Sharing a
Historical Perspective among East Asian
Peoples
--- For a Global
Sociology from the Post- Western
Standpoint of East Asian Nations ---
Kokichi SHOJI
Professor Emeritus, Sociology
University of Tokyo, JAPAN
From Literature
to Sociology: why I chose to learn and study sociology.
u In 1960, when I
entered university, I was going to choose French literature in order to become
a novelist, if I got a chance.
u However,
getting caught up in a political conflict concerning problems related to
whether to extend the Japan-U.S. security treaty or not, I deeply realized that
I should learn more about society.
u I changed my
field to sociology in order to study the fundamentals about society and,
especially, I studied basic things about Japanese Society.
u In my
graduation thesis, stating briefly my recognition of the world at that time, I
discussed fundamentals of human thinking and thought. (Shoji, 2008)
u At that time,
the United States and the Soviet Union were severely opposing each other, while
national liberation movements were advancing so that the future of the world
could be determined by the newly emerging nations of the “third world”.
u I am proud to
have foreseen that the future of the world would be determined by newly
emerging nations.
Analyses of
Japan’s Capitalist Development and Their Critiques by
Japanese Modernists
u In regard to
thinking and thought, I stressed the importance of bases (social grounds),
media (language), subjects (individuals and groups) and their dynamics (social
processes).
u Influenced
considerably by the Marxism of the time, I believed that social settings would
decide our thinking and thought and I thought we might change our society based
on the working classes.
u Based on this,
in my Master’s thesis, I explored the idea that Japanese Marxists
had analyzed the development of Japan’s capitalism,
and I tried to make clear their limits by comparing them with Japanese
modernists, who had argued that Marxist analyses could be modified by analyses
of the bearers and critics of Japan’s capitalism.
u Meanwhile, as
theories of contemporary society such as mass society, industrial society and
others came to us, I also tried to explore the structures and their bearers or
changers of Japan’s contemporary society, using analyses of Japan’s capitalism and
Japanized researches on modernization.
Studies of the
Soviet Union and the East-European Societies and the Emergence of China
u On the other
hand, having been quite sensitive to the developments of socialism centered on
the Soviet Union, I learned languages and social theories of the Soviet Union
and East-European societies and actually visited and observed them under the
guidance of my forerunners.
u During those
years, China also entered its stage of converging fluctuations after the
revolution, and in 1974 Deng Xiaoping appeared in the United Nations General
Assembly, where he stated that the world consisted of three sub-worlds and that
China would be the head of the third world.
u From 1975 to
1977, I studied in the United States.
u The United
States was in a mood of stagnation, but there Imanuel Wallerstein’s theory of the “modern world
system” was being developed.
u Sorting out and
organizing theories of contemporary society in order to position them in the
context of capitalist analyses and Japanese theories of modernization, I found
that on the basis of Japan’s post-war capitalist development a pre-matured mass
society was blooming and making the industrial society mature in its own way to
become a knowledge society and a somewhat over-managed society.
u Japan’s society seemed
to be entering a stage of becoming an information society in a post-industrial
society, although it was limited in technological development by its military
alignment with the United States.
More Serious
Problems in the Wider World. China Began to Develop with the “Reform and
Opening” Policy and Made Us Study More.
u However, there
were more serious problems in the wider world.
u China, after
Mao Zedong’s death, passed through a period of confusions, and it
began to manifest the policy of “Reform and Opening” and it
initiated economic growth by loosening its socialist regulations.
u In 1979, when I
first visited China as a member of a group of Japanese sociologists, major
cities like Shanghai, Wuhan, Beijing, and others still showed vestiges
remaining from before the revolution.
u However, sensing the possibilities of rapid
development, I realized I would have to study the Chinese language more in
order to prepare for its further development.
u At the center
of my thinking was China’s intention to become the head of the Third World
(Shoji, 1980).
u Then, in
speeding up its movements for Reform and Opening and stimulating demands for
democratization, China witnessed the Movements of Tiananmen in 1989.
u This incident
decided China’s direction, with the breaking up of its
democratization movements in order to strengthen its motives and policies for
economic growth.
In the Soviet
Union, Gorbachev Advanced Perestroika, Ended the Cold War, but the Inner
Reforms Failed to the End of the System.
u Meanwhile, in
the Soviet Union, Gorbachev took the position of General Secretary and advanced
the policies of Perestroika.
u Changing the
Soviet Union’s hostile attitudes toward the U.S., he ended the
American and Soviet Cold War in 1989.
u Adopting
policies to respect the autonomy of East-European nations, he prompted them to
change their autocratic systems for democratization.
u However, as
reforms and democratization of the Soviet internal systems were put aside while
he hurried to develop foreign policies, he could not make inner and neighboring
nations remain patient and he caused the Soviet Union system itself to collapse
drastically.
u This urged me
to reconsider my perspective for social development (Shoji, 1989a).
u I thought that
the world, being forced to become a sort
of world society after the American-Soviet cold war, had become too confused
about democratization on the Soviet side, while American, European and Japanese
societies had become troubled by confusions regarding information and
management controls (Shoji, 1989b).
u Social
movements also seemed to become confused and were forced to change to accept
various new forms of theories and practices toward human renaissance, in a
change from old styles and statements of varieties of class struggles (Shoji,
1989c).
Important
Changes in Sociology. Structuralism came to prevail globally and Existentialism
Was Severely Criticized.
u During these
years, some important changes happened in sociology.
u One of them was
that the theories of structuralism came to prevail globally.
u Claude
Levi-Strauss revealed, through his participatory observations in indigenous
people’s village life in South America, that human societies
had begun to exhibit structures such as differentiation and stratification of
kinships as soon as they had begun using languages, and that this had preceded
their civilization.
u In other words,
societies became structuralized before they were civilized.
u From this
perspective, Levi-Strauss criticized
Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism for having presupposed that human
existence was based on individuals who could decide the forms and structures of
their society by their selections.
u Sartre then
reformed his existentialism by accepting Marxism, while Levi-Strauss insisted
that social structures are decided before modes of production determine them.
u Accepting
structuralism, scholars such as Michel Foucault began to theorize that
exercises of power could be performed through manipulation of discourses so as
to rule or change societies.
u In this
situation, so-called post-structuralism appeared.
Parsons’ Theory was
Criticized and Based on Phenomenology Luhmann proposed that a Society is a
System of Communications of Communication.
u Second, Talcott Parsons built a sociological theory
based on the idea that human actions are elements of society and by considering
that a society becomes a system through its repetitions of institutionalization
in terms of orientations in actions.
u However, reconsidering this theory as being
phenomenologically inadequate, Niklas Luhmann proposed that a society is a
system of communications of communication, based on the accumulation of
theoretical and practical trials that had been made since Alfred Schutz’s problem
raising.
u Since then, sociological theory has become considered
along these lines.
Society as
Communication of Communication Is Intrinsically Dynamic and It Fluctuates to
Yield Structures and Vice Versa.
u This thinking argues that our contemporary society is
itself a system of continuing communication which repeatedly creates and
refreshes institutions according to motivational and value orientations that
are interchanged through communication.
u Our social system is intrinsically dynamic in this
sense.
u As we expect our intentions each other in our
communications, our society is repeatedly systematized and continued through
the expectations of these expectations.
u Along this line, the essence of society has not
changed since homo sapiens began to use language, and our society has been
continuing to exist as the communication of communication since then.
u Universal fluctuations continuously yield universal
structures and vice versa.
u Therefore, our society seems to be solid, but also
mobile, and vice versa.
We Can
Understand the History Since the Civilization. From Struggles of Empires, the
Great Voyages Appeared to Begin to Build the “Modern World
System”
u Based on this
basic idea that societies change from structures to fluctuations and vice
versa, we can basically understand the history of our societies since they were
civilized.
u I will skip
giving a discussion of major societal stages that occur after the advent of
language use, such as spatial and temporal organization of society, initiation
of agriculture, recreation of natural shapes, invention of letters and so on.
u After the
advent of civilization, kingdoms were created one after another based on
agriculture and civilization, and from the struggles between them some empires
appeared to include as many as kingdoms, but even the strongest of empires were
forced to stay in specific regions because of the limits of their productive
forces.
u Some kingdoms,
that emerged from the European empires which were weakest in the world, began
great voyages by supporting citizen adventurers, following the belief in the
heliocentric theory, and they found not only the American continents but
reached and completely licked the Asian seashores, so that they began to build
the “modern world
system,” to use Emanuel Wallerstein’s wording.
This System was
hegemonized by Portugal and Spain, the Netherland, Great Britain and the United
States. The United States Crushed German and Japanese Trials for Hegemony and
Finally Grasped It After the Soviet Collapse.
u This system,
consisting of world capitalism and relations of nation states, was ruled by
Portugal and Spain which gained the first hegemony, was overtaken by the
Netherlands and then by Great Britain, and finally gave rise to the United
States as the fourth hegemony, through disseminating the industrial revolution
all over the world.
u The United
States, in crushing German and Japanese trials to usurp the hegemony in WWII,
confronted the Soviet Union that had become another superpower after this war.
u The Soviet
Union, using socialism as its language of structural formation, had the
strength to challenge the United States, which had been taking the leadership
of capitalism, and the former threatened the latter for a while even with the
support of intellectuals and the youth in capitalist countries.
u However, as we
have seen, the Soviet Union collapsed.
China Succeeded
Economic Growth and Became an Urban Society. It Set Another Model of World
System as “One Belt, One Road” over the
Eurasian Continent and Has Been Trying to Build It On the Basis of Its Own
History.
u Alongside the
collapsing Soviet Union, China preserved its Reform and Open policies to
succeed in economic growth. It overcame Japan in GDP. It increased its urban
population over its rural one and it became the second supernation to confront
the United States.
u Xi Jinping’s
administration, following those of Jiang Zemin’s and Hu Jintao’s ones, has come
to take pride of China’s history and has begun to turn the world system away,
from the European and American one that has been developed from the Atlantic to
the Pacific Oceans, to another Eurasian one called “One Belt, One
Road,” which extends along the continental and marine silk
roads.
u Originally,
China meant the “Center Country” of the world.
u We must
recognize that this huge nation of 1.4 billion people has overcome temporary
confusions caused by attacks of the modern world system, has rebuilt itself
through Xinhai and the People’s Revolution, and has begun to stand with an air of
composure on its own history of more than three thousand years.
Instead of
Russia, India Is Now Obstructing China’s View. Gaining
its Independence by Gandhi’s Leadership, India Has Been Making Economic Growth on
Its Own Basis and, Taking Advantages of Its People’s Variety, Has
Been Trying to Lead the Global South.
u Compared with
this, Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has now been losing even
the status of a superpower, although clinging to the nuclear arms it has
accumulated, and especially it has been losing its socialist ideas.
u Obstructing
China’s view now is India.
u Gaining its
independence from Great Britain through Gandhi’s non-violent
resistance that revitalized Indian traditional thinking, this nation has been
growing as a super-power governed by Bharatiya Janata (Indian People’s) Party, based
on its economic growth that began to flourish from the sprouts it had prepared
during its confrontation with the U.S. and the Soviet Union, following
non-alinement policy.
u In population
too, India has overtaken China, reaching more than 1.45 billion.
u It is also
harboring more possibilities for development, due to historical and
contemporary racial and ethnic varieties, compared with China which is
overwhelmingly homogeneous.
u It has become
plausible to accept the claim made by Narendra Modi, the present prime
minister, that India is now heading the Global South.
What Should
Japan Do in this Situation? After Chinese, I also Tried to Learn Korean. I
Immediately Fell in Love with These Languages, but I can Read Them
staggeringly.
u
What should
Japan do in this situation in which rising China and India are urging the
Modern World System to change?
u
After learning
Chinese, I have learned the Korean language.
u
I immediately
fell in love with Hangul letters, which can clearly express all sounds with
vowels and consonants in squares, but I can read sentences only staggeringly.
u
I keenly sense
that languages are the bases of societies, which are communications of
communication.
u
As all the
people on the planet have come to use smartphones, we have only to continue
trials to be able to do simultaneous interpretations between all kinds of
languages by means of our smartphones.
u
We all have to
strive toward a final stage in which we are living in a human society.
u
I shall
communicate in English if possible, while learning Chinese and Korean.
u
What then
shall we communicate and discuss?
First of All, I
Apologize for Japan’s Invasion and Damaging of Korean, Chinese and
Southeast Asian Nations and Only on the Basis of this Apology I Try to Be Proud
of Our Constitution.
First of all, I think I have to apologize
from my deepest heart as a member of the Japanese nation, for the fact that we
Japanese, in order to take away the hegemony of the Modern World System from
East Asia, invaded and seriously damaged the peoples of Taiwan, of the Korean
Peninsula, of the northeast of China, then of its whole country and more of
South East Asian countries.
Even after the War, while taking chances
to recover and expand economic growth according to the “Special Demands” generated by
the Korean War, Japan contributed only very insufficiently to the recovery and
development of the Korean, Chinese and Southeast Asian nations.
And yet, while apologizing for this very
deeply, I wish to take proud in the fact that Japan established a new
constitution that declared no war in international conflicts, based on our
experiences in remembering that we had been occupied in Okinawa, that we had
been thoroughly bombed in almost all parts of the mainland and that we had been
atomic-bombed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the first time in human history,
resulting in enormous numbers of victims.
Keeping the
Pacifist Constitution, Japan should Make the U.S. Recognize
Japan’s Pacifist Policies about East Asian Problems and
Clean Energies in order to Create the East Asian Core.
u As the U.S. and
the Soviet Union were dragged into the Cold War, Japan was pulled into a
military alliance with the U.S. and it has been re-armed to antagonize the
Korean Peninsula and China.
u I believe this alignment should be abolished as soon
as possible.
u Japan should
make the U.S. recognize the Japanese pacifist constitution stating that we are
a non-nuclear armed, not only a non-armed nation, in order to contribute to the
peaceful reunion of the Korean Peninsula and the peaceful resolution of the
Taiwan problem.
u In terms of
energy problems, as Japan introduced nuclear power plants and was seriously
damaged by the accident caused by an earthquake, we should turn to natural
energies such as solar, wind and geothermal powers as much and as soon as
possible.
u Only on the
basis of pacifist non-nuclearization, can Japan contribute to the peaceful
unification of the Korean Peninsula, the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan
problem and even the remaking of the world system from an East Asian peoples’ position.
u It would be
most post-western, as well as most post-modern, to make the core of a pacifist
non-nuclear zone in East Asia and expand it all over the world.
Repetitively
Reflecting on Japan’s Hegemony Pursuing Invasion, Japan Shall Try to Find
a New Way of Building Civilization by Making Use of Chinese and Phonetic
Letters.
u By
repetitively reflecting on the history of Japan’s
hegemony-pursuing invasion of East Asian countries, Japanese people shall try
to share a historical consciousness, especially with the peoples of the Korean
Peninsula and China, in order to contribute to world peace.
u We shall talk
to each other in usable languages while learning our neighbors’ languages and
trying to realize simultaneous translation systems as early as possible.
u As seen
already, social structures were created through language uses and developed
through infinite continuity and connections of communication.
u Social
structures are radically changed by the expansion of language uses and by the
deepening of mutual understanding through them.
u Societies,
which started to have structures through language usage, were civilized with
uses of letters, that is to say the visualization of languages, and China, the
Korean Peninsula and Japan have been building their civilizations with Chinese
letters, which are ideograms invented in ancient China.
u China, the
Korean Peninsula and Japan shall inquire into variable usages of these
ideograms in considering the uses of phonetic letters and phonetic uses of
Chinese letters.
While the Fourth
Stage of the Modern World System Is Ending, Chinese and Indian Post-modernism
Shall Develop Transcendental Views
Regarding the Body and Cosmos.
u
The fourth stage
of the Modern World System, hegemonized by the United States of America, is now
coming to an end.
u
Seeing this, China has been trying to build a
new world system based on Chinese types of communication, developed since the
Hundred Schools of Thought during China’s Spring and
Autumn period and its Warring States period.
u
While Confucians have been trying to
encourage order in societies ranging in size from near bodies to large
organizations by repeating their “The Master says” principles,
communication, which has been accumulated by Taoism and Buddhism in China
according to sayings such as “Color is empty, Empty is color”, has come to
transcend our physical cosmos, extending from the Big Bang to Black Holes.
u
Investigations of discourses, which have been
conducted since before the Revolution, shall be continued as a part of the
scrutiny of the Modern World System by means of the accumulations of
communication.
u
As India continues to obtain powers so as to
expand the bodily thinking and empty consciousness developed in Buddhism and
Jainism, Chinese communication will be expanded all over the world.
u
As
modernism, developed in Europe and the U.S., develops more over
post-structuralism and phenomenological structuralism, Chinese and Indian
post-modernism shall develop transcendental views regarding the body and
cosmos.
u
This will create a post-western society that
is over the post-modern.
While New
Fascisms Are Spreading in the U.S. and Europe, China and India will Deal With
Them Calmly and Show Their Own Views of Society and Nature.
u
Right now, in
the U.S. and Europe, “America first”-ism or the other “own country first”-isms have been developing because more and more
people feel their hegemony of supremacy has been attacked.
u
These trends
have been opening new fascisms of the 21st century, which may propel the world
into confusions, but China and India will deal with them calmly.
u
While we do
not know to what extent our planet will endure human-made disruption, China and
India shall calmly deal with this problem with their own view of nature.
u
In this sense,
post-western is post-western.
u
Although Japan
has tried and failed to seize the hegemony of the Modern World system from East
Asia by evading the colonization done by Europe and the U.S. and by building
its own base of modernization, it has not yet realized either a post-modern or
a post-western system that actually transcends the European and American Modern
World System.
Japan Shall Be
More Independent from the U.S. in order to Make an East Asian Core of a New
World System Based on Sharing Historical Consciousness among East Asian
Peoples.
u
The first thing
Japan must now do is to get out from its subordination to the U.S. and to face
the Korean Peninsula and China with its own autonomy.
u In that sense,
too, Japan has to think about creating a new post-Western world system from an
East-Asian standpoint, on the basis of its self-awakening of constitutional
pacifism.
u Japan is going
to open a way toward a new government with a vision of peace, natural energy,
effective use of AI and mutual understanding among East Asian nations, instead
of by continuing its reliance on government by the Liberal Democratic and Komei
parties.
u Japan Shall
Try to Make an East Asian Core of a New World System with the Korean Peninsula
and China by Its Constitutional Pacifism that Is Based on Its Severe Reflection
on the History of Invasion and Insufficient Contribution to the Area.
===
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Discussion: Chongkoo LEE
It is my honor to have a chance to participate in this conference and to act as a commentator about the academic essays delivered by professor Shoji Kokichi, professor Chung Il-Joon, professor Shin Kwang-yeong. I also pay respects to moderator professor Yang Jong-Hoe and to discussant professor Wang Chunguang. The topic of this session, “Postmodern and Post-Western East Asia”, may arouse many interesting and stimulating discussions concerned with the efforts towards shaping of post-western sociology. But time is limited and, to my regret, I cannot help but to restrict my comments about these essays, only to express impression and raise some questions.
Professor Shoji reviewed the process of global social change and path of personal academic interest since 1960s, so as to suggest the task of Japan to reconcile with the neighbors authentically and to make the core of a pacifist non-nuclear zone in East Asia, which will be expanded globally. Also, he emphasized the common cultural background shared by Japan, China and Korea on the basis of Chinese letters. Facing the age of declining American hegemony, he suggests the creation of post-western world system from an East-Asian standpoint. But it is the revitalization of the value system based on peace and democracy established after the end of WWII that is needed for Japan to be more independent from America and to perform the role of East Asian core of a new world system.
I think this perspective presupposes the existence of the group of people provided with historical consciousness and sense of responsibility as a global citizen. In reality, Japanese politics has experienced political apathy of mass and oligarchy of conservative politicians. It is difficult for democratic and progressive political force to propagate influences and persuade ordinary Japanese citizen. In China and South Korea, anti-Japanese opinion inspired by provocative talks of Japanese right wing faction has helped political elites to organize patriotic campaign and mobilize political supporters. So, we have an impression professor Shoji expects sociologists and intellectuals to perform the role of prophets criticizing establishment of power elites and awakening consciousness of mass. In this place, sociologists of China, Japan and Korea would find out the common ground for cooperation in the area of research and sociological intervention to enhance the mutual understanding between people of east Asian region.
Professor Shin has provided a lot of empirical data covering China, Japan and South Korea, so that we can grasp the social conditions, problems and dilemma shared by these countries defined as developmental states. He has pointed out the fact that three countries face social degradation of polarization, pauperization, low birth rate and aging, high suicide rate, poor social policy. In contrast to the preceding conventional researches emphasizing the achievement of economic success, he draws our attention to the risks brought forth by the development and modernization. Also, he has suggested alternative way of thinking and direction of policy measures, so as to realize the possibility of policy co-operations for improving quality of life in this region.
We can discern keen consciousness of problem and sense of social responsibility in this inspiring presentation. In brief, he suggests the co-operation of sociologists transcending border for the realization of sustainable society via sociological intervention. It is the merit of academic exchange and co-operation that can contribute to make better life world despite of the harsh political conditions with increasing debates and disputes in the east Asian region.
In this place, professor Jung has asked us to face reality and emphasized the notion of “recognition” in the sphere of international politics. He has suggested to recognize China and North Korea as independent actors, so as to realize peaceful international order in east Asia. But, in the age of globalization and information technology, social actors other than state such as NGOs emerge and influence even the international relations between states. Thus, sociological inquiry about the “recognition” cannot help but to raise the question of “Who does recognize whom.” In addition, we hope the effects of paradigm shift from Newtonian physics to quantum imaginary in the sphere of philosophy of science upon sociological research would be explained in concrete terms.
In sum, above mentioned three presentations have provided us plenty of inspiration, information and resources useful to shape the post-western sociological perspective,
.
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