Tokugawa Religion

I was so impressed with Robert Bellah’s book of essays about Japan and Japanese culture, Imagining Japan, that I tracked down his earliest book, Tokugawa Religion (1958). Again he has some interesting things to say about the Japanese and their culture. For example:

It is the particular system or collectivity of which one is a member, which counts, whether it be family, han, or Japan as a whole. Commitment to these tends to take precedence over universalistic commitments, such as commitment to truth or justice.

Bellah makes the claim that the religion of the Tokugawa period influenced Japan in the Meiji period to undergo modernization in a manner that reflects the Protestant work ethic that was influential in the modernization of the west as expounded by Max Weber. It seems as a sociologist Bellah is something of a disciple of Weber, which is also evident in Habits of the Heart. He sees the “shinsu” religion as the closest to Western Protestantism and its ethic most similar to the Protestant ethic. Religion is seen as means of maintaining and intensifying central values, supplying motivation, and reinforcing asceticism and diligence and economy. He also points out that if religion gets credit for modernity, it also deserves the blame for imperialism that resulted in WWII.

He also states that Japan didn’t have to go through the slow process of accumulation like the west in order to modernize.  The capital required was too great, thus government controlled modernization due to lack of capital in the private sector. (He cites Kemalist Turkey as an example of this model) He also states that modernization should first be seen in political terms and not only in economic development. It is political because it was concerned with the increase of power and wealth as a means. This is seen in the “zaibutsu” economy, which was dependent on government for support.  There was also a desire to restore the emperor and increase national power.

Comments

[bruno-ken]

great review.

but what is “shinsu”? is that another way of saying "shinto"?

[MC]

It's a sect of which he states there were many at this time, but basically had the same core values.