Pledge to a New Tomorrow

(text-style:"bold")+(text-size:1.5)[Pledge to a New Tomorrow] (text-style:"subscript", "italic")[A text-based adventure game about democracy.] In a world where * you have no rights; * you have no freedom; * you have no say: [[Would you risk it all for a new tomorrow?->Start 2]] (text-style:"subscript")[(C) 2022. Fort Condor Productions.]

“The printer is still broken, I am afraid.” The librarian said. * Mason, R. H. P., & Caiger, J. G. (1997). A History of Japan: Revised Edition. Tuttle Publishing. * Fowler, E. (1992). The Rhetoric of Confession: Shishosetsu in Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Fiction. University of California Press. “What about the actual stories?” You asked. “There are some references in the history book. Try to get on the internet. That’s a clue for your journey: //open// and //closed//. Got it?” The librarian said. “Think so. Okay, I will come back soon.” You enter the elevator and press the “4” button. [[You exit the elevator.]]

You walk down the hall. No one is there. You find the history book. [[You sit down and begin.]]

In the history book, there is a photo of a ship. Its hull was 70 meters long black steel. It had three masts, a steam chimney, and cannons. They were called "Black Ships." <img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Dupleix_1856-1887-1.jpg?w=650" width="640" height="480" alt="black, steam ship"> Cannons were fired in Edo Bay to [[intimidate the regime.]]

Say, you saw this ship, and three more like it, in Edo Bay. As a guard, you had only seen wood ships with single sails. These ship could bombard coastal defenses. And they were manned by foreigners. What would you think? What would you do? [[You read more]]

In Summer 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry led four American ships into Edo (Tokyo) Bay. Perry carried a letter from President Fillmore to the Emperor requesting trade and diplomatic relations. A year later, Perry returned. After extensive negotiations with the governing Tokugawa Shogunate, a treaty for relations, but not trade, was finalized. There was a threat to outright refusal. US steam and steel technology was far ahead of Japan’s. Japan had no means to repel [[any act of war.]]

News of the “black ships” spread fear across Japan. The cry “Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians” gathered in the rural areas. This pressure mounted to oust the Tokugawa Shogunate that had unified and then ruled Japan for more than two hundred years. In an instant, Commodore Perry’s move had broken the Shogunate’s official, strictly enforced policy of //sakoku//. This “closed country” policy prevented any Japanese from leaving and any Catholic national from entering. Christianity was forbidden and severely punished. Foreigners were expelled. [[All trade was to be conducted through the port of Nagasaki.]]

There were benefits of a closed country policy, such as security and economic self-sufficiency, including: * Road construction; * Establishment of a bureaucracy from members of the samurai warrior class; * Flourishing commerce with its center Edo with a population of a million before Commodore Perry arrived. But it faced a crisis when faced with [[a serious external threat.]]

<img src="https://i2.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2007-Kyushu-Map-annotated.png?resize=577%2C1024" width="577" height="1024" alt="map of Kyushu island"> You encounter a map of the fourth largest island Kyushu, on the southern end of the Japanese archipelago, far from the emperor’s court in Kyoto and the seat of the shogun in Edo (Tokyo) on the central island. You also note four events that shaped the closed country policy. * 1543: Storm-blown Portuguese sailors on the island of Tanegashima; Introduction of firearms to Japan. ** Tanegashima is a small, long island south of the bigger southern island of Kyushu. * 1549: St. Francis Xavier arrives in Satsuma. ** Satsuma was a domain on the western cusp of the Satsuma Peninsula on the southern most end of Kyushu, near Tanegashima. * 1634: Dutch trading outpost established as Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki. ** Nagasaki was a harbor city on a peninsula on the western end of the Kyushu island. * 1637: Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu puts down the Shimabara Rebellion. ** The rebellion occurred in the Shimabara Peninsula along the same inlet as Nagasaki and the nearby Amakusa islands in the same bay. [[How did the Shogunate stop the rebellion?]]

During the 1637 Shimabara Rebellion, more than thirty thousand Christian peasants tried to maintain a stronghold on the Shimabara peninsula, east of Nagasaki. With the help of a Dutch naval bombardment, the peasants were massacred. In 1639, the shogunate enacted the previously mentioned strict closed country policy. The Christian faith and Japanese Christians were considered vanguard of the Colonial Powers. Japanese Christians were hunted and forced to recant their faith by stepping on a votive image. If not, they were tortured and killed. [[What would you do if you had to recant your faith on pain of death?]]

It is 1639. You are a peasant who had converted to Christianity. After the failed Shimabara Rebellion, the Shogunate banned Christianity. You are warned that the authorities will make you recant your faith or suffer torture and death at their hands. [[Days Pass]]

You thought this day wouldn't come. But guards called the whole village to gather in a field. They carried a wood block with a cast iron image of the Virgin Mary or Lord Jesus. You wait in line and [[don't know what to do!]]

The guard comes close by. You see the votive image of the Virgin Mary cast in iron on a block. It is covered in mud after each apostate presses their feet there. But the guards wipe it clean after each time. You, they, and everyone else knows what you would do. The Virgin clasped hands in prayer, wears a crown as Queen of Heaven, and an aura emanates as indicated with an etched shell-like force field. The guard cleans the mud off the image and [[comes to you.]]

<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Virgin_Mary_tile_to_step_on.jpg/415px-Virgin_Mary_tile_to_step_on.jpg" width="415" height="480" alt="Virgin Mary relief as a tile to step on"> [[The guard brings the fumi-e to you.]]

Choose your action: [[You do not step on the image. You will not forsake your God.]] Or [[You do not step on the image. You cannot lose face in your community.]] Or [[You step on the image. But ask forgiveness from God]] Or [[You step on the image. You didn't believe anyway.]]

A guard drags you to the holding pen where you observe the torture of your peers. You steel your nerves. These guards, lords, and warlords get their reward in this life, but you will receive the reward from [[God the Father in heaven.]]

You went along with Christianity because you hated subjugation under the shogunate. You couldn't lose face now. You see the torture inflicted on the others and want to escape. During a change of shift, you shuffle out of the ropes, but then a guard encounters you as you run. [[He holds his sword out and charges.]]

You believe that God will forgive you for this, because they put you in this horrible situation. You are better off alive than dead. You will keep practicing the faith quietly and [[spread it in secret.]]

How could God put you in this position? And kill so many of his followers in a faraway land who worship Him? You lose belief in this God and [[submit to the will of the shogunate.]]

Your life ends after days of torture. But you die knowing that you were true to your God. [[More about Silence, the novel this scenario is based on]]

In the history book, there is a piece of paper with: * Endo, S. (2016). //Silence//. Macmillan USA. You find it on the 5th floor. Based on a historical account, //Silence// recreates the period soon after the Shimabara Rebellion. A Portuguese Jesuit priest comes to Japan as a stowaway and lives in a small Japanese Christian community. Authorities then capture him; they torture and kill the peasants one-by-one until the priest recants. The authorities consider his turn [[a propaganda goldmine.]]

The guard cleaves you in two. You die in the straw and the mud. Your family is angry and ashamed. But they still respect your choice. [[More about Silence, the novel this scenario is based on]]

You are shamed by many in the community for denying your faith. You are also blacklisted as one who professed the faith. But you do gain succor from practicing in secret. Your son and daughter reject the faith, marry, and leave, but your granddaughter practices in secret from her parents. [[More about Silence, the novel this scenario is based on]]

You live your life as before. Changing your station in life is folly. You convince others not to be entangled with foreigners and their beliefs. Better to follow the rules and accept your fate. [[More about Silence, the novel this scenario is based on]]

They had forced an apostasy from the priest’s mentor who then wrote treatises for the state on why Christianity would not be tenable for the Japanese mind. The authorities and the priest cast “the Japanese” as exclusive, pure, and self-contained and cast “the others” as the opposite. The universal acceptance of one truth was an attack on the categories of “Japanese” and “others.” If that binary was broken, then their grip on the people’s mind could be [[out of their control once more.]]

You remember what the librarian said: //open// and //closed//. You sort things out. =|= ''Open'' Christianity Foreign Trade Local Control Faith Foreigners Land =|= ''Closed'' Shogun Internal Trade Authoritarian Control Obedience Japanese Sea |==| So, this binary helps make sense of the history covered so far. [[You review what you studied so far->D1Q1]]

Commodore Perry led steam ships in Edo (Tokyo) Bay in 1853. Perry returned a year later to form a treaty of relations. Perry was sent by which President? * [[President Jackson]] * [[President Lincoln]] * [[President Buchanan]] * [[President Fillmore]]

Incorrect. President Jackson served from 1829-1837. [[Try Again->D1Q1]]

President Lincoln served from 1861 to 1865. Commodore Perry and the shogunate formed a treaty before the American Civil War. [[Try Again->D1Q1]]

President Buchanan served from 1857 to 1861 and let the US fall into Civil War. US and Japan established relations earlier. [[Try Again->D1Q1]]

That's right! Establishing relations with Japan was one of the major achievements of his tenure (1850-1853). [[Next question|D1Q2]]

The call to "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" mounted pressure on whom? * [[Commodore Perry]] * [[Tokugawa Shogunate]] * [[Pope]] * [[Emperor's court]]

Japanese recognized Commodore Perry and the Americans as a threat, but this slogan was directed internally. [[Try again->D1Q2]]

This is correct. Many domains were frustrated that the shogunate was not doing enough to prevent subjugation from a foreign power. [[Next question->D1Q3]]

Jesuit priests earlier had been considered the vanguard of the Colonial Powers in the 1600s, but now the fear was squared against industrial might. [[Try Again->D1Q2]]

While the call was to "Revere the Emperor," the emperor's role as temporal ruler was a convenient way to unite clans for internal change. [[Try again->D1Q2]]

What port city contained Dejima, the the only official trading post during the closed country policy? * [[Kyoto]] * [[Kagoshima]] * [[Nagasaki]] * [[Edo (Tokyo)]]

Kyoto is an inland city on the central island of Honshu. [[Try again->D1Q3]]

St. Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima. However, it was not a trading post with the Colonial Powers. [[Try again->D1Q3]]

Correct! Dejima was a outpost on reclaimed land in the port of Nagasaki. [[Next Question->D1Q4]]

Edo was a city that thrived under the closed country policy, but it was not a port open to foreigners. [[Try again->D1Q3]]

Which event triggered the more strict closed country policy in 1639? * [[St. Francis Xavier arriving in Kagoshima]] * [[Introduction of firearms to Tanegashima]] * [[Shimabara Rebellion in the Nagasaki Bay]]

St. Francis Xavier's arrival did not end to the closed country on its own. The Christian faith combined with a demand for political control was a red line for the shogunate. [[Try again->D1Q4]]

Japanese domains obtained firearms for their own benefit. This alone was not a reason to shut down the country. [[Try again->D1Q4]]

Yes! After quelling the Shimabara Rebellion, the shogunate instituted a draconian closed country policy. [[Next question->D1Q5]]

What was a benefit of the closed country policy? * [[Compulsory education for children 12 and over]] * [[Aided the establishment of control over all lordly domains under the shogunate]] * [[Established a bureaucracy from members of the samurai warrior class]] * [[A technologically advanced military]]

Compulsory education for children 12 and over happened after the closed country policy ended. [[Try again->D1Q5]]

That's right. After Japan had been unified by the shogunate, many samurai established a bureaucracy. [[A guard raps on the desk.]]

The military was behind that of the Colonial Powers without a national conscription army, a navy, or much artillery. [[Try again->D1Q5]]

Oda Nobunaga conquered most of Honshu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified all the lordly domains (1591), and Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated Toyotomi loyalists during the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), became shogun in 1603, and set up the shogunate. So, control of all lordly domains led to the regime of the shogunate itself. [[Try again->D1Q5]]

The guard puts a hand under your shoulder and pulls you up. "This area is closed. Come with me," the guard said. "Please." "The circulation desk is closed. Come with me." [[You look the guard directly in the face shield.]]

Who was this bully? You drop your book. The guard pushes you towards the elevator. You walk in and turn. The guard presses the button for the ground floor. [[The doors close.]]

The guard pushes you into the steel handrail. You stagger. You do not scream. The door opens. The guard walks and waits. You get up. The doors close, but you open them. There are no lights except by the entrance. The guards stops there. [[You walk out.]]

If you were caught promulgating the faith, would suffer unto death? The sadist authorities crucified priests in the sea. [[Would you endure that for anything?]]

You take a shower in the collective pen. You take your time: a full fifteen minutes. You catch a couple walking to their room. You wait for the air to clear before walking back. [[You enter your room and fall asleep.->Day2 Start]]

The 1868 Meiji Restoration established the political rule of the emperor. The shoguns had it for more than two centuries. The instigators were samurai from western rural domains, Satsuma (Kagoshima), Choshu (Yamaguchi), and Tosa (Kochi) and court nobles who opposed the shogunate. Troops under Saigo Takamori, a leading Satsuma samurai, stormed the imperial palace in Kyoto. And the Restoration Proclamation was read inside. The emperor moved from the Kyoto court to the center of political power Edo, where the shoguns had resided. Edo was hence renamed Tokyo, or [[the Eastern Capital.]]

The new modern regime sought growth to bolster its defense from the open threat of colonial subjugation. Its slogan was “Japanese Spirit, Western Technology.” They established a joint currency and diverted tax revenues from traditional sources (agriculture) towards new industry, such as mining, rail, and the military. In with the new, sometimes meant out with the old: [[like samurai carrying swords.]]

Laws forbade the warrior hairstyle and carrying swords in public, alienating the two million or so members of the samurai class. Was this the way to treat samurai who instigated the Meiji Restoration! To make it worse, [[many had lost their jobs.]]

When the Meiji regime converted lordly domains into centrally administrated prefectures (1872), a conscription army replaced samurai loyal to individual lords. This unemployment, alienation from rapid changes, and a loss of local control led to rebellions. Saigo Takamori, a samurai who led the Meiji Restoration itself, launched the Satsuma Rebellion (1877). After that failure, discontent channeled [[into the political process.]]

In April 1868, the Meiji regime had the emperor issue “the five-article oath” which explicitly or implicitly promised deliberative assemblies; freedom of residence and occupation; abolition of hereditary classes; and full cultural contact with the West. Parties were formed that campaigned for a written constitution and a national assembly. In 1889, the Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi with a small group wrote the Meiji Constitution establishing emperor as head of the military with powers to form a Cabinet (a "government"). His subjects had qualified rights and [[duties]].

These duties were listed in the //kokutai// or official governing philosophy. The kokutai considered the state as a hierarchically ordered family with more senior members making decisions by consensus, a Confucian tradition. [[The emperor was the head.]]

The emperor was the temporal and religious leader. Subjects had qualified and conditional rights in the Meiji Constitution, but sovereignty remained with the emperor alone. Natural rights for the Japanese people were not secured under the Meiji Constitution. Shinto shrines were stripped of their Buddhist connections. They were charged with instilling loyalty to the throne. But these religions were not [[traditionally in conflict.]]

Nara is an ancient capital of Japan. On a large flat plain are Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Shinto was the folk religion of Japan. Buddhism was brought to Japan from China [[in the first millennium.]]

<img src="https://i1.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cafeinalibrary.jpg?w=640" width="640" height="480" alt="cafe">] You walk in the shop on the 1st floor. "Hello. How may I help you?" The clerk said. “Good day. It’s quiet here. How are you doing?” “I am doing well. I am fulfilling my duties in a calm, not crowded, safe environment. Now, what will you have today?” “A turkey sandwich and black tea, please.” [[“It will be ready shortly.”]]

"By the way, I was reading up on Japan. Seems like the idea of "rights" for an individual was imported from the West," you said. “But the Japanese are people too. They do not want to live in a jail,” the clerk said. “Well, they are different. We put them in a category like that.” “This category is our–your—concept,” the clerk said. “What else should I think with?” You said. “Exactly. What do you know about Japanese people? Of course, they are individuals. They have worth. [[Let’s not let your concept cloud the basics."]]

“Granted. But what does the individual owe society and the society the individual?” You said. “Let me get your order…. The individual must be at a certain level, have a level of self-dignity for others to care about them. The society would accept that person in their ranks and take care of them,” the clerk said. “What about the other way?” You asked. “Well, the society or authorities, whoever, should create the right environment for those individuals to rise up,” the clerk said. “Should…” “Well, they didn’t seem to do that, but here you go. I don’t want to keep you from your studies.” The clerk nods. You nod. [[You pick up a brown bag and paper cup.]]

You sit alone and open the bag. Turkey, half a tomato slice, no cheese. The shortages continue. You eat and sip tea. You hear a sound. [[The librarian steps in front of you.]]

“How has your time been here?” The librarian asked. “Informative.” “May be a little lonely.” “Makes study that much easier.” You said. “So, what have you learned? We have a right to know,” the librarian said. “Japan progressed from a feudal society to an industrial one…” [["Indeed. Let's see what you know with a little quiz."->D2Q1]]

First question: During the 1637 Shimabara Rebellion which one of these events happened: * [[The Dutch navy bombarded the rebels.]] * [[The Vatican brokered peace.]] * [[About thirty thousand peasants who openly proclaimed their allegiance to Christianity surrendered.]] * [[Tokugawa Iemitsu negotiated a settlement with the rebels.]]

Correct. For the Dutch, trade ties to the shogunate lead them to massacre Japanese Christians. [[Next question->D2Q2]]

The Vatican was not politically involved. The Japanese Christians did not report to the Pope. [[Try again->D2Q1]]

No, they were killed. [[Try again->D2Q1]]

There is no settlement. That's not how the shogunate operated. [[Try again->D2Q1]]

Commodore Perry entered Edo Bay in 1853 with four American steam ships. Given their color, they were labeled the "Black Ships" and remained a symbol of the fear of foreign subjugation of Japan. On behalf of President Fillmore, Commodore Perry requested what from the ruling shogunate? * [[an exclusive trade treaty with the United States]] * [[an opening of trade and diplomatic relations]] * [[an alliance against the Dutch]] * [[a duty tax on all trade in the Pacific]]

The US wanted Japan to open relations, but not necessarily an exclusive or vassal relationship. [[Try again->D2Q2]]

Correct. [[Next question->D2Q3]]

The US did not focus on the Dutch or other Colonial Powers. [[Try again->D2Q2]]

US did not attempt to control all trade in the Pacific. [[Try again->D2Q2]]

Commodore Perry's entry into Edo (Tokyo) Bay broke the official closed country policy called sakoku. The sakoku policy had allowed which of the following? * [[A Japanese citizen to leave the country]] * [[A Catholic national from entering]] * [[Restricted trade through the Port of Nagasaki]]

Most Japanese people did not have freedom to leave their domain yet alone leave the country. [[Try again->D2Q3]]

No foreign nationals were permitted to enter Japan. [[Try again->D2Q3]]

Correct. The Dutch operated the trading post of Dejima on reclaimed land in the Port of Nagasaki. [[Next question->D2Q4]]

Which is true? * [[The Meiji Constitution stated sovereignty was with the people.]] * [[The Meiji Constitution said sovereignty was in the emperor.]] * [[The Meiji Constitution said that sovereignty was shared between the emperor and the people.]]

In the Meiji Constitution, the sovereignity was in the emperor and the people were the emperor's subjects. Article 4 reads "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution." [[Try again->D2Q4]]

Correct. Sovereignity was in the emperor alone. It was not a government of the people. [[Next question->D2Q5]]

Sovereignity rested in the emperor alone. The Meiji Constitution was promulgated by the emperor to his subjects. Article 4 reads "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution." [[Try again->D2Q4]]

Paired with the Meiji Constitution was the national governing philosophy known as the //kokutai//. The original kokutai said that Japan was a hierarchically ordered family with the emperor as head, sovereign, and religious leader. As the emperor was considered the head of the Shinto religion, what were the consequences of this for the Buddhist tradition in Japan? * [[Shinto Shrines were stripped of their Buddhist connections.]] * [[Buddhist temples were converted to Shinto shrines.]] * [[Temples/Shrines that incorporated both traditions remained the same as they had for centuries.]]

The librarian said, "Correct. That's good for now. On to the next one." "Yes," you said. [[You nod.]]

They didn't go this far. [[Try again->D2Q5]]

Especially from the 1930s on, the Shinto religion was emphasized as a native Japanese religion / practice while Buddhism was sidelined as not exclusively Japanese. It didn't stay the same for all the temples and shrines as it had been for centuries. [[Try again->D2Q5]]

The individual in this new political world is a theme of Meiji literature. The Japanese autobiographical novel (//shishosetsu//) also became popular. The literary establishment considered shishosetsu //pure literature//. Its characteristics were: * [[sincerity]] * emotional disclosure * emptying out of self

The Japanese autobiographical novel often takes the form of a confession. Some readers assumed that the writer, narrator, and main character were one and asked the writer about the status of characters after the end of the book. Some authors led to scandal in their families and contributed to the figure of a writer as a vagabond. Others set limits to their disclosure. The craft was to make the words on the page seem sincere. Authors used first-person or close third person perspective, shuffled time, varied levels of disclosure, and re-fashioned lived experience to create stark, psychologically naked accounts of [[a human in the world.]]

The autobiographical novel stuck to family relationships and individual psychological struggles. Influenced by the great social change of the Meiji period, many writers contended that this kind of novel was not political enough. However, one major reason was the heavy government censorship in the Meiji and Taisho periods. Peace Preservation Laws (1925) suppressed [[anything against the regime.]]

However, even the form of the novel itself had political implications. The word for novel–//shosetsu//–was a word chosen by early Meiji students of Western Literature to render “novel” in Japanese. The //shi//- (“I”) shosetsu (“novel”) seems to have been named after the German “Ich-Roman,” which is a first-person, full-length account of the narrator’s experiences. This focus on the individual said that the individual as an observer had worth. This happened when conditional rights and duties were granted by the Meiji Constitution. In American or European coming-of-age novels, characters become more of who they are (individuate). These narratives are representations of a character’s establishment of self through their interactions with others. But true to their heritage, Japanese autobiographical novels [[went a different direction.]]

The Japanese autobiographical novel had a main character who did not necessarily have a goal or change. If there were a goal at all in Japanese literature, it would be the //loss// of one’s individuality or ego and an embrace of the cycles of nature: an “emptying” of the self: not its edification. This process did not necessarily concern the individual’s relationship with others. Writing of a shishosetsu seems to have been the means to attain this state. After writing //A Long Night’s Passing// (1921–1937), Shiga Naoya ceased to write again. He had accomplished what he sought out to do: expose his struggles, expiate sin, and unburden his self. By his account, he had come to a peace within himself and had reintegrated with life. You exit the library, get on a bus, and [[look out the window.]]

<img src="https://i2.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kayle-kaupanger-h2XVcrgGMA4-unsplash.jpg?w=640" width="457" height="670" alt="fire on street"> Outside the bus windows, fires burn on the sidewalk. People press their hands to flames for comfort. Armed guards sit on lawn chairs outside of businesses shuttered for the night. Traffic diverts from a cordoned portion of the main road. [[You look down.]]

How does “emptying out your soul” matter? How could these writers, or any writer, pretend that their political situation had no bearing on their lives? If the Japanese autobiographical novel accounted for the individual, doesn’t that individual’s life function [[between all the other lives around it?]]

You feel your stomach grumble. You have no money for food on you. You have [[only old cereal at home.]]

You were on furlough from your job as a welder and had no money. Then you were contacted. They said there was an opportunity to be an expert on Japan. It clearly was a pretext to study what you needed to resist. The librarian used literature as a proxy because if you studied politics you would be a clear target for the authorities. Pretend that you are a sentimental slacker with scholarly interests. What would be threatening about [[lonely individuals recounting their lives?]]

You check your phone but [[have not received any new messages.]]

(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")+(text-size:1)[Day 3 Start] You wake up early on the third day. The clock blinks. The electricity went out during the night again. The buses do not run this early. You snatch one of the bicycles outside. [[You get pedaling.]]

You pass a shantytown with tents; more permanent structures with cardboard and metal sheeting; and tiny homes in disrepair. You smell smoke from a spent fire. [[You pedal faster.]]

A piece of wood appears from a tent. You swerve, but it claws into the front wheel’s spokes. [[You fall to the ground.]]

“What the hell? You could’ve cracked my skull here. Where do you get off doing this?” You said. “I am living in a tent. I am hungry. You think I care about you? Going to the office,” he said. “I am damn starving myself. I ain’t going to no office. I am a welder. You should’ve eaten those eggs, Hell, I would have,” you said. “They were smelling up the tent: I thought I’d make better use of them. What’s a welder doing here anyway? [[Everything shut, don’t you know?”]]

You walk back to the bike. Not much damage. It can make it to the library. “I am trying to get us out of this,” you said. “Us? Well, try a little better, why don’t you? A whole damn generation of folks underestimated the mob and look at where we are? I remember the old days, but even then, we took it all for granted and didn’t bother to face our problems. And [[look now where I’m living.”]]

You do not say another word. You get on the bike and pedal uphill. [[You stand on the pedals and push up.]]

The Meiji regime began with education. Iwakura Tomomi led nearly 50 government officials on an 18-month diplomatic mission to Europe and the United States. They observed and debated which foreign technology (industry, statecraft, government, economics) should be [[redeployed to protect the Japanese homeland.]]

At the beginning of the 20th century, Japan and Russia fought to control Manchuria, a northeastern region of China, and its adjacent Korean peninsula. In 1895, Korea was divided between a conservative Chinese-leaning faction and a Japanese-oriented one. This division led to a Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan when Japan stationed troops in Korea and led a bad faith effort to form a joint government. Japan won and secured Taiwan, but the Triple Intervention of Russia, France, and Germany [[temporarily prevented Japanese conquest of the mainland.]]

China failed to prevent British economic and political dominance in the 1800s. And Britain colonized India after the Sepoy (Indian) Munity (1858) and ruled over the subcontinent until 1947. Japan stood as the sole powerful independent country in Asia indicated by the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902. At the end of the Meiji period and beginning of Taisho (1912-26), industrialization and use of Western technology to secure the Japanese archipelago had met its goal. Japan now had the black ships they had feared. There was also [[domestic progress.]]

In 1919, the Diet (Parliament) instituted party cabinets not those chosen by political elders or the imperial house. In 1925, there was full manhood suffrage. In 1920, the first modern census was conducted which tallied a total of fifty-six million people, an explosive growth of seventeen million over twenty years. Coeducational grade school education for all Japanese children between six and twelve was implemented throughout Japan by 1910, an achievement that had been planned since the 1870s. These trends led to the growth of an educated, vocal middle-class in the cities. From 1914 to 1919, instead of agriculture supporting heavy industry, there was a twenty-percentage point swing in favor of industry as a percentage of total production. But some questioned the cost of such progress. A major example is the writer [[Soseki Natsume.]]

Like Okubo Toshimichi and others, Soseki Natsume was sent overseas. Literature was key to understanding the Colonial Powers. If the Meiji regime could figure out their thought, they could replicate their progress. So, while fond of Chinese classics, Soseki studied English at Tokyo Imperial University. Soseki spent two years living in Clapham, London, where he was miserable and ended his stay close to nervous collapse. When he returned, he assumed a teaching post at Tokyo Imperial University and began to write novels. He had gained first-hand, contextual practice with English language and culture. [[What lesson did he learn?]]

Soseki Natsume wrote modernist novels, not autobiographical fiction. You pick a major Soseki work: //Kokoro// (Heart) (1914). You bring the green hardback to a tattered chair near a window and read. [[You are lost in it right away.]]

Soseki structures //Kokoro// around the relationship between an older man and a college student. The older man is about the age of Soseki at the time of its writing (age 46 in 1914) with a similar education in the Chinese classics. The older man and Soseki lived in a time of rapid change that they struggle to relate to. The unnamed young narrator seeks out the older man, who he calls Sensei or teacher, and feels that the older man has wisdom yet to impart. Educated in the Taisho period, the young man looks down on his earnest, countryside dwelling father and frames his future in terms of individual achievement and city life outside of obligation and even much of [[an inner life.]]

Sensei is annoyed at the presence of the young student, but eventually accepts his friendship–the only meaningful relationship he now has other than his wife. After graduation, the student returns home after hearing that his father is ill. After the student tries to maintain correspondence, he receives nothing from Sensei until a long letter: [[a confession.]]

In his letter, Sensei confesses that he had betrayed a close friend during college. The friend had looked to Sensei as his only bond of trust after his family abandoned him. But Sensei as a young man broke that trust to claim a shared love as his wife. This psychological break caused the friend’s suicide [[condemning Sensei’s life to guilt.]]

Sensei’s lesson seems to be that individuation and the new way of thinking about man’s place in the world and his personal happiness was a delusion. Sensei’s death is pronounced as the absence of the kind of reconciliation with nature and the traditions of society praised in Japanese aesthetics. However, when viewed through the eyes of the old culture of Japan, Sensei’s suicide may not be viewed as a failure. Upon the death of Emperor Meiji, General Nogi committed suicide to atone for a battlefield error during the Satsuma Rebellion. Soon after this event in the novel’s timeline, Sensei writes in his letter that he also wished to [[die with his lord.]]

On face value his death in this manner is not comprehensible to the narrator and most readers. But that simply confirms the schism between periods and cultures. The character wanted to follow his lord in death and not be an anachronism, and like General Nogi, he sought public ritual purification for his sin [[in the old way.]]

Soseki locates a flaw in the assertion that Japan could use foreign technology to safeguard its Japanese character, a creed promulgated by Fukuzawa Yukichi and others. Soseki’s goal in England was to find a key to the Western mind through literature. If Japan knew how Europeans and Americans thought, then they could replicate that [[to their own benefit.]]

But the Western modernist novel had individuation, or becoming who you think you truly are, as the goal. When divorced from spirituality or human relations, this merely becomes ego edification and self-congratulation. Ultimately, this quest to assemble things and power to build up the ego and its supposed superiority to others was the driving force for Europeans and Americans. However, a traditional Japanese culture based on spiritual traditions would say the erosion and dissolution of the ego is the goal of literature. This is in contradiction to the European or American goal. Could Japan simply separate that out though? For example, let the goal of literature be individuation, let technologies be geared towards domination and material accumulation, but use it all for purposes of [[self-preservation of a non-materialist culture?]]

You pick up Soseki’s plotless, haiku-style earlier novel //Kusamakura// (1906). The narrator is an artist who sojourns in a near-empty hot springs village in the mountains of rural Kumamoto Prefecture. He is intent on being “nonemotional” and to live in search and [[in adoration of beauty.]]

He meets a woman, named Beauty (Nami), who stuns him in spellbinding encounters. He maintains his stance of artistic distance, but though he wishes to stay in this aesthetic experience, as if he were a poet in a previous period, the outside world makes its way in. At the end of the novel, the author and Nami say goodbye to her cousin who boards a train. The cousin’s ultimate destination is Manchuria in mainland China where he will be a soldier in [[the bloody Russo-Japanese War.]]

The train is Soseki’s symbol of the industrialization and war machine that he felt was against the old aesthetic and moral values. //Kusamakura// is translated as “grass pillow” and is shorthand for the journey of self-discovery, especially tied to Basho’s //The Narrow Road to the Deep North//. Soseki abandoned making novels like //Kusamakura// again and turned back to the solitary, isolated, urban consciousness of the day. But for purists, of which Soseki is ultimately one, Japanese literature and traditional culture remained as a bulwark for the “pure” interior space against this rapidly changing external Japan. [[You walk out the library.]]

You pass the fountain and sit on a bench. You take a bite out of the overripe apple the clerk at the shop gave you out of pity. The place looked like it was a garden, back in the day. The librarian tipped you off to move to another location: an abandoned library on the same defunct college campus. “Fukuzawa” the librarian said. You stretch out your back and take another bite. Before you go onto another writer, you think back to your notes, combining the history book, Soseki’s novels, and other essays. What was important to remember here? You think about some important questions and think over potential answers and what the right choice would be. [[Better practice before it counts.->D3Q1]]

Correct. [[Next question->D3Q2]]

Okubo Toshimichi had the government grant subsides, issue loans for business, and fund factories. [[Try again->D3Q1]]

Okubo Toshimichi established technical schools after his research of European schools during the Iwakura Mission. [[Try again->D3Q1]]

Manchuria is a northeastern region of China next to Korea. Japan fought a war against which nation over control of Korea and Manchuria? * [[Germany]] * [[China]] * [[Russia]]

Correct. [[Next question->D3Q3]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D3Q2]]

Correct. Natsume Soseki lived in Chaplam in South London for two years. [[Next question->D3Q4]]

Not correct. China had a weakened government after the Opium Wars. [[Try again->D3Q2]]

Natsume Soseki studied Chinese classics. But he was sent to which country to study Western Literature and how Colonial Powers thought? * [[United States]] * [[England]] * [[France]] * [[Prussia]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D3Q3]]

In his novel //Kokoro//, Natsume Soseki uses a transcribed letter to express (1) sincerity, (2) disclosure, and (3) emptying self. Which Japanese form is most famous for all these three qualities? * [[Japanese autobiographical novel (shishosetsu)]] * [[Personal jottings (zuihitsu)]] * [[tanka]] * [[haiku]]

Correct. The Japanese autobiographical novel is called //pure literature//. The connection between the writer and the truth of things is central. [[Next question->D3Q5]]

Zuihitsu is a genre that can be traced to the work of court diarists like Sei Shonagon. [[Try again->D3Q4]]

Tanka poetry can express sincerity, disclosure, and emptying of self, but do not need to. [[Try again->D3Q4]]

Haiku can express sincerity, disclosure, and emptying of self, but do not need to. Haiku have a 5/7/5 syllabic pattern, a turning phrase, and a seasonal reference. [[Try again->D3Q4]]

What is the chief contradiction of Japanese literature adopting the form and values of European/American literature? * [[individual concerns (Japan) versus social concerns]] * [[emptying of self (Japan) versus edification of the self]] * [[control over self (Japan) versus control over nature]] * [[Classics (Japan) versus modernity]]

While many European/American novels focus on social concerns, most major representative works do not have the social concerns as their linchpin. For example, //Anna Karenina//, //Great Expectations//, and //The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn// do talk about social concerns, but that is not their only emphasis. [[Try again->D3Q5]]

Correct. While traditionally Japanese literature is about emptying out the self and connecting with nature, on the whole European or American literature has the growth of the individual as central. You stand up and walk across gravel towards the abandoned library. [[You open the door.]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D3Q5]]

Not correct. Many Japanese writers experimented with different forms. Soseki used the modern Western novel format. [[Try again->D3Q5]]

Nothing happens. In the little sunlight, you make out [[slogans on the wall.]]

“White Power” “Vengeance” “New World Order” Art books are torn into strips. Chairs in a row. Chains, bullets, and [[straps are on the ground.]]

This is where they punished students, professors, administrators, civil society advocates, policemen, and military personnel. In short, anyone who did not adhere to their dogma of white supremacist anti-government authoritarianism. They relished their role in the takeover and liked [[the brutality of it all.]]

They wanted it more than lukewarm pro-democracy folks and even the pro-stability corporations. They were fewer, but better organized. Those willing to put everything on the line were a concentrated catalyst: [[high risk, all the reward.]]

Those willing to appease the authorities and live under their dictates resided in the few, gated communities and homeowner associations that continued many of the traditions of old: parties, youth sports, concerts, small businesses and the like. Admittance depended on a reference based on the previous class structure. Undesired people lived in rooms in highly monitored, high-rise apartment buildings as you do. You are here because the librarian said there were some writings of a reformer, Fukuzawa Yukichi, [[to be found.]]

His name was on the list, but in their book burning frenzy, they didn’t care so much. The librarian said it is on the second floor. You climb the squat, tall stairs. You find a beige-covered hardback with [[his gaunt face on the front page.]]

An amateur translation was etched to the side of the right-to-left, up-to-down Japanese text. You color in the etchings with a pencil and [[expose the words.]]

Fukuzawa established Keio University, founded a newspaper, promulgated the education for the independence of the individual and the nation, and promoted interaction with the Colonial Powers if only to learn subjects (science, mathematics, government) for a prosperous state. He also promoted a parliamentary system and civil rights. [[How do education and democracy go together?]]

It is 1910. You are a banker from a samurai family. The government asks you to [[help fund public schools.]]

Fukuzawa says in the newspaper that an individual's education is not different from the education of the state. You know that to repel the invaders you need to develop schools. But, what do you [[really think about education?]]

Choose one. * [[Students must study Western subjects with the sole aim of the security of the nation.]] * [[True education is a moral education. If students have good habits, they will benefit Japan and the outside world as well.]] * [[I prefer if all students not study Western subjects, but Chinese classics and Japanese history. Some students can hone technical skills in separate technical schools.]] * [[I welcome the study of foreign subjects to strengthen Japan, but also to create a global citizen for an interconnected, peaceful world.]]

(set: $StudentFocus to 'Students study Western technology just to secure Japan') These subjects like engineering, finance, technology, and manufacturing are critical to a modern state. After my trip to England, I was stunned about how much work we still need to do to even achieve parity. But Japanese dedication and spirit will out-do the foreigners. We will ultimately make these technologies ours. You think about [[who should receive an education.]]

(set: $StudentFocus to 'Students receive a moral education') Students' moral character is critical to any success, let alone upholding their unique charge of protecting our nation and Emperor. In this we can both learn from foreign countries and ultimately benefit them, especially Asian countries over which we have a sphere of influence. A Greek philosopher Heraclitus said "character is destiny." If character is set right, skills can quickly be acquired through apprenticeships. You think about [[who should receive an education.]]

(set: $StudentFocus to 'Students should study traditional subjects only. Students study technical subjects on a need to know basis.') I prefer if foreign influences are minimized so the youth do not seek a life of individualism or liberalism that is antithetical to the Japanese way. For pretext, we must now accept foreign technologies, if only to surpass their makers, but we must safeguard Japanese thought and revere the Emperor. Students can hone skills like shipbuilding, mechanics, drafting, finance, and more in specialized short-term trade or technical schools or apprenticeships. You think about [[who should receive an education.]]

(set: $StudentFocus to 'Students earns true independence from learning about the world') This is a great moment in history where our nation will grow to have true independence and self-sufficiency. This comes from accepting the world, not rejecting it. This demands that we fight if need be, but also requires us to welcome fellow well-wishers into a project for a safer, freer world. We can solve many problems and open up our countries to trade and learning. You think about [[who should receive an education.]]

Choose one. * [[Only students of a family of high standing with connections.]] * [[All backgrounds should be given equal opportunity.]] * [[All students are worthy of a complete education.]]

(set: $StudentComposition to 'Only few students of wealth or high-standing deserve a complete education') Only they are capable of using it truly and to its capacity. Why waste time and money on students who will not value their education. We are in a race here to develop! You think how would an [[ideal graduate live in the new democratic society?]]

(set: $StudentComposition to 'All students deserve educational opportunity in a meritocratic system') There should be meritocratic standards. We need to maximize the potential of Japanese youth. A daughter of an artisan could work in finance; a son of a Professor could best serve as a engineer. You think how would an [[ideal graduate live in the new democratic society?]]

(set: $StudentComposition to 'All students deserve a complete education') Though they start at different places, they can shape each others education, and work as a team to develop the nation. You think how would an [[ideal graduate live in the new democratic society?]]

Choose one. * [[The graduate will be a patriot. They will dedicate their life and labor to the glory of the Emperor.]] * [[The graduate has the skills to excel in the vital industries that are required to safeguard the nation. They will be obedient, but know when to assert their moral character.]] * [[The graduate will be outspoken and willing to voice their opinion and participate in self-governance.]] * [[In matters of professional and public life, the graduate will be compliant and be sheparded by those knowledge at the helm of affairs.]]

(set: $Studentsinsociety to 'Students are patriots and will serve the Emperor') All allegiance to the Emperor. We are merely his subjects. While some esteemed subjects can let the Emperor know their concerns, the Emperor and the offices that directly report to him have the power. We have a new regime only because the Shogunate failed to secure our borders. We must safeguard the homeland. The nation is freer simply in terms of the movement of people, capital, and materiel. Foreigners should have no impact on how we live our lives. Subjects should know their place. Education is for subjects to firmly operate within their space and not question authority. Where appropriate, we must be force compliance in the public. This new regime is just a means to an end: let us remember that. [[Here's your selections on how to set up a school]]

(set: $Studentsinsociety to 'Students will assert their moral character and have skills to safeguard the nation') The graduate must be skilled in their subject if only to safeguard the country. So, our curriculum must be informed by Western pedagogy and knowledge. We must have graduates who are curious and willing to question and improve upon Western standards and apply these technologies to the Japanese way of life. So, graduates must be obedient and know when and how to question authority when appropriate. This skill in business, industry, and finance can apply to greater levels of self-governance. What is good for business will ultimately but good for subjects as they learn how to govern themselves. If graduates are afforded this responsibility and see how their actions lead to change in their lives, they are not going to commit treason with supporting some foreign power or alternative form of governance. If they function in the system, they will support that system. [[Here's your selections on how to set up a school]]

(set: $Studentsinsociety to 'Students will participate in self-governance') The time has come for the bold power of the Japanese people to shine. Without the shackles of tyranny, graduates can be free to express themselves. In their creativity, they can fashion a nation at peace with itself and all other nations. It is only from challenging the status quo that progress comes about. We have learned from the shogunate that we cannot live in the past to secure our future. We can trust the Japanese people and character to take this opportunity. Their patriotism cannot yield from supporting the Emperor and this great nation. What greater patriotism that when done in freedom? Otherwise, it is no patriotism at all. Let us be bold. That is the way of the samurai. [[Here's your selections on how to set up a school]]

(set: $Studentsinsociety to 'Students will be compliant and be sheparded by statesmen') For all the talk of universal suffrage, what does it avail? The masses do not have the time, requisite knowledge, or attention for complicated matters of statecraft. In //Republic//, Plato warns against democracy and the harmful affects of a demogogue who mesmerizes the public. If the masses elect a villain who plays a fool, that will be end of our great nation. The masses could use politics to even turn against the Emperor and support a foreign power. If we allow too much license, who is to say graduates will serve the Japanese nation and the Emperor? We can trust more in clan leaders, business leaders, the Privy Council, and military to advise the Emperor than the racuous, self-interested, and dangerous Lower House. The graduate must also be sheparded by those more knowledgeable. When they want the graduate's opinion, then the graduate may provide. Otherwise, the graduate should simply live their life in harmony with their countrymen. [[Here's your selections on how to set up a school]]

Fukuzawa's own education led to his support of educational and democratic reform. Fukuzawa Yukichi was an avid traveler and explainer of European and American ways to Japan. Fukuzawa studied Dutch and then English, went on a diplomatic mission to San Francisco in 1860, created an English to Japanese dictionary, and promulgated a creed of personal independence. He found that the values of education, exchange of ideas, and competition had led to American and European dominance and sought to inculcate the Japanese populace with these values. In Fukuzawa’s account of the United Kingdom, Fukuzawa seemed oblivious to the Parliament, political parties, and civility (how they would dine after so-called fighting over policy!). This self-depreciation reflected his ruddy persona. As a writer, he put himself in the perspective of an average Japanese person and worked [[his way out from there.]]

Years later, Soseki seemed to be living that life of educational edification and independence that Fukuzawa preached, but was that sufficient for the Japanese people to resist the West? Would this wholesale [[cultural change even work?]]

Fukuzawa and Soseki had different temperaments. But they had different views on the goal of education and how the importing of foreign technologies was justified and useful for the future of Japan. Fukuzawa maintained that study of foreign technologies and methods could improve Japanese lives and even consolidate and strengthen the Japanese character that had fallen into disrepair from allegiance to Chinese classics, rigid gender and societal roles, and lack of industry compared to the Colonial Powers. You can have [[the best of both worlds.]]

Soseki seems to say no. That the materialist goals of the Colonial Powers would ultimately destroy Japan from within. Wholesale importing of their technology and methodology required Japan to compete with the Colonial Powers on their terms. This competition led to the neglect of their own worldview and a breakdown of [[their essential values and society.]]

Who was right? Well, the run up and disaster of the first two World Wars indicate you can’t copy the Colonial Powers without accepting their goal and so their way of looking at things. Japan was defeated and occupied. However, Fukuzawa was correct in that adopting technologies and methods could and did improve Japanese lives and even connect them fruitfully with [[the wider world.]]

In rejecting materialism as a foreign import, Soseki was ahead of his time. Europe and America thought that materialism would solve their problems after World Wars, but materialism led to the erosion and extinguishing of many democratic and even social values. Soseki did not want Japan to enter that European and American cycle. He followed spiritual leaders in Asia like Confucius and the Buddha who unshackled material growth from human progress centuries ago. [[You close the book.]]

You put it in your pocket. You hear shuffling and then a crack below you. It is probably a mouse. You slow your steps and walk down a set of stairs. You notice no one. Is there another way out? That’d be even more conspicuous? There was nothing illegal about being here. Maybe waiting would be a wise option? The sunlight is gone. There are only one or two fluorescent lights. If I stay here, I’ll be trapped for how long? You walk down the stairs and [[get hit on the head.]]

You shield your eyes with your forearms. A guard grasps your arm, twists it behind you, and a second black-clad guard elbows your rib, and twists your other hand: they handcuff you. Blood goes down your forehead from a skull wound. “Who the hell are you?” The first guard said. “What are you doing here?” The second guard said. “You got the kid. No need to be hasty.” the third guard said. You turn to the three and their visors. You remain silent. “What are you doing here at this time of night?” the second said. “What’s it to you?” You said. [[They kick you in the head.]]

The first guard grabs your hand and drags you across the floor to a chair. They unlock the handcuffs. The second and third guard [[strap your arms to its armrests.]]

“I am here to use the administrative offices to waste time before I resume my work as a welder.” “There has been a delay due to shortages so that checks out,” the second guard said. “But these are not the administrative offices. These were never converted. This site was for academic research. What are you doing here?” “I walked the halls and admired the work done here. Doesn’t look like research was a priority.” “Yeah,” the first guard jumped in, “Great memories impaling the elites. Who the hell do they think they are? Telling us what to do! What to think! That’s the goddamn mind control that we had to bear arms to stop.” The second guard pushed him aside. “This guy is something! Wasting time for a welding job, huh? Do you like welding, much?” “You know, I like what I do, better than pressing my head to a screen the whole day.” “Yes, who likes that?” The second guard said. “But why is this guy reading this?” The third guard said and walked back with the [[beige book of Fukuzawa’s writings.]]

“What language is this, anyway?” The first guard said. “Hmm…looks like Chinese. They like to write in symbols?” The second guard said. “What the hell are you doing reading Chinese stuff here? We hate them! Look at what they did! They started this whole thing with the….” The second guard said. “No wait. China is very supportive now,” the third guard said, “They helped us control the out-of-control tech companies and made monitoring people like this guy easy. China did many good things.” “Yes, the authorities work closely with them. Sorry about that. Just went back to the start of it all, all of a sudden,” the second guard said. “Looks like you were reading some notes here, they seem to be hidden. Lots of talk about education and the betterment of society. Who gave you this book?” The third guard said and passed it to the first. “No one gave it to me. [[I just found it in this trash heap.”]]

“So, you, bored, just stumbled into this elitist institution and set about reading? In the middle of this mess? What are these words to you?” The first guard said. “I explored the place. I had never seen anything like this.” “And you decided to sit down and read?” The first guard said. “I wanted to wait out the traffic. I was ambushed on the way and pelted with eggs.” “Sad sack you. No money. No assignment. And three of us for company,” the second guard said. “But why this book? Why are the translated parts under the original text? You see this isn’t Chinese. This is Japanese. And not the Chrysanthemum League, the rightful rulers of that region. It seems that this advocates a different form of government, education, and thinking,” the third guard said. The second guard said, “Shouldn’t it have been burned then?” “They couldn’t read the original text: this translation had to be added,” the third guard said. “By someone else?” The second guard said. “Who was that?” The first guard looked at you. You say, “Must’ve been some delusional student back in the day, [[playing translator."]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/lightduringinterrogation.png?w=480" width="400" height="640" alt="light in jail"> You cannot name the librarian who would be in danger. The first guard must be verifying what you say. These punks think they can stop you from pursuing your mission: they are mistaken. “Who led a humble welder to pick up this book?” The third guard said. “Who is elitist now? Doesn’t mean that if you cut my head open you'll find a torch there. I study what I want. I do what I want!” The second guard slammed the hilt of his rifle into your wrist. Instead of crying, you close your eyes and [[draw the pain inside.]]

The third guard yelled: “We do what we want. You stay in your place, you hear! You are a welder. Then go wait in your apartment and watch fight sports or reality TV until your time is up.” “Why do you want a better society? The authorities have sorted everything out for us. Our form of government is perfect. [[Don’t you think so?”]]

You look down and think about the government, society, friendships, and family before the takeover. They said that their government was perfect as well, but if you remember correctly “more perfect” was their phrase as if it could be improved. And it did until it didn’t. You know that if you said what they and you know to be the truth–that authority rule was a dumpster fire–then you would be sent to jail and then maybe a camp. You must complete the mission. [[By upholding the lie, you show fealty.]]

“The government is perfect. Looking at you three down here. I see no reason to complain.” “And you’d better not. You know, I think we should drag you out to the city jail and let you spend a night there for insubordination. How does that sound?” The second guard said. “You know…,” you pause and chuckle, “you guys remind me of soldiers in a video game.” “Those are for transgressives. You don’t have any, do you?” The second guard said. “They were removed a long time back. No, [[I’m talking about memories.”]]

“What video game?” The first guard said. “I don’t remember much, you know, I didn’t play all too often, but I remember three guys in blue skin-tight suits and gray visors who were patrolling a headquarters. Very important types.” “Oh yeah,” the second guard cradled his gun. “What were they doing?” The third said. “Protecting the headquarters from reactionaries who would not shut up. They did not appreciate the hard work of the authorities,” you said. “That sounds about right,” the second holstered his gun and opened his visor. “We ensure domestic tranquility. We will burn this book. It is an oddity: a waste of space. We will downgrade your level of access. You must report to your room and remain in place until the authorities determine a safe time, or you receive your new assignment, whichever comes first.” The third rips the mask off your face. “No more masks for you. [[Breathe in the fresh air.”]]

They unlatch the straps and throw the chair onto the ground. They shut the lights and the door behind you. You stumble out of the broken chair. You claw at the handle, prop it open, and walk onto the dirt path. There is no way you can pedal all the way back and the bike must be gone anyway. Under the persistent fog of smog, you cannot see the stars but imagine them there. This was like bullying at school [[as the odd one out.]]

They were violent back then, had comfort in a pack, and insulted you to pump up their ego. They also make you think so little of yourself that they could manipulate you [[to do what they wanted.]]

The bleeding subsides in your mouth. You tear your pants and make a bandage. You wrap it around your wrist. A headache throbs and you lay flat under the bare truck of a sweetgum tree. You look up and now [[some stars seem to appear.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/jeffrey-hamilton-jrRe6er0pY0-unsplash.jpg?w=640" width="640" height="480" alt="classroom at midday"> You remember when you were fourteen years old. A teacher asked you all to compose a haiku. You read it in front of class and pasted it on the wall. Years after, you remember a friend gave you a copy of a collection of haiku by an old master, what was his name? [[You fall asleep.]]

In middle school, we read a couple of haiku, wrote our own, and created classroom posters. We put together a series of impressions–a moment–into a haiku’s five-seven-five syllable structure. This was our glimpse into its qualities of loneliness, tenderness, and economy: all present in Basho. The poet and diarist Basho lived from 1644 to 1694 in the Early Modern period before Meiji. [[Perhaps Basho’s most famous haiku]]

a very old pond, then! a frog jumps and falls within: [[the sound of water]]

Basho is more than a national writer, but almost a spiritual progenitor of a nation’s cultural worldview. A solitary journey in search of who you are. How this journey is expressed in Japanese culture owes plenty to Basho’s work and life. His early poetry reflects the wit, playfulness, and everyday language that characterized the freedom and activity of first Kyoto, where he learned the classics and calligraphy and had a lover, and then the relatively young city of Edo (Tokyo). But [[something rebelled in him]].

He rebelled against “the floating world”: the pleasure-seeking, worldly realm. He left to live in a house built by one of his admirers in an isolated spot. These years were peaceful on the outside, but internally painful as he meditated in solitude and put himself through strict self-scrutiny. During this time, he did come to know a famous priest and practiced Zen under his guidance. After two years, his house burned down in [[a giant fire that swept through Edo.]]

His subsequent works show a change in consciousness. He drops off possessions, says good-bye to friends, and embarks on long, dangerous journeys on foot with one or two disciples. In //The Narrow Road to the Deep North// (1694), Basho seeks a vision of eternity in perishable things. So, it appears that restoring his identity apart from the world and then seeing eternity in the world are complementary and are initiated by the trial and pleasure of the journey. When Basho achieves symmetry between himself and eternity, he writes: [[his testament is poetry.]]

Whether morphed, re-contextualized, or rebelled against, Basho’s work stands. Basho’s work prefigures the dominant literary form in the Meiji period, the shishosetsu or Japanese autobiographical novel. //The Narrow Road to the Deep North// is a delicate and fine mixture of prose and poetry, a form called //haibun//. This work has three marks of the Japanese autobiographical novel: It is a first-person account where (1) there is a clear identification between writer, narrator, and agent; (2) an artifice of sincerity that informs the reader of the writer’s character; and (3) an end goal of [[surrendering to nature.]]

Basho expresses the traditional qualities of Japanese aesthetics, such as the pervading transience of human endeavors and the unity of opposites. And given his ambition and dedication, he has gone beyond cultural limitations and created [[a rare work of universal appeal.]]

Basho foregrounds two haiku with his account of traveling one hundred and thirty miles on nine, hot and humid days to see the sight of the smaller island of Sado, a place traditionally associated with political exile. In the first haiku, Basho states that “the night looks different” because it is the night when the stars Shepard (Altair) and Weaver (Vega), normally separated by the Milky Way, meet once a year. This tryst is celebrated as the Tanabata festival when streamers are hung from eaves. [[The next, second, haiku.]]

A turbulent sea To the island of Sado Is: [[The Milky Way]]

In the first haiku, the two lovers separated by the Milky Way are about to converge. In the second, Basho’s sight follows the rough sea and the arc of the Milky Way as they converge at Sado, the unseen intersection point. The calm Milky Way (//Ama no gawa//: heaven’s river) is reflected in the [[water of the sea.]]

The connection between Basho & Sado and Shepard & Weaver as bridged by the “water” in the sky and earth is a multifold interlocking metaphor of outstanding beauty–an absolute stunner. The sound of the language parallels the words. * The first line “Ara umi ya” is spoken in the natural unstressed rhythm. * Next is “Sado ni yokotau” which has longer vowels and gives the impression of pausing over the scene. * The last sentence “Ama no gawa” has the repeated “a” sound which gives the impression that a spell is being cast. Each “a” sound appears [[like a star linked by consonants and a preposition.]]

Ara umi ya Sado ni yokotau [[Ama no gawa]]

No matter how you try to break this poem down and analyze it, something in it stubbornly refuses. The vision is cosmic unity. In other poems, Basho “transposes” one sense impression onto another to convey this. Here, he uses the dual water imagery and its parallel merging of lovers to a similar effect. While we may see separate patterns, this poem seems to say [[they are all one.]]

It is as if Basho sees his journey enacted in the stars and reflected to him in a moment of awe. While his journey moves as the night sky moves, it is also girded by a pattern fixed long ago as the lovers, who are separated by fate, have their one night together. [[You wake up on the fourth day.]]

(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")+(text-size:1)[Day 4 Start] You sit on the bed in your room. It is eleven in the morning. The bruises on your face, wrist, and back are still raw. You close the door to go to the bathroom. The light on top of the door blinks: [[there is a low humming noise.]]

(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")+(text-size:1)[Day 2 Start] You wake on the second day. The sun rises in smog. You put on clothes and don your mask. You hop on the first bus, scan your phone, and take a seat. After the hour ride, you exit and wait outside the library. It opens half an hour later. On the 4th floor, you grab the history book. [[You are determined to find an answer to your questions.]]

The television says shortages continue. No reason stated. At dawn, the librarian went up to you, administered basic medical care, and provided you with a brown envelope with small boxes of strips of film and a square, flat magnifier. You coast the magnifier across the film and parse out annotated outlines in small font. The librarian said [[they used to call this “microfilm.”]]

The librarian told you to dispose each strip as you complete it. The material is more politically volatile. However, the most dangerous part is how you build each block of material [[on top of each other in your brain.]]

The following is based on the following book: Takenaka, H. (2014). //Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan: Breakdown of a Hybrid Regime// (1st edition). Stanford University Press. Democracy is a dirty word. It has been cast as an inferior form of government, corrupt, ineffectual, ambiguous, and fractious. But democracy’s central tenet is government with //consent of the governed//. [[But why does that matter?]]

Here's why: * I. You have executable rights of assembly, a fair trial, and to address your government for grievances; * II. You elect your leaders and hold them accountable; * III. You have the right to have say and vote. Here are three corresponding principles * I. [[Political Competition and Elections]] * II. Electoral Control over Political Offices * III. Extent of Electoral Participation

In a democracy, there are many groups who vie for power with limited or no restriction on freedom of assembly and association. There are free and fair elections.//Free// indicates that anyone eligible to vote can vote. //Fair// indicates that the election results tally accurately and so reflect the will of the people. An election indicates that citizens make informed choices on and then select their representatives or officials with a tally of ballots. The representative or official with the most votes win. In some cases, laws themselves could be enacted into law through the ballot. I. Political Competition and Elections II. [[Electoral Control over Political Offices]] III. Extent of Electoral Participation

All political offices are under electoral control. All political offices are chosen by voters through elections. The fewer offices that are appointed or carved out from electoral control indicate more voter control over their leaders. I. Political Competition and Elections II. Electoral Control over Political Offices III. [[Extent of Electoral Participation]]

The wider the suffrage, the more participatory the government is. The more people become voters, the more accountable the government is to the people. Education forms citizens capable of such self-rule, not mob-rule under [[a demagogue or oligarchy.]]

Let's examine Japanese regimes (1600-1945) we referenced. Click each title for more on how democratic they were. * [[''Shogunate'']] (1600-1867) ** Shogun is the absolute ruler. * [[''Transitional Oligarchy'']] (1867-1888) ** Renegade domains establish a new bureaucratic state with emperor as sovereign. * [[''Competitive Oligarchy'']] (1889-1917) ** Constitution adopted. Political pluralism. Elections for Lower House. * [[''Semi-Democracy'']] (1918-1932) ** Electoral participation broadens. Political parties compete. * [[''Military Authoritarian'']] (1936-1945) ** Power only in non-elected officials. Elections do not matter.

The Tokugawa Shogunate unified the lordly domains from 1600 to 1867. The shogun, a warlord, had no formal accountability. There was no formal institution to reflect the people’s will. Dissent was violently quelled leading to the closed country policy. * [[''Transitional Oligarchy'']] (1867-1888) * [[''Competitive Oligarchy'']] (1889-1917) * [[''Semi-Democracy'']] (1918-1932) * [[''Military Authoritarian'']] (1936-1945)

After renegade distant domains registered the threat of American or European colonization, their samurai overthrew the dithering shogunate. They installed a regime (a transitional oligarchy) before the formal adoption of the Meiji Constitution (1867-1889). The competitive players for political power were those domains (Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa) who led the revolution, aristocrats, imperial advisors, and the emperor himself. Legal authority gained legitimacy with the establishment of precedent. The bureaucratic state grew in influence as did the Cabinet. But there was no electoral control over political offices and no suffrage. * [[''Competitive Oligarchy'']] (1889-1917) * [[''Semi-Democracy'']] (1918-1932) * [[''Military Authoritarian'']] (1936-1945)

After the adoption of the Meiji Constitution, political competition was through formal political organizations. Competitors were clans, parties, the elected Lower House, aristocrats, and the emperor [[(More on I: 1889)]] Elections only elected the Lower House members; they could not unilaterally form a governing coalition (“a government”). [[(More on II: 1889)]] Electoral participation jumps from 451,000 (1st election, 1890) to 983,000 (7th election, 1902). [[(More on III: 1889)]] * [[''Semi-Democracy'']] (1918-1932) * [[''Military Authoritarian'']] (1936-1945)

Two major parties compete on policy. But laws constrain other parties [[(More on I: 1918).]] Still too few offices under electoral control. Four groups-–clan leaders, House of Peers, Privy Council, and the military–-sidestepped the elected Lower House and pleaded with the sovereign emperor. [[(More on II: 1918).]] Electoral participation expanded from 4.8% (1917) of the total population to 19.1% (1928). Passes the third criterion [[(More on III: 1918)]] because voters did not espouse interests of one party or constituency alone. * [[''Military Authoritarian'']] (1936-1945)

Political parties could no longer form Cabinets. Ban on anti-military opinions in the Diet. Rejection of any constrains on the emperor’s power [[(More on I: 1936).]] Electoral offices had no power. They were superseded by the army. With the emperor at the head, a group governed: prime minister, army, navy, foreign minister, and finance minister [[(More on II: 1936).]] So, elections for the Lower House were useless [[(More on III: 1936).]] How [[do these regimes stack up?]]

The Meiji Constitution was adopted in 1889. A Diet or parliament was established. The Diet opened the way to accommodate the people’s political participation through formal political organizations. The legal authority gained more legitimacy with time and were codified as legal rules for governance. There was fierce competition between the clans (hanbatsu) who led the overthrow of the Shogunate and political parties. Sometimes political parties sided with some hanbatsu against other coalitions; sometimes political parties were unified against the hanbatsu. With this competition, one side could not overwhelm the other. Their positions responded to political opinion from prominent individuals and movements at large. The Meiji Constitution set up elections for the first time for members of the Lower House. In this competitive oligarchy, there was extensive political pluralism with new power in the Lower House, new political offices, and political parties to compete with unelected officials, aristocrats, and hanbatsu leaders. In an authoritarian state by comparison, a single group or person could dominate. Other political power is restricted, passive, and a rubber stamp for the single group or person’s prerogative.

As selected by political parties and non-elected officials, the Cabinet formed a coalition to run the nation; this coalition was called “the government.” Elections were only for members of the Lower House. The Lower House could draft and approve bills, but they could not form a government on their own. However, parties and popular movements influenced the formation and dissolution of a government through the Lower House and public pressure.

451,000 people voted in the first general election in 1890; this was 2% of the adult population, designated as people over 20 years old. In 1900s, all men over 25 who paid 10 yen in direct national tax were eligible to vote; 983,000 people voted in the seventh general election in 1902.

Two major parties Seiyukai and Kenseikai competed during elections throughout this period. They had opposing policy stances. Seiyukai opposed universal suffrage, the gold standard, and diplomacy with Britain and USA vis-à-vis China, while Kenseikai affirmed each position. Keiseikai opposed an expansionary fiscal policy while Seiyukai affirmed. With the 1925 Peace Preservation Law, the government could punish those who organized or joined organizations to change the political system or challenge private property. This was aimed to exclude Communists from government and politics. In 1928-1929, the government arrested members of the Communist Party greatly weakening the organization. So, there was significant competition between political parties, but elections were not free and fair because of government intervention to exclude some political parties.

The Lower House is the only institution formally subject to the people’s control. The Lower House had the right to approve bills and budget approved by the government and propose bills on its own right. But the Lower House had no formal indirect control over the government. The government was not responsible to the Lower House but the emperor. There were some de facto rules: (1) political parties controlled the government with their presidents as prime ministers; (2) if a prime minister resigned due to illness, the next party president would be the new prime minister; and (3) if there was deadlock in government, the president of the opposing party would become prime minister. However, sovereignty still resided in the emperor and there were four major political offices not subject to electoral control. These offices could sidestep the Lower House and plead with the emperor directly. * ''Genro'' were leaders of the hanbatsu, the clans who led the Meiji Restoration. They were retained by the emperor to advise on politics. They had power to recommend to the emperor appointments for prime minister. Party governments’ choice often prevailed, but still technically the genro made the nomination to which the emperor assented. * ''House of Peers'': Elected by peers or installed by government appointment, this “Upper House” was very conservative, had equal legal power to the Lower House, and constrained the Lower House’s control over budgets. * ''Privy Council'': Appointed by the emperor, the Privy Council impeded the implementation of government policies. The Privy Council’s approval was required for everything except budgets and bills. * ''Military'': The most powerful non-elected body, the military was accountable to the emperor alone and could and did circumvent the Cabinet and government completely.

In 1919, the annual tax requirement lowered to 3 Yen. In 1925, there was suffrage for all men above 25 years. Electoral participation may qualify as semi-democratic because voters during this period did not espouse only narrow interests of one party or constituency. * 1917, 1.4 million, 4.8% of total population * 1920, 3.1 million, 10.2% * 1928, 12.4 million,19.1%

Between 1932-36, political parties could no longer form Cabinets. As parties lost power, unelected offices gained more. In 1935, the Communist Party was driven underground. In the same year, the Okada Cabinet banned a more liberal interpretation of the Meiji Constitution. This ban eliminated the theoretical underpinning of party government and rejected constrains on the emperor’s absolute power. There was a ban on anti-military opinion in the Diet. The Hirota Cabinet resigned in January 1937 after the military dictated political outcomes with the China Incident that year. Also, Saito Takao was removed from the Lower House after condemning the government and the military’s policy during the China Incident. The army and the government demanded that the Lower House remove Saito. And the Lower House complied in March 1940. There was still limited political pluralism. The army held the dominant position and strongly influenced the Cabinet and government policy. Leading aristocrats retained ability to pick prime ministers. The navy and bureaucracy resisted attempts to obtain vast power over domestic economic affairs and legal authority to regulate ministries. These unelected officers had to share power with themselves.

Electoral control over political offices diminished greatly. The parliamentary system was a mere formality and electoral politics had no sway. The army influenced Cabinets and policy. If the army or military did not like a prime minister or disagreed with Cabinet policy, it could abort the formation of a Cabinet or refuse to appoint military ministers. In July 1940, the army designed the basic principles of the government’s foreign policy: * Expand into Southeast Asia; * Strengthen ties with fascist Germany and Italy; * Refuse the US demand that Japan withdraw from Manchuria. Some party politicians had Cabinet positions after 1940 but were expected to have pro-military attitudes. The authoritarian government had a group that decided matters of consequence: prime minister, army, navy, foreign minister, and finance minister. From May 1936 to June 1945, the Lower House approved 790 of 880 bills from the government. Only three bills submitted by the Lower House to the government passed. After the 1936 February 26 Incident, there was no debate over budget. The 1938 National Mobilization Law gave the government the authority to regulate wartime economic activities not by law, but by decree. In 1936, 49.2% of the budget went to the military. In 1941, 75.6% of the budget went to the military.

The government intervened only to get pro-government candidates elected during the election of 1942. The Lower House was the only house voters could control. However, the Lower House ceased to function as an electoral body for initiating and drafting bills. The vote ceased to move policy and so was useless.

I. Political Competition and Free and Fair Elections II. Electoral Control over Offices III. Electoral Participation * Passing three principles = a democracy. * Passing two = a semi-democracy. =|= //''Regime''// Shogunate Oligarchy 1 Oligarchy 2 Semi-Democracy Military Rule =|= //''I ''// Fail Fail Pass ''Pass ''Fail =|= //''II''// Fail Fail Fail ''Fail ''Fail =|= //''III''// Fail Fail Fail ''Pass'' Fail |==| What turned Japan from a semi-democracy to a military authoritarian regime? [[Political violence at the wrong time.]]

* [[1931: Manchurian Incident]] * [[1932: Assassination of PM Inukai]] * [[1936: February 26]] * [[1936: China Incident]]

As a result of the treaty that concluded the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had a lease of a railway in the northeastern region of China called Manchuria. Some Japanese army officers wanted to claim the region outright. They planted a bomb and detonated it on their own railway as a false flag attack. The general in command of guarding the railway implemented plans to bring Manchuria under Japanese military control. High-ranking military officers in Tokyo deliberately did not intervene. The Cabinet (the government) had a different settled policy to ease tensions. Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro could not negotiate with the Chinese government even after the war minister held the military in check. Prime Minister Wakatsuki resigned. This Incident showed the inability of the Cabinet and the Lower House to control the army. These radical officers who led the false flag operation wanted to destroy big business and political parties as well, but conservative officers in the army did not want to go that far and stopped them. * [[1932: Assassination of PM Inukai]] * [[1936: February 26]] * [[1936: China Incident]]

Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was inclined to curb the army’s demands for unilateral actions to consolidate Manchuria under Japan. He was assassinated on May 15, 1932 by ultranationalists. His former finance minister and the head of a huge firm were also assassinated that February and March. Admiral Saito Makoto was appointed prime minister by the emperor based on the recommendation of the genro (elder statesman) Saionji Kimmochi. While the appointment of prime ministers by genro was the official procedure, it had functioned like a formality. There was a de facto procedure of a Cabinet being formed in conjunction with the Cabinet and Lower House. So, Inukai’s assassination ended Cabinets composed of and lead by party politicians identified with big business, but still moved by electoral pressures. By nullifying the influence of party politics after shocking assassinations, non-elected officers broke down the semi-democratic regime and led to the forthcoming military authoritarian state. * [[1936: February 26]] * [[1936: China Incident]]

1500 troops attempted an insurrection. The financial minister, the lord keeper of the privy seal, and the inspector-general of military education were assassinated and a building occupied. On February 26, conservative military leaders put down the insurrection. Civilian control and party politics ceased. * [[1936: China Incident]]

Japanese troops were garrisoned in China on terms of a treaty after the Boxer uprising. Japanese troops clashed with soldiers serving under a local warlord at a rail junction on the southern outskirts of Peking. Japan reinforced its troops in China twenty-fold in three months to bring pressure on the Nationalists. Japan fanned out from Peking and Shanghai and headed for large population centers and infrastructure. In December 1937, Nationalist capital Nanking was captured and sacked with tens of thousands of civilians dead. In this undeclared war, Japan controlled cities within the larger, rural areas from which Chinese forces operated. [[What conditions led to this instability?]]

With growth, there was discontent. Though isolated from the dramatic shocks of World War I and the Great Depression, Japan was still affected. Between 1914 and 1918, prices had increased by 130%, while wages had increased by only 57%. The Russian Revolution in 1917 was one of the worldwide events that now affected Japan. It occurred as there was a greater recognition of deplorable worker rights, the rise of Marxist intellectuals and artists, and an organized demand for change. The Russian Revolution and these trends scared the Diet and the military of losing their grip on control. After more citizens exercised their right to vote in 1925, and protests both economic and political in nature grew in scope, the Diet passed the Peace Preservation Law. In 1928, three and a half thousand people were arrested for violations and this grew to fourteen and a half thousand in 1933. Arrests we aimed not so much as violence but for “organized expressions of revolutionary views”. There was severe scrutiny of all literature and censorship was in effect. This dissuaded authors from pursuing social or worker themes and was a factor why autobiographical fiction remained the most popular genre. [[Some writers did write about social themes.]]

Kobayashi Takiji was one. His popular work //The Crab Canning Boat// describes the struggle between the crew and superintendent in ideological terms. He was committed to the illegal Communist cause and was forced underground only to be captured, tortured, and killed at age twenty-nine. Could writers advocate [[for popular representation without being suppressed?]]

Yoshino Sakuzo was one of the leading proponents of the liberal Taisho Democracy. He wrote for political journals that were popular with the educated middle class. In his influential 1916 article “On Democracy,” Yoshino advocated for expanded voting rights and a greater role for popular representation in the constitutional system. He proposed a system //for// the people: such popular representation informed the emperor on the general welfare. But not //by// the people: he thought there was still a role for unelected leaders, including the emperor, to shepherd the people. Also, it was not a government //of// the people since the Meiji Constitution held sovereignty in the emperor alone. So, Yoshino used Anglo-American ideas about widening suffrage, limiting the power of the old establishment, and utilitarianism to help prompt up the ideological place and political efficacy of the emperor. However, this interpretation of the Constitution was banned in 1935 by the Okada Cabinet. Other intellectuals who promoted similar, moderate views [[were suppressed by the military.]]

A competing text to Yoshino’s article could be the new articulation of the kokutai (national principles/philosophy) in 1937. Used in grade school instruction and national propaganda, the Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan (kokutai no hongi) shed any democratic pretensions of the Meiji kokutai and flatly stated that citizens were instruments of the emperor’s will and that the national economy was geared toward empire and not the random actions of individuals. Individualism was considered a Western scourge that ultimately led to social crisis (and socialism, communism, and anarchy) and stood in opposition to the [[selfless, Japanese collective spirit.]]

Even the late Meiji and Taisho periods attest that this is a false dichotomy. However, it was a politically and militarily expedient one and tapped into the fear of the Black Ships. The kokutai no hongi squared against those thought crimes of individualism, humanism, and other instances of so-called foreign influence. Japanese letters in general also bears responsibility for [[pitting Japan against perceived foreign influences.]]

There is an association between the purity of the mind, the purity of Japanese culture, and the expulsion of foreignness. Basho runs into a helpless orphan and praises great warriors uncritically. While he maintains his morality, he doesn’t translate that to political sentiments or anything critical of Japan or positive about or looking towards the outside world other than the requisite Chinese classics. He views the state of being when he composes his poetry as the true expression of relations in the temporal world. Basho and others use such aesthetic principles to craft a uniqueness that excludes dialogue with the other. These exclusionary norms make [[exclusionary practices more readily accepted and enacted.]]

You find questions on a microfilm strip with the following instructions: //“Select answers for these questions first. Then you can check what the correct answers are. If you received full credit you can proceed. However, if you did not, please return back and review the question and search for the right answer. You are at your own discretion here, because clearly no one is looking over your shoulder. Ultimately, getting all these correct solidifies the answers in your brain for ready retrieval at a later date and a good base to build on for more. [[It is in your hands.->D4Q1]]//”

Correct. [[Next question->D4Q2]]

While shishosetsu values sincerity and disclosure, it is not always in diary form. [[Try again->D4Q1]]

Shishosetsu has to be rooted in the author's life in some way. [[Try again->D4Q1]]

Not correct. Haiku was a type of poetry. [[Try again->D4Q1]]

In the shishosetsu, there is a close identification between the narrator, main character, and what entity? * [[the divine]] * [[writer]] * [[reader]] * [[society]]

There is a more generally agreed upon answer, but connecting to nature can mean connecting to the divine or eternity. For example, in Basho's poetry or even in Endo Shusaku's //Silence//. [[Try again->D4Q2]]

Connecting with the reader is a given. [[Try again->D4Q2]]

Correct. [[Next question->D4Q3]]

Society wasn't the main focus for most shishosetsu. One reason was that censorship was stringent, especially after the 1925 Peace Preservation Law. [[Try again->D4Q2]]

The kokutai is the national philosophy and was paired with the Meiji Constitution to structure governance. There were two major versions covered here: (1) the Meiji Kokutai and (2) 1937 kokutai no hongi. What was the major difference between them? * [[The 1937 Kokutai said Japan was hierarchically ordered family]] * [[The 1937 Kokutai stated that subjects were instruments of the Emperor's will and that the national economy was geared toward Empire and not the random actions of individuals]] * [[The 1937 Kokutai said that the national economy was geared towards the economic equality of Japanese citizenry]] * [[The 1937 Kokutai said the Emperor was sovereign]]

Both versions of the kokutai said that Japan was a family. [[Try again->D4Q3]]

Correct. [[Next question->D4Q4]]

"Economic equality" wasn't a major goal of the regime. [[Try again->D4Q3]]

The Meiji Constitution said that the Emperor was sovereign. So, that held for both versions of the kokutai. [[Try again->D4Q3]]

The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was precipitated by territorial claims on what region or country? * [[Mainland China]] * [[Manchuria]] * [[Taiwan]] * [[Korea]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D4Q4]]

Correct. [[Next question->D4Q5]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D4Q4]]

Yoshino Sakuzo was one of the leading proponents of the liberal Taisho Democracy. Yoshino advocated for expanded voting rights and a greater role for popular representation. According to Yoshino, what was the end of such reform? * [[To establish a secular, modern state]] * [[To inform the Emperor on what was the general welfare]] * [[To move toward a Socialist government]]

Establishing a bureaucratic state was important, but voters served a particular purpose for Yoshino. [[Try again->D4Q5]]

Correct. [[You incinerate the film strips as agreed]]

Yoshino believed that the emperor was sovereign not the people. Yoshino thought that a government could be for the people without being of the people. [[Try again->D4Q5]]

You hear a buzz at the door, open it, and pick up a cardboard box with daily rations for those in lockdown. You eat the beans, hardboiled egg, and bread. Outside the window are clouds of tear gas, yells and a few thuds. The yells went quiet. [[How did it get this way?]]

Institutions are hollowed out. The people are angry, anxious, distracted, docile. Foreign military adventures go awry. Those soldiers return with an ax to grind. Rogues seize positions with violence and appoint their own. These new authorities isolate, fool, and pick off dissenters. Authorities then go after open resisters with that much more vengeance: they wouldn’t learn their lesson. If solidarity against the authorities is not possible, [[what use is art anyway?]]

You sit on the bed, look at some remaining books, and wonder: isn’t art to change you or events outside? Or maybe art serves as a salve and guidepost for a troubled consciousness. Didn’t remembering Basho from school, and imagining the Milky Way stretching across the night sky, distract you from the pain of the gun to the teeth after the attack? Akutagawa’s work is not political. But how can he avoid the rapid change in his country? Did this change affect his work like Soseki’s? Or did he have another solution? From the next box with brown stripes on its side, you [[unspool the next section.]]

Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927) stands as the representative writer of the Taisho period (1912-26) with his death coinciding with the end of the period's cultural openness. Democracy had expanded with the institution of full male suffrage and party Cabinets. Greater wealth, an exposure to the rest of the world, and relative stability led to an easing of social rules and a greater demand for individual and worker rights. [[Akutagawa depicted this new middle-class living in cities.]]

Akutagawa depicts this life in the comical short story “Green Onions.” Framed as a story about writing a story, this cheeky writer/narrator focuses on the interior life of a single young woman living in the big city. The author frets about his deadline and relates her story in a colloquial tone which is a self-conscious stream of consciousness. This subject of a young woman in love reflects the period as people were moving to the cities for work. The constraining yet organizing bonds of family and community had less of a grip for many and casual encounters, like between the heroine and her would-be lover, were more prominent. In addition to the Japanese art this waitress adores, Akutagawa lists the foreign influences that plaster her room and pique her interest and not much differentiation is made between foreign and Japanese, which was a new sensibility for the educated and city dwellers. The joke in the end–-spoiler alert–-is that the price of vegetables, a long-standing concern in the period, was more of a concern than this chance encounter. Akutagawa’s earlier stories–-he was mostly a short story writer-–typically refashioned [[classical stories with modernist formal invention.]]

Traditional source material made his work more palatable. However, this interchange between old and new was thematically relevant for Akutagawa. His most famous works “Rashomon” and “In a Bamboo Grove” are drawn from tales of Japanese antiquity, the Heian period (794-1185). However, these stories undermine the three principles that have come to dominate modern and classical Japanese literature: (1) Writer-narrator-character identification; (2) sincerity equals truth; (3) and the goal, if there is one, is harmony with nature and relations, and an emptying out of self. Rashomon is the name of a gate leading to Kyoto in late antiquity. The gate was a part of an entry complex to the city but is damaged by the elements and thieves. The main character is a lowly servant who is struggling to survive from bandit attacks in a torrential downpour. He seeks shelter in the gate but finds out the gate is a storage place for rotten corpses. As he tries to rest, he hears a sound and is shocked to find an old woman plucking hair from corpses to make a wig. Disgusted at her, and his state of poverty, he steals her coat, accepting his role of being a thief to survive. This story’s focus on the macabre and actions forced to go against common decency, signal not merely a goalless protagonist, but one that is merely cast into a set of circumstances. It is a vision [[not only goalless, but valueless.]]

Akutagawa’s dark turn is reinforced in the salacious phantasmagoria “Hell Screen.” This story is also set in antiquity and focuses on a court artist who is ridiculed, but begrudgingly praised by the court for the quality of his work. The Lord commissions that he paint a screen depicting the eight regions of hell after the Lord refuses to return the artist’s daughter from the court. The artist pours his hatred at the court and the Lord into the painting. He is adamant that he cannot paint what he has not seen and asks to see the Lord’s finest carriage burst into fire. The Lord allows this but places the artist’s daughter in the carriage and she is also burnt alive in the carriage during the “ceremony.” In //Kusamakura//, Soseki expresses that art and culture shape life and morals. “Hell Screen” suggests that art is the task of the enslaved to use the calamity of human life as grist for the edification of the powerful. If there is any “emptying of self” here, it is merely the destruction of what is dear in life by the powerful with no available resource for the powerless. Here, [[there is no harmony in Akutagawa’s vision.]]

The structure of “In a Bamboo Grove” takes to task the writer-narrator-character identification and the principle that sincerity equals truth. This short story consists of individual accounts of a crime in a grove. They contradict regarding the motives of the crime, the identity of the killer, and the location of the knife, arrows, horse, and rope. The last account from a spirit of the dead complicates rather than clarifies. In this story, writer-narrator-character identification is exposed as a fiction as each account undermines the other and creates a rift between the narrators and their individual characters as portrayed by Akutagawa. All the characters insist they are speaking the truth, but after reading a couple, it is obvious to the reader that each is trying to secure an alternative motive or get off the hook. Sincerity does not yield the truth: Akutagawa exposes that it is clearly a fiction. That we witness this as we tally each individual account in a successive unfolding is the greatest feat of this short, yet quintessential modern Japanese work. The filmmaker Akira Kurosawa combined “In a Bamboo Grove” and “Rashomon” to form the basis of his classic film //Rashomon// (1950). The film retains contradictory narrators. However, the film medium still adds some reassurance that there could have been a truthful account. Kurosawa’s work also expresses his humanism [[not apparent in Akutagawa’s darker works.]]

Akutagawa compromises our ideas of the good as tied to human ends by portraying how we ignore (“Rashomon”) or manipulate (“In a Bamboo Grove”) humans with or without an intention in mind. This is taken to an extreme in “Hell Screen” where a child is immolated to serve as a model for a devilish piece of art and to make vengeance on a savage lord. But Akutagawa [[found darkness in his past and so turned to the shoshisetsu.]]

Near the end of his career, Akutagawa Ryunosuke began to write shishosetsu (Japanese biographical fiction) despite having railed against this traditional Japanese form for most of his career. Akutagawa’s personal life was extremely trying from a young age with the early passing of his mother, the incapacity of his mother due to mental illness, his own mental illness, bullying in school in his early years, the death of his father at a relatively young age, and his complicated relations with his adoptive family. [[His brilliance and artistry shine all the more.]]

In “Spinning Gears,” the image of flying wings or spinning gears return both in the mundane and supernatural within the consciousness of the narrator as he makes his way through everyday life. The origin of this “optical illusion” as he calls it rather skeptically is not so much as important as how this image follows him, how he cannot escape its unsettling presence, and how he morphs the metaphor throughout to meet his state of mind: the gears of modernity, the wings of Icarus, the Furies seeking his death, or his lover. After getting lost on his way from the hospital, he encounters the Funeral Hall where Soseki Natsume had his memorial service. He says that he was not happy then either, but had been at peace. After peering in and “recalling the basho plants at the Soseki Retreat,” he could not help feeling that a stage of his life had come to an end. The narrator states that [[he felt a presence had brought him here.]]

What is this presence? Perhaps it is the old Japan of the poet Basho and then Soseki. It may be the Furies making him survey his life before taking it. Regardless, there is nostalgia and a recognition that the aesthetic, personal, and communal values of the past have ended and that he, as the protégé of his master, had failed in his eyes to [[carry the torch into the modern world.]]

Perhaps the most chilling story by Akutagawa is his most intensely personal and traditional story, “Death Register.” Written in 1926, the year the Emperor Taisho died and the Showa period began, this story chronicles the death of his mother, older sister, and father all the more devastating because of its plain naturalist description of those events. In the last section, he stands in front of where they are buried in a section of a cemetery. He does not often come but came this time “perhaps because I was physically debilitated.” He says that he stood, staring, and wondering who had been the most fortunate and recalled [[the following haiku from Joso]], one of the Basho’s ten wise disciples.

A shimmering of heat Beside the grave [[I stand alone.]]

This had been originally composed when Joso had visited Basho’s grave when Joso was in failing health. Akutagawa concluded his story in prose by stating that he had never felt Joso’s words “press in upon [him] with the force they truly had for me that day.” In this piece, which feels like his final one, it can be said that Akutagawa has created a //haibun//, a delicate weaving of prose and haiku. Even with as great a master as Basho, Joso may have seen his personal legacy and [[life simply as a shimmering of heat.]]

Akutagawa feels the same way about his life when facing his deceased family and by extension his esteemed master, Soseki Natsume. This quotation, by this leader of the modernist avant-garde, in a story that strongly hits the three principles of Japanese literature, is resonant for the daring lack of irony. Unlike Soseki, Akutagawa did not retreat to Old Japan. He did recognize its place and that it should not be disregarded even when living in and embracing aspects of the outside world. [[Hagiwara Sakutarou lived longer than Akutagawa and carried this experimental tradition]] into the wartime military authoritorian regime.

Hagiwara Sakutaro (1886-1942), an avant-garde lyric poet, lived from the Meiji period, through the Taisho period, and died from pneumonia in the early Showa period at the start of World War II. Similar to Akutagawa Ryunosuke with short fiction, Hagiwara’s poetry reworked the entire genre of the burgeoning Japanese free verse. Instead of strict adherence to precepts, Hagiwara emphasized the “rhythmic fusion between objective description and subjective emotion in poetry” (Sato). One of the ways he did this was his use of the introductory phrase as modeled on some exemplars [[from traditional tanka poetry.]]

Tanka was written in five lines with a set syllabic count–-5, 7, 5, 7, 7–-and were used in the royal court for love poetry. Sei Shonagon’s //The Pillow Book// relates the high art of exchanging this poetry and contains some good examples. A tanka’s introductory phrase would set the poem’s topic while the rest of the poem would rhyme with it [[to express that topic’s governing emotion.]]

As you read this early poem (1913) by Hagiwara, note the following: * The repeated use of the syllable //shi// links the first two introductory lines, which comprise the introductory phrase, and the third line. * This link conveys irrepressible longing, which is the theme of the poem * Amaririsu (Amaryllis) is the kakekotoba or pivot word. “Nao amari” on its own can mean “still too much” which contrasts strikingly with the image of a flowering. =|= Ito*shi*geku Koi*shi*sa masari *shi*noburedomo nao amaririsu hana sakinikeri =|= My hopeless longing deepens to burst forth though I try to suppress it. Amaryllis has come to bloom. |==| From Reiko Tsukimura’s “Hagiwara Sakutaro and the Japanese Lyric Tradition” (1976). After he published his second major anthology, Hagiwara published a selection of traditional poems that exemplified this structural linkage with a commentary [[elucidating how masterful they were.]]

In this work of criticism, while not rejecting the colloquialism and deep introversion of his earlier work, he does suffer from an anxiety of influence of these exquisite old poems that have been recounted and memorized for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Hagiwara’s last major anthology, //The Iceland// (1934), was not written in tanka, but was composed in the old masculine style, using primarily modified Chinese characters. Hagiwara labelled this a retreat. However, The Iceland still contains his cry of despair and rage, even more feral than the tanka and free verse poetry before. Scenes of rural and urban decay [[convey and contrast with the mental state of the poet.]]

Hagiwara’s work paralleled with the European art and philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th century in the symbolist and existentialist traditions. While he had extensive knowledge of classical techniques at an early age, the means he used to shock the establishment were his precise and unambiguous diction and his use of the colloquial to describe an uneasy state of a mind skeptical, melancholic, and cynical and yet at times ecstatic, in a rush of hot emotion. Some critics use this to his detriment, but Hagiwara’s scope is narrow and concerns not things or people as independent entities, but only they affect his mind (Sato). His poems express these shadows and what he terms as “sentiments” that come to him as images as accurately as possible. For Hagiwara, poetry projects this inner rhythm between shadows or impressions of the world and the lone psyche. And this inner rhythm or relation is what he considers his vision, the vision of a poet. This relation is clear [[in the poem “Pale Horse”]] in his second collection “Blue Cat” (1923).

Under this frozen weather of clouded heaven, In this kind of oppressed nature, silent on the side of the road eating grass, slowly climbing, miserable resultant of destiny, I approach the spread of the shadow, The horse’s shadow stares into me. Ah, let this searing motion leave from there, from the images of my life Quickly, quickly let this phantom separate and disappear forever! I must believe in my Will. Oh, horse! The fixed rule of destiny’s causation wretches From the dry plate of the despair of the frozen scene. From the shadow of the pale horse, I command myself to escape. "Pale Horse” (1923) by Hagiwara Sakutarou [[More about this poem here]]

In "Pale Horse," there is no description of a horse itself, but its pale shadow. In this first-person account (like most of Hagiwara’s poetry), the “I” moves towards the shadow’s direction and the shadow of the horse seems to be watching him. The second paragraph is a feeble command from his mind for this shadow to leave. He wants to believe in his “Will” apart from this shadow of external laws of cause and effect. This shadow of a force in nature is something that seems to make him and his “Will” irrelevant. This shadow even makes him doubt his own existence [[as a judge of experience.]]

In 1942, Hagiwara published a poem “The Army,” which describes a military force destroying the sky, earth, and people in six heavily repetitive stanzas. Perhaps limited by censors during wartime, this poem does not view “The Army” as a political entity, but like the horse’s shadow, a force of nature bearing down and invalidating the primacy of the will. Other than the sounds of the march, the last sentence is the repeated line “the will becomes heavily overwhelmed.” Does Hagiwara’s method and focus on how this affects the will, give the political, or external, world a pass? If the army is an inevitable force on the individual, [[can it be held responsible?]]

You hear the chime ring more frequently. You wash your face, look at your reflection, and walk down the hall. They open their doors and [[stare at you in anger.]]

You turn your head down. Your boss stands outside your door. [[And stares at you.]]

“I would like to talk to you,” the boss said. “Isn’t it a little late for that?” “We should talk inside,” the boss said. “It is a mess. I’ve been living in here for two days.” “They told me. Something came up and [[I need some discretion."]]

You don’t hesitate more lest there is a search for contraband. The boss sneers at the co-inhabitants as they close their doors. You open the door. You back heel the small microfiche box under the bed. You hope that the boss was distracted enough not to notice. [[The boss glares at you.]]

“I would rather not do this, but I have been notified that there is some work for you and that you are to report to the shop at ten tomorrow morning,” the boss said. “Has the shortage ended? I have heard nothing on the television.” “Well, it has enough for you to be recalled. We are adjusting to all potential supply shocks and want you back in the shop,” the boss said “I believe I need to check with the authorities to confirm.” “That won’t be necessary. Of course, they contacted me to tell me to tell you that you must come in. You will be given leaving privileges when you consent: the buzzer will be off.” If you do not consent, you will be sent to jail for insubordination. They had enlisted your boss [[as an agent of the state.]]

"I look forward to work for you and the state.” “What are you doing going to the library and troubling the guards? Is reading about Japan worth all that? The Chrysanthemum League is holding the line against those filthy, anti-government thugs. That breed can’t manage their own lives let alone govern themselves.” “I am sure you all can.” “I am giving you a lease on life. The crew all want to see you again. Ten A.M. tomorrow.” “Yes, sir.” The boss looks around your room, chuckles, and then assumes his official face. [[The boss leaves.]]

The authorities are leaning on him, but why? There is clearly no work to do. Why do they want to keep me occupied rather than [[confine and surveil me?]]

You turn on the television and switch it off. You turn off the light. You hear the midnight growls outside the small square window. Does the boss know? You look at the ceiling, wish it away, but fear: your old workplace tomorrow. It has been more than a year. They must know. [[There’s an invisible bounty on you.]]

The walls are quiet tonight: no laughter, anger, or love. What the hell if they know? How many have they killed, let die, or locked up already? [[What’s another?]]

(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")+(text-size:1)[Day 5 Start] You wake up on the 5th day. You look at the clock above the television: 4:18AM. Plumes of black smoke rise [[from the furnaces in the dark sky.]]

You go to the closet and take out the last box of microfilm. You pause with it in your hand. You remember the first guard raising his rifle and hitting you across the face. [[That’s where doubt ends up.]]

Notes are based on the following book: Dower, J. W. (2000). //Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II// (Illustrated edition). W. W. Norton & Company. Commodore Perry entered Edo Bay in 1853. General MacArthur entered [[Tokyo Bay in 1945.]]

The once closed country was opened not on its terms, but by an occupying force. In the Meiji period, Japan believed that they could use Western technology to further dominance in the region and repel an occupation. Both goals failed. The United States occupied mainland Japan until 1952 and Okinawa until 1976. A scene that is repeated in literature, journalism, histories, and television and signals the beginning of the post-war period is when Emperor Hirohito, known as Emperor Showa, chose to directly [[address the Japanese public upon surrender.]]

He never mentioned “surrender” or “defeat” but said that the war had not turned out in their favor; he said that to continue war would lead to the destruction of Japan and “all human civilization” as if capitulating was a magnanimous act to the world; and in a dash of a phrase– “my vital parts as torn asunder”–he had the gall to portray himself as the ultimate victim of the millions of dead Japanese, not to mention the Asians (Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Burmese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese…) and Allied forces killed by [[Japanese aggression.]]

As a piece of writing, it indicated how even if the Black Ships had come, conservative elements in Japanese society were stubborn and would not give up its ideology of internal racial and cultural purity. And they found [[an ally in the Americans.]]

Was Emperor Hirohito himself responsible? This was a major question left to General MacArthur, the head of the Occupation. However, before the Tokyo tribunal had even begun, General Fellers advised openly to fix Japanese General Tojo’s testimony to exclude Hirohito from the decision-making process in an attempt to absolve the emperor of responsibility. Responsibility rests with the emperor. The Meiji Constitution held that the emperor was sovereign. And the emperor had direct control of the military. Unelected officials had neutered the power of the Lower House and, so, the people. Against pressure from President Harry Truman, General MacArthur was sympathetic to Fellers’ reasoning and passionately advised General Eisenhower not to put him on trial. When Tojo was on the stand, and strayed from the official line, the prosecution coached Tojo so as [[not to implicate Hirohito.]]

Why would General Fellers, General MacArthur, and the whole tribunal apparatus seek to shield the emperor? During World War II, MacArthur and the US Intelligence bought the Japanese propaganda of the role of the emperor as a god, the Japanese public as a family with him at the head, and all members of society willing to give their lives for his life. That continued post-war for MacArthur who argued that if indicted there would be centuries of reprisals and social upheaval ultimately resulting in Communism. When the Japan’s chief justice of the Supreme Court of Japan publicly agreed with liberal critics that the emperor should have taken blame for the war right after it ended, and a large portion of the public was in favor of abdication, and the emperor himself had conflicted feelings, it was Fellers who came out of retirement to vouch for the emperor. Ultimately, even though his closest adviser Kido Koichi was jailed and advised abdication and taking responsibility for Japanese deaths, Hirohito did not abdicate, but [[remained head of state]] until his death in 1989.

Some Americans who believed the propaganda of the emperor’s role of head of the war effort did not want him to be put on trial, abdicate, or even express guilt over the consequences of that very role. While you could make claims that Americans’ aim was countering the Soviet Union, how Hirohito survived has a lot to do with the mystique of his position, an aura cultivated by centuries of reverence, culture, and, yes, literature. As in Sei Shonagon’s //The Pillow Book//, the Emperor continued the tradition of a New Year’s poem (a waka) and [[in 1946 wrote the following.]]

Courageous pine Enduring snow that is piling up color unchanging [[Let people be like this]]

For all the external change and cultural missteps of Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods, the emperor was defiant. Fellers and MacArthur fell for and fell in love with the nobility of the Japanese character and the office of the emperor and let that cloud their official function as just arbiters of the peace. They were enamored with that uniqueness that Japan sought to express to itself and outside through culture. To Fellers and MacArthur, this uniqueness made it seem that universal claims of justice did not apply to the head of state, the culturally identified head of the Japanese nation. This tug of war between claims of uniqueness and universality was present in the drafting and adoption of [[the new Japanese Constitution.]]

The new Constitution was written by a committee of Americans from the General Headquarters of the Occupation who stripped down the German legal structure of the Meiji Constitution and added principles from the Anglo-American tradition. Japanese interest groups were not immediately aware of this and were simply presented with a translated copy. A major point of disagreement was the status of the emperor. President Truman said that “the Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever to be really democratic”. Some Japanese groups agreed, but MacArthur pushed back. In his famous “declaration of humanity” prior, Emperor Hirohito declared that the “Emperor was not divine.” However, the word he used meant “divine manifest in human form” not “divine” or “god” exactly. It allowed that [[the imperial house was descendant from the deities (kami).]]

The emperor (and his calendar and ceremonial role) remained. Sovereignty went to the people. But in an act of linguistic subterfuge, the word for “people” was translated into Japanese as “nationals.” The term “nationals” excluded the foreign-born or progeny of immigrants born in Japan; these groups do not have the same rights as children with a documented Japanese ancestry, so-called bloodline, even if they were born outside of Japan. The Constitution, however, remains a progressive document. The Japanese public had called for many of its reforms through political interest groups. The Constitution had universal suffrage, the right to education (building on the success of Meiji policy), the abolition of the feudal system, the mandate that all official documents be written in colloquial Japanese, and [[the famous Article 9 calling on the renunciation of War.]]

Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan (1947). Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. [[The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.]]

Antiwar groups cited Article 9 when protesting the re-militarization of Japan at the start of the Korean War. During the Korean War, American officials set a precedent by developing bases and stockpiling arms in Japan. The US – Japan Security Pact (Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security known as //Anpo//) codified this relationship. Signed by Yoshida Shigeru, first Prime Minister after WWII, Anpo made Japan reliant on the US for its security. Didn't antiwar groups have a point? [[Didn't this violate Article 9?]]

To some politicians during Occupation, the public was too enthusiastic about prospects of a democratic government. General MacArthur’s fear of the labor movement was also a fear that Japan would fall to the Communists. In 1948, there was a government purge of Communist and Socialist officials after rising street protests for better living conditions. Ultranationalists and wartime politicians were also jailed or stripped from their positions until Occupation ended. However, after Occupation, anti-war, pro-democracy and other groups continued to protest based on the intellectual foundation of their own Constitution. The next writer is proud [[to be counted as one of those protestors.]]

Arming Japan and establishing what turned out to be permanent bases, was seen as necessary by the US. The irony was that America leaned on and installed former members of the Imperial War cabinet, sometimes convicted war criminals, to implement this policy. These largely conservative politicians accepted this because: 1. Even with a new Constitution, the pre-war, wartime structure of the bureaucracy and organs of power would remain largely intact; 2. The focus of the country was squarely on economic growth; 3. They had the power to ensure that Communist and ultranationalist forces [[would not gain control of the country.]]

Oe Kenzaburo (1935-) is different than most, if not all, writers in that he was a committed social activist. His early major work //Hiroshima Notes// (1965) documents the nuclear bomb explosion over that western Japanese city. He continued anti-war, anti-imperial activism (he refused the Imperial House’s Order of Culture, its highest honor) and is threatened by ultranationalists in the country. He was threatened after publishing a short story about an ultranationalist who assassinated the chairman of Japan’s Socialist Party in 1960, a story based on true events. He also was sued for libel for his nonfiction work //Okinawa Notes//, which documented Japanese military generals forcing many Okinawans to commit suicide before and during the Battle of Okinawa. In both his fiction and nonfiction, Oe’s concern is [[primarily the individual in society.]]

Oe writes two types of novels: (1) more overtly social about the conflict between rural and urban or nationalist and open segments of Japanese society and (2) a fictional form of his story about the burden, responsibility, and then fulfillment raising his real-life autistic son Hikari. Both types of novels tackle “what do we owe each other?” in a more overt way than the work of other writers, especially Hagiwara or Akutagawa, who mostly process their individual experience of the world as impressed upon them. Wrestling with the external obligations was something Oe could not avoid based on [[historical and individual circumstance.]]

His most powerful novel is the //A Personal Matter// (1964). The narrator has a similar backstory to the author: a literary type coping with the birth of a child with an intellectual disability. Although it is not technically a shishosetsu, Oe uses the techniques of that traditional Japanese form to probe the disgust that the narrator has towards himself and that he transfers to his child. The heightened pace based on the tunneling nature of the self-inquiry rises and his deadline to make a decision reaches a stunning conclusion when he accepts [[the child as his own.]]

Oe himself says that he faced a similar dilemma. At that time, he visited a Red Cross hospital serving atomic bomb survivors who had been neglected and a doctor’s “forbearance”--a talisman at the end of //A Personal Matter//--and “[He] was encouraged about [his] own son.” For a man whose father died in World War II, and for whom the emperor’s address upon surrender and the Occupation of his small country town was life-changing, [[the political and personal were always intertwined.]]

In the commendation for his Nobel Prize in 1994, the Swedish Academy cites //The Silent Cry// (1967) as an exemplary work. It is a pitiless, knotty, and unrelenting read. It is a story following two brothers returning to their ancestral home in the countryside of the remote island of Shikoku in the Inland Sea, south of the central island of Honshu and east of Kyushu. The narrator Mitsu, who is a lecturer at a university, starts the novel in grief after the suicide of his best friend. Mitsu calls his friend’s act [[the “silent cry.”]]

Mitsu’s friend was severely injured after a police club to the face after demonstrating outside the National Diet, which led to mental deterioration. Takashi, Mitsu’s younger brother, had met the friend when in America when he was a part of an apology tour of a co-opted student movement group. Takashi broke from the group, returns to Japan, and convinces Mitsu to accompany him to his hometown to help sell their family’s “storehouse,” a symbol of their once [[prominent place in the community.]]

When they return to their hometown in the “hollow” of a valley, they both uncover, question, and enact the story of the “uprising” a hundred years ago (1860). Takashi sees himself in their great-grandfather’s brother, who led a violent peasant revolt against land reform, while the great-grandfather has some similarities to Mitsu who tried to [[maintain order in the community.]]

However, Mitsu is always considered an outsider for leaving the valley for an education and not participating in Takashi’s increasing violent leadership of a gang of young men and later much of the town trying to wrest [[control of a supermarket]] from a ready-made villain, the ethnic Korean “Emperor of the Supermarkets.”

Takashi has no exit plan and hopes to instigate the fighting spirit of the town more than anything. He reenacts the Bon festival dance in which people dress up as “spirits” of the past to promote communal renewal and the community participates fully and shamelessly in the accompanying looting and mayhem until [[Takashi’s uprising meets his inevitable collapse.]]

While Takashi is condemned for expressing externally his personal plea for violent punishment, Mitsu also reflects, discovers, and realizes that his understanding of the past roles of his family members had been incomplete, that his view of Takashi was partially wrong, and that he had been too passive and largely deserved the moniker “Rat” attributed to him. In this end, there is a desire for a wholeness to his character to accept the urge for leaps into the future with a healthy sense of wariness about the perils of change and [[a sense of detachment.]]

Oe critiques and praises the feats of (political) imagination to react and instigate change in the community. Oe seems to praise the Takashi’s idol, their great-grandfather’s brother, who had not abandoned the cause of the revolt as Mitsu and Takashi had believed, but lived in self-isolation, before leading a peaceful demonstration [[against the establishment of Prefectures during the Meiji Restoration.]]

The great-grandfather’s brother indicates a relationship between the “outside” of the new Prefectural government from the “inside” of valley or rural culture that is healthy. * People from the inside stand up for their rights and culture in the face of oppression from others while not succumbing to excessive guilt, self-pity, or passivity. * The people of the “inside” also organize themselves in a way that is not oppressive in turn (like the first violent revolt), principled, not self-defeating as in Takashi’s revolt. Whether the great-grandfather and his brother are historical figures or not, it appears that their struggles with modernity served as a model for Oe’s own activism. The liberal democrat Oe Kenzaburo is often considered the opposite of the next writer, [[Mishima Yukio.]]

The last events of Mishima’s life seem to point to this conclusion. In 1970, Mishima committed ritual suicide after a failed attempt by his small militia group to take command of an army barracks in the name of his brand of patriotism and emperor worship. However, he has some similarities to Oe and the other writers considered. [[Mishima was firmly in the urban, literary establishment]] and lived in a Western house according to Western mores.

While he lusted after the beauty of old Japan and studied kendo and karate extensively, most of his work was not a return to the old form, as with the works of the Nobel Laureate Kawabata Yasunari, but had an eye to the Western reader with dense plots, allusions to European Literature, and commitment to [[psychological realism.]]

Like Soseki Natsume before World War II, he could function in both worlds, but felt unease living in both at once and disliked the empty Western materialism that plastered over traditional culture. Like Oe, his worldview was profoundly shaped by Japan's defeat in the war and a childhood without a consistent father figure. It is intriguing to consider Mishima as Takashi, the firebrand in Oe’s novel //The Silent Cry// (1967), who expressed his desire for self-punishment in an ill-conceived political program. However, that [[alone would be too simple.]]

The novel //The Temple of the Golden Pavilion// (1956) is the best expression of Mishima’s sensibility. Ironically similar in form to Oe’s short story about a young terrorist who assassinated a socialist leader, Golden Pavilion purports to be a first-person account of a young acolyte to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji) about his life there and his reasoning behind [[burning the Temple to the ground.]]

This “nothingness” is not the void of Basho and traditional Zen. Instead, it is self-devouring nihilism. For the Mishima, this opulent beauty existed and sought to maintain an exterior of order and harmony. However, as the acolyte discovered through his life in the corrupt temple institution, the interior was hollow. Burning the temple destroys that exterior and capitulates to the nihilism at its core. In that act, its beauty contains the recognition of its appearance as appearance–-how [[its own structure is its own undoing.]]

It seems like Mishima’s death was this kind of performance art. His body, which he sought to perfect through discipline, was destroyed by the urge that made it so–the restless desire that he could not and would not mortify. Maybe Mishima didn’t so much die for a cause, or for the expiation of sin, but simply to put an end to this restlessness. On the day of his death November 25, 1970, Mishima penned and submitted to the publisher the final volume of his uneven yet inventive tetralogy, //The Sea of Fertility//. It is the journey through modern Japanese history through four incarnations of the same personality. While the tetralogy had been hinting at a progression of consciousness from one life to another and eventual enlightenment, it ends on a spectacularly depressive note when the secondary character, who follows these incarnations in his one lifetime, states that the only kind of release available to protagonist was the breakup of the particles in his body to be refashioned by natural processes. In the last chapter, the main character’s lover in the first book denies ever knowing about her love and any linkage between these four personalities was chance or simply error. Like burning of the temple, Mishima destroyed [[his narrative in the final chapters.]]

The narrator of Murakami's //The Wild Sheep Chase// watches the live broadcast of Mishima Yukio extorting the crowd to rise and join his political movement. However, he loses interest before the conclusion and [[locks hands with a lover and walks out.]]

This casual dismal of revanchist rhetoric as alien to the youth reflects Murakami’s disillusionment with grand-scale social movements. By dismissing Mishima, he bucks the rules of the literary establishment. Murakami's work is often derided as “smelling of butter,” [[a common insult for undue foreign influence.]]

And he does use foreign references and sentence structure perhaps too pervasively and sometimes without need. Generally, he uses the first-person perspective, but it is clearly not autobiographical in nature. Unlike the probing existentialism of Oe, the main character is obdurate and impenetrable. Even in the closest to an autobiographical novel, the stunning //Norwegian Wood// (1987), the main character barely recognizes any agency and may be unreliable. But regardless of all this, Murakami Haruki (1949-) is [[a Japanese writer]] and has something to say about his country.

And his work shows the possibility of a Japan open to, but not dominated by the West. Unlike Oe and Mishima, his work resonates with the every man and woman providing solace to readers trapped by the impersonal machinations of late-stage capitalism or modern life which Soseki warned against. His work is his strongest when this individual expands and takes on larger social conditions in the (external) world. Nowhere is this more evident than [[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994).]]

Unlike //Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World// (1985), the main character does not remain trapped within his interiority. He uses strange means to affect the social world to make political, external change. His brother-in-law, a fascist in a business suit, climbs to a prominent role in Japanese government and in the end, Toru confronts him in the shadow world. The most affecting and raw sequences in this novel are the passages where a World War II veteran, Lieutenant Mamiya, relates his experience as a soldier and prisoner-of-war in the Manchurian front soon before the Soviet invasion. Like in Soseki’s //Kokoro//, Murakami crafted a novel structure to incorporate a section that reads like a shishosetsu, or [[a Japanese autobiographical novel.->Mamiya]]

Murakami snuck this topic into what seemed like another individual-centric tale of a dislocated male. In the historical passages, there is always a question of why soldiers are there and why Japanese citizens were ordered to subjugate barren lands outside their home country. In ending his last letter, Mamiya describes himself as a hollow man: the war had destroyed his interior life and, by extension, many Japanese who survived. [[What does this destruction tell us?->Anxiety of Influence]]

* If you define a psychological, societal, or physical “interior” as solely opposed to something else, then you are defined in the terms of another. * If you define yourself in the terms of another, then you define yourself as lacking outside attributes. * You fear the power of that other thing. * This fear can yield an aggressive assertion of one’s name to establish legitimacy. * However, such assertion through violence is empty and self-destructive because you destroy that which would give you that legitimacy: [[a partner.]]

* You need to establish your own independent character. * And since an independent character is not defined solely in terms of another, your character and practice [[need to be open and relational.]]

Toru’s journey in search of his wife shows his commitment to her and his confrontation with the brother-in-law shows his breaking free of the media fueled apathy of contemporary culture to clearly see the threats to open society. Murakami the author then probes this relationship between the individual and society with //Underground// (1998) a nonfiction chronicle of the 1995 sarin gas attacks in Tokyo. He interviewed youth who were influenced by the perpetrators or regular people who were swept up in the attack and found similar people to those in his novels: rootless with a hazy path to [[a rich, deep, humane way of living.]]

Murakami won the prominent Yomiuri Prize (1994) for //The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle//. Oe Kenzaburo, who had criticized Murakami for simply making entertainment, was the one who presented this prize with a ringing endorsement for this political work. But apart from //The Wind-up Bird Chronicle// and //Underground//, his work returned to the hall of mirrors of a narrator’s interiority: a way forward was too difficult to find and solidarity not possible when [[trapped in small units of one or two or four.->Day 5 End Start]]

You wear your uniform. You lock the door. The door’s light turns green. [[No chime rings as you walk away.]]

The guard asks for your card and phone. Both are run through the system. The guard [[overrides a caution.]]

“Glad to be back. I am ready to build back this great country: one sewage line at a time.” “We are so great, so glorious already. The takeover took care of that. Crushed all those snowflakes. Those weaklings folded when the strong, the few, the brave took charge of this country,” the boss said. “No doubt. I am back to serve the nation. What do you have for me to work on?” “Well, we will get to that later. Let’s tour the facility to re-acquaint yourself with the surroundings and your colleagues,” the boss said and held your shoulder. [[You walk down the floor.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/russ-ward-3-AYozgadHw-unsplash.jpg?w=640" width="640" height="480" alt="welder"> You notice fewer parts, coils, and torches than before. Workers rearrange late shipments, salvage metal, and inspect welded equipment. Only a few workers appear to be welding [[cordoned from everyone else.]]

Your co-workers look more than nineteen months older. They wave your way, praise your favorite fighter in latest fight sport bout. They talk about the good days with praise for how the boss put the floor back online after the latest shortage. You feel that their words are strained. But are jealous of the rhythms of their speech. You wanted to get your [[hand on a torch.]]

"No work yet. Feel free to take your time and ease into this new routine. We have your best interests in mind. Why not have a break? Let’s have a coffee. Why don’t we?” [[You agree.]]

“You thought that we forgot? You are a trusted member of our team. So glad that we can all finally meet in-person without restrictions. Now it is time for you to take your place in our community, your community,” the boss says and shakes your hand. “Why, thank you!” You high-five close associates. You talk about the work that needed to get done and laughed. When have you last laughed? After eating four slices of cake, drinking two sodas, and recounting your trials during the shortages, the boss comes to you. [[The boss looks at the clock and then to you.]]

You forgot how wonderful that felt looking at them eye-to-eye and talking without conditions, pretext, or preparation. If only they had the supply, and I could get welding, maybe [[a stocked fridge could be next.]]

After the takeover, separation from family and friends, relocation, and subservience, you value whatever you had left. You cling to routine. Back at work. [[Oh, yes.]]

“This is an expired contract. Do you think you can fool me with this bull? You serve at our pleasure and permission,” a guard said. “Should we extricate this filth or make an example of him?” The second guard said. “The authorities want to show that they have rounded up and dealt with these.” The second guard pulled the contract away from [[the hands of the first guard.]]

"Looks like the contract is good for three more years,” the second guard said. “Don’t think I know that? They will take care of it at headquarters. They have no right to be here. We claimed this land at the barrel of the gun. They can deal with the consequences.” The first guard shoves the man back into the wall, lets him fall, and kicks his stomach. You can hear the groan and [[the man passes out.]]

You want to grab the hilt of the guard’s rifle. Were these the same guards that interrogated you? Does it matter? [[You forgot your mission.]]

As you back away, you notice a figure with a mask. The mask was like the one they ripped off your face outside the library. The figure retreats, but you follow. You make it to an abandoned brick courtyard. [[The figure slows down and turns toward you.]]

You think back to your last belongings in the incinerator: photographs of your family together, a gift from an old friend, art from contraband videogames, a paperback of haiku, and an old painting of a mountaintop. All your pre-takeover life was consumed by fire: ashes. Trusting the librarian would mean being a public enemy and ready to be triumphed for laughs in the preliminary rounds before a fight game. [[But was this life much different?]]

“They promise stability, but undermine it. They promise no fear, but rule by it. You are their tool. And you accept it, because what option is there? You ask. You know no new tomorrow. But life is resistance. And resistance is imagination.” “Is that all you are, words? So, you know a lot, how all people combine into a social psychic whole. But say democracy returns, would you sit by the television without doing anything at all? Now, what will you do? Would you forge a path to a new tomorrow?” “That’s where you will have to bet on me, Librarian. You have given me the education, but it is up to me to express it through action. [[We have to fire the arrow.”]]

The librarian turns and walks away from you. You follow and mimic the librarian’s movements through the streets. //I’ll ask you questions about our context first. Follow a few paces behind. Answer correct or you can jump on a bus back and plead for your life.”// [[“Get started, why don’t you?”->D5Q1Q1]] You taunt.

//"Did you pay attention to Akutagawa's life and work at all?" // Akutagawa's most intensely personal and traditional story, "Death Register," was written in 1926. What was significant about that date? * [[Full male suffrage]] * [[End of the Taisho Period; Beginning of the Showa Period]] * [[End of Russo-Japanese War]] * [[End of the Meiji Period; Beginning of the Taisho Period]]

This happened during the Taisho period. [[Try again->D5Q1Q1]]

Correct. [[Question about Akutagawa's approach->D5Q1Q2]]

The Russo-Japanese War ended in 1905. [[Try again->D5Q1Q1]]

Not quite. But 1926 was the end of an era. [[Try again->D5Q1Q1]]

Akutagawa was a short story writer. [[Try again->D5Q1Q2]]

Akutagawa's stories were mostly set in Japan and about Japanese people. Akutagawa often used modernist techniques to re-frame traditional Japanese stories. [[Try again->D5Q1Q2]]

Correct. [[One more question on Akutagawa->D5Q1Q3]]

Akutagawa used traditional Japanese forms on occassion. [[Try again->D5Q1Q2]]

In "Spinning Gears," Akutagawa returns to the spot where a great writer who was his mentor had a memorial service. Who was that writer? * [[Soseki Natsume->Correct Q3]] * [[Basho->IncorrectQ3.1]] * [[Yoshino Sakuzo->IncorrectQ3.2]] * [[Saigo Takamori->IncorrectQ3.3]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q4]]

According to what we've gone over, what is the most precise description of Akutagawa's approach to modernity? * [[reverted to writing traditional poetry (tanka)]] * [[total embrace of European, modernist techniques and subject matter]] * [[resisted using traditional Japanese forms except haiku]] * [[used modernist technique to re-contextualize and invigorate traditional form and subject matter]]

Hagiwara Sakutarou's scope is narrow. What does it encompass? Select the most precise answer. * [[people and things as independent entities->Incorrect H Q1.1]] * [[images or sentiments of how things affect his mind, emotions->Correct H Q1]] * [[religion->Incorrect H Q1.2]] * [[politics->Incorrect H Q1.3]]

Not correct. [[Try again->D5Q1Q4]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q5]]

Emperor Hirohito (Showa) abdicated after surrender claiming responsibility for the war. * [[False->D5Q1Q5 Correct]] * [[True->D5Q1Q5 Incorrect]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q6]]

[[Try again->D5Q1Q5]]

General Truman and some Japanese groups insisted that the emperor system must disappear to be truly democratic. However, General MacArthur disagreed. After pressure, the Emperor issued his "Declaration of Humanity." Strictly speaking, what did the Emperor say? * [[The Emperor was not descendant from the gods (kami)]] * [[The Emperor relinquishes any ceremonial or religious role]] * [[The Emperor was not divine manifest in human form]] * [[The Emperor was not sovereign]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q6]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q7]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q6]]

Who coached General Tojo not to implicate Emperor Hirohito during the Tokyo War Trials? * [[American authorities]] * [[Emperor Hirohito (Showa) himself]] * [[Japanese defense team]] * [[Koichi Kido, closest advisor to the Emperor]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q8]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q7]]

Who wrote the first draft of the new post-war Japanese Constitution? * [[The Japanese Supreme Court]] * [[A committee of Americans in the Occupation government]] * [[A committee of Japanese lawmakers]] * [[The emperor and his associates]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q9]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q8]]

The 1947 Constitution was a progressive document. Which right is contained therein: * [[Retainment of a feudal hierarchy within limits]] * [[Right to Property]] * [[Right to Education]] * [[Right to Make War]]

Feudal titles and hierarchy was abolished. [[Try again->D5Q1Q9]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q9]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q1Q10]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q9]]

Article 9 states which of the following : * [[the Japanese people have war as a sovereign right of the nation]] * [[Land, sea, and air forces will be maintained for self-defense]] * [[The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized]] * [[With the agreement of the Japanese government, allies may use Japanese military facilities for stationing troops]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q10]]

Corrrect. [[Next round of questioning]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q1Q10]]

Okay, you know our context, but let's get at the heart of the matter. How do regimes fall? [[Let's see if you figured that out yet?->D5Q2Q1]]

Known as the 1931 Manchurian Incident, rogue army officers launched a false flag attack as a pretext to control Manchuria. * High-ranking military officers in Tokyo did not intervene. * Non-intervention undercut the Cabinet’s official policy to ease tensions. * The Prime Minister was forced to resign. * The military reported directly to the emperor. * The Cabinet including the Prime Minister was determined primarily from political parties in the Lower House. The one body elected by the people. Cutting out the Cabinet from military decisions most directly violates which of the following three principles of democracy (self-governance)? * [[Principle 1: Allowing for political competition between different parties.]] * [[Principle 2: Circumvention of elected offices by unelected offices.]] * [[Principle 3: Wide participation in elections.]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q2Q1]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q2Q2]]

Incorrect. [[Try again->D5Q2Q1]]

After the 1932 assassination of the Prime Minister by ultranationalists, Admiral Saito was appointed Prime Minister by a genro (elder statesman) who conferred directly with the emperor. This undercut civilian control as representatives from political parties had picked the Prime Minister and that selection was acceded by the emperor. By excluding the control of electoral officials to pick the Prime Minister, electoral officials had substantially less power (violating Principle 2). How could the selection of a Prime Minister by an elected body be more tightly secured? * [[The Meiji Constitution could have stipulated that the Prime Minister could only be selected by elected officials, namely the Lower House.]] * [[The emperor could contravene and return to the established de facto role of the Lower House]] * [[Ultranationalists could be brought into the political process and asked for their recommendation.]]

Correct. By making this a de jure procedure, the selection of a Prime Minister could be more tightly secured. [[Next question->D5Q2Q3]]

This would simply expand the power of the emperor. There must be a better way. [[Try again->D5Q2Q2]]

Incorrect. The elected body still would pick the Prime Minister no matter its composition. [[Try again->D5Q2Q2]]

Conservative military officers supported the rogue officers who launched the false flag attack during 1931 Manchurian Incident because they supported military control of Manchuria after the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. But conservative military officers put down the radical officers when they pressed for the end of big business and political parties. On February 26 1936, ultranationalists attempted an insurrection. However, the military cracked down on the ultranationalists. This led to effective military rule of the country. Conservatives try to ride ultranationalists, but their regime is ultimately changed either wholesale as in European fascist states or in Japanese case with the same Constitution but nullification of civilian control. Ultranationalists and Communists were excluded from the Lower House and mainstream political competition. Even though these groups did not support democracy of self-governance in the Meiji Constitution, exclusion of these groups violates which principles of democracy? * [[Leaders with political power should be elected officials to the widest extent possible]] * [[Many political parties with varied interests compete for political power]] * [[Eligible voters should be the widest extent possible represent the people]]

[[Try again->D5Q2Q3]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q2Q4]]

[[Try again->D5Q2Q3]]

In 1925, when political protests grew in scope, the Diet passed the Peace Preservation Law. In 1928, three and a half thousand people were arrested for violations, and this grew to fourteen and a half thousand in 1933. Arrests we aimed not so much as violence but for “organized expressions of revolutionary views”. Freedom of speech, expression, and assembly is covered best under which principle of democracy or self-governance? * [[Individuals with administrative or other power should be elected by the people]] * [[Eligible voters should be the widest extent possible represent the people->ExamQ4.2Incorrect]] * [[There should be a free-flowing avenue for different political groups and free and fair elections]]

Leaders should be elected by the people so that you can seek redress for grievances and hold them accountable. But this does not cover shaping your views in the first place. [[Try again->D5Q2Q4]]

Correct. [[Next question->D5Q2Q5]]

Before talking about how many voters, think foundationally. What about the vote at all? [[Try again->D5Q2Q4]]

Electoral participation expanded from 4.8% (1917) to 19.1% of the total population. 19.1% is hardly most people and women did not have the right to vote. The regime under the Meiji Constitution from 1917-1928 was semi-democratic based on even that extent of voter participation. What’s the best argument for this claim? * [[Political parties were not banned or heavily restricted.->ExamQ5.InCorrect1]] * [[Voters did not espouse only narrow interests of one party or constituency->ExamQ5.Correct]] * [[Voting and political activity was largely peaceful->ExamQ5.Correct2]] * [[Most officials of consequence were determined by elections->ExamQ5.Correct3]]

Some political parties were banned. But this does not address the extent and kind of voters to be a representative sample. [[Try again->D5Q2Q5]]

That's correct. The librarian nods as you walk by encampments, storefronts, fields, and lots. [[This was the view from the bus.]]

No rallies and no violence at the ballot box does not necessarily mean the voters were representative of the country as a whole. [[Try again->D5Q2Q5]]

Which leaders were elected does not tell us the composition of the voters themselves. There could be many leaders elected, but a limited pool of eligible voters. [[Try again->D5Q2Q5]]

You walk by black-clad figures with knives on their belts; guards who didn’t care to check them; sellers of illicit technology; illegal street food vendors; out-of-work construction workers. [[You turn down an alley.]]

You hurdle over trashcans, beds, and broken appliances. The librarian runs ahead. You follow at pace. [[You enter an area]] with lots spaced out apart.

The librarian climbs over a fence. You lift yourself over. The librarian smashes the glass of a patio door, unlocks it, and breaks in. [[You walk over shattered glass.]]

The librarian runs into the basement, opens a trap door, and climbs down a ladder. [[You follow.]]

You climb down for twenty, fifty, a hundred steps. You hit the concrete floor. [[You run towards the librarian in the weak light.]]

The librarian opens a gate. You walk to it, open it, and [[walk down the steep steps.]]

The stone steps are worn out and you lose footing. You slip down the passage. You feel the air rush from an opening. You [[shield your face.]]

You drop five feet. You land on your side on the floor of another tunnel. You pull yourself up. The librarian watches you. And opens a door with a phone. [[You enter.->Freight1]]

The librarian locks it behind you. You hear the lock click shut. [[And wonder why?->Freight2]]

The librarian notices the [[direction of your eyes.->Freight3]]

The librarian walks towards a huge, doorless freight elevator. The librarian activates the elevator with a card. A beacon flashes white. The librarian tells you to go first. [[You walk in.->Freight4]]

The librarian walks in behind you. The freight elevator's gate shuts. The elevator descends [[in a diagonal line.->Freight5]]

“In 1930s Japan, political competition weakened; powerful offices were not accountable to voters; and voters cease to participate in elections that mattered. In this rot, organized violence finished the job and put a few, nay one man, on top and others as subjects,” the librarian said. “This story sounds familiar,” [[you said->Freight6]].

“If they made that connection, we would be in jail or worse.” “Dead in the street.” [[The librarian takes a step towards you.->Freight7]]

“Now you must trust me. We have gone through a lot. You have some cognitive skills. You are more than capable for a role in the movement. Now, pass me your phone and card. I will secure them.” [[You stare down the librarian.->Freight8]]

Without a phone or card, you are an alien to the authorities and so marked as a criminal. [[Do you trust this librarian?->Freight9]]

Did you verify his claim six days ago to join a democracy movement? I mean, how would you? This movement is clandestine after all. Still,[[ do you believe in the librarian?->Freight10]]

But the librarian risked it all to sustain your study. The librarian nursed you when you were impaled and left for dead. [[How could you doubt?->Freight11]]

How was the librarian in that position anyway? He must have [[presented the authorities some scalps for that.->Freight12]]

Would I be another lone dissident to be picked off? Was this all a scam? Or was [[the librarian assessing my capabilities?->Freight13]]

The librarian says, “what is this? You do not trust me? After all we have been through!” “Where are we going?” [[“You will know soon enough.”->Freight14]]

“Where are the others?” “It is just you here.” “So, you led me on [[this pro-democracy movement without any others?”->Freight15]]

“It has been hard to secure this position with guards breathing down my neck.” “Give some evidence! Don’t lead me on a prayer.” “Enough! Solidarity is based on trust. [[Do you believe in other people or not?”->Freight16]]

Should I accept this path to solidarity? [[You trust the librarian. You pass the phone and card over.->TrustPath]] (text-style:"rumble")[OR] [[You do not trust the librarian. You do not pass the phone and card over.->NoTrustPath]]

There is no way back. You are an alien and a criminal. [[The librarian nods.->TP1]]

"No dice," you said. “You never were very good: not //revolutionary// material. But, no matter, [[I’ll feed you to the dogs->NTP2]]," the librarian said.

The librarian rushes you, grapples your neck, and knees your head: one, two, three times. You raise your hands up, grab his fourth knee, and pummel the librarian’s back into [[the cold steel of the moving freight elevator.->NTP3]]

The librarian twists away, kneels, and stands up. “My little freedom fighter let's see what you are made of.” The librarian punches, you sway to your right, and [[land a punch in the rib cage.->NTP4]]

You pull back and dodge three successive punches, but your head is clipped by a flying kick. The librarian grabs your shaken body. The librarian [[throws it against the back of the wall.->NTP5]]

The metal and rock gnaws into your back. You bleed. You scream. You headbutt the librarian. You drop to the floor. You kick the librarian's legs out. [[The librarian falls.->NTP6]]

The librarian grapples you to the ground, but you pin the body down. You slam the librarian’s forehead into the ground, once, twice. [[You stop.->NTP7]]

The librarian falls unconscious, but with a pulse. No need to waste a life. You grab the phone, unlock it with a librarian’s prone finger. You see a notification from a contact: “The boat is into port.” [[The elevator halts.->NTP8]]

The librarian is not moving. You see light coming out through an exit. [[You run through it.->NTP9]]

You are on the bank of the sewer’s entrance to a bay. You see a boat approaching. The captain notices you. Without a word, the captain docks the ship and [[runs after you.->NTP10]]

The safety signal was the librarian, but the librarian wasn’t there. You run down the bank and find an exit into the port. You run from empty shipping container to shipping container, while the captain runs after you. You shake the pursuit, duck into an encampment, and [[hide in an empty bank building.->NTP11]]

You look through the phone some more. You notice messages to many would-be revolutionaries. With the same words of encouragement, the same gestures of solidarity, the same promise of freedom. Some studied Japan as the context, others different nations, different topics. You notice the name of the clerk at the library shop. [[You dial the number.->NTP12]]

“Listen, you know who I am! I think we need to meet.” “Oh, you. How come from this phone. Are you okay?” “That doesn’t matter. It is the librarian. We are being entrapped.” “You get the same treatment as well? I sensed it was too good to be true.” “Meet me at the old bus depot at midnight.” [[“Yes,” the clerk said.->NTP13]]

You enter the dark old bus depot: two tubes of florescent lights flicker above. With your masks on, you make eye contact and nod hello. You show the librarian’s phone and messages as proof. You discuss the materials, the skills you have honed, and realize that it is up to you to change things. From the phone messages, it seemed that the librarian secured passage for you to go to Japan and be a stateless, democracy activist there. [[But why not here, why not now?->NTP14]]

You contact three other contacts that night. You two set up a meeting for [[all five in a month.->NTP15]]

You live from encampment to abandoned building. The guards are out in search for you, but not the librarian: you keep hold of the librarian’s phone even after it was remotely wiped. You meet in a small workshop with [[the five to discuss plans.->NTP16]]

You all live on the edge. You assume borrowed identities and live within the holes of the authorities’ spotty surveillance state. You rescue books, provide secure technology, share food, enjoy company. You hone cognitive, communicative, and practical skills. Like the librarian taught you. [[You build relationships with people around you outside the meetings too.->NTP17]]

As you build your pro-democracy network and a culture of self-determination, you develop a silent, dedicated people that will usurp the rule of the authorities [[when the time is right.->NTP18]]

In that first meeting, you remembered your family, friends, the separation in buses, relocation, reeducation, the beatings, the humiliation, your lack of worth, and the librarian’s ultimate betrayal. You look at those around you and see the path of solidarity before you. But like the samurai of Japan, or revolutionaries of America, you need an oath: [[a //pledge//->NTP19]]

“I say, we pledge to the establishment of democracy once more in this land!” [["Here, Here! We so gladly pledge!" We said with smiles.->NTP20]]

“We will give it our all before then and after. We live in solidarity with humans and the earth we share.” [["We will so live, no other life for us," We say and laugh.->NTP21]]

“We pledge to not to an old order of yesterday, but to a fulsome life as it changes and grows. Do you pledge to a new tomorrow?” "A world of justice and peace is in our hands. We pledge to a new tomorrow." We put a hand on our heart [[and close our eyes.->TheEnd]]

“You are now a nobody. A person without a state. But is that it? Do you pledge allegiance to the establishment of democracy once more in this land?” [[You look at the librarian’s eyes.->TP2]]

They are calm. You close yours. You think back to your family, friends, the separation in buses, relocation, reeducation, the beatings, the humiliation, your lack of worth. [[You say “no” to this downfall of the free state of humanity.->TP3]]

“I do so pledge,” you affirm. [[The elevator continues to move down.->TP4]]

“You will vote in future elections, research and care about your local community, and be in solidarity with humans and the earth we share,” the librarian said. [[You look down.->TP4.5]]

“I do so pledge.” "Welcome," the librarian said. [[You shake hands.->TP6]]

"You are a builder, a craftsman, a technician. We need people like you in the service. You will have passage to Japan through unconventional means. Yes, Japan. You will link with the underground resistance against the Chrysanthemum League.” [[“How could I get to Japan? There is no way!”->TP7]]

“You will see soon enough. Your new mission is to coordinate with the resistance, perfect the language, be fluent in the culture, love the people, and contact us again when the time is right. You are our in-person bridge. You are now in the multi-continent resistance against authoritarianism,” the librarian said. “No place I’ll rather be,” you said. [[The elevator stops.->TP8]]

You walk out, exit, and walk down a corridor that widens into a sewer with passages on either side. Sunlight touches the water. [[The bow of a boat comes toward you.->TP9]]

The librarian runs and you follow. Is this the end? Your heart leaps yet [[trembles with fear.->TP10]]

“Here is a member of the resistance. Another boat will take you across the ocean in a way that evades their surveillance. This will take weeks, but they are brave, dexterous folk and will get you to the western islands in the south where Saint Francis landed all those years ago.” [[“Thank you for guiding me on the way,” you said->TP11]]

“Charting your path from here is your responsibility. Your responsibility there and mine here are the same: to reclaim a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” the librarian said. [[“I do so pledge my sacred honor.”->TP12]]

You shake the librarian’s hand and receive a hug. The librarian walks back without a word into the dark. [[You turn.->TP13]]

You walk towards the captain. You step in the boat at the sewer’s edge. The captain braces your forearm. [[You walk step aboard.->TP14]]

You help rowing the boat around and towards the bay. You skirt around some freighters and fishing ships. A squadron of pelicans lock their wings. They float a foot above the water. [[You look at the captain.->TP15]]

The captain smiles and you let your muscles relax. The captain points to the sails in the distance and says that’s your next ride: [[a sailboat?->TP16]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/don-agnello-sLUwiXCRHJU-unsplash.jpg?resize=768%2C576" width="640" height="480" alt="sunset in the ocean"> The sun sets over the bay. Soon, the red sun will [[rise over a new land.->TheEnd]]

“I do so pledge.” “When this land is ruled by the people, you will not stand cthe denial of your right to vote. You hold elected officials accountable. If the oligarchs, the plutocrats, the patriarchs cling to power, you pry it from their hands,” the librarian said. [[You look up.->TP5]]

Iwakura Mission was an 18-month diplomatic mission by 50 Japanese government officials to Europe and the US. The future first prime minister, Ito Hirobumi, joined. What was his major contribution after he returned to Japan? * [[Established technical schools]] * [[Chief writer of the Meiji Constitution]] * [[Granted subsides and loans for business]]

//Students' focus//: (print: $StudentFocus) //Composition of the student body//: (print: $StudentComposition) //Role of graduates in society//: (print: $Studentsinsociety) [[How you set up education is how you set up democracy.]]

What specific genre does the word shishosetsu refer to? * [[diaries]] * [[haiku poetry]] * [[The Japanese autobiographical novel]] * [[historical fiction]]

Yoshino was a political writer. [[Try again->D5Q1Q3]]

Saigo Takamori was a poet but is most famous outside of Japan as a primary player in the Meiji Restoration. Saigo did not mentor Akutagawa. [[Try again->D5Q1Q3]]

Basho was a poet during the Early Modern Period. [[Try again->D5Q1Q3]]

(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")+(text-size:1)[Day 1 Start] You arrive at the library in the early morning. You show your card to a guard. The guard nods. You enter and find a librarian there. [["I just want to learn more about Japan,"]] you said.

You live a decade after the takeover. You are approached to join the resistance. Over five days, a librarian tests your worth through a review of material. You find out how democracies fail, the principles of democracy or self-governance, and [[why democracy is important anyway.]]

This is material is within the context of recent Japanese history. You can describe Japan's tug-of-war between closed systems and open systems like democratic ones. You will also identify some Japanese writers and how they shaped the culture and [[politics of their nation.]]

But, in the end, do (text-style:"underline")[you] care about democracy? This is your chance to find out. [[Begin Day 1]] [[Jump to another Day->Chronicle]]

The librarian types and then looks at you. “Hmm…there is a lot to learn. Why?” The librarian said. “I am on furlough. This is a safe way to spend my time. I dream of a visit someday,” you said. “Not possible." “Books are my getaway for now,” you said. “History is on the 4th floor and Literature is on the 5th,” the librarian said. “How to get started?” “Start with history for context. Then, what they call //pure literature//. Return for more guidance.” [[The librarian pulls up some books on the computer and writes down the references.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Elevator.jpg?w=640" width="640" height="480" alt="inside an elevator"> [[You take a breath.]]

You had returned to your room. It is long past midnight. The authorities savagely put down internal threats, but their tactics were no match for the menace of the Black Ships. [[How could a nation transform to protect their way of life?]]

<img src="https://i1.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/780px-Todaiji-Daibutsuden-1999.jpg?resize=768%2C591" width="640" height="480" alt="large two-story pagoda"> Emperor Shomu, a devout Buddhist, funded the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) and its Grand Hall (Daibutsuden-above). Stories have it that a major Shinto shrine supported the effort for the welfare of the people. For hundreds of years, Buddhism and Shinto traditions were mixed and formed a way of life. [[Sei Shoganon]] writes about this life in her account of the court completed in 1002 during the Heian Period (794-1185). In the 1930s, these places of worship were strictly separated. [[You close your notebook.]]

Sei Shonagon (966-1025) was the gentlewoman and attendant to the Empress Teishi in the Heian (Kyoto) court. She has been overshadowed by the fellow gentlewoman and rival, Murasaki Shikibu, who served the successive Empress. Murasaki wrote what is acclaimed as the first novel, //The Tale of Genji//, and is admired for [[her melancholic style.]]

Critics praise Murasaki’s work and other Heian woman writers who express //mono no aware//, an aesthetic sensibility in which one responds to phenomena knowing they won’t last. While Sei Shonagon’s work is not devoid of that other traditional Japanese aesthetic, her experimental memoir //The Pillow Book// astounds in its spontaneity, its psychological clarity, and lack of plot. //The Pillow Book// is more valuable as a harbinger for modern and contemporary work in its colloquial tone, its appearance of a lack of artifice, and its sincere invitation to experience this other, strange, world, [[a courtly life more than a thousand years ago.]]

Back in the 990s, there was the following distinction: men typically wrote for the historical record and traditional courtly poetry in Chinese ideograms; women wrote romantic tales and diary (//nikki//) as a psychological record of experience. While many women in the court knew how to write in Chinese ideograms, the so-called “women’s writing” used [[the native Japanese hiragana syllabary.]]

Instead of that grand narrative, Sei Shonagon’s concern is with the //okashi//, the startling, delightful, odd, lovely, and curious. Okashi is used to express wonder at what one encounters in the everyday. While using the romance, the boredom, the charm, and refinement of her position and the court as material, Sei Shonagon’s spontaneous use of allusion, darting from subject to subject, and keen senses, want us to view the marvels of her life in the light of a present encounter [[without a trailing recognition of its end.]]

Like many Japanese works, The Pillow Book has no plot. It belongs to the genre of zuihitsu, or random jottings, and is a mix of asides, diary entries, extended accounts, short stories, and essays. Furthermore, The Pillow Book deliberately excludes important information that could be used to construct a cohesive plot. A plot may have lost this book’s charm and shifting tone (from the petty to the ecumenical). But the power plays around the wife of the emperor by factions of the all-powerful Fujiwara clan and the fallout in terms of the individual lives (Empress Teishi and Sei Shonagon herself) would have made [[for high drama.]]

In one story...a careless attendant for the emperor’s cat tried to scare the cat from basking vulgarly in the sun by yelling at the cat and calling along the dog to scare the cat inside. The cat ran away terrified. The emperor found out and banished the dog to Dog Island and guards drove the poor animal out. They all heard howling throughout the night and thought they had found the dog dead. But then the next day, Sei Shonagon found the emperor’s dog who was alive and in court. The dog responded to her recognition with a bow and recalcitrant weeping. The emperor duly pardoned the dog and all was well after. The point of wonder at the end, and to which the story was leading, was: [[do dogs cry when shown such sympathy?]]

Sei Shonagon’s observational style appears in slice-of-life television shows, diaries, memoirs, and journalism. In favoring the personal and direct experience conveyed in the art of sincerity, she is not only like the writers of pure autobiographical literature, but like many Japanese authors and readers.

In the long run, Japanese literature has favored the “feminine” personal, colloquial, and pleasing rather the “masculine” detailed, erudite, and artificial. It appears that in //The Pillow Book//, there was an attempt to make a romantic tale like //Genji//, but the author abandoned it. Like the twentieth century literary critics defending the shishosetsu (Japanese autobiographical fiction) as a sincere account of lived experience and attacking foreign novels as artificial constructions, Sei Shonagon favored an account of life and letting the reader enter that [[world through her words.]]

You walk to the elevator. You go to the 5th floor and find the book on Japanese literature. You open the book, read, and [[take notes.]]

You shake your head. It wasn’t like this before. Children walk through the flickering streetlights. Before the anti-governmental forces took over the government, it wasn’t like this. [[But would they believe me?]]

Maybe, the individual who confesses and unburdens can face the world. But isn’t the process to get there still in the world? That process still requires people! [[You shake your head and wonder.]]

Your contacts are spread out in the region, but you have all learned to communicate in intricate, semi-private threads based on approved pop cultural references and personal history before the takeover. You think how much different is this from messages in an old imperial court? If the authorities could tease out the content, they still couldn’t infer what we meant. [[You look at your reflection in the mirror]] when the bus stops.

You get off the bus, and enter the building. You ignore yelling across the hall and the pangs in your stomach and fall into the twin foam mat. Tomorrow you study Soseki and how Japan privileged the individual and their country to the exclusion of everyone else. [[And whether that makes sense.->Day 3 Start]]

You get hit with eggs. A poncho-clan man runs up to you. [[And searches your pockets.]]

You turn and hit him with your elbow. You get up. He tosses your wallet back. “Just the card: that's it,” you said. [[“That’s unfortunate,” he said.]]

You arrive. You throw the bike near the entrance fountain, throw off your shirt, and wash it there. You ring it and lay it out in the rising sun. You rest your back on the concrete slab and look at the gray clouds. What did Japan want to preserve so badly? [[Their way of life, their sense of self, no doubt.]]

Guards unlock the chain fence. The librarian unlocks the main door. [[The guards stand at their places.]]

You walk forward. You avoid their visors. You walk up to the 4th floor, gather books, [[and begin.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/761px-Iwakura_mission.jpg?w=761" width="610" height="480" alt="Iwakura mission"> //From left to right, Kido Takayoshi, Yamaguchi Masuka, Iwakura Tomomi, Itō Hirobumi, Ōkubo Toshimichi in San Francisco, 1872.// Here are some results of the Iwakura Mission: * Kido Takayoshi (1833-77) ** Advocated the gradual establishment of a constitutional government * Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) ** Chief writer of the Meiji Constitution with sovereignty in the monarch * Okubo Toshimichi (1830-78) ** Favored well-run, stable state over individual rights, established technical schools, loans for business, government funded factories Japan then established itself as [[a military power in 1905.]]

However, after building the trans-Siberian railway, Russia plotted to control Manchuria and Korea. When Japanese soldiers assassinated the Korean queen without knowledge of the high command in Tokyo, Koreans turned not to China, but to Russia, who obliged. This precipitated the Russo-Japanese War (1905) in which two hundred thousand Japanese and three hundred thousand Russian either dead or wounded. Japan’s powerful navy broke a siege of the Russian mainland fort of Port Arthur, which led to victory in central Manchuria. Japan then annexed Korea in 1910. Victory over a major Colonial Power established Japan as [[a military power on the world stage]]

When the novel leaves the young narrator and reads from the letter, this novel kicks it to another level. Soseki had conceived of this letter as the whole novel. The central relationship of the novel is merely a framing device for this letter that reads like a Japanese autobiographical novel with its sincerity, unburdening of guilt (emptying of self), and a clue into the life of the author (emotional disclosure). A Western novel with a Japanese center. [[Yes: Soseki himself.]]

The friend represented the values of the old world: work, religion, and discipline. Sensei’s breach of trust is symbolic of Sensei, Soseki, and Meiji Japan attempting to live in two worlds, but ultimately denying the old. But, like Sensei, denying the old, yields to [[an end of psychic wholeness, paralysis, and death.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/smalllibrarycorridor.jpg?w=640" width="640" height="480" alt="Hallway with open doors and graffiti on walls"> A plank of wood slams on the floor. You walk by ripped spines, shredded pages, glass shards, disemboweled electronics, cracked screens, broken chairs, crushed tables, dissembled stacks, and smashed lights. Books lay open or closed. [[You flick the switch.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Yukichi_Fukuzawa_1891.jpg?w=585" width="554" height="717" alt="Fukuzawa Yukichi"> The book was in Japanese. Unlike the works of the old Presidents, these thugs [[would think this guy in samurai clothing was one of them.]]

Soseki saw the dangers and resigned to fatalism. Fukuzawa showed a way forward. [[Was there one still available to us now?]]

//An individual’s education is not different from the education of the state. Education is the caretaking of the youth. A country’s education is to instill willpower, things of concern to be fixed with the perspectives of all over the world, and guide youth forward on the path of progress…. This country’s condition is such that because of the foreigners, we must control the inside and like the public so configured, we must firm up. In firmness and in truth we impart our teaching such that at the least this teaching is a gate to the outside world and the people’s character will shine and glisten like a butterfly. This, such, tutelage, of the state must not be hindered… With this education, the principle of what is true and just for humans as a whole will not be infringed. When this is imparted to the children of the country, it is this teaching that will lead the country onto the path of peace. This may not be measured or considered as an improvement initially, but habits will be built up. As people grow older with these habits, people become one society and take on the responsibilities of others as a part of their natural activity, society binds and instantiates [[a spirited individual to be of great, inevitable influence….]] //

The first guard raises his rifle and hits you across the face. Your head falls. A broken tooth falls on the floor. You spit blood and [[keep your head down.]]

“Good. You know your place. Just use a little force and they fall in line.” “Why are you here?” The third guard said in a calm register. How did you get here with these screw-ups? How’d they get unlimited liability and rifles [[in service of the state?]]

You wash your face and brush your teeth. The humming noise goes louder. You run back to your room. [[And open the door.]]

The humming stops. And the doorlight shines red. It will remain this way until your level increases. You are [[under effective lockdown orders.]]

The nerve pain releases through your legs. You were put in this position, but you sure as hell won’t lie down and accept it. You close your eyes and do not imagine somewhere else. You imagine [[what it means to be here right now.]]

You throw off your blanket. Could you play a role and escape? Would they ever let you go if they knew you conspired against them? You really trust your boss with not [[escorting you to a guard station?]]

You have no time to waste. You must finish this before ten this morning. [[Who knows what the day brings?]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/800px-Allied_battleships_in_Sagami_Bay_28_Aug_1945.jpg?resize=768%2C567" width="640" height="480" alt="US warships nearing Japan"> Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces on September 2nd, 1945. [[The Black Ships had arrived.]]

<img src="https://i0.wp.com/pledgetoanewtomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Kinkaku_Snow_E4.jpg?resize=768%2C510" width="640" height="480" alt="Temple of the Golden Pavilion"> This was based on a true story and the acolyte’s public act was almost like performance art that expressed the beauty of the destruction of a polished exterior to reveal [[a devouring nothingness.]]

The main character, Watanabe Toru, has just been laid off from a job and his wife and cat have disappeared. He spends much of the beginning of the novel going through daily rituals and walking around his neighborhood in Tokyo. The “wind-up bird” is an almost supernatural entity that “winds up” the day to function is an orderly, productive way. Toru’s journey begins when this regulatory system breaks down. This novel is light on plot but is like his earlier novels in that it is a detective story that connects the narrator-protagonist to a shadow world. Toru ends up meeting characters that enable a connection with this other world, where his wife appears to be trapped and where her brother, a media and political power-player, [[generates his grip on the masses.]]

The officials in the Meiji regime established some channels with the non-Japanese world, but were stymied by their own Constitution, economic and violent shocks to the body politic, and this aggressive assertion of dominance over others. How does Japan establish [[this independent character?]]

You take a bus and get off at the stop closest to the yards. You didn’t bring any food for lunch: you had none. Guards meet your gaze and hold their rifles to their chest. Delivery people load forklifts; workers walk out of the way. The lights of the surveillance cameras pulse amber. [[You nod to the guard.->Day5 End 2]]

The boss appears as you enter: a pause and a smile. “Welcome back. We have been waiting so long for you. I am exceedingly glad that you were granted the authority to work here again.” Who was this? The State did this to daze you. [[You doubt your judgment.->Day5 End3]]

You walk into a surprise birthday party. For you. A poster of you and your favorite fighter hang on the wall. Streamers in your favorite color float in the air. Your favorite cake is waiting for you with your favorite foods. How could this be possible? [[Do they really like me?]]

“Why not leave a little early today?” The boss says and holds your shoulder. “I am ready to begin, sir. What station is free for me to work at? A torch?” “Not yet. Talk to your friends some more and then you can call it quits for the day.” You shake the boss’s hand. You shut your locker, hover over your teammates, and [[walk out as they wave.]]

You leave from a different door. Where is the bus stop again? You stumble on a different factory floor. You walk through and cross to the main road. [[You notice two guards shove a man against a brick wall.]]

With fear and reassurance, they wanted you to forget that an alternate existence was possible. Their mental games of poison and positivity shatter in a moment—a bullet, an accident, and assault in an alley with brain damage and death in jail. [[Such oppression lets you know that you are worthless.]]

But what are they? What are they worth? They need the validation of power and things. Who created this monster? [[The government should govern with consent of the people.]]

“You are the librarian,” you said. “Glad you noticed. They tried to sway you, didn’t they?” The librarian said. “Didn’t seem all that bad to me: a regular routine, co-workers who care, a fridge full of food.” [[“They cleared your room of all its affects,” the librarian said.]]

“What?” “I am here to warn you. Are you committed to this path? Are you willing to risk it all? Or do you want to plead with the authorities in jail to get reinstated. That’s if you are spared.” “What? No, that can’t be possible,” you said. “Your boss tipped them off. He confirmed you had the materials. You put me in jeopardy, but no mind, [[are you ready to become a dissenter?]]” The librarian said.

(text-style:"bold","italic")[Primary Sources (Artwork, Documents, Photos) ] Akutagawa, R., & Murakami, H. (2009). Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (J. Rubin, Trans.; Translation edition). Penguin Classics. Endo, S. (2016). Silence. Macmillan USA. File:Allied battleships in Sagami Bay 28 Aug 1945.jpg—Wikipedia. (n.d.-a). Retrieved September 23, 2021, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allied_battleships_in_Sagami_Bay_28_Aug_1945.jpg Mishima, Y. (1994). The temple of the golden pavillion. A. A. Knopf. Murakami, H., Rubin, J., Kidd, C., & Beletsky, M. (1997). The wind-up bird chronicle. Alfred A. Knopf. Murakami, H. (2001). Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (A. Birnbaum & P. Gabriel, Trans.; Illustrated edition). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Oe, K., & 大江健三郎. (1974). The Silent Cry. Kodansha International. Oe, K., & Nathan, J. (1969). A personal matter. Grove Press. Rubin, J. (2005). Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (New Ed edition). 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(n.d.). 福沢諭吉教育の目的. 青空文庫. Retrieved October 12, 2021, from https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000296/files/46734_26143.html 萩原朔太郎. (n.d.). 青猫. 青空文庫. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000067/files/1768_18738.html (text-style:"bold","italic")[Secondary Sources (Descriptions, Interpretations) ] About Japan: A Teacher’s Resource | Akutagawa Ryunosuke and the Taisho Modernists | Japan Society. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2021, from https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/akutagwa Asia for Educators. (n.d.). Retrieved August 21, 2021, from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/tps/1750_jp.htm Asian Topics on Asia for Educators || Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2021, from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/basho/bnr01.html Crossley-Baxter, L. (n.d.). Japan’s unusual way to view the world. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181021-japans-unusual-way-to-view-the-world Dower, J. W. (2000). 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The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/23/national/history/the-barbarians-were-coming-like-it-or-not/ Holmberg, R., & Holmberg, R. (2011, January 4). Know Your Enemy. ARTnews.Com. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/linda-hoaglund-62873/ Iwakura Mission. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iwakura_Mission&oldid=1036466792 Jaggi, M. (2005, February 5). In the forest of the soul. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview9 Kenzaburō Ōe. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenzabur%C5%8D_%C5%8Ce&oldid=1035364190 Kinkaku-ji. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kinkaku-ji&oldid=1044254493 List of National Treasures of Japan. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_National_Treasures_of_Japan_(writings:_Japanese_books)&oldid=1048233862 Mason, R. H. P., & Caiger, J. G. (1997). A History of Japan: Revised Edition. Tuttle Publishing. McCormick, B. (2007). When the Medium Is the Message: The Ideological Role of Yoshino Sakuzô’s “Minponshugi” in Mobilising the Japanese Public. European Journal of East Asian Studies, 6(2), 185–215. MIT Visualizing Cultures. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2020, from https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/black_ships_and_samurai/bss_essay01.html Mukden Incident | Summary. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 5, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Mukden-Incident Naoya Shiga. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naoya_Shiga&oldid=1041152262 Nathan, J. (2000). Mishima: A Biography (Subsequent edition). Da Capo Press. Pillow Book | History, Translation, and Facts. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved October 17, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pillow-Book Rubin, J. (2005). Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (New Ed edition). Vintage UK. Taishō. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taish%C5%8D&oldid=1044176064 Takenaka, H. (2014). Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan: Breakdown of a Hybrid Regime (1st edition). Stanford University Press. Tanaka, H. (1994). MODERN JAPAN AND WESTERN DEMOCRACY: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM. Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, 26(2), 55–61. Tsukimura, R. (1976). Hagiwara Sakutarō and the Japanese Lyric Tradition. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, 11(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/489177 Yoshino Sakuzō—Britannica Academic. (n.d.). Retrieved August 17, 2021, from https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Yoshino-Sakuz%C5%8D/78044 (text-style:"bold","italic")[Dedicated to] (text-style:"fade-in-out")[//Supporters of democracy and its way of life: past, present, and future.//]

(text-style:"bold","emboss")[Chronicle] [[Day 1: Establish Contact->Begin Day 1]] [[Day 2: Gather Intelligence->Day2 Start]] [[Day 3: Confront the Enemy->Day 3 Start]] [[Day 4: Withstand Calamity->You wake up on the fourth day.]] [[Day 5: Pledge Allegiance->what it means to be here right now.]]