Arbiters of Patriotism: Right-Wing Scholars in Imperial Japan (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

"In the 1930s and 1940s Marxist academics and others interested in liberal political reform often faced virulent accusations of treason from nationalist critics. In Arbiters of Patriotism, John Person explores the lives of two of the most notorious right-wing intellectuals responsible for leading such attacks in prewar and wartime Japan: Minoda Muneki (1894-1946) and Mitsui Kōshi (1883-1953) of the Genri Nippon (Japan Principle) Society. As fervent proponents of Japanism, the ethno-nationalist ideology of Imperial Japan, Minoda and Mitsui appointed themselves judges of correct nationalist expression. They built careers out of publishing polemics condemning Marxist and progressive academics and writers, thereby ruining dozens of livelihoods. Person traces Japanism's rise to literary and philosophical developments in the late-Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras, when vitalist theories championed emotion and volition over reason. Founding their ideas of nationalism on the amorphous regions of the human psyche, Japanists labeled liberalism and Marxism as misunderstandings of the national particularities of human experience. For more than a decade, government agents and politicians used Minoda's and Mitsui's publications to remove their political enemies and advance their own agendas. But in time they came to regard both men and other nationalist intellectuals as potential thought criminals. Whether collaborating with the government to crush the voices of class struggle or becoming the targets of police surveillance themselves, Minoda and Mitsui came to embody the paradoxically hegemonic yet arbitrary nature of nationalist ideology in Imperial Japan. In this thorough examination of the Genri Nippon Society and its members, Arbiters of Patriotism provides a tightly argued and compelling account of the cosmopolitan roots and unstable networks of Japanese ethno-nationalism, as well as its self-destructive trajectory"-- Provided by publisher In the 1930s and 1940s Marxist academics and others interested in liberal political reform often faced virulent accusations of treason from nationalist critics. In 'Arbiters of Patriotism', John Person explores the lives of two of the most notorious right-wing intellectuals responsible for leading such attacks in prewar and wartime Japan: Minoda Muneki (1894-1946) and Mitsui Koshi (1883-1953) of the Genri Nippon (Japan Principle) Society.0As fervent proponents of Japanism, the ethno-nationalist ideology of Imperial Japan, Minoda and Mitsui appointed themselves judges of correct nationalist expression. They built careers out of publishing polemics condemning Marxist and progressive academics and writers, thereby ruining dozens of livelihoods. Person traces Japanism's rise to literary and philosophical developments in the late-Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras, when vitalist theories championed emotion and volition over reason. Founding their ideas of nationalism on the amorphous regions of the human psyche, Japanists labeled liberalism and Marxism as misunderstandings of the national particularities of human experience. 0For more than a decade, government agents and politicians used Minoda's and Mitsui's publications to remove their political enemies and advance their own agendas. But in time they came to regard both men and other nationalist intellectuals as potential thought criminals. Whether collaborating with the government to crush the voices of class struggle or becoming the targets of police surveillance themselves, Minoda and Mitsui came to embody the paradoxically hegemonic yet arbitrary nature of nationalist ideology in Imperial Japan. In this thorough examination of the Genri Nippon Society and its members, 'Arbiters of Patriotism' provides a tightly argued and compelling account of the cosmopolitan roots and unstable networks of Japanese ethno-nationalism, as well as its self-destructive trajectory HalfTitle 2 SeriesTitle 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 12 Chapter One From Writing the Self to Reading the Nation 25 Chapter Two Japanist Democracies and Taisho Restorations 52 Chapter Three International Nationalisms and the Suppression of Socialism 75 Chapter Four Surveilling the Right 99 Chapter Five The Dream of Intellectual Leadership 132 Epilogue 166 Notes 172 Bibliography 202 Index 214 About the Author 222 Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University 224 Blank Page 1