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4 Greener Pastures: The New Village Ideal and May Fourth Intellectuals The attraction of May Fourth writers toward the White Birch School was not confined to the school’s literary or artistic achievements. Those writers among the school’s members who were favored by May Fourth intellectuals were those who were perceived to be men of action, those who put into practice the ideals of the school. No manifestation of Shirakaba idealism had a more immediate and dramatic appeal than the New Village commune. The New Village (Atarashiki mura) was, in the context of Taishō period Japan (1912–1926), a unique experiment in communal living. As a manifestation of humanist and egalitarian ideals it appealed not only to a number of Japanese artists and intellectuals of the period, but also to members of the Chinese intellectual community who saw in the New Village Movement not only an achieved example of aesthetic, communal living but also an example of socialism in practice that could be transferred to a May Fourth era China in the throes of violent political and social change. The New Village Movement, which was initiated in 1917 and realized in 1918, was the brainchild of Mushanokōji. Mushanokōji, while not a neglected figure in Japanese studies in the West, has certainly not received scholarly attention commensurate to the magnitude of his importance in the Taishō and early Shōwa intellectual and artistic scene. Moreover, very few of his works have been translated into English, and yet few cultural figures in Japan of the prewar period were as influential as Mushanokōji. Considering the substantial number of Chinese intellectuals of the May Fourth Era who had spent their formative years in Japan, it is not surprising that they should have become familiar with the idealism of the Shirakaba coterie or that they should have perceived in the New Village ideal an intriguing, albeit small-scale model for the society they hoped to cultivate. The emergence of the New Village experiment coincided with the New Culture Movement in China and with the ascendancy of communism among Chinese intellectuals. For Zhou Zuoren (1885–1964) who introduced the movement in China, the New Village represented the realization of socialist ideals within a clearly defined aesthetic framework. 86 Beyond Brushtalk It should be admitted that while the New Village continues to exist in Japan even today, the movement that gave rise to it never received the attention that its founders initially anticipated, and certainly the scope of its influence in China also ultimately was limited. Nevertheless, the attraction of the New Village to a certain segment of May Fourth intelligentsia was undeniable. The attempt to gauge the influence of the movement in China is especially intriguing because it provides a barometer for the influence of Japanese aesthetic and social theory in the interwar period. The New Village Movement: In the Context of the Social Engagement of the White Birch School The New Village Movement (Atarashiki mura undō) was initiated by the White Birch School but is more properly attributed to the vision of Mushanokōji. Although a number of famous cultural figures emerged from the school such as Shiga Naoya, Arishima Takeo, Yanagi Sōetsu and Satomi Ton, the group’s most impassioned spokesman and arguably its most important figure was Mushanokōji whose views provided direction for the White Birch School in its early years and dictated the course for the school in the years to follow. The enduring image of the White Birch School is that of a cohort of young aristocrats, dilettante and apolitical. While it is true that the group’s members were comparatively aloof to political issues (contrast them for example with writers associated with the Proletarian Movement), there were nevertheless many facets to this complex coterie. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, certain members of the group demonstrated an abiding commitment to social ideals, and the school as a whole worked ceaselessly to transform the cultural life of Taishō period Japan through the dissemination of information about Western art and culture.1 After the school’s initial phase, in which many of the writers had already established a reputation for disengagement from social issues, some of the members began to demonstrate an increasing social engagement. This social consciousness was expressed in a variety of ways. The engagement with social issues itself can be attributed to a variety of factors which included a growing sense of disillusionment on the part of certain members of the school to...

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