Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering (4 page)

In the case of postwar American aggression and that of Japan between World War I and 1945, to pursue this matter briefly, the areas in which comparative analysis might be undertaken exist on many levels. The discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is blatantly apparent in both cases; indeed, postwar American policymakers have used essentially the same slogans of liberation, self-determination, and co-prosperity for Asia under which the Japanese launched their earlier aggression, while if anything enlarging those “crimes against humanity” of which they had only recently accused the Japanese. Japan in China, like the United States in Indochina, grossly misperceived the limits of technology when confronted with the concerted will of nationalistic resistance. Both countries were trapped in a logic of escalation: of rhetoric and commitment; of inevitable military expansion as “lines of defense” were redefined and in turn created new “buffers” (or dominos) to defend; of increasing political and economic intervention abroad as military involvement made imperative expanded control of strategic resources. Tactically, the actions of both countries bear striking parallels in their reliance upon puppet regimes, use of military “incidents” as a pretext for accelerated aggression, use of “negotiations” as an umbrella for escalation, and official sanction of war crimes (scorched earth, bombing of civilians, biological warfare, abuse and killing of prisoners, “pacification” and strategic hamlets were all resorted to by the Japanese). Both also sought to promote national interests through a neocolonial “regional integration.”

The manner in which both Japan and the United States brought misfortune upon themselves and tragedy to the peoples of Asia can be described in terms of a crisis which occurred when the goals of national policy exceeded the means for achieving those defined interests. It is of little value to say that the goals were misperceived and ill-defined, for this simply preempts more fundamental questions concerning the structure, ideology, and locus of power through which those national interests were formulated. The heart of the problem lies in analyzing and comparing the dynamics of this interrelationship in both countries—the manner in which economic structure, growth, and diversification were related to military technology, for example, and the manner in which economic and strategic concerns meshed in the formulation of policies requiring expansion and increasing involvement abroad. Both countries were concerned with control of raw materials (and indeed, to a large extent the same resources: those of Southeast Asia) as well as markets. Both acted under the basic and unquestioned assumption that their national power could be protected and enhanced only by a certain level of political and economic domination abroad, and a secure military deployment outside their own borders. In each case this quest for hegemony was challenged by indigenous nationalistic and revolutionary movements—the Chinese revolution for Japan; and for the United States, whose quest was global, not only the Indochinese revolution but indeed radical movements throughout the less-developed world. Counterrevolution thus became fundamental to each country's definition of its foreign-policy objectives, a fact obvious for the United States but also central to prewar Japanese policy. Anti-Communism, both in the larger strategic sense of opposition to the Soviet Union (and the necessity for creating external “buffers” against it) and in the more particularized concern with indigenous radical movements, is hardly a phenomenon of the Cold War. The foreign policy of prewar Japan cannot be understood without taking this into consideration, and after 1945 the United States in fact took upon itself the task of
completing Japan's unfinished campaigns against revolution in China and Indochina (and in Korea as well, in a somewhat different context).

Moreover, if one turns from the definition and dynamic of “national interest” to ask who formulated and interpreted this, it is apparent that the question “Who ruled Japan?” is in certain fundamental respects not greatly different from that of “Who rules America?” The problem is certainly complex, but the answer, just as certainly, excludes the vast majority of people. In both cases one is confronted with an interlocking of civilian and military agencies; with situations where it becomes obvious that real decision-making power lies in the hands of superagencies which circumvent the de jure channels of authority; and with
an essential lack of fundamental opposition to the basic definition of national interests from any significant part of the country's various influential elites
. Indeed, it can be argued that for Japan prior to 1945 as well as the United States in the postwar era, policies and pursuit of national goals which culminated in open aggression were formulated by men whose technical skills were excellent, whose access to relevant information was extensive, whose political views were in many cases reformist, whose policies prior to obvious disaster were endorsed and often initiated by advisers of “liberal” inclinations (a fascinating comparison could be made between the intellectuals who made up Konoe's informal advisory group, the Sh
ō
wa Kenky
Å«
kai and John F. Kennedy's advisers, or even the modernization theorists themselves), and whose decisions for war were made after long and “rational” consideration of the basic requirements of national interest and national pride. It is fatuous to describe Japan's first unprofitable war as a lapse into collective irrationality on the part of the country's leaders. One of the more interesting observations that can be made concerning Japanese documents from this period is the extent to which they are similar in tone and thrust to comparable American policy papers such as those exposed in the Pentagon Papers. The concept of irrationality can easily be applied to any country which commits itself to a losing
war, but this contributes little to an understanding of why such wars recur, and it also draws attention away from the problem of
successful
repression abroad short of war. In addition to a “pathology of growth,” it is perhaps necessary to comprehend the pathology of “realism” as defined by the mandarins of the contemporary state.

The differences between the situation of prewar Japan and American actions in the postwar era are obvious: a vastly different international configuration both economically and militarily; a world war as opposed to a limited war (although paradoxically Japan's aims in Asia were limited, while America's involvement in Indochina was conceived of in terms of global policy); and in the case of the United States, a level of mechanization, rationalization, and secular thought which is highly “modern” by all prevailing standards. That is, compared with Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, postwar America is economically and technologically at an entirely different level, it is theoretically more pluralistic and predominantly middle class, its value system is “individualistic” rather than “collectivist,” its electoral and representative system has remained intact, its titular head is not an absolute monarch but an elected executive, power is theoretically defined and balanced by the Constitution, there is no military capable of autonomous action through devices comparable to the “right of supreme command,” and through television and other media its citizens have been immeasurably more informed than the prewar Japanese populace. The lack of such characteristics, according to the modernization theorists, goes a long way toward explaining Japan's crisis in the interwar period. Yet these characteristics obviously did not prevent the American crisis of the 1960s, and although the United States did experience a more vigorous antiwar movement than Japan, in practical terms it proved impossible to mount
effective and lasting
opposition to the government in either country. It is perhaps not too much to say that a real understanding of the pathology of growth will begin to emerge only when scholars forsake infatuation with “rationalization, mechanization, and belief in progress”
per se, and undertake to examine the nature of the modern state on this broad and critical comparative level.

Scholarly projects such as those suggested above are clearly immense, but life is short and the field is small. Until such problems are addressed, it will be difficult to regard the field of Western studies of Japan as having come of age, and this cannot be accomplished in a situation where scholarship coalesces with the ideology of the American state and reinforces its international policies (such as “nation-building”), and certain lines of inquiry are discouraged. A more practical problem lies in the difficulty of formulating broad problems while maintaining the standards of disciplined research. Here Norman offers encouragement by example. Neither the thoroughness of his research nor, as the very titles of his major works convey, the breadth of his historical perspective and concern can be seriously questioned. It is virtually inconceivable to think of a proposal for a doctoral dissertation on “Japan's Emergence as a Modern State” being approved in an American university today. Yet
Japan's Emergence
was in fact written as a dissertation, and even the least sympathetic of Norman's critics concede that he was able to make optimum use of the major sources then available on this subject. Such resources are far more numerous now, but it is a serious question whether the present emphasis on narrow but “deep” vertical research is more challenging intellectually or more appropriate to creation of a fuller comprehension of Japanese history.

To return again to Norman's own vocabulary, it does not seem premature now to step back and ask this: whether in the field of English studies of Japan there is yet the beginning of an edifice, or merely a proliferation of extended footnotes, a scattering of monographic bricks; whether there are any painters among the photographers; whether in the histories of Japan since Norman's time there breathes a sense of human values, a truly civilizing, humanizing spirit. Norman himself must surely be evaluated against these, his own standards. So must his successors—or if they reject these standards, it must be asked if they have offered a better sense, or better use, of history in return.

The defense of a free flow of ideas was of course more than an academic concern to Norman. In 1948 he was invited to address an anniversary celebration at Kei
ō
University in Tokyo, and titled his lecture “Persuasion or Force: The Problem of Free Speech in Modern Society.” He began by observing that “the course of the history of freedom is never along a direct and straight path. Rather is its course torturous, leading sometimes into a cul-de-sac from which painful detours have to be made.” Freedom “has to be consciously won and jealously guarded. It can be lost through negligence or apathy in countries where it has reigned for many years.” He argued that “no political party, no religious creed, no social class can claim a monopoly in the service of freedom,” but at the same time, and characteristically, he placed the final decisive hope for this cause in “the army of anonymous and less-known humble folk who have provided the rank and file in the battalions of freedom,” and emphasized “how steadfast and decent are the people in their desires and hopes.”

His definition of freedom was in fact close to traditional liberalism, couched in the concept of “self-government,” which he described as “a most reasonable, common-sense, and civilized way of life for any modern society whether it call itself republican, a constitutional monarchy, socialist or capitalist, or a mixture of these last two as most societies are today.” He did not attack capitalism per se, and on this crucial point his position was quite clearly at variance with radical thought. To a certain extent it can be argued that Norman's political premises were in line with the attitude prevalent among most Western spokesmen at the end of World War II and exemplified in the initial reform policies in occupied Japan, namely, that “democracies” do not initiate war. Thus in the concluding paragraph of the first chapter of
Feudal Background
, he describes prewar Japanese absolutism in familiar liberal terms as the absence of “a genuinely democratic mass movement . . . some concept of popular sovereignty . . . freedom of speech, press and public assembly.” But there is this difference in Norman: if he did not attack capitalism as a system, neither did he attack socialism, or see bourgeois society as necessarily the best possible vessel of democracy, or regard the cause of freedom as being embodied in the policies of any one particular state. The concern was not the label or the path, but the creation of
genuine
democracy.

By its very nature, he explained in “Persuasion or Force,” self-government “means that the people look upon government officials as their servants or as their deputies and not as their masters. It is the very opposite of that old concept,
kanson mimpi.
” And it does
not
mean freedom from control: “To keep within bounds of a self-governing society one may use only persuasion and not force. And by force I mean not necessarily riotous behavior but even the
passive refusal to comply with such laws as conscription, taxation, etc.” This dictum may come as a surprise to many who thought they knew their Norman, and some Japanese intellectuals have interpreted the expression of such views by Norman in his later years as reflecting a recantation, or
tenk
ō
, from his earlier position. In fact, the problem of gradual and revolutionary change, of law and resistance, which was clearly central also to his concerns as a historian, remains one of the most complex aspects of Norman's view. He touched on this later, in “On the Modesty of Clio,” in these more qualified terms: