Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan (review)

For those concerned with problems relating to “modern” (and, for that matter “postmodern”) Japan, the significance of Overcoming Modernity ¹ is obvious. As a compilation of the collected papers and the report of round-table discussions from a 1942 symposium involving Japan’s leading intellectuals, not only does it serve as a mirror, if sometimes refractive, where one can see the summary consequences of the modernization movement (“civilization and enlightenment”) at that critical moment. It also provides a useful frame of reference to set in context the postwar politico-cultural state of affairs. If Nakae Chōmin’s San suijin keirin mondō (1887)² has functioned as a landmark analysis of contemporary affairs and a prophetic vision of coming times, Overcoming Modernity has similarly stood as another landmark of Japanese modernity that shows what was then thought of, if not in a straightforward manner, as a culmination of the modernization movement and throws into relief the problems of continuities and discontinuities of pre- and postwar Japan. The fact that those who contributed to and participated in Overcoming Modernity were real people while those in Chōmin’s San suijin keirin mondō are fictional personae may perhaps not mean much, but it does matter that those real people were the leading intellectuals of the day and continued to be influential in the postwar period.

Richard Calichman’s translation of the work is therefore most welcome and exciting. The quality of his translation is superb. Particularly noteworthy is his unfailing precision in the troublesome business of writing out the original pronunciation of proper names in Chinese characters. Any student of Japanese language is fully aware of this problem, but almost all native speakers of Japanese are nonchalant about it. The only exception to Calichman’s excellent work I am inclined to take up here is the instance of (Takeuchi) “Ban’uemon” (p. 100), which should perhaps be “Ban’emon.” But Calichman is admirably thorough in this difficult and cumbersome business, and his translation is instructive and useful even for a Japanese reader with a certain command of English and an ordinary sense of the native language. This English volume also boasts a glossary and an index, lacking in the original. The corrigenda I noticed in the text are no more than “technical” items such as “cannot given” (instead of “cannot be given,” p. 208) and “start here” (a note that should have been deleted, p. 219). Calichman’s English version of Overcoming Modernity, as it stands, is without doubt an excellent achievement and will be indispensable reading for any serious student of modern Japan.

The superb translation is preceded by an informative and succinct preface and a long and substantial introduction. The preface duly provides the reader with the historical circumstances under which the round-table discussions were convened and held, the schools and factions of the members, and the brief reception of the work after the war. In the beginning of the preface, however, is a politically charged paragraph, drawing our attention to the parliamentary approval in 2006 of “the passage of two highly controversial laws,” which Calichman says “critics have rightly condemned” as “signaling the beginning of a return to the militarism and ultranationalism of the 1930s” (p. vii). As a lead-in or a rhetorical device to catch the reader’s interest, it may be a good idea to make reference to a recent political event. But when it comes to taking a definitive position in such a highly political controversy, and in the preface to what is assumed to be a translation, I cannot but have some doubts and reservations. The initial impression is strong that the study and reading of Overcoming Modernity is overly motivated and oriented by what the editor/translator judges to be the present political situation in Japan: “This resurgence of nationalism in Japan, with its predictable nostalgia for tradition and culture, invariably brings to mind the 1942 symposium” (p. viii...