2024-09-19

Kokichi SHOJI, Sharing a Historical Perspective among EA Peoples --- For a Global Sociology from the Post- Western Standpoint of East Asian Nations ---

 

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 Japans 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 Masters thesis, I explored the idea that Japanese Marxists had analyzed the development of Japans 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 Japans 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 Japans contemporary society, using analyses of Japans 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 Wallersteins 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 Japans 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    Japans 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 Zedongs 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 Chinas 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 Chinas 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 Unions 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 peoples 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 Sartres 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 Schutzs 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 Wallersteins 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 Jinpings administration, following those of Jiang Zemins and Hu Jintaos ones, has come to take pride of Chinas 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 Peoples 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 Chinas View. Gaining its Independence by Gandhis Leadership, India Has Been Making Economic Growth on Its Own Basis and, Taking Advantages of Its Peoples 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 Chinas view now is India.

u    Gaining its independence from Great Britain through Gandhis non-violent resistance that revitalized Indian traditional thinking, this nation has been growing as a super-power governed by Bharatiya Janata (Indian Peoples) 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 Japans 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 Japans 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 Japans 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 Japans 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 Chinas 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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