Published on August 9, 2019. This article introduces an essay by Hirakawa Sukehiro, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, published in Sankei Shimbun’s “Sound Argument” column. It discusses Huntington’s theory of civilizations, Japan’s distinctive religious-civilizational identity, the relationship between Shinto and Buddhism, the unbroken Imperial line, and the postwar intellectuals shaped by the GHQ view of history who became unable to speak of the Yamato spirit and Japan’s native religious-cultural identity.

2019-08-09
Once Yamato spirit became a forbidden phrase by order of the American occupation forces, some Japanese intellectuals raised on the GHQ view of history began to show displeasure whenever Japan’s native religious-cultural identity was discussed.
The following is from an essay by Hirakawa Sukehiro, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, published in yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun, in “Sound Argument,” under the title “What Is Japan’s National Character?”
Samuel Huntington predicted that the world after the Cold War would be an age of “clash of civilizations.”
On September 11, 2001, when Islamic extremists carried out simultaneous terrorist attacks in the United States, the religious-civilizational view of history seemed to have hit the mark.
This Harvard professor classified the world into religious-civilizational spheres.
The United States and the European Union are in the Christian sphere.
The Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are in the Islamic sphere.
Russia and the Slavic countries are in the Greek Orthodox sphere.
China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are in the Confucian sphere.
India falls into a unit such as the Hindu sphere.
But Japan does not fit neatly and is said to be different from both the Confucian sphere and the Buddhist sphere.
Imported religion as fashion
In fact, everyone vaguely senses the distinctiveness of Japan’s religious civilization.
Continental culture was respected from ancient times.
But when Buddhism was transmitted, the native faith was recognized and called Shinto, and Prince Shotoku made the kami and Buddhas coexist with the phrase, “Harmony is to be valued.”
The way imported religions became fashionable is conspicuous in The Tale of Genji, but Christianity too was initially mistaken for a branch of Buddhism, and Deus was revered like Dainichi Nyorai, while Mary was revered like Kannon.
That fashion was the same as holding Christian-style weddings in hotels today.
However, even if many wedding ceremonies are held in chapels, Japan has not become a Christian country.
Many funerals are also Buddhist-style, but Japan cannot be called a Buddhist country on the level of Thailand or Myanmar.
Indeed, many Japanese answer that they have “no religion.”
Then is Japan not in the Confucian sphere?
Neither Sugawara no Michizane nor Ki no Tsurayuki thought that people of Yamato words would become people of Chinese spirit and Chinese learning.
Waka poetry and narratives developed, and the ideal was Japanese spirit and Chinese learning.
Japanese spirit means the spirit of the Japanese people before the importation of Chinese culture, but because grasping Japanese spirit depends on its relationship with others, in the case of Japanese spirit and Western learning after the end of the Edo period, it also includes Confucian spirit.
However, when Japanese people asserted Eastern spirit or Bushido, there was also an element of bravado.
That is why, once Japan was defeated by the United States, intellectuals fell silent about Yamato spirit and Shinto.
Then why do Japanese people lack confidence in their own religious-civilizational identity?
At the constitutional drafting conference in Meiji 21, Ito Hirobumi stated the following.
“In Europe, there is religion, and it forms the axis of constitutional government, deeply permeating people’s hearts, and the hearts of the people are unified in it.
However, in our country, religion is weak in its power, and there is not a single thing that can serve as the axis of the state.
Buddhism once flourished and bound the hearts of people high and low, but today it has already inclined toward decline.
Although Shinto is recounted based on the teachings handed down by the ancestors, it lacks the power to make people’s hearts turn toward it as a religion.”
Some political thinkers criticize Ito, saying that to make up for this, he installed in Japan the national polity of the Emperor system, with the Emperor at its apex, based on the ideal of a “family state in which ruler and subjects live in harmony.”
Japan has an Emperor of an unbroken line
However, there was historical necessity in having the Emperor.
Compared with China, Japan has an Emperor of an unbroken line.
That has been a source of pride since ancient times.
In August 1945, the Japanese people accepted surrender on the condition of preserving the national polity, wishing to protect only the Emperor, and maintained the constitutional monarchy.
The Imperial Family, whose ancestral deity is Amaterasu Omikami and whose head is the great priest of Shinto, has authority even if it has no political power.
If the Imperial-view of history was a self-aggrandizing praise of such Japan’s national polity, then its reverse side may be the view of Japan held by some intellectuals who cannot explain Shinto but can only speak ill of it.
After the defeat in war and the loss of confidence, Otsuka Hisao and others first taught that Western spirit and Western learning were the ideal, but as Mori Ogai had foreseen early on, the Japanese people would not easily throw away themselves.
Once Yamato spirit became a forbidden phrase by order of the American occupation forces, some Japanese intellectuals raised on the GHQ view of history began to show displeasure whenever Japan’s native religious-cultural identity was discussed.
But Japan’s civilizational-historical definition should be discussed empirically.
For example, in Deep Japan Theory, Kudo Takashi interpreted that in Japan modernization was achieved by layering the surface strata of Chinese culture and Western culture over the base stratum of the animistic culture called Shinto.
It is an interesting viewpoint that strikes at a blind spot in public understanding.
In monotheism, God creates heaven and earth, but in Japan all things arise by themselves.
Because a spirit is thought to dwell in each one, this is called animism.
In our country, more than Shinto became Buddhicized, Buddhism became Shintoized.
This can be understood by pointing out that “mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees all become Buddhas” is a Buddhist phrase favored by Japanese people.
Because there has been ancient belief in ancestral spirits, the dead are called “Buddhas” in Japan.
There is no such example in other Buddhist spheres.
The successors of the GHQ view of history
Confucian scholars of the Tokugawa period criticized Japan through China-centered colored glasses.
In today’s language, that was the prejudice of the China School, but Motoori Norinaga called it “Chinese-mindedness.”
Recently, there are Japanese scholars of religion who criticize Shinto through the colored glasses of Western monotheism, but I would like to call that “Western-mindedness.”
During the war, the U.S. military regarded the Emperor and Shinto as enemies and bombed and burned down Meiji Shrine.
But precisely because they realized the error of that God-Emperor view, U.S. presidents since Ford have also visited Meiji Shrine.
Nevertheless, people in the bureaucracy and left-wing forums who still obey the occupation forces’ Shinto Directive become indignant and make an exaggerated fuss, saying, “Why national polity now?” when comparative researchers cite Shinto elements in a broad explanation of the Emperor’s duties.
Hirakawa Sukehiro.