S E L E C T I O N S F R O M
T H E K O K U T A I N O H O N G I ( F U N D A M E N T A L S O F
O U R N A T I O N A L P O L I T Y ) , 1 9 3 7
Introduction
Kokutai is a notoriously slippery term, sometimes translated into English as “national polity” and often as “national essence.” Kokutai, which was hotly debated in Japan starting in the late Tokugawa period, might be best understood as those qualities that make the Japanese “Japanese.” In the mid-1930s, a time of social ferment and rising nationalistic thought, the Ministry of Education commissioned a group of prominent academics to write a treatise on kokutai that would establish an orthodox interpretation of the “national essence” for the Japanese people. The resulting 156-page pamphlet, Kokutai no hongi, was published in March 1937 with an initial print run of 300,000 copies, although more than two million were eventually distributed in Japan and the empire. Kokutai no hongi was the most important of a series of documents produced by the Japanese government that sought to articulate an official ideology for a nation on the brink of total war.
From Sources of Japanese Tradition, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur L. Tiedemann, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 968-969, 975. © 2005 Columbia University Press. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Selections from the Kokutai no hongi (Fundamentals of our National Polity), 1937
(See McClain p. 465-66)
Introduction
The various ideological and social evils of present‑day Japan are the result of ignoring
the fundamental and running after the trivial, of the lack of judgment and the failure to digest things thoroughly. This is because since the days of Meiji, so many aspects of European and American culture, systems, and learning have been imported and too rapidly. As a matter of fact, the foreign ideologies imported into our country are mainly ideologies of the Enlightenment that have come down from the eighteenth century, or extensions of them. The views of the world and of life that form the basis of these ideologies are rationalism and positivism, lacking in historical views, which, on the one had, place the highest value on, and assert the liberty and equality of, individuals and, on the other hand, place value on a world by nature abstract, transcending nations and races. Consequently, importance is given to human beings and their groupings, who have become isolated from historical entireties, abstract and independent of one another. …
Paradoxical and extreme conceptions, such as socialism, anarchism, and communism, all are based, in the final analysis, on individualism, which is the root of modern Occidental ideologies and of which they are no more than varied manifestations. Yet even in the Occident, where individualism has formed the basis of their ideas, when it has come to Communism, they have found it unacceptable; so that now they are about to do away with their traditional individualism, and this has led to the rise of totalitarianism and nationalism and to the appearence of Fascism and Nazism. That is, it can be said that in both the Occident and our country, the deadlock of individualism has led alike to a season of ideological and social confusion and crisis…. This means that the present conflict in our people’s ideas, the unrest of their modes of life, the confused state of their civilization, can be put right only by a thorough investigation by us of the intrinsic nature of Occidental ideologies and by an understanding of the true meaning of our national polity. Then, too, this should be done for the sake not only of our nation but also of the entire human race, which is struggling to find a way out of the deadlock with which individualism is faced.
…
There follows 8 subsections under such headings as:
1. Loyalty and Patriotism -- the emperor is the fountainhood of Japan's life and activities; to receive the emperor's great august Will as one's own is the rationale of making our historical "life" live in the present. Loyalty means reverence for the emperor and to follow him implictly. To walk this Way of loyalty is the sole Way in which we subjects may live...hence, offering our lives for the sake of the emperor does not mean self-sacrifice but the casting aside of our little selves to live under his august grace.
2. Filial Piety
3. Loyalty and Filial Piety as One = a characteristic of our national morals, and this factor is without parallel in the world.
4. Harmony = the product of the great achievements of the founding of the nation, and is the power behind our historical growth; it is also a humanitarian Way inseperable from our daily lives. To paraphrase, western individualism is a history of conflict and class wars; in our nation there are individual differences but they overcome differences and converges into one.
5. The Martial Spirit
Our martial spirit does not have for its objective the killing of men, but the giving of life to men...War, in this sense, is not by any means intended for destruction, overpowering, or subjugation of others; it should be a thing for bringing about the Great Harmony, that is, peace, doing the work of creation by following the Way.
6. Self-Effacement and Assimilation
Living out the unity between Soverign and Subject. The spirit of self-effacement is not a mere denial of oneself, but means living to the great, true self by denying one's small self.
7. Bushido
The outstanding characteristic of our national morality. Meeting death with a perfect calmness. This Bushido shed itself of an outdated feudalism at the time of the Meiji Restoration, increased its splendor, became the Way of loyalty and patriotism, and has evolved before us as the spirit of the imperial forces.
8. Conclusions
Our Mission
Our present mission as a people is to construct a new Japanese culture by adopting and sublimating Western cultures with our national polity as the basis and to contribute spontaneously to the advancement of world culture. Our nation early saw the introduction of Chinese and Indian cultures and even succeeded in evolving original creations and developments. This was made possible, indeed, by the profound and boundless nature of our national polity, so that the mission of the people to whom it is bequeathed is truly great in its historical significance.