[Book Review] Yo Takeuchi's 'The Decline of Culturism'—What Do We Call 'Knowledge' After the Decline?
Introduction: After 'Culture' Became a 'Nostalgic Word'
The word 'culture' (kyoyo) has a slightly strange ring to it. It feels like something important, yet somehow old-fashioned. While respected, the phrases 'he is cultured' or 'he is uncultured' can sometimes carry a hint of sizing people up. Nowadays, there are probably not many people who place it at the center of their lives. However, we still feel a special value in the act of reading books, learning things we didn't know, and restructuring our own thoughts.
Yo Takeuchi's 'The Decline of Culturism' depicts the history of what kind of social power that value once held, and why it lost that power. As Chuokoron-Shinsha introduces this book as one that deals with the rise and fall of culturism, which originated in the old-system high schools of the Taisho era and continued as a normative culture in universities until around 1970, the culture referred to here is not mere trivia or a volume of knowledge. It was a norm for a way of life—to build one's character through reading and to cultivate an eye for viewing society.
This book does not stop at nostalgia for 'how students used to read books.' What is interesting is that it views culturism itself as a subject of sociology. Why did reading difficult books become an aspiration for young people in a certain era? Why was a hierarchy of books to be read created, and why did knowing them become linked to character and social value? By re-examining culture not just as a beautiful ideal, but as a place where institutions, hierarchies, and desires intersect, the contours of what we have called 'knowledge' become visible.
Chapter 1: The Dream of Culturism—Can People Change Through Reading?
The book depicts the old-system high schools of the Taisho era as an important starting point for culturism. There, character formation through reading and discussion, rather than just studying for university entrance, became the core of student culture. By engaging with classics, philosophy, and literature, students forged their inner selves. Knowledge was perceived not as a tool for employment or qualifications, but as something for considering 'what kind of person to become.' The culturism that Takeuchi deals with was precisely a norm of character cultivation through reading classics, and a culture that included the 'attitude of trying to be intellectual' that accompanied it.
There is something in this ideal that attracts me even when I read it now. Reading books over a long period of time, regardless of whether they are immediately useful. Talking with friends about questions that have no answers and having one's own thoughts shaken. Learning exists not to possess something, but to change oneself. That feeling appears fresh when viewed from the present, where efficiency and results are often questioned first.
However, Takeuchi's gaze does not stop there. Along with the desire for self-formation, the desire to be 'seen as an intellectual person' was also embedded in culturism. Reading difficult books is an act of deepening one's inner self, but it also serves as a sign indicating which cultural world one belongs to. While culture was an ideal for elevating people, it also had the power to visualize the differences between people.
If we dismiss culturism as mere elitism, we cannot explain why so many young people were fascinated by it. However, if we romanticize it as a pure spiritual culture, we overlook the aspect that it was linked to social selection. People wish to become better. In that wish, the desire to surpass yesterday's self and the desire to go to a higher place than someone else sometimes coexist. Culturism spread while holding onto that ambiguity.
Chapter 2: Who Decided the 'Books to Read'?—The Cultural Apparatus That Supported Culture
Culturism did not hold power for a long time because each student chose books on their own. Behind it were mechanisms that supported the value of knowledge, such as universities, teachers, intellectuals, magazines, and publishers. What to call a classic and which thinkers to read—that choice is not determined by personal preference alone.
Iwanami Shoten occupies a symbolic position in this book. Through the Iwanami Bunko and other means, students encountered the classics and thoughts they should read. 'Iwanami-style culture' did not just supply good books; it had the power to shape the sense of what is intellectually orthodox. Reading difficult books and being familiar with the shelves where those books were lined up became part of creating an intellectual self-image.
What becomes visible here is that culture does not exist only in the individual's head. Knowledge has places that select, circulate, and value it. While publishers and universities opened the entrance to knowledge, they were also gates that decided what was 'worth reading.'
That is precisely why tracing the history of culturism is not just looking back at the reading culture of the past. It is also asking who decided the value of knowledge and how that value permeated people's ways of life. The dream of changing oneself through reading was not a pure activity outside of society, but was linked to the authority and hierarchy within society. Only after confirming that can we see that the 'decline' that would eventually arrive was not merely a departure from reading.
Chapter 3: The Massification of Universities—Social Changes That Supported Culturism
Culturism was not suddenly forgotten by people one day. The social mechanisms that supported it changed over a long period of time. One of the major shifts was the massification of university education. In an era when going to university was limited to a very small number of people, being a university student itself meant a special position in society. Reading philosophy and literature there and talking about life and society was not just a hobby, but was accepted as behavior appropriate for those who would carry the future of society.
However, as the number of students increased and universities opened up to a wider range of people, the meaning of the status of 'student' gradually changed. Universities became not only special places that produced intellectuals and bureaucrats, but also places that many young people passed through before entering corporate society. What was emphasized there also shifted from reading and contemplation as character formation to graduation, employment, and the acquisition of specialized knowledge. This is not a simple story that students suddenly stopped reading books. Rather, it should be considered that the role that culture itself played in society had changed.
Once upon a time, reading difficult books held a cultural significance that allowed one to move from their current position to somewhere else. A young person coming from the countryside to the city could approach a culture different from the world they were born and raised in by acquiring the language of philosophy and literature. Reading books, learning words, and adopting ways of thinking were not only forms of self-formation but also a kind of social advancement. It was not just a longing for knowledge that supported culturism. There was certainly an expectation that 'by learning, I can go to a different place.'
However, as living standards rose through the period of high economic growth and the cultural distance between cities and rural areas narrowed, that urgency gradually faded. Culture and information that were once only available in limited places became widely distributed, and knowledge that could only be accessed by going to university became less special than before. Culturism was not established by knowledge alone, but was supported by the social expectation that 'by knowing, I can change.' Therefore, if the environment supporting that expectation changes, the meaning of culture also changes.
Furthermore, the massification of universities made the contradictions inherent in culturism more visible. The books one reads, the words one uses, the thinkers one knows—these differences are signs of intellectual richness, but they also function as markers to distinguish people. As universities opened up to people with more diverse backgrounds, it became a question of whether the culture shared there was truly open to everyone. Does culture liberate people, or does it rank them in a different way? When that question surfaced, the authority of culture, which had once been accepted as natural, began to waver.
Chapter 4: What Was the Decline? — Until the Authority of Knowledge Disappeared
The title 'The Decline of Culturism' gives the impression that some major rupture has occurred. However, the decline depicted in this book is not necessarily dramatic. It is not that philosophy books are no longer read, nor that literature has disappeared from universities. Even so, at a certain point, the common sense that 'acquiring culture leads to becoming a better person' slowly retreated from the center of society. What was lost was not the books themselves, but the special meaning that had been given to reading them.
What is important here is not to understand the decline of culturism as a simple 'victory of pragmatism.' Certainly, as the corporate society expanded and employment and specialized knowledge became more important, the direct value of reading classics became less visible. However, that alone did not cause culturism to stall. More significant was that the very authority of culture to 'elevate people' began to be doubted.
People who read difficult books are deeper human beings than those who do not. People who know philosophy are more mature than those who do not. That hierarchy, which was once accepted almost as a matter of course, began to look unnatural as universities became massified and people from various backgrounds gathered in the same space. Knowledge that was supposed to make humans better turned into a standard for evaluating people. Reading to deepen oneself became a symbol to show that one is different from others. The charm and exclusivity of culture could not be completely separated from the beginning.
That is precisely why we cannot simply lament its decline. With culturism losing its power, we have become, at least more than before, free from a culture that determines human value based on 'what one is reading.' There is no reason why everyone must read the same classics and speak about the world in the same words. The weakening of the authority of knowledge certainly has an aspect of liberation.
However, that freedom left behind another problem. The weakening of the authority of knowledge is not the same as the effort to know becoming unnecessary. After being freed from the norms of what one should read, where should we find a place to encounter ideas different from our own, take the time to understand them, and doubt our own judgments? The decline of culturism did not just leave behind the end of an old culture. How can we avoid making knowledge an authority while still not letting go of knowing? I believe that question is what remains after the decline.
Chapter 5: After the Decline, What Do We Call 'Culture'?
Even after the decline of culturism, books remain, universities remain, and scholarship continues. What was lost was not knowledge itself, but the social trust that a certain kind of knowledge guarantees human value. It has become difficult to think that reading classics and talking about philosophy directly means a high level of character. This is by no means a bad change. The structure where those with culture lead those without it easily invited ranking through knowledge, and the shaking of that authority also had the potential to open knowledge more widely.
However, the problem does not end there. Doubting the authority of knowledge and denying the effort to know are completely different things. Experts make mistakes, too. The 'books to read' chosen by universities and publishers are not absolute. That is precisely why we can criticize authority. However, if that criticism goes as far as saying 'specialized knowledge is unnecessary' or 'what I feel is more correct,' we are not becoming free from knowledge, but closing the very circuit that allows us to encounter different knowledge.
Herein lies the difficulty for us living after the decline of culturism. We cannot return to the way it was, where one could show a list of books to read and call those who read them 'cultured people.' Even so, we cannot abandon the attitude of taking time to think about complex problems and trying to know what we do not know. What is needed is not to rebuild culture as an authority, but to take back the opportunity within it to 'learn in order to change oneself,' separated from hierarchy.
If we think that way, modern culture will no longer be measured by how many books one has read. Rather, what is important is to need books and the words of others so as not to judge only by the world one knows. When encountering unknown words, do not reject them immediately, but try looking up the background of how those words were born. When encountering opinions different from your own, before deciding whether to agree or disagree, try tracing why that person thinks that way. In such small slowness, a form of culture different from culturism can be seen.
Of course, having knowledge has power. There is still an asymmetry between those who can use specialized language and those who cannot. It will be difficult to completely eliminate that asymmetry. That is why the question is how those who possess knowledge use it. Do they use it to silence those who do not know, or do they offer it as a foothold for thinking about the same problem? If we rethink culture as a relationship rather than a hierarchy, this difference is not small.
And this problem no longer stays within the world of reading. Politics, war, medicine, science, economy, legal systems. Many of the problems we encounter daily are not things that can be easily answered by looking them up a little. Even so, on social media, the more complex an event is, the more it is compressed into short words, and one is required to decide their stance immediately. Because it is such an era, being able to say 'I don't quite understand yet' and being able to continue thinking about things one does not understand seems to be worthy of being called culture in a different sense than before.
There is no need to reclaim the ideal of 'elevating humans through knowledge' that culturism upheld. Rather, it would be better to move away from the very idea of who is high and who is low. While doing so, we should still believe in the possibility that our perspective will change by knowing. We can hold our judgment in reserve for a moment and accept the moment when the world looks a little different through the words of others. That attitude, at least, can be kept after the decline.
Conclusion: The Light of Knowledge Remaining in the Late Hours
What becomes visible upon re-reading Yo Takeuchi's 'The Decline of Culturism' is not merely the rise and fall of a single intellectual culture. The reason culturism captivated people for so long is likely because it held the earnest expectation that 'by learning, I can change.' From the provinces to the city, from who I am now to a world I have yet to know. Reading books was also a small journey to cross those boundaries.
At the same time, there was a shadow to that ideal. If one distinguishes people by the books they read and attempts to measure character by knowledge, culture eventually becomes a tool for creating distance from others. Therefore, we cannot simply lament its decline, nor can we revive it as a 'good old' reading culture. I believe what we need is not to reclaim the lost culturism, but to think about what to keep and what to let go of from that history.
Opening a book in the late hours and encountering words I do not know. In that moment, there is no need to know more than anyone else. Turning back pages at parts I do not understand, and spending time with the words of someone who has lived in a different era or had different experiences than my own. Perhaps the power that reading possesses is not so much the power to take us to a higher place, but the power to let us know that the place where we stand is not the entirety of the world.
Culture is likely not a qualification of possessing knowledge, but an attitude of not stopping one's thinking when encountering something unknown. Delaying assertions slightly, not immediately discarding what one cannot understand, and sometimes rearranging one's own words. That endeavor is inconspicuous and does not promise social prestige.
However, precisely because the great light of culturism has gone out, that small light has meaning. It is not knowledge to illuminate others and create hierarchies, but knowledge to confirm one's own footing and the outlines of others standing just ahead. If it takes that form, I believe culture is not a fallen ideal of the past, but something that continues to remain within our lives even now.