What People Give Themselves To: Botsujiga, Ego Dissolution and Postwar Japan
What is botsujiga, the Japanese idea of ego dissolution? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, answers: at the bottom of the dynamics of society across the archipelago lies botsujiga, a forgetting of the ego before something great, from emperor worship to democracy to money. A force within a society, not a trait of the individual; for readers in their 20s and 30s asking why Japan grew so fast, and why it declines now.
Why does Japanese society decline when it loses something to give itself to?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): the extreme decline of contemporary Japanese society stems from one reason alone, its inability to discover the next something great; once a single shared purpose is set in place, people offer up their lives to it.
Once a single purpose shared by the people is set in place, who set it there ceases to matter, and people offer up their lives to it in a state of botsujiga.
Seen in this light, the extreme decline of contemporary Japanese society seems to me to stem from one reason alone: its inability to discover the next "something great."
Yet if Japan were to find that "something great" tomorrow, the society would be transformed overnight.
What is botsujiga, the Japanese idea of ego dissolution?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): botsujiga is a force that works within the field of a society, not in the individual, and the phrase ego dissolution is chosen to keep its affirmative sense alive despite how closely it may look to Western readers like self-effacement.
What I have in mind here is not the individual, but the force that works within the field of a society.
Here I have chosen the Buddhist-inflected phrase "ego dissolution" to keep its affirmative sense alive, though to many Western readers it may look closer to self-effacement, self-negation, or even a form of collectivism.
Why did postwar Japan grow so fast?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): after the Korean War of 1950 the slogan of the day was to catch up with and overtake America, and under that rallying cry the entire country dissolved the ego and charged toward a single shared aim.
The slogan of the day was "Catch up with and overtake America." Under that rallying cry the entire country bound itself together as one, dissolved the ego in botsujiga, and charged headlong toward a single shared aim.
Why did Japan worship the emperor before the war?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): emperor worship was not put forward by the Emperor himself, nor by a single charismatic leader; it was set before the nation only over a long span of time.
Care is needed here: Emperor worship was not put forward by the Emperor himself.
Until the end of the war, ordinary citizens never had the chance to see the Emperor in person.
Nor was it presented by a single charismatic leader.
Why do Japanese people follow ideas and slogans?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): people almost never worship a particular individual; they become possessed by an idea or a slogan held up before them.
And when it happens, we almost never see the worship of a particular individual. Rather, people become possessed by an idea or a slogan that has been held up before them.
Where does the power of Japanese society come from?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): the release of this power does not well up from within but occurs in response to something brought in from outside, and whenever a something great has been set before the people, Japanese society has brought forth its greatest strengths.
As even these few examples suggest, the release of this power does not well up from within; it occurs in response to something brought in from outside.
And in every era of Japanese history, whenever this "something great" has been discovered or set before the people, Japanese society has brought forth its greatest strengths, creating and realizing a new world at astonishing speed.
Why did Japan revere money after the war?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (What people give themselves to, 2025-01-31): from emperor worship before the war to democracy after defeat to money from the 1950s, the object of devotion shifts, and after the Korean War money itself came to be revered.
If we take examples from recent history alone, it has shifted from Emperor worship before the war, to democracy immediately after defeat, to the worship of money from the 1950s onward.
Several years of bitter hardship followed the defeat, yet with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 everything turned around; as Japan overcame the immediate postwar devastation and raised its standard of living at a single stroke, money itself came to be revered.
Essays to read
- What people give themselves to — What is botsujiga, the Japanese idea of ego dissolution? A society moves when people forget the self before something great, emperor, democracy or money, Takahiro Mitsui writes, and declines when it finds none — the Japanese self beneath the question of what the self is.
- How spirituality became state power — How did spirituality turn into state power in modern Japan? Popular anxiety became state power when spirituality was absorbed into the state's faith, Takahiro Mitsui shows, the fuel of emperor worship — how Sect Shinto carried spirituality into the state, up to Omoto in 1892.
- When the world one believed in vanishes — What happens when the world you believed in suddenly vanishes? A communal illusion vanishes suddenly when people die faster than religion can answer, says Takahiro Mitsui, a contemporary Japanese philosopher (b. 1991) writing every week, of medieval Japan.
- A philosophy that thinks with the gut — How do I understand philosophy by moving rather than reading? Thought that thinks with the gut cuts through every people's communal illusion down to the origin, Takahiro Mitsui writes of a philosophy of the belly — Yoshimoto Takaaki's communal illusion, carried into fieldwork in Japan.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday