Afrasian Research Centre, Ryukoku University Phase 2

Working Paper SeriesStudies on Multicultural Societies No.22

Re-thinking of the Intellectual History of Pre-War Japan:An Application of Arendt’s and Carr’s Theories of the Twenty Years’ Crisis to a Non-Western Discourse

Kosuke Shimizu

Mission of the Afrasian Research Centre Today's globalised world has witnessed astonishing political and economic growth in the regions of Asia and Africa. Such progress has been accompanied, however, with a high frequency of various types of conflicts and disputes. The Afrasian Research Centre aims to build on the achievements of its predecessor, the Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies (ACPDS), by applying its great tradition of research towards Asia with the goal of building a new foundation for interdisciplinary research into multicultural societies in the fields of Immigration Studies, International Relations and Communication Theory. In addition, we seek to clarify the processes through which conflicts are resolved, reconciliation is achieved and multicultural societies are established. Building on the expertise and networks that have been accumulated in Ryukoku University in the past (listed below), we will organise research projects to tackle new and emerging issues in the age of globalisation. We aim to disseminate the results of our research internationally, through academic publications and engagement in public discourse.

A Tradition of Religious and Cultural Studies Expertise in Participatory Research/ Inter-Civic Relation Studies Expertise in Asian and Africa Studies Expertise in Communication and Education Studies New Approaches to the Understanding of Other Cultures in Japan Domestic and International Networks with Major Research Institutes

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Afrasian Research Centre, Ryukoku University

Re-thinking of the Intellectual History of Pre-War Japan:An Application of Arendt’s and Carr’s Theories

of the Twenty Years’ Crisis to a Non-Western Discourse

Kosuke Shimizu

Working Paper SeriesStudies on Multicultural Societies No.22

2013

978-4-904945-37-7

2013

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Re-thinking of the Intellectual History of Pre-War Japan: An Application of Arendt’s and Carr’s Theories

of the Twenty Years’ Crisis to a Non-Western Discourse

Kosuke Shimizu∗ Introduction In recent times, there has been an increasing interest in the non-Western International Relations Theory (IRT). There is a considerable amount of published work and they seem to have had some impact on International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline, particularly those in the non-western world1 (Acharya 2011; Acharya and Buzan 2010; Alagappa 2011; Behera 2008; Callahan 2008; Mallavarapu 2009; Qin 2011; Shani 2007, 2008; Shilliam 2011; Shimizu 2011; Shimizu et al. 2008; Tickner 2008; Tickner and Blaney 2012; Tickner and Waever 2009; Xiao 2010; Yamamoto 2011). What ‘non-western’ means here is, however, not sufficiently clear and varies with the author. The meaning and connotations of the term, usually rather loosely defined, easily varies according to the perception of the user. Although the majority of the scholars employ this term based on the geographical division of the West and East, some others use it to refer to the non-modernist theoretical orientation in general. The study of ‘non-Western’ IRT is characterized by a total lack of historical perspective. It has not adequately attended to the fact that the counter arguments to Western modernization have been around, at least in Asia, ever since Western civilization reached the area and gave a tremendous shock to the inhabitants, supposedly living on the earth’s margins. In Japan, for instance, the problem of reconciling Western modernity with traditional local institutions and lifestyles has been one of the top priorities of political leaders since Commodore Perry’s arrival to Japan. There have been numerous books and articles published ever since on this issue by intellectuals and journalists, the infamous Kyoto School’s theory of World History and the roundtable of Japanese intellectuals, entitled ‘Overcoming Modernity’, are typical instances (Shimizu 2011; Takeuchi 1979; Hiromatsu 1989). The total lack of the historical perspective leads to the neglect of the historicization of contemporary non-Western IRT. By

∗ Professor, Faculty of Intercultural Communications, Ryukoku University. 1 In this article, I use International Relations with capital ‘I’ and ‘R’ to refer to the academic field dealing with world affairs, in contrast to international relations with ‘i’ and ‘r’ which means the political reality of world affairs.

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‘historicize’, I mean realizing that the author of historical narrative him/herself resides within a particular moment of historical change, and, thus, is a product of history. I contend that this historicization is imperative in understanding contemporary international relations because it provides us an idea of our present context and circumstances, in comparison with the past. In other words, comparing our present state to our past situation, and understanding the transition, is an indispensable part of an investigation of contemporary world affairs. Without an idea of the course of history and lessons from the past, the non-Western IRT remains an intellectual activity for its own sake. This article strives to clarify the similarities and differences between socio-political circumstances of non-Western IRT on the one hand and of the theories of politics and international relations of the inter-war period (assumed as the prerequisite of Nazism and fascism) on the other. By indicating the similarities and differences, we could presumably find some lessons in the past, which the discourse of non-Western IRT, in its efforts to contribute to the contemporary IR literature, should take into account. To achieve that goal, the first and second part of this article will introduce a brief explanation of intellectual history of the inter-war period, widely known as the ‘Twenty Years’ Crisis’. In order to broaden our view of this period, so that we can grasp the socio-political circumstances of the time, we will focus on the international scene with the help of E. H. Carr’s formulation of realism and utopianism and on the socio-political and individual levels by attending to Hannah Arendt’s theory of action and thinking. The third part will present the arguments of the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci and of the Critical theory of Germany’s Frankfurt School, both of which shed light on the undesirable consequences of the culture industry and consumer society. Fourth, I will try to analyse the general social situation of Japanese politics in the pre-war period, with special attention to the philosophy of the Kyoto School. This will reveal that Japan’s situation was similar to that of Germany and Italy in terms of economic conditions and the advent of consumer society. Here, I argue that the emergence of militarism before WWII was closely related to consumerism and the disappearance of the public sphere, which were also evident in the case of Germany. Finally, I will argue that all these conditions are the prerequisites of a belligerent society, and that one can interpret the emergence of the non-Western IRT as one of the symptoms of this condition. 1. The Twenty Years’ Crisis and Carr’s Assessment of Utopianism Needless to say, the term ‘Twenty Years’ Crisis’ is derived from the title of E.H. Carr’s renowned work. This work dealt with world affairs from 1919 to 1939, and Carr shed critical light on the prevailing notion that liberalism was the essential factor in world peace. In that period, IR as an academic discipline was still in its state of infancy, and Carr declared that the time had come to begin scientific investigation of world affairs. According to Carr, one of the causes of the Second World War was a utopian conceptualization of inter-state relations in

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which the liberal principle of political organizations and market economy were the core assumptions. Carr brilliantly, and somewhat polemically, illustrates what happened internationally during the twenty years’ crisis, and harshly criticizes liberal utopianism for not attending to power in analysing world affairs (Carr 1946, Devetak et al. 2007, 10). In order to develop international relations as an academic discipline, he contends, researchers should distinguish what is from what ought to be (Carr 1946, 63). The prevalence of a liberal political economy worldwide was, according to Carr, one of the important causes of the WWII. The architects of the post-WWI order neglected the power relations embedded in economy, and established international political institutions without paying sufficient attention to the power of wealth. Yet, as Carr perceptively argued, those not possessing economic power interpreted this political order in a different manner. Citing Adolf Hitler’s words on the liberal international economic regime of the time, Carr argues that the separation of politics from economy, which constitutes the basis of the liberal political economic principle, is in itself political (Carr 2001, 107). Therefore, one of Carr’s key contentions was his criticism of the unquestioned acceptance of liberal political economic principles and its naive application to international affairs. Another cause that Carr diagnosed was the identification of national interests with universal ones, solely in accordance with Anglo-Saxon perceptions. This perception, which was not shared by others, created confusion in the non-Anglophone world. The English-speaking countries regarded the liberal principle as having universal value. Therefore they felt that they had a duty to promote it internationally (Carr 2001, 74). However, this conduct of English-speaking countries was not a manifestation of the hegemonic power they enjoyed. It was, rather, a symptom of the decline of that power. Throughout his discussion of the political economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Carr was quite aware that Britain was becoming incapable of maintaining its hegemonic status, and consequently, attributed the prevalence of the liberal political economic order, as manifested, for example, in the League of Nations, to Britain’s desperate efforts to retain its power. As liberalism assumes rational individuals who are equal to each other, similarly, the application of liberal principles to the international rules and treaties among states leads to concealing the unequal power relations underlying international political economy. The purpose, conscious or unconscious, was to benefit the powerful nations at the cost of weaker. At least for those in the weaker position, what lay behind this unquestioned application of liberal principles to world politics, which Carr named ‘utopianism’, was the decline of Britain’s political economic power, and this became one of the important causes of the outbreak of the WWII (Carr 1946). Carr’s suggestion that emerged from his analysis of the twenty years’ crisis consists of mainly focusing more on the power relations among nation-states. Carr calls this approach ‘realism’

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and invokes it for a thorough comprehension of world affairs. Power in this context involves three dimensions, ‘military power’, ‘economic power’, and ‘power over opinion’. For those studying contemporary international relations as a discipline, the power over opinion is not something with which they are familiar. It is a form of power by which the government exercises power over citizens. This power is, according to Carr, particularly important in nation-states built on democratic political principles. By attending to this dimension, Carr unintentionally touched upon the issue of the consumer society of the period. Carr contends that propaganda and education became important focal points, and this actually meant the denial of rational and independent human beings, which the Enlightenment tradition regarded as the foundation of the Western civilization (Carr 1946). In other words, Carr was quite conscious of the construction of individuals by their living circumstances and the power relations in which they were involved, and that, therefore, they were not necessarily rational as the Enlightenment philosophy had presumed. Another issue that Carr focused on as a possible cause of WWII was the expansion of liberal democracy. Carr argues that pervasiveness of the liberal principle, in combination with democratic procedure, brought politics and diplomacy to the societal level. Until then, politics and diplomacy were responsibilities of government officials, politicians, and soldiers, and ordinary citizens had no say in such matters. However, the introduction of universal suffrage changed the situation drastically. Politics and diplomacy were no longer the exclusive concern of officials, politicians, or soldiers. As it became clear that international relations profoundly influence domestic political economy, and thus influences employment and social welfare of ordinary citizens and workers, politics and diplomacy became a matter of immediate concern for them. When the assumption of rational and autonomous individuals, on which liberal democracy is firmly based, is destroyed by the ordinary citizens’ decision to fight the enemy rather than seeking a peace in which they would lose their jobs and living standards, narrow minded nationalism becomes prevalent (Carr 1967a). Here again, Carr criticized the deductive application of abstract utopian principles of liberal peace to reality. What characterizes Carr’s argument on the twenty years’ crisis was his consistent perception of the international relations of his time, as characterized by the uncritical application of the liberal principles of political economy and abstract rationality to the inter-state sphere. Although his critical perceptions did not extend to clearly delineating all the features of his contemporary societies, he implied in his analysis of democracy and nationalism that it individuated ordinary citizens, which resulted in their isolation. While Carr paid little attention to social dimensions of the twenty years’ crisis, Hannah Arendt did so sufficiently in her analysis of totalitarianism.

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2. The Human Condition and Arendt’s Reading of Totalitarianism Hanna Arendt was undoubtedly one of the most important political thinkers of the twentieth century. Having experienced the storm of the Holocaust and life in a Nazi internment, she devoted her later life to understanding what contemporary political life, particularly in totalitarian regimes, means to individuals. In the third part of her famous work The Origins of the Totalitarianism, she explains that a necessary condition for the advent of a totalitarian regime is the isolation and atomization of individuals. Atomized individuals form a particular type of society called the ‘mass society’. The mass society is not organized in the way that political parties or groups are organized. Rather, it is an unorganized collective that totally lacks a public domain, and actively supports charismatic leaders (Arendt 1973). The lack of public domain means that the mass society consists of a simple aggregation of individual interests. These societies witnessed enthusiastic support for those who tried to destroy the prevailing order, characterized by hypocritical liberalism. The liberalism, according to Arendt, resulted in producing bourgeoisie who were characterized by its indifference to public concerns (Arendt 1973). The mass society has its origin in the bourgeoisie, who are defined by Arendt as those who judge ‘all public institutions by the yardstick of his private interest’. This, Arendt contrasts to citoyen, or responsible citizen, who is ‘concerned with public affairs as the affairs of all’ (Arendt 1973, 336). The bourgeoisie are the source of what Arendt calls ‘mob’ and ‘mass’. While the former refers to those who are characterized by their uncontrollable selfishness and violence, the latter refers to those who are characterized by their loneliness and selflessness (Arendt 1973, 316). Thus, both mob and mass are identical twins originating in the same bourgeoisie, but appear in two different incarnations, active bourgeoisie (mob) and passive ones (mass) (Morikawa 2010, 149). Arendt was deeply concerned with the cause of the advent of Nazism. What allowed the emergence of an extremely violent political regime, and why did so many citizens accept subjugation to the dominant power, willingly or otherwise? In her Human Condition and successive publications, Arendt provides an interesting hypothesis and makes extraordinary efforts to prove it. The hypothesis was simple but profound. In The Life of the Mind, Arendt explains it as follows:

Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing or even actually “condition” them against it? (Arendt 1978, 5)

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According to Arendt, what lacked in the individuals who supported the totalitarian regime was the practice of thinking and self-reflection. Unlike the individuals of that time, who often uncritically followed others in obeying rules and regulations, the ideal individuals Arendt depicts have the capability of reflecting and the motivation for practicing thinking. Moreover, Arendt describes a totalitarian society as one that is monolithic and one-dimensional, where individuals did not need to have dialogue with others simply because the others were the same as him/her. In other words, Arendt thought that dialogue, which is an essential to the existence of the public, only takes place among those who are different, and this difference among individuals ensures the sound functioning of democracy. Thus, it is a prerequisite to the existence of the public sphere. Without the presence of this public sphere, a society easily becomes receptive to immoral acts. Thus, the existence of the public and difference among individuals is the essential condition of humanness (Arendt 1958). What caused the loss of the humanness? Arendt, throughout her intellectual career, suspected the dominance of liberalism and consumerism and their reification as the main cause. Arendt argues that the domination of consumer society stemmed from the political power of liberalism. Economy was, to Arendt, inherently private, and thus had nothing to do with the public. Once economy and the logic of efficiency started to invade the public sphere, first politics and then citizens lost their ability to think, as they were urged to make decisions solely on considerations of economic efficiency and accumulation of profit. The lack of practice of reflecting, which she describes as ‘the heedless recklessness or hopeless confusion or complacent repetition of “truths” which have become trivial and empty’, is one of the salient characteristics of the modern age (Arendt 1958, 5). In this way, Arendt saw that the overwhelming domination of economy over the public sphere became the crucial factor in the advent of the Nazism, and this was one of the indispensable results of consumer society. 3. Gramsci and the Frankfurt School The typical examples of a similar understanding of the domination of liberalism and rise of consumer society were the works of Antonio Gramsci in Italy and the Frankfurt School in Germany. Both were within the Marxist tradition, concerned with ceaseless expansion of capitalism. However, what distinguishes them from the traditional structuralist and deterministic Marxism was their focus on the cultural dimension of contemporary society and their rethinking of the relationship between the structure and superstructure. In other words, they added a new and important dimension of culture to the understanding of domination of liberalism and consumer society provided by Carr and Arendt. Gramsci was an Italian philosopher and Marxist who was deeply concerned with capitalism and its relation to culture. Unlike the traditional Marxist understanding of capitalism and culture, in which culture was located at the level of superstructure and was conditioned and influenced by economic relations and the mode of production, Gramsci argued that there is a reciprocal relationship

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between these levels, and cultural relations also determine economic relations. In fact, in fascist Italy, cultural representations seemed to have influenced the mode of production and reinforced the domination of big capital. This in turn formed, what Gramsci called, the ‘historic bloc’ which is created by complex relations of key forces in the civil society and economy, operating politically. The synthesis between these forces has at times the potential to become hegemonic (Gramsci 1971; Gill 1993, 39–40). Although Gramsci consistently aimed at socialist revolution through his analysis of culture and politics, but, unfortunately, did not live to see his goal realized, even today his analysis of capitalism and culture continues to provide insight into the nature of modern society. In understanding the consumer culture during the twenty years’ crisis, we benefit from Gramsci’s concept of ‘civil society’. Gramsci felt that the distinctiveness of the period was created by the promotion of consumer culture by the culture industry. This promotion was achieved through ‘civil society’, which included the church, school systems, sports teams, the mass media, and the family. In sum, it is a collaborative body of ‘private’ organizations (Gramsci 1971, 12), which instructs and shapes individuals into consuming machines. While traditional Marxism only focused on the power that the mode of production exerted on the cultural aspect of everyday life, and, thus, often concluded that culture was dominated by capital, Gramsci’s analysis of capitalism broadened the Marxist understanding by revealing the reinforcing effect of culture, which enhances capital’s political economic power over individuals by engendering their consent. The cultural aspect of contemporary political economy promotes a ‘common sense’, in which norms and values of the capitalist society are deeply ingrained. Individuals imbibe this ‘common sense’ from private institutions, accept it, and become strong supporters of the prevailing order. The result was loss of individual aspiration for liberty and equality, which had presumably been the central focus of the Western political philosophy. The reason why Gramsci was able to focus on cultural power in maintaining the power relations in contemporary society was the ascendance of consumerism, the salient feature of the time. In fact, there were social theorists other than Gramsci who were profoundly concerned with this state of economy in other countries. The Critical theory of the Frankfurt School in Germany was one of them. We know that Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of the Enlightenment criticized the culture industry for producing powerless individuals by instilling in them a sense powerlessness or lack of control over their lives. Herbert Marcuse, another Frankfurt School philosopher, argues that the severe domination of the culture industry made a citizen into a ‘one dimensional man,’ imbued with ‘false needs’. Marcuse writes,

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The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs. (Marcuse 1991, 4)

It is not a coincidence that thinkers in Italy and Germany dealt with similar topics simultaneously. One can readily see that the advent of consumer society was indeed one of the important factors that profoundly influenced the emergence of totalitarian domination in these countries. We can clearly see that the social theorists and political thinkers of the period of twenty years’ crisis directed their attention to the advent of consumer society and the transformation of individuals into consuming machines. If the crisis of the inter-war period led to this socio-political tendency, we should be able to find the same tendency elsewhere. 4. The Kyoto School and the ‘Good’ The philosophy of the Kyoto School is one of the most widely known philosophies of Japan, and many scholars have viewed it as the most advanced form of integration of the Western philosophy and indigenous thought of the time. The most prominent scholar of the School was Nishida Kitaro. He was a professor of philosophy at the Kyoto Imperial University in the inter-war period, and has been lauded for a number of books and articles supposedly bridging the divide between Western and Eastern philosophy. Although argument continues on whether his theoretical contributions actually bridged the two different traditions of thought, his philosophy, based on what he called the ‘place of nothingness’, is still regarded as one of the most advanced forms of existentialist thought and became frequently cited in IR literature recently (Shih 2012). He was, from the beginning of his career at the Kyoto Imperial University, widely known among ordinary Japanese readers as the author of best-seller book Zen no Kenkyu [An Inquiry into the Good]. Many non-specialist readers read this book, despite its perplexing phraseology and extremely difficult concepts. As the title indicates, the book was concerned with important questions of ethics and morality. Nishida argues that an individual is constituted by a series of experiences, as opposed to the notion that individuals experience the world as pre-given subjects. Given this situation, individuals can contribute to the world through self-realization. In his book, Nishida denies the road to knowledge through pure reason, suggested by continental philosophy. He also denies emotion and sympathy towards others, inspired by religiosity, which British empiricism presupposes as the foundation of morality. This is because both these approaches uncritically presuppose a pre-given subjectivity. Nishida, on the contrary, argues that subjectivity is constituted by pure experience, which in turn constitutes the will of individuals. Thus, the most important factor in understanding the good of the contemporary world is the self-realization of the will.

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Underlying his persistent contention of self-realization is his strong belief that there is an integrating power in consciousness that puts together all the experiences and reflections into one body of thought, that is, consciousness (Nishida 1947). This power is, somehow, metaphysical and transcendental and was one of the frequently cited aspects of his thought, which later provoked severe criticism. Another aspect of Nishida’s formulation of morality that we must not miss here is the influence of Buddhism. Drawing on Buddhist philosophy, Nishida frequently repeats his belief that the universal is particular and particular is universal. In the light of this belief, his philosophy came to suggest that good for the nation-state was the good for the individual. Morality was in this way reified into the nation-state, and the nation-state became the foundation of morality (Nishida 1947). Whether his contention of the good is reasonable or persuasive, more important for the purpose of this article is to seek the reason for his decision to configure and reformulate what is ‘good’ in the contemporary world. His disciples inherited Nishida’s concern with ethics and morality and later came to use the term ‘moral energy’ frequently (Kawakami et al. 1979; Kosaka et al. 1943).The backdrop of the focus of the Kyoto School philosophers on the issue of morality was a widely shared perception of the contemporary world, the advent of consumer society. In this context, liberalism and democracy became the targets of their criticism. Suzuki Shigetaka, one of Nishida’s disciples and a specialist on Western history, contended that problems, which the contemporary world has to deal with, are democracy, capitalism, and liberalism (Kawakami et al. 1979). To Suzuki, the ‘West’ was an entity that led the world towards these goals, which Japan presumably needed to transcend. Kosaka Masaaki, another disciple of Nishida and a Kant specialist, argued in a similar vein that human beings had lost their liberty to the machine they had created and, thereby, had lost control over their own lives. The ‘machine’ here stood for capitalism and modernity (Kosaka 2002, 26–30), at the core of which resided consumerism. Kosaka too saw in the ‘West’ the origin of the problem of his times. Although it continues to be controversial whether their contention of viewing the ‘West’ in such manner was convincing, it is quite clear that their main concern was not with the ‘West’ per se, but the widespread liberal domination and expanding consumerism. 5. Consumerism in Japan during the Twenty Years’ Crisis The Kyoto School’s perception of their contemporary Japanese society was deeply coloured by their critical stance towards consumerism. Why were they so concerned with it? What was Japanese society like at that time? Despite the common understanding of pre-war Japan as a dark oppressive period of militarism, recent research on the pre-war society has revealed that

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ordinary social lives were quite individualistic and consumption-oriented (Inoue 2007, 2008, 2011b). Discussing the era right before the Second World War, Inoue argues why the rapidly emerging nationalism was the reason for Japan’s aggressive territorial expansion, as opposed to the widely accepted explanation of Japan’s imperialism as promoted by the military alone (Inoue 2008). Interestingly, the strongest supporters of the army and imperial expansion were the workers, women, and farmers, who, in Inoue’s view, were the most likely victims of the military expansion (Inoue 2008, 117). The reason for this was the consumer society in which women performed the central role. At that time, the Great Depression had ended and Japan was undergoing an economic boom, enjoying ‘peace and prosperity’ by exploiting the colonies. The consumer society was a space in which urbanization and Western style ‘modern life’ flourished, and this social extravaganza lasted until 1940, when the government started exercising control over the everyday lives of ordinary citizens (Ginoza 2012, 213–214). What is important in understanding this phenomenon in Japan is the influence of democratization, which occurred in 1925, and of the advent of mass society. As Carr argues, the combination of democratization and emergence of mass society has sometimes given birth to extreme nationalism, and to totalitarian domination in some cases (Carr 1967a). Japan was no exception. Carr argues that the rationality of ordinary citizens, which democratization presupposes, is not something pre-given or universal. Rather, it is a product of thinking that has not necessarily been validated by actual experiences. In fact, democratization in Japan closely followed Carr’s analysis and explanation of the phenomenon. In 1937, when Japan launched the war on China, which lasted until the end of the WWII, ordinary citizens applauded and celebrated it, and had no hesitation in wholeheartedly supporting it (Inoue 2008, 122–123). This was because of the economic boom presumably triggered by the war, and many citizens in fact expected that pursuing territorial expansion in the Asian continent would enhance the economic growth even further. An important aspect of the background for this mass support was the widening gap between the affluent and the deprived. After the quick development of urbanization as the result of modernization and liberalization, economic inequality increased in Japan. Here, the war acted as the deliverer. Japan’s militarization and the enlargement of its territory stimulated the economy, and the profit generated by the economic prosperity was supposed to reach those who had been on the margins. As the newly emerged consumer society shaped the ordinary citizens, the latter were concerned only with their immediate living conditions and had no awareness of a public nature. Uchida Tatsuru contends that people who have grown up in a consumer society have a pronounced tendency to avert their eyes from public issues. They look only at their private lives and, as a result, politics becomes merely the space where private interests clash for increasing the share of each. This is achieved through the democratization of governance, particularly through the development of procedural democracies (Uchida 2007). In other

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words, the public realm loses its function of discussing and deciding issues that are of interest for citizens and society as a whole, e.g. diplomacy, social order, welfare, education, justice, and citizens’ rights. This was precisely the reason why the thinkers of the Kyoto School were deeply concerned with investigating morality. In other words, Japan’s consumer society appeared to them as an aggregation of individuals who did not pay sufficient attention to the moral dimension of the social, and, thus, totally lacked an awareness of a public nature. Hence, one can interpret the philosophy of the Kyoto School as an attempt to recover the lost public sphere through their philosophical understanding of morality. Although their theoretical efforts were absorbed within the discourse of extreme nationalism and suffered abuse, their critical evaluation of the consumer society still remains worth analysing (Hiromatsu 1989). Conclusion—Lessons for the Contemporary IRT Before we conclude, we need to take into account the issue of causation. This is imperative for explaining that my contention here is not to predict the future of world affairs. Aristotle conceptualized at least four different causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. The material cause refers to the passive potentiality of matter, the formal cause to defining shapes or relations, the efficient cause to the agent that generates motion or change, and the final cause to the purposes that guide change (Kurki 2008, 12). The traditional IR has focused mainly on efficient causes, which explains the immediate pushing and pulling effect. However, understanding historical developments should not be limited by this ordinary perception of causes. For historical explanation involves all the four causes and, according to E. H. Carr’s understanding of history, the weight given to each cause varies depending on who is narrating (Carr 1967b). The aim of the present article was to indicate the different possible causes of the enthusiastic support of the ordinary citizens of Japan for the war in order to broaden our approach towards contemporary world affairs, and is, thus, not limited to the traditional understanding of causes in IR. The works of Carr and Arendt are, in the contemporary discourse of politics and international relations, regarded as classical texts. What permeates their argument was the critical attitude towards liberalism and consumer society. The reason why I focused on their arguments was the striking resemblance of the twenty years’ crisis and the present socio-political situation. In fact, some contemporary scholars in Japan, and elsewhere, veered towards a similar understanding of the two distant periods. Inoue, for instance, states that the reason why he has been intensively working on the inter-war period is his ineffable feeling of similarity between these two periods (Inoue 2011a). Other contemporary researchers have shared his

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feeling. Consequently, a series of books and articles have been published on the society and intellectuals of the inter-war period, which is indicative of this new perception (Uchida 2007; Inoue 2007, 2008, 2011a, 2011b; Takeda 2013). What sort of lessons can we draw from the history of the twenty years’ crisis that I have discussed here? First, the diminishing public sphere contains an immense political meaning. As I have noted, numerous books have been published in Japan recently, many of which contend that Japanese citizens were very much consumption-oriented and got used to the rules and norms of consumer society before World War II, and that there are striking similarities between that period and the present. History tells us, as Carr and Arendt specifically explained, that the determining background of the advent of consumerism was liberalism, and this political ideology was closely related to the domination and hegemony of the British Empire. Carr and Arendt both agree that one of the reasons for global instability was the relative decline of British hegemony and the advent of the newly emerging economies such as Germany and Japan. Ordinary citizens on both sides perceived the confrontation of the old and new powers with nationalist enthusiasm. What lies behind this ordinary citizens’ enthusiastic reception of the international confrontation was the lack of thinking and the declining focus on morality in everyday lives, as Carr and Arendt suggest. While intellectuals such as Carr and Arendt, and partly the Frankfurt School scholars, retrospectively analysed the logic and structure of the twenty years’ crisis, Gramsci and the Kyoto School philosophers experienced the emergence of direct confrontation and advent of extreme nationalism, and tried to change the course of society. Despite the difference among them in terms of the analytical approach of their researches, there is also a striking similarity. For all of them agree that liberalism was one of the compelling causes of the terrible epoch. Thus, in comprehending contemporary IR, non-Western IRT must focus on the possible consequences of the socio-economic structure of contemporary world affairs, and appreciate that the advent of non-Western IRT itself is a part of the historical dynamic of structural change in the international scenario. Thus, we have to become aware that those who are working on the non-Western IRT literature themselves are the products of this change.

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