Controversy over the Traditional Significance of the Mikado System in Post-war Japan: Watsuji Tetsuro's Perspective

Title

Controversy over the Traditional Significance of the Mikado System in Post-war Japan: Watsuji Tetsuro's Perspective

Author

Kun-Rong ZHU

Page

161-181

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2012.9(1)161

Abstract

At the start of the Postwar period in Japan, a heated debate arose as to whether the emperor should take responsibility for the war or not. Two main forces led the debate: those for retention of Mikado System and those for its abolition. Watsuji Tetsuro, a famous conservative philosopher and historian of modern Japan, considered from a traditional culture perspective that it was necessary to maintain the Mikado System. He took actual political power and moral authority as two independent matters, which meant that Tennoh didn't hold absolute political power in history in some periods even though he has kept sole supreme moral authority all the time. On that basis, Watsuji argued that the essence of Tennoh and the Mikado System lay in "the presentation of the whole nation" or "a symbol of national unity."

Keyword

Post-war Japan, Mikado System, the debate on Mikado System, retention, Watsuji Tetsuro

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