, but finally they must move along in order, wave A calling forth wave B, B calling forth C, and so on. Simply stated, the progress of civilization should be internally motivated. . . .

  The question facing us is whether or not Japan’s civilization is advancing by means of internal motivation, tracing a natural motion from wave A to B to C. The answer, unfortunately, is that it is not, and that is the trouble. Because of external pressure, Japan has had to leap all at once from a barely attained complexity level of twenty to a level of thirty in the two great areas of energy conservation and energy consumption. The country is like a man who has been snatched up by a flying monster. The man clings desperately to the monster, afraid of being dropped, hardly aware of the course he is following.

  In the normal order of events, wave A of a civilization yields to wave B only when people have drunk their fill of A and have become satiated, at which time new desires arise from within and a new wave develops. A new stage of life opens before us after we have tasted the old one to the full, both the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet. Then we leave the first wave behind without regret, as a snake sheds its skin. And then whatever difficulties we may experience with the new wave, at least we never feel that we are dressing up in borrowed clothing, putting on a false front. But the waves that govern Japan’s present civilization roll in on us from the West. We who ride these waves are Japanese, not Westerners, and so we feel out of place with each new surge, like uninvited guests. There is no question of our understanding the new wave, for we have not had time to appreciate the features of the old one that we have cast off so reluctantly. It is like sitting at a dinner table and having one dish after another set bef
ore us and then taken away so quickly that, far from getting a good taste of each one, we can’t even enjoy a clear look at what is being served.

  A nation, a people, that incurs a civilization like this can only feel a sense of emptiness, of dissatisfaction and anxiety. There are those who gloat over this civilization of ours as if it were internally motivated, but they are wrong. They may think that they represent the height of fashion, but they are wrong. They are false and shallow, like boys who make a great show of enjoying cigarettes before they even know what tobacco tastes like. This is what the Japanese must do in order to survive, and this is what makes us so pitiful.

  Here is an example that may not come under the heading of “civilization,” but just look at how we socialize with Westerners: always according to their rules, never ours. Why, then, do we not just stop socializing with them? Sadly enough, we have no choice in the matter. And when two unequal parties socialize, they do so according to the customs of the stronger. One Japanese may make fun of another for not knowing the proper way to hold a knife or fork, but such smug behavior only proves that the Westerners are stronger than we are. If we were the stronger, it would be a simple matter for us to take the lead and make them imitate us. Instead, we must imitate them. And because age-old customs cannot be changed overnight, all we can do is mechanically memorize Western manners—manners which, on us, look ridiculous.

  All of this talk about silverware and manners may seem very trivial and have nothing to do with civilization, but that is exactly my point: everything we do—every trivial little act—is not internally, but externally motivated. This tells us that the civilization of modern-day Japan is superficial: it just skims the surface. Of course, I am not saying that this is true of absolutely everything. Such radical pronouncements should be avoided in dealing with complex problems, but the fact remains that no matter how much we view our civilization in our own favor, we cannot escape the conclusion that a part—perhaps the greatest part—of our civilization is superficial. This is not to say that we must put a stop to it. There is really nothing we can do about it. We must go on skimming the surface, fighting back our tears.

  You may wonder, then, whether it is finally impossible for us to cease being the child carried along on a grown-up’s back, for us to forge ahead on our own through all the proper stages of development. I would answer no, it is not impossible. But if the Japanese were able to condense into ten years all the developments that it took the West a hundred years to accomplish—to do this in such a way as to avoid the accusation of hollowness and convince all onlookers that the progress was internally motivated—the results would be devastating. Even a beginner in mathematics could see that our vital energies would have to increase tenfold in order for us to accomplish a hundred years’ worth of experience in a tenth of the time without skimming the surface.

  I can illustrate this point most easily by referring to the academic world. Let us suppose that through the forty-odd years of educational efforts that we have expended since the Meiji Restoration, we were able to arrive at the high degree of academic specialization that the Westerners realized after a hundred years and that we were able to do this entirely through internal motivation and without relying on any half-digested theories imported from the West, passing through a natural series of stages from theory A to B to C, entirely as a result of our own original research. If the Westerners, whose mental and physical powers far surpass ours, took a hundred years to get where they are now and we were able to reach that point in less than half that time (forgetting for the moment the difficulties they faced as pioneers), then we could certainly boast of an astounding intellectual accomplishment, but we would also succumb to an incurable nervous breakdown; we would fall by the wayside gasping for breath. And this is in no way farfetched. If you stop and think about it, a nervous breakdown is exactly what most university professors end up with after ten years of hard work. The healthy ones are merely phony scholars, or if that’s putting it too bluntly, let’s just say that succumbing to a nervous breakdown is more or less to be expected in that profession. I use scholars here simply because their example is so easy to grasp, but I believe the logic can be applied to all areas of civilization.

  I said earlier that for all its progress, civilization favors us with so little peace of mind that if we consider the added anxieties thrust on us by competition and the like, our happiness is probably not very different from what it was in the Stone Age. If we add to that what I just now said about the nervous breakdown we experience from trying not to skim the surface as our civilization is forced to change mechanically because of the unique situation Japan now finds itself in, we Japanese come out looking pretty miserable, or—shall I say?—pathetic: our situation is simply appalling. That is my only conclusion; I have no advice to give, no remedies to suggest, because I do not believe there is anything anyone can do about it. I am simply lamenting the sad fact of it all.

  Assuming that my analysis is correct, we can only view Japan’s future with pessimism. There seem to be fewer of us nowadays ridiculous enough to boast of Mount Fuji to foreigners, but we do hear many people proclaiming that victory over Russia made Japan a first-class power. I suppose one can make such claims if one is an incurable optimist. But what are we to do? How are we to cut our way through this desperate situation? As I said before, I have no clever solutions. The best answer I can come up with is that we probably should go on changing through internal motivation while trying our best to avoid a nervous breakdown.

  I apologize for having exposed you so mercilessly to the bitter truth as I see it and for having given you something unpleasant to think about, if only for an hour or so, but I hope that you will appreciate the fact that I have shared with you today my own most deeply held opinions, based on substantial evidence and on my fullest intellectual efforts and that this will allow you to forgive the weak points in my presentation.

  MY INDIVIDUALISM (WATAKUSHI NO KOJINSHUGI)

  Translated by Jay Rubin

  Having been born into the world, I had to find something to do. But what that something was, I had no idea. I stood paralyzed, alone and shut in by a fog, hoping that a single ray of sunlight would shine through to me, hoping even more that I could turn a searchlight outward and find a lighted path ahead, however narrow. But wherever I looked, there was only obscurity, a formless blur. I felt as if I had been sealed in a sack, unable to escape. If only I had something sharp, I could tear a hole in the sack, I thought, struggling frantically, but no one handed me what I needed, nor could I find it for myself. There was nothing for me to do but spend day after day in a pall of gloom that I concealed from others even as I kept asking myself, “What will become of me?”

  I graduated from the university clutching this anxiety to my breast. I took it with me to Matsuyama and from Matsuyama to Kumamoto. And when at last, I journeyed to England, the anxiety was still there, deep within me.

  Given the opportunity to study abroad, anyone would feel some new sense of responsibility. I worked hard. I strove to accomplish something. But none of the books I read helped me tear my way through the sack. I could search from one end of London to the other, I felt, and never find what I needed. I stayed in my room, thinking how absurd this all was. No amount of reading was going to fill this emptiness in the pit of my stomach. And when I resigned myself to the hopelessness of my task, I could no longer see any point to my reading books.

  It was then that I realized that my only hope for salvation lay in fashioning for myself a conception of what literature is, working from the ground up and relying on nothing but my own efforts. At long last I saw that I had been no better than a rootless, floating weed, drifting aimlessly and wholly centered on others—“other-centered”—in the sense of an imitator, a man who has someone else drink his liquor for him, who asks the other fellow’s opinion of it and makes that opinion his own without question. Yes, it sounds foolish when I put it like this, and you may well doubt that there could be people who would imitate ot
hers in this manner. But in fact, there are. Why do you think you hear so much about Bergson these days, or Eucken? Simply because Japanese see what is being talked about abroad and, in imitation, they begin shouting about it at home.

  In my day, it was even worse. Attribute something—anything—to a Westerner, and people would follow it blindly, acting meanwhile as though it made them very important. Everywhere, there were men who thought themselves extremely clever because they could fill their speech with foreign names. Practically everyone was doing it. I say this not in condemnation of others, however: I myself was one of those men. I might read one European’s critique of another European’s book, for example. Then, never considering the merits of the critique, without in fact understanding it, I would spout it as my own. This piece of mechanically acquired information, this alien thing that I had swallowed whole, that was neither possession nor blood nor flesh of mine, I would regurgitate in the guise of personal opinion. And the times being what they were, everyone would applaud.

  No amount of applause, however, could quiet any anxiety, for I myself knew that I was boasting of borrowed clothes, preening with glued-on peacock feathers. I began to see that I must abandon this empty display and move toward something more genuine, for until I did, the anxiety in the pit of my stomach would never go away.

  A Westerner might say a poem was very fine, for example, or its tone extremely good, but this was his view, his Western view, and while certainly not irrelevant, it was nothing that I had to repeat if I could not agree with it. I was an independent Japanese, not a slave to England, and it was incumbent on me as a Japanese to possess at least this degree of self-respect. A respect for honesty, as well, the ethic shared by all nations, forbade me to alter my opinion. . . .