4 - The Japanese empire (II)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
Summary
In his novel Kokoro Natsume Sōseki wrote the following:
Then at the height of the summer Emperor Meiji passed away. I felt as though the spirit of the Meiji era had begun with the Emperor and had ended with him. I was overcome with the feeling that I and the others, who had been brought up in that era, were now left behind to live as anachronisms. I told my wife so. She laughed and refused to take me seriously. Then she said a curious thing, albeit in jest: ‘Well then, you should commit self immolation and follow the Emperor to his grave.’
During the first half of the Taishō period (1912–26) which followed on from the Meiji period some of the momentum of this period remained but in the latter half the gulf between rich and poor grew deeper. Socialists maintained that this was the result of capitalism. Those on the right wing believed that it was because the Emperor was surrounded by statesmen who were both cunning and evil. They wanted to carry out a court revolution and subsequently realise an ideal society where an Emperor presided over a nation all of whose members were equal before him (the concept of ‘one lord whole people’). On the other hand the despotism of the militarists became more and more dominant. During the Tokugawa period any farmer or merchant who showed discourtesy towards a member of the warrior class could be reprimanded even to the extent of being killed by him; the military came to adopt the same sort of attitude towards both the government and the people at large. Their watchword was a martial spirit.
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- Information
- Why Has Japan 'Succeeded'?Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos, pp. 124 - 157Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982