2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Early Modern Samurai Class and Its Nationalism
| Project/Area Number |
12610216
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
社会学(含社会福祉関係)
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| Research Institution | Osaka Sangyo University |
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Principal Investigator |
KITANO Yuji Osaka Sangyo University, Department of Human Environment, Associate Professor, 人間環境学部, 助教授 (70177856)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2003
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| Keywords | Samurai / nationalism / the Mito School / Yokoi Shonan / Yosida Shoin / the Confucian ethic / Western Civilization / Tenno |
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| Research Abstract |
The Early Modern Samurai Class and Its Nationalism
The purpose of my research is to shw the way the Samurai in the closing days of the Tokugawa shogunate accepted the currents of the early modern Japanese nationalism, especially that of the Mito School. I chose and intensively studied Yokoi Shonan(1809-1869) and Yoshida Shoin(1839 1859) among Samurais influenced by the Mito School, because the ways of their acceptance made a beautiful contrast and were important to think about the Japanese history after the Meiji Restoration.
To begin with, Shoin inherited the Mito School's doctrine of the fundamental characteristic of Japan, which found its ethnic identity and excellence in the unbroken line of the Tenno Family. Shoin said that the Confucian ethic was valid for the relationship between sovereign and subject, father and son, husband and wife, young and old, and friends, but was not valid for the fundamental identity of the state. Shoin pushed on with the sanctification of the Tenno.
In contrast to Shoin, Shonan got rid of the spell of the Mito School, though he was influenced by the Mito School at first. His turning point came with the intensive study of Western Civilization. Through it he could recognize the superiority of the economic policy and the taxation system in the western countries.
According to Shonan the state guaranteeing the rich and peaceful life of people is civilized and in this sense the western states are civilized. On the contrary Japan and China are uncivilized.
In this way Shonan succeeded in overcoming the ethnocentrism of the Mito School. He named the political principle of guaranteeing the rich arid peaceful life of people 'The Ways of the Three Dynasties' and advocated it as the idea which is valid for the daily life, the state, and the international world.
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