1930年代中期の日本映画と時代の交差点Japanese Films of the Mid-1930s at a Crossroads of Eras

When you watch Japanese films from the mid-to-late 1930s you sense a crossroads where the era shifted dramatically. This is most visible in the actors themselves, in the distinct bearing carried by people born in two periods unique to Japan's own historical calendar. Those two periods are Meiji and Taisho. Seen from another angle the films of this era serve as invaluable historical documents. They are traces suggesting that two fundamentally different visions of the Japanese person had come into being, each rooted in its own age. If we can truly examine the nature of these periods I believe it becomes a force capable of exposing the fictions we have been made to accept as universal truths today. Because it is precisely within the emotional turbulence of the people who lived through these times that the deeper truth resides. What we call universal is not universal at all.

The reign of the Taisho Emperor lasted from July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926, and this span is known in Japan's periodization simply as Taisho. Within these roughly fifteen years a powerful cultural current emerged. It is broadly called Taisho Roman, with related terms such as Taisho Modern and Taisho Retro also in use. All serve as umbrella expressions for the intellectual currents and cultural phenomena that convey the spirit of the Taisho era. The most defining feature of Taisho Roman was the liberation of the individual, an idealistic ethos directed toward a new age and the emergence of a sensibility known as wayo setchu (和洋折衷), the artful blending of Japanese and Western elements.

These developments arose fundamentally as popular culture but their character differed profoundly from the preceding Meiji period. At its root the nature of the Meiji era was shaped by the element of a coup d'état, a military revolution launched against the shogunate system that had endured for roughly three hundred years during the Edo period. Once the old system was dismantled and a new government established Japan entered a vigorous phase in which it actively pursued the formation of its own early modernity, importing and implementing a wide range of Western-modeled systems. However because many people born in the Edo period were still alive during Meiji fierce resistance arose against this rapid transformation. For them replacing everything with Western systems in a manner that ignored Japan's own historical context was no different from colonization or invasion. What makes this particularly complicated is that neither the promoters of Westernization nor those who resisted it could see the place they stood in. Both sides operated within the assumption of a monolithic Japanese national space.

This resistance was entirely legitimate. But the essential point to grasp is probably this. Japan's modernity began not as the colonization from outside that was typical elsewhere. It proceeded as a rearranging of society by some of its own members, who used Western institutions. In other words the great distinguishing feature of modern Japan is that the replacement of structures took place inside one place, and that strong tension arose within it. It was precisely from the fierce backlash against this rearrangement of society through Western systems, led by a small number of politicians, bureaucrats and scholars, that an insurgent force outside the establishment began to rise. This force would later emerge as the right wing and eventually cast its long shadow as Japanism all the way to the Second World War. Viewed broadly the people of Meiji constantly operated within two frameworks, Japan and the West. The paramount question of the age was how to incorporate these two from their separated positions into a modern nation-state.

In practice ideological terms such as Westernism and Japanism appeared during this period and violent clashes erupted between the two camps. And here is a point easily misunderstood. What was called Westernism at the time was Western in name only. In substance it was anti-democratic. When we consider this reality a doubt begins to form in my mind about whether the transplantation and structuring of Western systems into Japan during the modernizing process of Meiji actually carried any genuine content. The adherents of both Westernism and Japanism certainly appear to have refined a sharp capacity for seeing the world through binary opposition. Yet when it comes to the substance of their own positions their own words reveal a striking vagueness throughout. In other words as a prevailing current of the Meiji era an extreme split had formed between "the West" and "Japan." But this was only the outward shape. Turn it over and what you find is more straightforward. In the early process of forming a modern state a movement was underway to build a structure in which the center would govern the whole of society as one. The leadership of the new Meiji government stood at the center of this effort. And because Meiji lasted forty-five years from 1868 to 1912 various ideologies developed and sharpened over a long stretch of time.

Through these decades as the problems of the modern nation-state became increasingly apparent toward the end of Meiji a new cultural current began to take shape and eventually blossomed in the Taisho era. While generalizations are difficult The idea of wayo setchu is often cited as a defining character of Taisho so let us look at this more closely. The fundamental premise of Taisho thought was that both Japanism and Westernism were problematic and that neither offered a solution for modern Japan. Convinced that remaining trapped in the Meiji-style binary of one side being right would only lead to stagnation the people of Taisho committed themselves thoroughly to a more pragmatic idea. Simply take the best from both and blend them together. This is what the term wayo setchu came to symbolize. In essence because Meiji had been strongly defined by separation Taisho was an attempt to pull things back toward non-separation, a quality more native to the Japanese character. It is significant that women stood at the center of this current, embodying the shift from separation to non-separation.

Because Meiji was an era shaped by people who had lived through the Edo period many could not relinquish the temperament of clinging to a fixed ideology and unyielding stance. By the time Taisho arrived those who had lived through Edo were elderly even if still alive and no longer wielded the social influence they once had. Moreover Taisho was populated by a generation born in the latter half of Meiji, people who had grown up within the tension between the two great frameworks of Japanism and Westernism. It was this generation grappling with that inherited problem that became the driving force behind the flowering of Taisho Roman. Put differently the essence of Taisho Roman was an answer to the intellectual tension of Meiji.

Yet at the same time Taisho occupied the precarious position of being the era immediately before the turbulent Showa period. People lived under the weight of an encroaching formless anxiety. It was a vague sense that if things continued on their current trajectory the future would not be good. And as in every age it is precisely this kind of shapeless dread that becomes the wellspring of cutting-edge culture. To answer the anxiety bearing down on them the people of Taisho leaned into ideology even more deeply than those of Meiji. They actively absorbed socialism, communism and anarchism one after another, entering a phase of rapid metabolic digestion. In a sense theirs was an accelerationist worldview. The only way to break through the impasse of modern Japan was to accelerate. In reality this accelerationist current of Taisho collided head-on with the interests of Japanist forces among whom a consciousness of tradition had been growing in the same period. Socialism, communism and anarchism came to be regarded as dangerous and were met with state suppression. Throughout the Taisho era everything picked up speed. When the mid-to-late 1930s arrived that velocity became strikingly visible in the actors who appeared on screen.

Conversely precisely because Taisho possessed this accelerationist character the uncritical celebration of wayo setchu carries its own dangers. The people of Taisho were living at considerable velocity and their blending of Japanese and Western elements was itself performed at high speed, selected and discarded without the luxury of careful deliberation. Furthermore since the monolithic national system of the Showa era had not yet been established in Taisho the distinctiveness of individual places and regions remained strong. These currents tended to be confined largely to the major cities of Tokyo and Osaka while Japan as a whole still retained a pronounced Meiji character. Then the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923 prompted an exodus of cultural figures westward. The center of Taisho Roman's cultural production shifted from Tokyo to the Kansai region and between Osaka and Kobe a new current known as Hanshinkan Modernism was born.

The culture of the Taisho era remains beloved by many today. But what I want to think about here is another defining feature of the period: the promotion of what was called "Taisho Democracy." The question I want to pose is whether democracy has ever truly existed in Japan. Even in present-day Japan the Western concept of democracy has been domesticated as minshu shugi (民主主義). Yet one look at the recent election in which the Liberal Democratic Party won by a landslide makes it clear that democracy is being used as little more than a convenience. The reason I believe it is worth asking whether democracy ever genuinely took root in Japan is that I harbor a deeper suspicion. The coherent understanding of democracy in a global context is always constrained by the specificity of place. It may simply be impossible to extend the same idea to other countries.

In a sense I feel this suspicion is close to the unease the people of Taisho themselves experienced. The traditional context of democracy as it originated in the West was from the very beginning the product of long years of cultivation rooted in a particular place. Within such regions it is indeed universal and functions effectively. But the cold reality is that when it spreads across broader territories let alone to other countries it cannot carry the same force. This is a firm conclusion that comes into view when you survey roughly one hundred sixty years of Japan as a non-Western nation that modernized early. It is precisely the kind of critical question that demands to be asked now. One often encounters people who conveniently deflect discussions of Japan's decline onto the problems of capitalism. But the real issue lies not there. It lies in the falsehood of the very universals that those same people believe in without question.

This is a crucial juncture where the problem of universality runs deep. I believe the time has come once again for the perspective that what is generally regarded as Western universality is ultimately something rooted in place and nothing more. This means the dismantling of the West itself and the reinterpretation that "the West" never existed as such. That realization will emerge symbolically through the parallel dismantling of "the East." When this happens the very definition of universality will change and what has long been accepted as universal will be exposed as never having been universal at all. This kind of problem cannot be solved unless we install the concept of place into our own thinking. To put it in the starkest terms universality on a global scale is impossible. What requires caution however is that while such universality is impossible it can be made to appear possible. This is because in every country leaders arise who cherry-pick from the limited universality rooted in a particular place and exploit it for their own convenience. If we posit this as the root cause of the problem then universality is nothing more than a tool abused to protect the systems that serve the private interests of those in power.

Contemporary Japan is a perfect symbol of exactly this. So next we will turn to the problem of democracy, a concept all too easily treated as universal.