Early Meiji Liberalism: An AssessmentMikiso Hane

Excerpt

During the first decade or so of the Meiji period, Western liberalism enjoyed its days of greatest popularity in Japan. The desire to become ‘civilized and enlightened’ (bummei kaika) seemingly permeated the entire society, and everybody appeared to embrace the ideals of ‘freedom and equality’, ‘independence and self-respect’, ‘reason and science’, ‘utility and material well-being’, ‘constitutional government and rights of the people’.

The men who probably contributed most to the popularization of Western liberalism were the writers and educators affiliated with the first intellectual society in Japan, the Meirokusha which was organized in 1873 .2 Among the founding members were Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), the most influential of the Meiji liberals and educators; Nakamura (Keiu) Masanao (1832-91), the translator of Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty; Nishi Amane (1829-94), the ‘father’ of modern Japanese philosophy; Mori Arinori (1847-89), the first minister of education under the cabinet system introduced in 1885; Katō Hiroyuki (1836-1916), the first president of the Imperial University of Tokyo; Tsuda Mamichi (1829-1903), who helped to disseminate knowledge concerning Western political and legal institutions; and Nishimura Shigeki (1828-1902), an influential moral philosopher of the Meiji era.

As writers, educators and government officials, these men wielded a profound influence upon the intellectual community of Meiji Japan and seemingly were on the way to transforming the thinking and way of life of the society completely. Ultimately, however, liberalism failed to take firm root in Meiji Japan. The reasons for this are varied. The single most important factor was perhaps the rise of nationalism and submission of liberalism to it. Since I have already considered this aspect of the fate of liberalism elsewhere, here I would like to consider whether or not there were limitations in the liberalism of the proponents themselves. We might ask: How profound was the propagators’ understanding of Western liberalism? Did they merely regurgitate what they read or heard or were they discriminating in their adoption of Western ideas? How they committed to these ideals? Were there some unsurmountable traditional biases?