#139 Homecoming: Masao Maruyama
Today, I had the opportunity to look through a high school sophomore's modern literature textbook (the current subject name is 'Logical Japanese,' but since many generations probably aren't familiar with that, I'll use the more common subject name) and read an essay titled 'Being and Doing' (from 'Japanese Thought') by Masao Maruyama.
The fact that a text written in 1961 is still being used in textbooks in 2025, let alone during my own youth in the early 2000s, is something that fills me with awe. Yet, the content, expressed with clear logic and simple language, remains completely relevant and unfaded in modern society, even after the era name has changed twice since then. While I admire Masao Maruyama's keen insight, I also feel a sense of gloom, as if he has seen through the unfortunate universality of Japanese society.
'Venus de Milo,' 'Sangetsuki,' 'The Flypaper of June,' 'The Metaphysics of Advertising,' 'Memories of a Boyhood Day,' and 'Wishes.' There are many textbook passages that have cast a long shadow over the formation of my personality, but regarding this essay by Maruyama, although the title left a strong impression, I didn't remember the content very deeply. So, I began reading it as if for the first time, but every time I encountered a specific string of text, I felt the sensation and emotion of reading it for the first time come back to me, thinking, 'Oh, I remember this passage; was this from this essay?' It's as if my brain had simply forgotten, but my body had properly stored the text and the ideas, and the act of re-reading them was thawing them out. It was a strange feeling.
Freedom is not something that just sits there like an ornament; it is only protected by the actual exercise of it. In other words, it is only by trying to become free every day that one can truly be free. In that sense, the freedom and rights of modern society are, for those who prefer the inertia of life, those who think it's fine to leave judgments to others as long as they can somehow get through their daily lives safely, or those who would rather lean deeply into an armchair than stand up from it, a truly burdensome thing.
There is a famous saying that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' but whether one thinks that the taste is inherent in the pudding as its 'attribute,' so to speak, or whether one thinks that whether it is delicious or not is verified each time through the actual act of eating, I believe these form the two poles of thought when judging the value of social organizations, human relationships, and institutions.
André Siegfried says something to this effect in his book 'Modernity'.
Even though he has such a cool name, I didn't encounter him at all during my university days, so I had forgotten him until now!
He uses the words 'being' and 'doing' to emphasize that the irreplaceable individuality of culture is not in what one does, but in the awareness of being where one is. Therefore, according to him, art and culture are 'flowers rather than fruit,' and have value in themselves rather than in the results they bring. This is why the criteria for value in such culture cannot be decided by the thinking of the masses or by majority vote. Why 'classics' have meaning in the world of scholarship and art is precisely related to this issue.
Thinking about that, I guess I have grown at least a little.
If there are those who suspect that I have suddenly become 'conservative' because the gist of what I have said has shifted from political matters to cultural issues, I have no choice but to answer as follows, without fear of misunderstanding: that what is desperately lacking and most required in the intellectual world of modern Japan is for a radical spiritual aristocracy to be internally linked with a radical democracy.
Because these ideas were not only remaining within me but were actually forming my core, I almost had the arrogant thought that perhaps I was Masao Maruyama himself. It is a very pathetic story that I have forgotten the source of a text that is so deeply engraved in me, but at the same time, I felt it was also a great source of hope. If the texts I read in my youth have, albeit unconsciously, become the things that constitute my current personality and thoughts, doesn't that mean that the various texts I have young people read and analyze could potentially follow the same fate?
And above all, what made me happy was that while there were many passages I could remember, there were still strings of text in this essay that I had no memory of reading at all. And those words are now blowing away the fog in my head in a refreshing way.
The term 'free person' is often used. However, people who believe they are free are often prone to neglecting the constant inspection and examination of their own thoughts and actions, and thus it is not rare for them to be the least free from the prejudices that nest within themselves. Conversely, those who are keenly aware that they are 'captured' and who always keep an eye on their own 'biases' are blessed with the chance to become relatively free by making an effort to perceive and judge things more freely.
The academic tradition of Kyoto University is a 'tradition of freedom.' Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of fools in the world, who are completely indifferent to the mysteries of the Japanese language possessed by case particles, trumpet this tradition as a 'free academic tradition.' Lamentably, there are not a few people, including current Kyoto University students and alumni, who cannot even perceive this difference.
However, I was wondering how to explain the subtle and exquisite difference between a 'free academic tradition' and a 'tradition of freedom' to those who are linguistically insensitive and cannot feel the nuance (or more accurately, do not even have the will to feel it) from this single character difference. I concluded that the former 'free person' mentioned in the Maruyama quote above is the type of person mired in a 'free academic tradition,' while the latter 'free person' can be said to be one who keeps a 'tradition of freedom' as their guiding principle.
It may be truly comical to decipher the meaning of Kyoto University's academic tradition from the writings of Masao Maruyama, who should be considered the embodiment of University of Tokyo legal thought, but allowing for such things is also a part of the vast freedom possessed by the humanities. As one who should pass on the 'tradition of freedom' to future generations, it seems necessary to return to Masao Maruyama from time to time. Having my list of places to return to grow ever longer is quite troublesome, but it is also a great pride as a child of academia.
いいなと思ったら応援しよう！
あなたがブルジョワジーなら、所得再分配にご協力ください。