Culture, Nationalism...

Society for Japanese Studies
Culture, Nationalism, and Sakaguchi Ango

Author(s): James Dorsey
Source: The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), pp. 347-379
Published by: Society for Japanese Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3591970
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JAMES DORSEY
Culture,Nationalism,andSakaguchiAngo
Abstract:Studies of the writerSakaguchiAngo (1906-55) conventionallypor-

tray him as a staunch opponent of wartime ideology. An analysis of "Nihon
bunkashikan"(A personal view of Japaneseculture, 1942), however, suggests
the iconoclasmpromptingthis readingis more appropriatelyattributedto Ango's
conceptionof a spiritualpurityantecedentto intellectualcontrivances.Inpursuit
of this purity he constructs,perhapsinadvertently,an ethnic nationalismfully
in accord with mainstreamwartime ideology and propaganda."Darakuron"
(Discourse on decadence, 1946), Ango's postwarclassic, is an extension of his
vision, and its popularitysuggests this strain of nationalismsurvived the war
intact.
"Nihonbunkashikan"(A personalview of Japaneseculture,1942) by Saka-

guchi Ango (1906-55) is undoubtedlyone of the most controversialpieces
of culturalcriticism published in Japanduring WorldWarII. Its irreverent
humor,bold iconoclasm, and unflinchingengagementwith the sensitive is-
sue of national identity make it an anomaly in that period when writers,
undersiege by repressivecensors, were forced to compose with the utmost
caution. Today, over 50 years after its publication, the work continues to
appealto scholars,critics, and everydayreaders.
When the essay appearedin thejournalGendaibungaku(Contemporary
literature)in March 1942, the war in the Pacific was three months old and
Japanwas in full wartime mode. Under the slogan "Zeitakuwa teki da"
(luxuryis the enemy), the authoritieswere demandingever greaterlevels of
sacrificefrom the people as well as vigorously repressingideas thatthreat-
ened the unity or clarityof the nationalpolity (kokutai).Since August 1937
local censors had been enforcingregulationsprohibitingany suggestionthat
A numberof people provided valuable suggestions at various stages of this article. I

would like to thank Dennis Washburn,Doug Slaymaker,Paul Ziegler, and the anonymous
readersfor this journal.
347
Journalof JapaneseStudies, 27:2
?) 2001 Society for JapaneseStudies
348 Journal of Japanese Studies 27:2 (2001)
the Japanese were opposed to war, any insinuation that the Japanese were
warlike, any comment that indicated living conditions in Japan would be
harmed by the war, any remark that revealed a Japanese shortcoming, and
any statement that might prompt public confusion.1 It was, as critic Taka-
hashi Haruo has written, a time when "the topic of things Japanese was no
longer an object for discussion but rather an absolute and sacred concept." 2
Somebody forget to tell Ango. From the opening lines of the essay, he
inverts the official hierarchy of cultural practices and artifacts in a string of
bombastic remarks:
I know next to nothing about traditionalJapaneseculture. I've never seen
the KatsuraDetached Palace which Bruno Tautpraisedso highly, nor am I
familiarwith his preciousMochizuki Gyokusen,Ike Taiga, TanomuraChi-
kuden, or Tomioka Tessai. As for his Hata Z6roku and Chikugen Saishi,
well, I've never even heardof them. For one thing,I'm not muchof a tourist,
so the towns and villages of our homeland, with all their various local cus-
toms and landmarks,are a mystery to me. On top of that,I was bornin what
Tautcalled the most vulgarcity in Japan,Niigata, and I adorethe striprun-
ning from Ueno to Ginza and the neon lights, both of which he despised. I
know none of the formalities of the tea ceremony,but I do know all about
getting rip-roaringdrunk.In my lonely home, I've never once given any-
thing like the tokonoma[alcove] a second thought.3
These lines set the tone for the remainder of the essay, which is essentially
a sustained attack on a wide range of Japanese cultural icons. The following
two passages, perhaps the most frequently cited in the secondary literature,
are representative:
More thantraditionalbeauty or intrinsicallyJapaneseforms, we need more
convenience in our daily lives. The destructionof the temples in Kyoto or
the Buddhiststatues in Nara wouldn'tbotherus in the least, but we'd be in
real troubleif the streetcarsstoppedrunning.
I couldn't care less if both Horyuijiand Byodoin burned to the ground.If
the need should arise, we'd do well to tear down Horyfijiand put in a park-
ing lot.4
1. The guidelines, distributedto publishersand newspapersby the Home Ministry(Nai-

musho), are reproducedin Soma Shoichi, Wakakihino Sakaguchi Ango (Tokyo: Yoyosha,
1992), pp. 250-51. For an English discussion of the guidelines, see RichardH. Mitchell, Cen-
sorship in ImperialJapan (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1983), p. 284.
2. TakahashiHaruo, "'Nihon bunkashikan'to 'Darakuron'no aida," in MoriyasuMasa-
fumi and TakanoYoshitomo,eds., SakaguchiAngo kenkyu(Tokyo: Nansosha, 1973), p. 306.
3. Sakaguchi Ango, "Nihon bunka shikan" (hereafter"Shikan"), in Vol. 7 of Okuno
Takeo et al., eds., Teihon SakaguchiAngo zenshu (hereafterSAZ), 13 vols. (Tokyo:Tojusha,
1968), p. 122. All translationsare mine unless otherwise noted. For an English translationof
approximatelytwo-thirdsof this essay, see James Dorsey, trans., "A PersonalView of Japa-
nese Culture,"in J. Thomas Rimerand Van Gessel, eds., The ColumbiaAnthologyof Modern
Japanese Literature(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, forthcoming).
4. Sakaguchi,"Shikan,"pp. 124, 141.
Dorsey: SakaguchiAngo 349
In addition to justifying the sacrifice of Japan'sgrand architecturaland

sculpturalheritage, Ango's pursuit of "convenience" prompts him to de-
fend the Westernizedlifestyle of his contemporaries,a lifestyle subjectedto
increasingsuspicion duringthe war.
"Whatis the essence of the 'Japanesespirit'"? We, of all people, do not
need to theorize on that .... We yank trousers over our stubby bowlegs,
deck ourselves out in Westernclothes, waddle about, dance the jitterbug,
toss out the tatami, and strike our affected poses amidst tacky chairs and
tables. That this appears completely absurdto the Western eye has abso-
lutely no bearingon the fact that we ourselves are satisfied with the conve-
nience of it all.5
In the oppressive atmosphereof Japan in 1942, inflammatory,subversive
remarkslike these from Ango were downright dangerous, surely to one's
futurepublishingprospects if not one's liberty and perhapseven one's life.
HiranoKen, Ango's friend andfellow contributorto Gendai bungaku,could
not have been the only one who, on reading "Nihon bunka shikan," felt
"immediatelyapprehensive,thinking'Can Sakaguchiget away with writing
this sort of stuff?' "6
Ango did get away with it, though, and has subsequentlybeen champi-
oned as a voice of truereasonduringa time when the only reasonwelcomed
was that which served the war effort. His reputationas a relentless critic of
reductivedefinitions of nationalcultureand characterwas cemented in the
early postwarperiod with the essay "Darakuron"(Discourse on decadence,
1946), which made him a household name. The two essays, "Nihonbunka
shikan"and "Darakuron,"sharea great deal in terms of rhetoricand mes-
sage, and it is thereforeparadoxicalthat each would be sanctionedby au-
thorities diametricallyopposed in mood and purpose: "Nihon bunka shi-
kan" was acceptableto repressivewartime censors insisting on conformity
to an official vision of the nation and its mission, while "Darakuron"was
embracedby a public intoxicatedwith the individualand intellectualfree-
doms thatemergedafter the surrender.
How did a consistentphilosophyvoiced by a single authorappeasesuch
diverse audiences?The feat was made possible by the invocation of a par-
ticular trope of Japanese culturalnationalism which, having spannedthe
wartimeandpostwarperiods, mustbe addedto thatgrowing list of wartime
legacies that survivedthe radicalrestructuringof Japanduringthe U.S. oc-
cupationand contributedto its miraculouspostwarrecovery.Inspiredby a
widespreadsuspicion of reasonand the intellect, Ango rejects all sustained
explications of nationalessence as mere rhetoricalcontrivancewhile advo-
cating instead a spiritualpurity,or authenticity,available only in a realm
5. Ibid., p. 141.
6. HiranoKen, "Sakuhinkaisetsu,"in Ito Sei et al., eds., IshikawaJun, SakaguchiAngo,
Vol. 19 of Nihon gendai bungakuzenshu (Tokyo:K6dansha,1967), p. 419.
350 Journalof Japanese Studies 27:2 (2001)
antecedentto such abstractionsand ideology. Although presentedas a lib-

erationfrom the oppressionof theories, this spiritualauthenticityultimately
reinscribes,undererasure,ideologies of self andnation all its own: the self-
realized individualis one who burrowsbeneaththe misleading "static" of
abstractthoughtby actingon impulse and, similarly,the "true"Japanis one
unconcernedwith locating or preservingits indigenous heritageas it faces
the immediatechallenges presentedto its survivaland well-being. In other
words, although "emptied,"the categories of the individualand the nation
remain,serving as receptaclesfor the incessantrecreationof content.
Ango's vision of both the self and nation drawsheavily on this trope.In
the context of World WarII, this message (as delivered in "Nihon bunka
shikan") was fully consistent with an ideology promoting the desperate
measures taken in Japan's"holy war," and in the postwar "Darakuron"it
providedan intimatelyfamiliarframeworkwithin which to embracedefeat
and execute the revolutionarychanges of the occupationperiod.
TheRise and Fall of Icons

In a certainsense it is neithersurprisingthatHiranowouldbe concerned
over the repercussionsthatAngo might sufferfor publishing "Nihonbunka
shikan"nor inconceivablethat so many others would similarlyread it as a
subversive text from a repressive age. Approximately20 pages in length
(or 12,000 words in English translation),the essay is dividedinto four sub-
titled sections: "'Nihonteki' to iu koto" (Things "Japanese"),in which
Ango rebels against essentialist definitions of Japaneseculture;"Zokuaku
ni tsuite (ningen wa ningen o)" (Vulgarity:humans love what is human),
dedicatedto reversingthe hierarchyof the refined/vulgardichotomywith a
wild romp throughthe backstreetsof Kyoto; "Ie no tsuite" (The home), a
short, puzzling section in which Ango portraysthat emotionally charged
nexus of interpersonalrelationships, often invoked as a metaphorof the
nation, as in fact a desolate place in which man confrontshis isolation and
sadness;and "Bi ni tsuite" (On beauty),where a prison, dry ice factory,and
battleshipare presentedas aesthetically superiorto the accepted paragons
of Japanesearchitecture.
While variedin focus, all four sections of the essay sharewhatis evident
in the passages quoted above: a bold iconoclasm directedat the symbols of
the national polity and a defense of the plebeian pleasures of a modern,
Westernizedlifestyle. In this respect the essay is drastically at odds with
what Louis Althusser would call the "Ideological State Apparatuses,"the
pluralityof almost-hiddenyet inescapableforces of ideology.7In the Japan
of the 1940s, these forces were joined in buttressinga definitionof the na-
7. See Louis Althusser,"Ideology and Ideological StateApparatuses,"in Leninand Phi-

losophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (New York:Monthly Review Press, 1971),
pp. 121-73.
tion based on traditionalicons while simultaneouslypromotingan austere

existence purified of pernicious foreign influences. Ango's opposition to
this ideological pressureis at the root of both Hirano'sconcern and Ango's
reputationas a subversivevoice.
An iconoclast requires icons, symbols invested with a sentimental
charge built up through energy invested over long years. Ango found a
ready catalogue of such icons in the work of the German architectBruno
Taut (1880-1938), whom Ango mentions at various points in the essay.
Tautarrivedin Japanin May 1933 and spent the following three and a half
years lecturing to the Japaneseon their architecturalheritage and cultural
identity.A prolific writer,he is best known in Japanfor three books: Nip-
pon: Yoroppajinno me de mita (Japan as seen through Europeaneyes,
1934), recommendedby Japan'sMinistry of Education and translatedre-
peatedly;Nihon bunkashikan(A personalview of Japaneseculture,1936),
a greatcommercialsuccess; and a posthumouscollection of previouslypub-
lished essays, Nihon bi no sai hakken(A rediscoveryof Japaneseaesthetics,
1939), which not only joined Nippon: Yoroppajinno me de mita on the
Ministry of Education'srecommendedreading list but also earned a place
in the commerciallyprofitableIwanamiShinsho "redseries."8
Taut'sreputationas a distinguished foreign architect attracteda large
readership,and his enthusiasticendorsementof Japaneseculturethrilleda
generationhungryfor affirmationsof Japan'sstatusas a culturallyadvanced
nation.Among these readerswas SakaguchiAngo, who takes the title of his
essay from one of Taut'sbooks. He also takes so many of his cues from the
German architect that it is tempting to read "Nihon bunka shikan" as a
parodyof Taut'swork. The fact, however,is thatTautis but a foil for Ango's
attackon a much older and largerdiscourse. Fortunatelythe discourse sur-
roundingtwo of the icons centralto both Taut and Ango, the Horyuji and
the KatsuraDetached Palace,has been carefullydocumented.9Withinthese
contexts, Ango's bombasticstatementsreveal theirfull force.
When Ango wrote of his willingness to replacethe H6ryfijiwith a park-
ing lot, he was, at one level, reactingto Taut'shigh evaluationof the site. In
an essay on Nara, Tauthad written:
The Japanesespirit has unraveledthe strict symmetryof the Chinese style,
and the spacious compoundis laid out in a completelyJapanizedmanner-
free and asymmetrical. The architecturalstyle has similarly escaped the
heavy, outlandishshapes of the Chinese mode to emanateinstead a mood of
8. See Inoue Shoichi, TsukuraretaKatsura Rikytushinwa (Tokyo: K6bund6, 1986),

pp. 65-67, andJacquelineEve Kestenbaum,"ModernismandTraditionin JapaneseArchitec-
turalIdeology, 1931-1955" (Ph.D. diss., ColumbiaUniversity,1996), pp. 119-21.
9. I am referringhere to two books by Inoue Sh6ichi: the previously cited Tsukurareta
KatsuraRikyu-shinwa and Horyuji e no seishinshi (Tokyo: K6bundo, 1994). I am much in-
debtedto these works in the following discussion.
lightness and refinement.... The day I spent looking at the Horyuijiwill

remainenshrineddeep in my heart,never forgotten.10
This evaluation by Taut was actually the settling point of a long process
of ideological interpretations that had begun in the work of Ernest Fenel-
losa (1853-1908) and Okakura Kakuzo (a.k.a. Tenshin, 1862-1913). Their
work, and the national trend to emphasize Japan's links with the West while
downplaying its Asian roots, prompted the pioneering architectural histo-
rian It6 Chuta to conclude in the 1890s that the entasis (graceful bulge) of
the Horyuiji's pillars was evidence of a Hellenistic influence on classical
Japanese architecture.ll In basing his appreciation of an indigenous struc-
ture on this point, Ito was in essence claiming that Japanese architecture was
important because it was not really Japanese.
The Horyuiji's evolution into a national icon did not, however, stop there.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, Japan began to remake its image
along Asian lines, and the interpretation of the Horyuiji evolved accordingly.
As Okakura's The Ideals of the East (1903) and The Book of Tea (1906)
began to explain Japan to the world in terms of its Asian heritage, the very
same Ito Chuta turned his attention to the asymmetrical layout of the build-
ings in the Horyuiji compound. After initially linking it to a temple in China,
Ito eventually concluded that none other than Shotoku Taishi himself had
overseen the unique construction and that "the design of the Horyuiji is
rooted, of course, in the spirit, tastes, and preferences of our Japanese race,
cultivated over thousands of years." 12 In recasting the Horyuji first as a part
of Asian culture and later as evidence of Japan's unique place therein, Ito's
interpretations reflected the changes in the national mood, changes that were
to spawn the Japanese ethnic nationalism of the 1930s and 1940s. A premier
slogan for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, "Asia is one," was
to be taken from the opening lines of Okakura's Ideals of the East and, as
Donald Keene notes, this phrase was repeated ad nauseam by participants
in the Greater East Asia Writers Congresses in 1942, 1943, and 1944.13 A
10. Bruno Taut, "Nara," trans. (to Japanese from German) Shinoda Hideo, in Nihon
zakki,Vol. 2 of ShinmuraIzuruet al., eds., Tautozenshu (Tokyo:IkuseishaKod6kaku,1943),
pp. 179-80.
11. Inoue, Horyaji e no seishinshi, pp. 5-62. On Japan'sefforts to merge with Europe
and leave Asia behind (nyu-O,datsu-A), see HirakawaSukehiro, "Japan'sTurnto the West,"
trans.Bob TadashiWakabayashi,in Bob TadashiWakabayashi,ed., Modem Japanese Thought
(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 30-97. For the subsequent reverse
course, "escape Europe/enterAsia" (datsu-O, nyu-A), see Tetsuo Najita and H. D. Harootu-
nian, "Japan'sRevolt Againstthe West," in ibid., pp. 207-72.
12. Ito Chtta, "Asukajidai no kenchiku," in Sekai bijutsu zenshu, Vol. 6 (Tokyo: Hei-
bonsha, 1928), pp. 27-28; quotedin Inoue, Horyujie no seishinshi, p. 196.
13. See Kakuzo Okakura,The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of
Japan (Rutland,Vt: CharlesE. Tuttle Co, 1970), p. 1. Donald Keene's remarkis made in
"JapaneseWritersand the GreaterEast Asia War,"Landscapesand Portraits(Tokyo:Kodan-
sha International,1971), p. 310.
second popularwartime slogan, "eight corners of the world pulled under

one roof" (hakko ichiu), reflects the second stage of Ito's evolving appre-
ciation-this "roof" was most certainlyto be Japan's.
The symbolic elasticity of the Horyuji ended here. Though the archae-
ologist Ishida Mosaku, skeptical of the Sh6toku-Horyuijimyth, uncovered
physical evidence in the 1940s that dated the asymmetricallayout of the
compoundto a rebuilding50 years after Sh6tokuTaishi'sdeath,he did not
dare tamperwith this icon of national character.In the postexcavationre-
port, which should have sounded the death knell for the Sh6toku-Horyuji
myth, Ishidacould only write:
Someof my seniorcolleagueshaveclaimedthatthis[H6ryiji]wasanorigi-
nalideaconceivedby ShotokuTaishi.Whileit is unclearwhethertheidea
is indeedoriginal,one mightsaythattheHoryuiji
is a manifestation
of one
partof ShotokuTaishi'sspirit.ThoughShotoku'sidealswererealizedto
someextentduringhisownlifetime,it wasactuallyin thenextagethatthey
finallyreacheda fullerfruition.14
Ishida'sreticence is evidence that in the 1940s the topic of things Japanese

was indeed "an absolute and sacred concept." Ishida realized this and had
no choice but to resortto the torturedlogic whereby48 yearsafterhis death
Shotoku'sspiritreachesfrombeyond the graveto shape a uniquelyJapanese
Horyfijithatbreakswith the Chinese conventionof symmetry.
SakaguchiAngo, however, had no stomach for such equivocation.As
noted above, in addition to prioritizing working streetcarsover Kyoto's
temples andNara'sBuddhiststatues,Ango was readyto replacethe Horyuji
with a parking lot. In Ango's mind none of these icons had any intrinsic
value. "Let the ancienttemples of Kyoto and Naraburnto the ground.The
traditionsof Japanwould not be affected in the least. Nor would Japanese
architectureas a whole suffer.If a need exists, we can just as well build the
temples anew;the style of prefabbarrackswould be just fine."15
These statementsaredelightfullyoutrageous.While so manyhadworked
so hardto negotiate Japan'splace in the world and to delineatethe bounda-
ries of its culturalhegemony throughreadingsof the Horyuiji,Ango refuses
to be drawninto the alluringquest for the symbols of nationalidentity.Nor
is he seduced by a desire to expose the specious logic and shaky evidence
behind the invocation of these structuresas symbols of the nation-reason
has no place in the mythicalrealm of nation-building,as the archaeologist
Ishida was well aware. Rather,Ango cuts the Gordianknot by dismissing
14. Ishida Mosaku, "Horyuji saiken hisaiken mondai no kiketsu," in Garan ronko--
bukkyokokogakuno kenkyu(Tenri:Yotokusha, 1948), p. 61; quoted in Inoue, Horyuji e no
seishinshi, p. 229.
15. Sakaguchi, "Shikan,"p. 136.
the realm of signifiers of nation in its entirety.This was a bold, unconven-

tional move, and a dangerousone. Hiranodid have cause for concern.
The constructionof a geopolitical space for Japanthroughthe discourse
surroundingthe Horyujiwas groundedin an aesthetic argument:the asym-
metry of the compound'slayout was construedas distinguishinga Japanese
sensibility from its counterpartson the continent. A similar argumentre-
volved aroundthe wabi tradition,particularlyas it is manifestedin the Ka-
tsura Detached Palace. Bruno Taut enthusiasticallychampionedthis aes-
thetic vein, juxtaposingit with the vulgarityandkitsch of Nikko'sToshogu.
Many of the othericons Ango underminesin "Nihon bunkashikan"can be
tracedto this realm.
Taut'sconception of the relationshipbetween beauty and nationaliden-
tity is evident in the epigramin his Nihon bunkashikan: "Imitationis the
death of Beauty," a maxim in which the actors are not individuals but
nations.'6Taut disapprovedof anything that was not purely "Japanese,"
which he took to mean part of the minimalist,understatedwabi aesthetic.
Singing the praises of haiku and ink paintings (suibokuga, or zenga), he
writes: "Theconciseness of the words andthe pictures... theirimpartiality,
and their objectivityare truly perfection itself." 17 Taut laudedthe tea room
and the tokonomafor the same reasons but saves pride of place for the Ka-
tsuraDetachedPalace, which he believed representsthe veryheartof Japan.
Where,oh where,is thetrueJapan?In otherwords,whatis it in Japanthat,
whencompared to all theothercreationsof theworld,manifestsata glance
Japan's utteruniqueness?It goes withoutsayingthatit existsamongthe
examples[haiku,ink paintings]I have alreadygiven.Still, even among
these,it can be saidthatthe KatsuraDetachedPalaceis Japan'sultimate,
mostsublimesourceof architectural light.18
ClearlyTautconflatesbeautywith culturalpurity;the KatsuraDetachedPal-

ace is the model of beautybecause it expresses "Japan'sutteruniqueness."
Tautassociates this wabi aestheticwith the refinedtastes of the imperial
house, and he privileges it over the opposing half of the dichotomy: the
crude shogunal sensibility. While the imperial aesthetic is associatedwith
the beautiful tokonoma,the shogunal arts are akin to what most often lies
behind that tokonoma:the toilet.19Accordingto Taut,vulgar shogunalcul-
ture reaches its most detestable depths in the legacy of Toyotomi Hide-
yoshi (1536-98). Hideyoshi's "famous gargantuanaudience chamberis,
architecturallyspeaking, terribly clumsy; furthermore,its proportionsare
16. BrunoTaut,Nihon bunkashikan,trans.(to Japanesefrom German)Mori Toshio (To-

kyo: Meiji Shob6, 1936). This statementis found on the unnumberedpage precedingpage one.
17. Ibid., p. 37.
18. Ibid., p. 40.
19. Ibid., pp. 3-22, esp. p. 18.
Dorsey: Sakaguchi Ango 355
completely plebeian, its gaiety is inappropriate, and its tediousness is ex-

treme." 20Furthermore, the ignorance that prompted Hideyoshi to demand
tea master Sen no Rikyu's suicide and the "wretchedly poor taste" of his
gold-leaf tea room prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hideyoshi was
"entirely lacking in both the poetic sensibilities of the understated and any
sensitivity to architecture." 21
The building Taut chooses to represent this vulgar shogunal taste is
Nikk6's T6shogu. This complex sits at the center of Taut's "Ikamono to
inchiki" (Kitsch and inauthenticity, 1936), where he writes:
The mausoleum at Nikk6 is considered the epitome of kitsch [ikamono],
and this evaluationis righton the mark.ThoughNikko's shrinemay include
many skillfully crafteditems, for its lack of a Japaneseaura (aji) and the
absence of a calm, understatedrigor (shibui), we can only call it kitsch.22
Taut's disappointment in Nikko's most famous site sent him scurrying back
to the home of the Katsura Detached Palace and the imperial aesthetic: "The
Toshogii is a corruption of architecture, and an extreme one at that. We
returned to Kyoto."23
In Taut's popular writings on wabi, the Katsura Detached Palace, and
Toshogu we find the construction of an aesthetic identity for Japan. In its
insistence on a cultural purity (Taut's condemnation of anything imitative of
the Chinese or Western traditions), it is orientalism of the first order, but one
that was quickly adopted by the Japanese themselves and served as a well-
spring of patriotism. Looking back on the 1930s from a time shortly after
the war, architectural critic Kawazoe Noboru would write:
Worksby Taut and books about him were being published one right after
the other. Obsessed, I bought them and read them. They were what pulled
me into the world of the JapanRomantics.Before I knew it, I had stopped
skipping school and was enthusiasticallytaking part in the military drills
and labor conscription. Without noticing the contradictions,it struck me
thatJapanwas a very good country,and thatit must win the war.24
Obviously popular treatises on Japan's cultural traditions were influencing

more than home decorating choices; expositions of Japanese culture were
fanning the flame of a national pride that dovetailed neatly with the contem-
porary war effort.
20. Ibid., p. 50.

21. Ibid., p. 51.
22. BrunoTaut, "Ikamonoto inchiki," trans.(to Japanesefrom German)ShinodaHideo,
in Bijutsuto kogei, Vol. 3 of Shinmuraet al., eds., Tautozenshu, p. 339.
23. Bruno Taut, "Nikko," trans. (to Japanesefrom German)ShinodaHideo, in Katsura,
Vol. 1 of Shinmuraet al., eds., Tautozenshu, p. 301.
24. Kawazoe Noboru, "Watakushino Tautokan," in Tosho,April 1962, p. 15; quotedin
Inoue, TsukuraretaKatsuraRikyushinwa, pp. 112-13.
In "Nihon bunka shikan" Ango gleefully upsets these ideologically

chargedicons as well. The attack begins in the very first paragraphof his
essay, quoted in its entirety above. Not only is Taut's symbol of "Japan's
utteruniqueness,"the KatsuraDetached Palace, flung into the realm of the
unknown,but the symbolic tokonomaandno fewer than six of Taut'sartistic
heroes are discardedwith equal alacrity.Even the precioustea ceremony,so
importantto Taut(andOkakurabefore him), is replacedby the consumption
of other,more potent, potables.
Laterin the essay Ango even goes so far as to label Taut'sbeloved wabi
aestheticthe epitome of the vulgar-the excessive contrivancesdeployedin
the attemptto reproducesimplicity and spontaneityrenderthe rock gardens
and tokonomafraudulentand self-contradictory.From here it is a shortstep
to Ango's declarationthat "the distinctionbetween the simple, refinedKa-
tsuraDetachedPalace andthe vulgarToshoguis invalid."25To completehis
underminingof Taut'sJapan,Ango writes of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Taut's
emblem of the vulgar, as having an artistic sensibility fully worthyof emu-
lation.26By the end of the essay Ango has completely erased the "Japan"
paintedby Tautalong the lines sketchedby so many others.
While Ango's attacksquarelyhits all of Taut'sicons, his critiqueis by
no means simplisticallyreactionary.Ango is actually strikingat the core of
Taut'sportrait:the conviction that the beauty and value of Japaneseculture
is contingenton its being "purely"Japanese.Ango severs this specious link
tying art and cultureto issues of nationhood,a link that implies that
regardlessof personality
anindividual is drawnby someinnateurgeto abide
by certaincustomsandtraditions. However,it doesnot standto reasonthat
just becausea practiceexistedin Japanlong ago, it is somehowinnately
Japanese.It is quiteconceivablethatcustomsfollowedin foreigncountries
andnotin Japanare,in fact,moreintimatelysuitedto theJapanese.27
The key issue is findingwhat is "suitable"or convenient,regardlessof na-
tional origin. This severance of culture from its national origin is behind
Ango's defense of a Westernizedlifestyle. If greaterconvenience shouldbe
the result,to Ango, "apishimitationis as preciousas creativity."28At a time
when the eradicationof perniciousforeign influences was becoming such a
nationalprioritythatbaseballumpireswould soon be forcedto shout "yoshi
ippon" ratherthan "strike,"this flippantdismissal of the nationalroots of
culturalpracticeswas revolutionary.
Ango's rebellion doesn't stop there, his reversalof culturalhierarchies
being very thorough.Taut'sdisappointmentin the T6shogu sent him back
to Kyoto, flower of Japan'sancient cultureand home to the imperialfamily
25. Sakaguchi, "Shikan,"p. 134.

26. Ibid., pp. 134-35.
27. Ibid., p. 124.
28. Ibid., p. 141.
and its gentle arts for centuries. Ango, too, "fled" to Kyoto to write "Nihon
bunka shikan," and the essay is filled with autobiographical tangents that
completely reshape the feel of the city. Finding the famous natural vistas
and temples of the Arashiyama area "unpleasantly cold and lifeless," Ango
discovers a Kyoto more in keeping with his heavy-drinking, hedonistic na-
ture. One of his favorite spots in the ancient capital is the all-but-forgotten
Kurumazaki Shrine. While most shrines encourage visitors to pray for
health, safe childbirth, or academic success, this one is different: though
"supposedly dedicated to the memory of somebody-or-other Kiyohara, a
scholar it seems, the real object of veneration is quite obviously the almighty
yen." 29 A second "shrine" for Ango is the Arashiyama Theater, a run-down
vaudeville hall with amateurish acts where relieving himself often meant
"wading through an ocean of urine just to make my way to the piss-pot." 30
This was Ango's Kyoto, Taut's precious ancient capital turned inside out
and upside down.
Other symbols of "Japaneseness" fall as well. Ango's claim of igno-
rance concerning the "various local customs and landmarks" of rural areas
is a poke at the ethnological discourse of Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962).
His joy over the replacement of an ancient wooden bridge with one of steel
is a rebuttal to Yasuda Yojiur's 1936 essay, "Nihon no hashi" (Japanese
bridges), in which Yasuda linked Japan's identity and fate to the heartrend-
ing old bridges of rural areas.31Ango also deals with the samurai tradition,
linked to the essence of the modern Japanese by Nitobe Inazo's Bushido,
and also figuring prominently in wartime propaganda.32Referring to Japan's
most famous tale of samurai loyalty and revenge, Chushingura (Treasury of
loyal retainers, 1748), Ango wrote:
It has only been 70 or 80 years since the end of these "samurai,"but the
stories seem like fairy tales to us now .... Make no mistake about it: most
Japanesetoday are keenly aware that revenge just doesn't suit them. Har-
29. Ibid., p. 128. Signs on the shrine groundsidentify the deity as the scholar Kiyohara
Yorinari(1122-89), and the practice describedby Ango in the essay (and paraphrasedhere)
was still alive at the time of my visit in March2000.
30. Ibid., p. 130. Ango's scatological reverie is anotherpoke at Taut, who detested the
filth hiddenbehind his glorious tokonoma.
31. Ibid., p. 124. Yasuda'sessay can be found in Yasuda YojuroSenshu, Vol. 2 (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1971), pp. 19-47. For an analysis of the essay, see Alan Tansman, "Bridges to
Nowhere: Yasuda Yojuro'sLanguage of Violence and Desire," Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies, Vol. 56, No. 1 (June 1996), pp. 35-75. For a treatmentof the JapanRomantics as a
whole, see Kevin Doak, Dreams of Difference: The Japan RomanticSchool and the Crisis of
Modernity(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1994).
32. Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (Rutland,Vt: CharlesE. Tuttle Co, 1969).
For an example of how this legacy was linked to the war effort, see the "bible" of national
essence: RobertKing Hall, ed., KokutaiNo Hongi: CardinalPrinciples of the National Entity
of Japan, trans. John Owen Gauntlett(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1949),
especially pp. 144-46.
boring a deep-seatedhatredover long periods is beyond them;the best they

can manageis a dirtylook.33
Ango furtherdistances his Japan from this heritage by writing the word
"samurai"(and laterthe word "kimono"as well) in katakana,the syllabary
associatedwith words of foreign origin.
Ango leaves no icon unsullied and so is trueto his vision of the "highest
form of art":the farce.34In a 1932 essay on the genre, Ango had described
farce as "from start to finish a wild rampage[ranchikisawagi]" 35and re-
joiced in both its purityand its ability to breakthroughthe limitationsim-
posed by mimetic impulses and reason. By staging just such a "wild ram-
page" in the field of culturalnationalismwith his "Nihon bunka shikan,"
Ango succeeds in producingthe heady sense of liberation the genre can
induce. This sense of freedom was what made the essay such an anomaly
at that most repressivetime, and it was the reason Hirano Ken feared for
Ango's safety.
CriticalReceptionand Slippage in the Record

HiranoKen's immediatedeterminationthat "Nihon bunkashikan"was
a dangerouspiece of literaryresistancewas followed by generationsof simi-
lar interpretations.The second wave was promptedby Ango's postwarclas-
sic, the aforementioned"Darakuron."CriticOkunoTakeois representative
of thatgeneration'sreadingof Ango's work when he writes:
Nothing that I readin the course of my life will match the amazingshock I
got when I read SakaguchiAngo's "Darakuron"in the magazine Shincho
in April 1946. In one stroke it freed me, then only 19 years old, from the
wartime ethics, ideology, and taboos that had until that point kept me in
chains; it was a thunderboltthat showed me a new way of life. It was, I
suppose, the imperialproclamationof 15 August that declaredthe end of
the war in a political sense, but for me it was undoubtedlyAngo's "Dara-
kuron"that declared the spiritual end of the war. It was through that es-
say that my postwar life as an autonomoussubject [shutai teki na jinsei]
began.36
Much of the postwarreadingpublic felt the same way and, afteralmost ten
years of relative obscurityfollowing his initial successes, Ango found him-
self catapultedinto the popularconsciousness.37
33. Sakaguchi, "Shikan,"pp. 123-24.
34. SakaguchiAngo, "Farceni tsuite," in ibid., p. 13.
35. Ibid., p. 14.
36. OkunoTakeo, SakaguchiAngo (Tokyo:Bungei Shunju, 1972), p. 11.
37. For a critical overview of Ango's career, see James Dorsey, "SakaguchiAngo," in
Jay Rubin,ed., Moder Japanese Writers(New York:CharlesScribner'sSons, 2000), pp. 31-
48. Donald Keene also providesa biographicalsketch in Dawn to the West:Japanese Litera-
ture of the Modem Era, Vol. 1, Fiction (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984),
pp. 1064-80.
Readersmoved by "Darakuron"naturallyturnedto the wartime"Nihon

bunka shikan"for more. As the two essays share much in terms of theme
and rhetoricaltropes, these readerswere not disappointed.Again, Okuno's
comments are representative,and they indicate he found in this wartime
essay an equally revolutionarystance. In writing "Nihon bunka shikan,"
Okunoclaims, Ango was
boldlyspeakingout in a way thatsurelyinfuriatedthe traditionalists,
the
ultranationalists, andthemenof culture.I canfeel nothingbutawe at his
courage,backedas it was by his practical,rationalspirit.Equallyawe-
inspiringarethe flexibilityandfreedomwithwhichhe exercisedthatspirit
Japaneseaesthetics-andall underthewartime
in his critiqueof traditional
conditionsin whichtheJapanesespirit,traditionalJapaneseaesthetics,and
ultranationalism reignedsupreme.38
Like Hirano Ken, Okuno reads the essay as running against the grain of
Japan'swartimeideology.
In the following yearsAngo was to be slowly forgotten.His iconoclasm,
which had so closely reflected the mood of the early postwar years, lost
relevanceas Japanmoved quickly from a period of deep self-reflectionand
flirtationwith radical reforms to an increasing conservatismand the reha-
bilitation of many prewarand wartimeideologies and social structures.By
1955, the year Ango suddenly died of cerebralhemorrhagingat the age of
48, this conservativeswing had left Ango so farbehindthatonly two literary
journals (Bungei and Bungakukai)saw fit to issue special editions on this
writer. Furthermore,a collected works (zenshu) project was not launched
until 1967.39
The publicationof this zenshu coincides with the emergenceof the next
generationto find Ango's message appealing-those involved in the stu-
dent movements (Zenkyoto) of the late 1960s and the Anpo riots of 1970.
These youths found the iconoclastic, antiauthoritarianrhetoricof Ango so
relevantthat his popularityflaredinto what magazines and newspapersbe-
gan referring to as an "Ango Revival" (Ango fukkatsu).40A paperback
(bunko)edition of "Darakuron,""Nihon bunka shikan," and other essays
was saved by this revival. Previously on the verge of going out-of-print,it
suddenlybecame a bestseller.41
Yet anotherAngo boom has been buildingsince the early 1990s. In 1992
38. Okuno Takeo, Sakaguchi Ango (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju Bunshun Bunk6, 1996),
p. 163. I have generallyquotedfromthe original 1972 editionof Okuno'sstudy.Here,however,
I quote from a revised edition publishedin 1996. I have not done a systematiccomparisonof
the two editions,but it seems thatthe revisions serve to emphasizeOkuno'sdeificationof Ango
as a voice of resistanceduringthe war.
39. Okuno,SakaguchiAngo (1972), pp. 327-29.
40. See Hy6do Masanosuke, Sakaguchi Ango (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1976), particularly
pp. 13-15.
41. Okuno,SakaguchiAngo (1972), p. 333.
AkutagawaAward-winningnovelist andprofessorof FrenchliteratureOgino

Anna published a popularbook on the author,Ai rabu Ango (I love Ango).
The annual gathering of Ango fans and scholars in his native Niigata re-
corded up to 500 in attendancein 1994.42Most significant,however, is the
attention given Ango by contemporary critic and philosopher Karatani
Kojin, who first collected eight of his essays on Ango in a 1996 book and
has contributedcommentariesto the new zenshufpublished by Chikuma
Shobo.43Like those before him, KaratanireadsAngo as a subversivevoice,
characterizing"Nihon bunka shikan" as "an unqualifiedcritique of aes-
thetics and Japaneseuniqueness."44Karatanialso claims that Ango is one
of only two to "tearinto" (yatsukeru)the Buddhist-basedcircularreason-
ing employed by ultranationalistthinkerssuch as those participatingin the
infamous "Overcomingthe Modern" (Kindaino Chokoku)symposium of
1942.45All told, Karatanifinds this essay by Ango so criticalof the wartime
ideology of the early 1940s, such an anomalyin that repressiveage, thathe
has written, time and again, that "until I was correctedby a friend about
ten years ago, I was under the illusion that 'Nihon bunka shikan' was a
postwar work." 46
Though this readingof Ango's essay is an appealingone, thereis much
to suggest that it is incomplete. First, Ango's career as a whole does not
suggest the type or degree of political consciousness that such an interpre-
tation of "Nihon bunka shikan" implies. While his rebelliousness in his
early days is well documentedand surely includeda rejectionof the politics
thatplayed such an importantpartin his father'slife, as a young man Ango
42. The attendancefigure is mentioned in Robert Adam Steen, "To Live and to Fall:
Sakaguchi Ango and the Question of Literature"(Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1995),
p. 226.
43. The book is SakaguchiAngo to Nakagami Kenji (Tokyo: Ota Shuppan,1996). The
new zenshuis SakaguchiAngo zenshu, 18 vols. (Tokyo:ChikumaShob6, 1998-2000).
44. KarataniKojin, "KindaiNihon no hihyo: Showa zenki II," in KindaiNihon no hihyo;
Showa henjo (Tokyo:FukutakeShoten, 1990), p. 155.
45. The other is Takeda Taijun. See Karatani'sdialogue (taidan) with Sekii Mitsuo,
"SakaguchiAngo no fuhensei o megutte," in Sekii Mitsuo, ed., SakaguchiAngo to Nihon
bunka,a special edition of Kokubungakukaishakuto kansho (September1999), p. 15.
46. KarataniK6jin, "'Nihon bunkashikan'ron," in SakaguchiAngo to NakagamiKenji,
p. 10. Karatanirecordsthe same misunderstandingin "Darakuni tsuite," ibid., p. 66, and again
in his dialogue with Sekii Mitsuo, "Fuhensei,"p. 13.
It should be noted that there is some small degree of dissention from the conventional
reading of Ango as a voice of resistance. Robert Steen, in his dissertation,notes three ex-
amples:Isoda Koichi in a taidan with Akiyama Shun, "SakaguchiAngo no seishin," Yuriika,
Vol. 7, No. 11 (December 1975), pp. 82-107; Ueno Takashi, "Kotei no und6," Kaie, Vol. 2,
No. 7 (July 1979), pp. 184-91; and Suzuki Sadami, "'Nihon bunka shikan'ni tsuite," Koku-
bungakukaishakuto kansho,Vol. 58, No. 2 (February1993), pp. 98-102. See Steen, "ToLive
and to Fall," p. 147. Steen himself argues that Ango's ideas are not inconsistentwith the war
effort (pp. 105-52, esp. pp. 105-6).
turnednot to proletarianliteraturebut ratherto, of all things, the study of

religion. At the age of 20 he entered the Departmentof IndianPhilosophy
at Toyo University,studyingSanskrit,Pali, andTibetan.Whenhis fancy did
turnto literaturearoundthe year 1928, Ango was takennot with the Marxist
writersthen at their peak but ratherwith authorssuch as MasamuneHaku-
ch6, Sato Haruo,and AkutagawaRyunosuke,none of whom had a particu-
larlykeen social or political conscience.47Unlike his colleagues at the maga-
zine Gendai bungaku during the war, Ango had not been involved with
either Marxism or the proletarianliterarymovement, nor did he join these
men in producingthe postwarmagazineKindaibungaku,the primaryvenue
for exploring the complicity of intellectualsduringthe war and the relation-
ship of literatureto politics. While it is conceivablethatAngo simply turned
his attentionelsewhere once he had struckhis bold blow against wartime
ideology, it is unlikely in light of this generallyapolitical stance.
Reading "Nihon bunka shikan" as an unequivocal act of resistance is
also problematic when one considers other works written by Ango dur-
ing the war years. Most troublingis his contributionto Tsuji shosetsushu
(Streetcornerstories, 1943). With one-page contributionsby 207 writers,
this volume was publishedby the JapaneseLiteraturePatrioticSociety (Ni-
hon BungakuHokoku Kai) with proceeds earmarkedfor the battleshipcon-
structionfund. In the introductionto this volume, Kume Masao wrote:
Eachtime the peopleget news of the dailygloriousbattlesandmilitary
achievementsof theImperialNavyin thesouthseas,eachtimewe learnthe
natureof thesehorriblebattlesto the death,we brushawaythe tearsthat
havewelledup in oureyes and,with appreciation for the valiantstruggle
andcourageous fightingof ourofficersandmenon thefrontline,we allrise
upto repaytheirprecioussacrifices,as it is onlyrightwe should.48
The collection of stories is an attemptat that repaymentby those "aflame
with the single thoughtof serving the nationthroughliterature."49
The quality and tone of the stories includedin this volume vary greatly,
with some of them exceedingly innocuous.50Ango's contribution,"Dent6
no musansha"(People bereft of tradition),however, is in keeping with the
volume's spirit of sacrifice for the sake of victory while also reading very
much like the ostensibly subversive "Nihon bunka shikan." Insisting that
47. Saegusa Yasutaka, "Nenpu," in Sakaguchi Ango, Darakuron (Tokyo: Kadokawa

Shoten, 1957), p. 271.
48. Kume Masao, "Jo," in Kume Masao, ed., Tsujishosetsusha (Tokyo:HakkoshaSugi-
yama Shoten, 1943), p. 1.
49. Ibid.
50. Jay Rubin highlights just one such innocuous contribution,that of Tanizaki Jun'i-
chiro. See Injuriousto Public Morals: Writersand theMeiji State (Seattle:Universityof Wash-
ington Press, 1984), p. 278.
traditionis eternally born from within man himself, Ango dismisses the
physical destructionof Japanas essentially inconsequential:"Should To-
kyo be turnedto ruins,we lack nothing for building even a granderimperial
capital. Neither would we grieve much in turningthe roof tiles of the Ho-
ryuijiinto artillery."51In the context of this explicitly nationalisticcollec-
tion, Ango's "iconoclasm"appearsanythingbut subversive.
The same is true of "Shinju"(Pearls),a shortwork thatwalks the border
betweenessay and autobiography,publishedin the magazineBungei in June
1942. Though this work is problematicto the same degree and in many of
the same ways as "Nihon bunka shikan," there is no question that at one
level it is very much a paean to the pilots of the midget submarineswho
willingly and knowingly sacrificedtheir lives in the attackat PearlHarbor.
Ango expresses awe at the feat of these "superhumans"(chojin) who ex-
hibit the superiorfightingspiritof the Japanese.It originatesat the moment
men are called to duty.
TheParisiansandYankeesarecheerfulaboutit. Theymarchoff humming
to themselvesas theladiesthrowthemkisses.Thehummingemergesfrom
a subconscious beliefthattheirliveswill be spared;theirmentalstateis not
thatof a manstaringdeathin thefaceas he turnsto servehis motherland in
hertimeof crisis.TheJapanese,on theotherhand,arekeenlyawareof the
possibilityof deathfromthe momenttheyanswertheircall to duty.They
arenotcheerfulbutsolemn.Oneneedonlylookat ourgloriousvictoriesin
theGreater EastAsianWarto knowwhichof theseattitudesleadsto greater
heroismon thebattlefield.52
The overall message of "Shinju"is certainlymore complex than this pas-
sage suggests. Still, the fact remains that statementssuch as the above, and
Ango's wartimepublicationsas a whole, suggest a relationshipto the con-
temporaryregime that is far more complex than the conventionalreading
implies.
Interpretationspositing Ango's "Nihon bunka shikan" as a subversive
text arepredicatedon the essay's resistanceto the "IdeologicalState Appa-
ratuses" that were holding the nation togetherin this time of crisis. How-
ever, this is only half the story.Althusser's "RepressiveStateApparatuses"
were also at work, and in the conventionalreadingthere is an inexplicable
slippagebetween Ango's relationshipto the two: the ostensiblyoppositional
stance towardthe formerdid not, as one would expect, invoke the wrathof
the latter.This is a thirdreason to question the accepted interpretationof
"Nihonbunkashikan."
51. Sakaguchi Ango, "Dento no musansha," in Kume, ed., Tsuji shosetsushu, p. 105.
This very short essay originallyappearedin the magazine Chisei in May 1943. See Sekii Mi-
tsuo, "Nenpu,"SAZ,Vol. 13, p. 416.
52. SakaguchiAngo, "Shinju,"in SAZ,Vol. 2, pp. 385-86.
The essay appeared during the most repressive years of an extended gov-
ernment campaign to control discourse at all levels. As Jay Rubin's Injurious
to Public Morals demonstrates, modern Japan's government had little pa-
tience for disruptive voices, dealing with most under the Peace Preservation
Act (Chian Iji Ho).53 Promulgated in 1925, the law expanded in scope over
the years to include jurisdiction over organizations, movements, and even
ideas. It was evoked in the convictions of tens of thousands during the cul-
ture wars pitting "everything that was wholesomely Japanese [against] the
alien forces of sedition and decadence, their deadly germs always threaten-
54
ing to infect the sacred kokutai [national polity]."
The system of censorship and thought control really came to maturity
with the persecution of marxist critics and proletarian writers during the
1930s: author Kobayashi Takiji was killed by police during questioning in
February 1933, Communist Party leaders Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sa-
dachika were imprisoned in June of the same year, and the statement of
recantation they issued from prison triggered an avalanche of ideological
conversions (tenko) among left-wing writers of all stripes.55Publishers were
also subjected to pressure, and by 1935 all legal left-wing publications had
been halted.56
At this point the range of acceptable speech was made narrower still.
While most of the censorship had been masterminded by the Home Minis-
try, beginning in 1936 the propaganda bureaus of the military services be-
gan to get involved as well. According to Rubin,
theirfanaticismmade them far more difficultto deal with thanthe ministry.
They saw Communists behind every hint of unorthodox thought and in-
sisted on complete cooperationwith the wareffort.... EspeciallyafterPearl
Harbor,fiction did not have to be either leftist-orientedor erotic to be un-
acceptable:the military did not want to see anything in print that did not
actively supportthe war.57
Ango's "Nihon bunka shikan," which in the standard reading is certainly

brimming with "unorthodox thought," hedonism if not eroticism, and resis-
tance to the demands of the war, would surely warrant censorship in this
environment.
53. Jay Rubin,Injuriousto Public Morals, especially pp. 225-78.

54. Ibid., p. 227. On the frequencyof the invocationof the Chian Iji Ho, see the entry in
TakayanagiMitsutoshiet al., eds., Nihonshijiten (Tokyo:KadokawaShoten, 1974).
55. Honda Shuigoclaims that over 95 per cent of the proletarianwriterscommittedtenko.
See "Tenkobungakuto watakushishosetsu," in Tenkobungakuron (Tokyo:Miraisha,1974),
p. 180. Though he raises the question of the sincerity of the conversions, Ben-Ami Shillony
offers the same figure in Politics and Culture in WartimeJapan (Oxford:ClarendonPress,
1981), p. 120.
56. Mitchell, Censorshipin ImperialJapan, p. 270.
57. Rubin,Injuriousto Public Morals, p. 10.
Thoughthere seems no room for dissent even within this system,restric-

tions on free speech were made ever tighter.Just two months afterAngo's
essay was published, in May 1942, the CabinetInformationBureau (Nai-
kaku Joho Kyoku) cementedthe strangleholdon literaturewith the inaugu-
rationof the JapaneseLiteraturePatrioticAssociation (Nihon BungakuHo-
koku Kai). By withholding precious paper supplies from publisherswho
continuedto printworksby blacklisted nonmembers,the lines were clearly
drawn. Writers and intellectuals were forced to choose between (at least
nominal)cooperation,imprisonment,and silence.
In light of the refinedapparatusesof repressionand the virtualconsen-
sus on Ango as a voice subverting nationalistic wartime ideologies, the
questionbecomes one of how "Nihon bunkashikan"ever got past the cen-
sors andinto publication.Thougha coterie magazine(dojinzasshi), Gendai
bungakuwas a polished, leading literaryjournal at the time. Not only was
it known for resisting the ideological pressuresbroughtto bear on the war-
time publishing industry,but it also boasted a roster of contributorswith
left-wing inclinations,includingAra Masahito,HiranoKen, Honda Shugo,
Sasaki Kiichi, and OdagiriHideo.58Consideringthe magazine'shigh profile
andthe politics of its contributors,it is unimaginablethatthe magazinewent
unnoticedby the censors.
Even should the essay have miraculouslyslippedpast the authoritieson
its firstpublication, such could not have been the case when it appearedin
a collection of Ango works issued in December 1943. The increasingpres-
sure on all aspects of publishingat this point is evident in the very name of
the companyissuing the book: Buntai-shawas the new name for the Sutairu
(i.e., Style)-sha, the change having been made afterthe edict restrictingthe
use of foreign words.59Ango was feeling the increasedpressureas well. His
thirdcollection of short stories, Shinjuhad almost failed to reachthe book-
stores, and it was only afterthe publisher,Taikand6,pleaded with authori-
ties on behalf of "the destituteauthor"that a minimal run of 3,000 copies
was permittedprovidedthatno reprintbe issued later. As is often the case,
the precise reason for the censorship is unclear,but there can be no doubt
that the watchful eye of the censors was focused on SakaguchiAngo. Still,
two shortmonths afterthe troublewith Shinju,he was successful in releas-
ing a reprintof "Nihon bunka shikan." Clearlynot everyone found in this
work what KarataniK6jin calls an "unqualifiedcritique of... Japanese
uniqueness."The public expressionof such was unthinkableat the time.
58. See HasegawaIzumi, ed., Kindai bungakuzasshijiten, a special edition of Kokubun-
gaku: Kaishakuto Kansho (October1965), s.v. "Gendaibungaku,"by K6no Toshio. Kamiya
Tadatakaalso credits Gendai bungakuwith a stance of resistance, though a mild one. See
"SakaguchiAngo no hito to sakuhin,"in SakaguchiAngo, Vol. 22 of Kansho Nihon gendai
bungaku(Tokyo:KadokawaShoten, 1981), p. 23.
59. See Sekii Mitsuo, "Nenpu,"SAZ,Vol. 13, pp. 416-18.
Though generations have championedAngo as a voice of resistance,

conflictingevidence abounds:Ango's careersuggests a thoroughgoingaver-
sion to political discourse, his wartimeproductionincludes both troubling
prowarstatementsand testimonies to the uniquenessof Japan'scultureand
its fighting spirit, and "Nihon bunka shikan"received at least nominal ap-
provalfrom a censorshipmechanismdedicatedto repressingexpressionsof
resistance.Given all this, the conventionalportrayalof Ango as an uncom-
promising voice of reason is clearly an overly simplified, untenableposi-
tion; this reputationis a product of well-intentionedpostwar critics deter-
mined to discover and championwartimeresistanceand subversion.60
Anti-Intellectualismand a By-Product:Nationalism
Though it is true that various theories of Japanesenessare debunkedin
"Nihon bunkashikan,"the essay is not primarilyengaged with the issue of
national or culturalidentity. This ideological arenais simply-almost co-
incidentally-the site, or playground,for this particularroundin a different,
largerwar:the campaignto forge alternativesto the usually self-conscious,
often hyper-intellectual,and sometimes painfully contrived argumentsof
reason, the modern world's preferred mode of rhetoric. Because of his
unique backgroundin both classical Buddhist studies at Toy6 University
and French fiction and criticism at the privateacademy Athene Francais,
Ango was heir to the quest to breakthroughwhat some saw as the impasse
faced by the rational mind. Many of his works illustratethe pursuit of a
liberation from all theories, ideologies, and intellectual constructs in the
pursuitof a "purer,"more authenticmode of existence. Living throughan
age in which the specious applicationof reason for suspect (anddangerous)
purposeswas especially apparent,it is not surprisingthatAngo would seek
to somehow get under,behind, or anteriorto that distortingfilter.
This quest is what had led him to the genre of farce in that 1932 essay.
In the genre's "wild rampage"transgressingthe boundariesof realism and
mimesis, Ango sensed the potential for a grand liberationfrom the limits
imposed by the analyticalmind. The techniquemakingthis possible was the
rejectionof all discriminatinghierarchies.
Farceworksto affirmall sidesof man-completely,andwithoutleavinga
singlethingbehind.Whetherit be fantasies,dreams,death,rage,contra-
orambiguity,
diction,absurdity, farceattempts to affirmeverylastthingthat
is connectedto humanreality.Farceaffirmsnegations,it affirmsaffirma-
tions,andthenit affirmsthis.In theendit triesto takeeverythingrelatedto
60. Donald Keene notes this quest for evidence of intellectual resistanceto the war and
also provides several case studies of writers and their activities duringtimes of war in "The
Barren Years: Japanese War Literature,"MonumentaNipponica, Vol. 33, No. 1-4 (1978),
pp. 67-112.
manandforever,for eternity,andin perpetuityaffirm,affirm,affirm,and

never stop.61
This indiscriminatingaffirmation,and the sense of liberationit induces, is

what promptsthe iconoclasm of "Nihon bunkashikan."
Ango's suspicion of reason and general anti-intellectualismis also ap-
parentin "Bungakuno furusato"(The birthplaceof literature,1941). Here
Ango offers, as prototypesof all literature,a numberof shocking worksthat
catch us completely off guard,often throughsudden acts of violence. One
such example is an anecdote about the quintessentialmodern intellectual
AkutagawaRyuinosuke.With obvious relish, Ango relates how, faced with
a poor farmer'stale of his own act of infanticide, "this talentedman, who
always had somethingto say abouteverything,was left completely speech-
less." 62These unanticipatedturns frustrateour expectations to such a de-
gree that "the eyes we have trainedon abstractionsare closed" (kannenno
me o tojiru).63It is in this realmantecedentto reason-and even language-
thatAngo finds his liberationfrom the prison of the modernintellect.
Ango's literaryvision does lead to impressiveresults: the ideas behind
his essay on farce made possible some of his promisingearly experimental
works (see, for example, "Kaze hakase" [ProfessorBlowhard, 1931]), and
the perspectiveexpressed in "Bungakuno furusato"inspired much of his
most powerful postwar fiction (see "Hakuchi"[The idiot, 1946] and "Sa-
kurano morino mankaino shita" [Inthe forest,undercherriesin full bloom,
1947]). At a certainlevel, the same might be saidfor "Nihonbunkashikan,"
Ango's application of this same implosion of reason in the discourse on
nationalidentity.Ango does succeed in escaping the essentialist,reductive
definitionsof Japaneseculturalidentity thatwere common at the time.
Ideology and thought, however, are ultimately inescapable: "affirma-
tions" are inevitablyreactionaryand closing one's eyes to abstractionsdoes
not erase them so much as leave one even more helplessly in their grasp.
WhatAngo in effect accomplishesin his dismissalof the moretransparently
61. Sakaguchi, "Farce ni tsuite," p. 19. The playful, exaggeratedtone of this passage is
typical of the essay as a whole. "Farceni tsuite" is performative,demonstratingin its form
what it advocates in its message. It mischievously underminesthe conventions of its genre,
literarycriticism,for the purposeof opening the discourseto new possibilities.
62. SakaguchiAngo, "Bungakuno furusato,"in SAZ,Vol.7, p. 113. The translationshere
are mine. For a translationof the full essay, see Steen, "To Live and to Fall," pp. 239-49.
63. SakaguchiAngo, "Bungakuno furusato,"in SAZ,Vol. 7, p. 113. Akutagawawas a
touchstonefor many of the Japanesewriterswho sought, like Ango, to escape the impasse of
the intellect. See, for example, KobayashiHideo's 1927 criticaldebut, "AkutagawaRyfinosuke
no bishin to shukumei,"in Vol. 2 of Ooka Shohei et al., eds., ShinteiKobayashiHideo zenshu
(Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1979), pp. 235-40. Kobayashialso sharedAngo's nostalgic longing for
a literary realm antecedent to that contrivedby the intellect. See his 1933 essay "Koky6 o
ushinattabungaku,"in KHZ, Vol. 3, pp. 29-37. An English translationof this essay is avail-
able in Paul Anderer'sLiteratureof the Lost Home: Kobayashi Hideo, Literary Criticism,
1924-1939 (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1995), pp. 46-54.
contriveddiscursiveconstructionsof nation is the productionof an alterna-

tive, tremendouslyseductive,and almost invisible nationalism.The vacuum
left by his rejectionof the KatsuraDetachedPalace, the Horyiiji,andtatami
as icons of national cultureis immediately filled by the spiritualpurity or
authenticitythat originally promptedhim to discardthese ideological con-
structs. The degree to which Ango was aware of this by-product of his
method is unclear and unknowable.Nonetheless, the spirituallypure, au-
thenticJapanthatemerges in "Nihonbunkashikan"sharesa greatdeal with
the more blatantlynationalisticwartimetexts, many of which were inspired
by the same anti-intellectualismthat Ango embraced. This ethos helped
forge the perceptionof the conflict in the Pacific as a matterof the spirit;it
remainedintactin the postwarera as well, aiding in the radicalchanges and
rebuildingof postwarJapan.
At the root of Ango's expression of this culturalnationalismis the con-
cept of a spiritualauthenticitylocated anteriorto the intellect. Ango estab-
lishes this foundationin reactionto Bruno Taut'sfocus on materialculture
and formalizedpractice.Early in the essay Ango depicts Tautengaged in a
stereotypicalenjoymentof Japaneseculture:treatedto a viewing of exqui-
site hanging scrolls, each displayedin the tokonoma,Tautthen enjoys a tea
ceremony and a formal banquet. Ango mocks this depiction of Japanese
culture and, referringto Taut'sappreciationof his host's culturalsophisti-
cation, writes: "To claim thatthis lifestyle is spirituallyrich [naimentekini
hofu] because it 'does not lose sight of the traditionsof ancient culture' is
absurd-the standardsfor the spiritualare so very low."64With this Ango
substitutesspiritfor establishedtraditionas the measureof culture.
The spiritat the core of Ango's culturalpracticeprecludesstatictheoreti-
cal definitions, formalization,and even any degree of self-consciousness.
WhileTauthadto discoverJapan,we havehadno suchneedfor we are
Japanese.... Japandoesnot arisefromsomeexplicationof its spirit;nor
cansomethinglike theJapanesespiritbe explained.If the everydaylife of
theJapaneseis healthy,Japanitselfis in goodhealth.65
Not only does Ango locate his essence of Japanesenessin existence itself
("we are Japanese"),he also implies thathaving transcendedconcernswith
indigenous culturalpracticesand national identity indicates the attainment
of a higherspiritualstate.
[Westerners]laughbecausewe look funnywaddlingalongwithourshort
bowlegsdrapedin trousers.That'sjustfine.As longas we don'tobsessover
thatkindof thingbutrathersetoursightson goalsmorelofty,thelastlaugh
mightnotbe theirsafterall.66
64. Sakaguchi,"Shikan,"
p. 122.
65. Ibid.,p. 125.
66. Ibid.,p. 126.
Here we see a rhetoricaltropeused by Ango throughoutthe essay, the use

of antinomy to simultaneously deny and affirm the very same thing. He
rejects the idea of a "Japanesespirit" only to subsequentlyreinstateit in a
realmthatis both "lofty" and, simultaneously,groundedin an everydaylife
lived amidst tacky chairs and tables. The spirit infusing Ango's Japanese
cultureis so pure, so disinterested,so authenticthatit transcendsobsessions
with both the natureof Japanand mattersof the spirit.
This purityof spiritdrivesthe iconoclasm describedabove, the transcen-
dence of petty intellectualconstructionssuch as culturalidentityandartistic
refinementallowing (or actuallyrequiring)Ango to choose moonshineover
the tea ceremony, streetcarsover temples, a parkinglot over the Horyuji.
Ango's polemic through all of this is rooted in what he describes as "the
things that must be" (nakereba naranu mono), "the necessities of daily
life" (seikatsu no hitsuyo), "uncontrollableneeds" (yamu bekarazaruhi-
tsuyo), or, most often, simply "necessities" or "needs" (hitsuyo). Impor-
tantly,these "needs," and the "properdesires" (seito na yokyi) fromwhich
they arise, are not set in opposition to national identity or an ideology of
ethnic culture.On the contrary,fidelityto these desires andneeds is the heart
of authenticityat both the personaland nationallevels: the "health"of the
everyday life of each Japanesetranslatesdirectly to the wellbeing of the
nation, as Ango writes in the passage quoted above. Elsewhere he states:
"Thoughancient culture may be destroyed, our day-to-daylives [seikatsu]
would not come to an end, and as long as these are intact, our uniqueness
is assured."67The uniqueness of Japan,its national identity, is contingent
upon the very same conditionsas the spiritualauthenticityof the individual:
a fidelity to plebeian needs and desires thatbrooks no interferencefromthe
intellect.
In the second section of the essay, "Zokuakuni tsuite (ningenwa ningen
o)," Ango sets up a hierarchyof the spiritualpurity,or personalauthenticity,
that defines "Japaneseness."At the peak of this hierarchyare phenomena
and individuals fully realized, things exhibiting no discrepancybetween
their ideals and their existence. The quintessential example is natureit-
self, but Ango also identifies three individualswho embody this complete
self-realization:poet Matsuo Basho (1644-94), SouthernSchool (nanga)
painter Taigado (a.k.a. Ike no Taiga, 1723-76), and poet-monk Ryokan
(1758?-1831). Of the three, Ango has the most to say about Basho, whom
he depicts as having transcendedall poetic conventions and consequently
able to depict "unmediatedlandscape[chokusetsunafiWkei] and at the same
time unmediatedconcepts [chokusetsuna gainen]."68This image of an in-
dividual who has gone beyond (or beneath) all intellectual interferenceis
obviously beholdento Buddhist(most likely Zen) images of the enlightened
67. Ibid., p. 124.

68. Ibid., p. 133.
individual. Of Taigado and Ryokan, Ango writes, "Studios and temples

were not meaningless to them; rather, they realized that the absolute was
unobtainable and, rejecting the idea of compromise, chose instead a purity
wherein nothingness is the absolute value [naki ni shikazaru no seiketsu]."69
The ultimate spiritual state, then, is one in which no concessions are made.
While an uncompromising purity sits at the pinnacle of Ango's hierar-
chy, at the bottom rests all art and actions that are tainted by intellectual
contrivances mustered in the interest of supplementing or tempering the ex-
pression of one's desires. In that such cerebral manipulations compromise
the initial, primal desire, Ango believes they render the entire endeavor in-
authentic. This perspective inspires Ango's disdain for all manifestations of
the wabi aesthetic, including Southern School painting and landscape or
rock gardens (such as that at Ryoanji). Of Bruno Taut's beloved tea room,
Ango writes:
The tea room is designed around the idea of simplicity. Still, it is not a
productof the spirit wherein [an uncompromised]nothingness is the ulti-
mate value. For this spiritevery last ounce of energy deliberatelyexpended
is impureand garrulous.However much a tokonomamay exude an auraof
rustic simplicity, the efforts invested in producing that effect renderit, by
definition,inferiorto nothingness.70
In other words, the perversity of straining to artificially construct an illu-
sion of the natural renders the entire enterprise inauthentic. This perspective
leads Ango to reject the distinction between the refined Katsura Detached
Palace and the gaudy T6shogu; both are similarly products of a necessarily
compromised materiality.
Resting between the perfectly realized and the fatally compromised is
the third category of Ango's spiritual hierarchy. Those of us unable to em-
brace nothingness as an ultimate value should strive to express ourselves in
the following mode:
Although that harsh critical spirit centered on nothingness as an ultimate

value may exist, an artbased on this ideal is inconceivable.Thereis no such
thing as art without form. Therefore,if one were to attemptto incorporate
the ideal of nothingnessin the creationof a materialbeauty,it would make
more sense to reject the contrivedsimplicity of somethinglike the tea room
andinstead attemptto bring the ideal to fruitionin the greatestextravagance
humanly possible, pushing a worldly vulgarity to its very limits. If both
simplicity and ostentationare ultimatelyvulgar,then surely one is betteroff
adoptinga magnanimitycapable of embracinga vulgarity thatrevels in its
vulgarity ratherthan clinging to a pettiness that remains vulgar in spite of
attemptsto transcendthat state.71
69. Ibid.,p. 134.

70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
It is this rejection of intellectualcontrivance(the method of a tea room) in

favor of an unmediated,unrestrainedexpression (vulgarity pushed to its
limits) thatAngo finds authenticand pure. His vision shows no concernfor
the natureof the needs or desires that sit at the root of the expression. He
wants only thatwe live true to ourselves: "I yearnfor those who once lived
true to their desires-the common man living a common life withoutapol-
ogy, the petty man living a petty life with no regrets."72 It is the purityand
authenticityof this spiritualstatethatdefines Ango's Japaneseculture.
Throughthis hierarchyof spiritualpurity Ango establishes icons of his
own and, as with Taut,many of them are architectural.Two such icons of
authenticityhave been mentionedbriefly above: Kyoto's ArashiyamaThe-
ater, with its stench of urine and clumsy, raunchy performances,and the
KurumazakiShrine,where patronspetition the gods for cold hardcash, and
in very specific amounts. Ango celebrates these sites for their embraceof
the humancondition with all its foibles: the ArashiyamaTheaterrevelingin
the direct expression of raw humanneeds (entertainment,bodily functions,
sexual titillation) and the KurumazakiShrine sanctioningthe basic human
desire for wealthby allowing an unmediatedexpressionof greed.
To these Ango adds paragonsof "beauty."In "Bi ni tsuite," the fourth
and final section of the essay, he delineates an aesthetic that parallelshis
Japanesespirit;just as the spiritis defined by a lack of concern for matters
of the spirit, his concept of beautyis predicatedon a rejection of the beau-
tiful. Groundedin necessity, Ango's aestheticis the polar opposite of Taut's
quaint,orientalistwabi. To illustratehis point, Ango explains the "beauty"
of Kosuge Prison, a dry ice factory,and a battleship.
Howcouldthesethreethingsbe so beautiful?Thereasonlies in thefactthat
theyhaveno processedbeautyaddedsolelyforornamentation. Nota single
beamor sheetof steelhas beenaddedin the interestof beauty,norhas a
singlebeamor sheetof steelbeenremovedbecauseit wasnotaesthetically
pleasing.Thatwhichis needed,andonlythat,is placedwhereit is needed.
Withanythingsuperfluous removed,theuniqueshapesdemanded by neces-
sity emerge.Theseareshapestrueto themselves,andtheybearno resem-
blanceto anyotherthing.Whereneededthe beamsareruthlesslywarped,
the sheetsof steel arestretchedunevenly,andrailsjut out of nowhere.It
is all just necessity,pureand simple.Otherpre-existingconceptscould
notmusterthestrengthto obstructnecessity'sunstoppable creationof these
things.73
This aesthetic, then, is a direct manifestationof the purity and authenticity
of spirit that Ango posits as a defining characteristicof the Japanese.Re-
maining true to our most primalneeds and desires is the lifeblood of Japa-
nese culture.
72. Ibid., p. 135.
73. Ibid., pp. 139-40.
Beauty for beauty's sake is not sincere; it is not, in the end, authentic...
Just look-planes fly overhead,iron warshipsply the seas, trainsclatterby
on elevated rails. Our day-to-daylives are healthy and as long as this is so
our culture is healthy, even if we do pride ourselves on replicating cheap
Western-styleprefabs.Ourtraditions,too, are healthy.74
A fidelity to personal needs translates directly into the nation's well-being.
Though Ango's appeal to everyday necessities as the root of culture ap-
pears to liberate him from a repressive ideology of nation, an equally limit-
ing mode of thought takes its place. For Ango the proper mode of being,
and of being Japanese, is to act directly on one's most primal desires. As
such it is no coincidence that the sites he champions include not only those
promoting sexual titillation (Arashiyama Theater) and greed (Kurumazaki
Shrine) but also those accommodating even more oppressive desires: coer-
cion (Kosuge Prison), exploitation (the factory), and violence (the battle-
ship). Though he does escape essentialist, orientalist definitions of culture,
in their place Ango ends up positing unbridled assertions of primal desires
as near-perfect manifestations of the pure Japanese spirit.
This dimension is most evident in the hero Ango offers, Toyotomi Hide-
yoshi (1536-98). While a desire to undermine each and every one of Taut's
examples, including Hideyoshi, is part of the motivation, Ango's deifies this
man mainly due to the perfect fit between Ango's authentic spirit and the
legacy of this headstrong warrior. Describing the various building projects
Hideyoshi undertook, Ango writes:
All of them are the epitome of artifice;they are extravagantto the extreme.
As long as the work was carriedout along those lines, Hideyoshi was open
to any and all interpretations.When he was building a castle, he would
gatherthe biggest damnedbouldersin the realm ... Producingart and tak-
ing a shit were alike: both were endeavorsborn of the most vulgar inten-
tions. Still, the works have an undeniabledecisiveness about them. They
have a feeling of stability .... There is nothing of elegance or pleasurein
Hideyoshi's work. Each and every thing that he did was an expression of a
fanaticaldesire for things unparalleledin the realm. Thereis no evidence of
hesitation,no traceof even the slightestrestraint.He wantedall the beautiful
women in the realm, and, when denied, somebody would end up like Sen
no Rikyfi: dead. Hideyoshi was able to demand anything,even the impos-
sible. And he did.75
Though Ango does not explicitly note it here, it was precisely Hideyoshi's
"fanatical desire for things unparalleled in the realm" that prompted him to
attempt-not once but twice-to invade and colonize the Korean Penin-
sula. Neither Ango nor his readers could have failed to notice the parallel
74. Ibid., p. 141.

75. Ibid., pp. 134-35.
between Hideyoshi's legacy of invasion and the imperialismof their own

historicalmoment.
These aspects of Ango's vision strongly suggest that the conventional
claims made for "Nihon bunkashikan"are, at best, one-sided. Readingsof
the essay as a defense of the individualin the face of the state or as a dis-
mantlingof culturalidentity are both simplistic. While in his emphasis on
"desires" and "needs" over theoriesAngo seems to be defending the inter-
ests of the individualin opposition to those of the state, he is, in fact, con-
flatingthe two. While wartime slogans such as "Zeitakuwa teki da" pit the
individual'squest to satisfy personal desires against the state's efforts to
quell consumption, Ango's Japaneseculture erases that friction: the indi-
vidual'spursuitof authenticitythrougha struggle for sake, sex, and money
is renderedan exercise of national characterand a replication of the very
same act the nation is performingat anotherlevel, thatis, militaryconquest
and the pursuitof colonies.
Ango's promotion of unmediated assertion is reflected in the essay's
style itself. In keeping with his suspicion of reason and logic, Ango's style
avoids it, opting insteadfor a casual, autobiographical,and anecdotalprose
which slips unexpectedlyinto philosophical aphorisms.A figure in one of
his own novels offers the perfect characterizationwhen he labels Ango's
style "a cross between some cheesy vaudeville act andtheAnalects of Con-
fucius." 76 Such writing blurs the line between Ango the man, Ango the
synecdoche for all Japanese, and Ango the theorist of national character.
Relying less on reason and more on mood to make its point, this disarming
blend offers no stable subjectivityandis hence almostimmuneto critique.77
The title of the essay reflects this merging of individualand nation as
well. While the essay is usually referredto in English as "A PersonalView
of JapaneseCulture,"the very same charactersmight be interpretedas "A
View of the Self in JapaneseCulture."The source of the gaze is left am-
biguous. The self depictedis hardlya self at all, introspectionand sustained
self-determinationbeing erased in favor of a fidelity to impulses and an
almost animal-like state.78Followed to its logical conclusions, the ideal
Japanese self constructedby Ango, "liberated"from intellectual contriv-
76. Sakaguchi,Furenzokusatsujinjiken, in SAZ,Vol. 10, p. 88.

77. For an explorationof why literarystyle and rhetoricmay have been more important
than content and message, see Alan Tansman'sreview of Kevin Doak's Dreams of Difference
in Journalof Japanese Studies,Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 434-40.
78. Ango himself sometimes took this step, intentionallyblurringthe lines between man
and animalin his fiction. This move is most notablein "Hakuchi,"the firstline of whichreads:
"Variousspecies lived in the house: humanbeings, a pig, a dog, a hen, a duck. But actually
there was hardly any difference in their style of lodging or in the food they ate." See SAZ,
Vol. 2, pp. 447- 67. The translationis by George Saito, "The Idiot," in Ivan Morris,ed., Mod-
em Japanese Stories (Rutland,Vt.: CharlesE. TuttleCompany,1962), pp. 383-415.
ances like tradition (or ethics), is perfectly capable-in fact ideally suited
to-acts of aggression and violence.79 Waged partly in the name of cleans-
ing the spirit of distorting ideologies and intellectual mediation, Japan's
"holy war" was fueled by just such Japanese selves.
Denial of Self, Affirmation of Self: The Primal Japanese and the War
Ango's point is at many levels so appealing that the reader easily fails to
notice that he reifies, at a deeper level, a cultural nationalism as dangerous
as the one he appears to be sweeping away. This phenomenon can be seen
in the very critics who champion Ango as an oppositional voice. Takahashi
Haruo claims that in "Nihon bunka shikan" Ango "tramples" on the sacred
ground of cultural identity, making a "dangerous gamble" with both his
"subversive thought" (han ken'i teki shiso) and "critique of the wartime
romanticism of Japanese cultural identity." Still, two pages later Takahashi
writes: "Ango rejects the false images of things 'Japanese' and offers in
their place a vibrant, true image of Japan." 80The intoxicating sense of lib-
eration emanating from Ango's prose blinds Takahashi to the contradiction
inherent in speaking of a sweeping critique of cultural identity that produces
a "vibrant, true image of Japan."
The same contradiction can be seen in Okuno Takeo's reading of Ango.
As quoted above, Okuno speaks of Ango as a rational spirit striking a bold
blow against the wartime discourse on the Japanese spirit. Still, while read-
ing Ango as opposed to the ideology of cultural nationalism, Okuno simul-
taneously absorbs his theory of the Japanese as a pure, dynamic race unre-
strained by abstract thought.
SakaguchiAngo possesses a grandnessof scale thatpropelshim beyondthe

bordersof the cozy category of "Japanese."The trajectoryof his spiritis
just too big and fierce to be containedtherein. When I read "Nihon bunka
shikan"I am convinced that of all people it is Ango who is truly the proto-
type for all Japanese,and this at the deepest level. Beneath our post-Yayoi,
tamed, superficialpersonalities, doesn't each and every Japanesehave an
Ango-like nature?We might label it the natureof Jomon [ca. 8000-300 BC]
man, who lived by hunting,fishing, and gathering.This natureis wild, ever
changing, and nomadic; it does not cling to old things but smashes them
one afterthe otherandleaves them behind;it rejoices in the new, it imitates,
creates, and adapts.81
79. Ango's writings often include celebrationsof such violence. See, for example, "Sa-
kurano mori no mankaino shita,"in SAZ,Vol. 3, pp. 352-68. On Ango's misogyny, see Steen,
"To Live and to Fall," pp. 171-210.
80. Takahashi," 'Nihon bunka shika' to 'Darakuron'no aida," pp. 305-6 and 308.
81. Okuno,SakaguchiAngo (1972), pp. 346-47. On Okuno'srole in establishingAngo's
legacy, see Steen, "To Live and to Fall," pp. 213-25.
374 Journal of JapaneseStudies 27:2 (2001)
Like Takahashi, Okuno does not recognize the contradictionin reading

Ango as both an opponent of culturalnationalism and as a prototype for
some homo Japonicus. This reaction, however, is precisely what Ango's
works induce. Prehistoric man, living at an almost instinctual level and
seemingly free from the convoluted intellectual conventions that subse-
quently accruedto mankind,is close to what Ango advocates.Furthermore,
it is no coincidence that Okuno speaks not of a generic prehistoricman but
ratherthe specifically JapaneseJomonman-in Ango's "Nihonbunkashi-
kan" the fate of the individualstrugglingto break throughthe impasse of
the intellect and reasonis inextricablytied to the well-being of the Japanese
nation. Though Okuno believes Ango has freed him from "the wartime
ethics, ideology, and taboos" of the early 1940s militaryregime, he has in
fact been indoctrinatedinto an alternativeculturalnationalism,one almost
invisible. This subtle reificationof that which has ostensibly been rejected
is what most readersof "Nihon bunkashikan"fail to acknowledge.
The spiritualdimension of Ango's nationalismis fully in keeping with
the characterizationof Japanese wartime propagandaoffered by John W.
Dower in WarWithoutMercy.While the United States concentratedon vili-
fying and de-humanizingthe enemy, efforts in Japanwere directedmore at
emphasizingJapan'sown inherentvirtue, the greatest of which was a spiri-
tual purity: "In countless ways, the Japanesepresentedthemselves as being
'purer'than others-a concept that carriedboth ancient religious connota-
tions and complex contemporaryramifications."82While detailed explica-
tions of this purity could be found in a variety of texts, at "the everyday
level, purificationwas understoodto mean (1) expungingforeigninfluences,
(2) living austerely, and (3) fighting and, if need be, dying for the em-
peror."83 One might add that while perhapsnot evident at the "everyday
level," a liberationfromintellectualcontrivanceswas partof this purity,too.
Ango's goal was the attainmentof the same pure, brightheart(seimeishin),
"free of encumbrances,not being enslaved by any one deed or thing," ad-
vocated in the Kokutaino hongi (Cardinalprinciples of our national pol-
ity, 1937).84
Dower demonstrateshow the "complexcontemporaryramifications"of
the Japaneseobsession with purity pushed the war effort to the level of a
merciless race war. To Dower's argumentwe might add that purity, con-
ceived as a liberationfrom abstractionsand as a movement towardan un-
82. JohnDower, WarWithoutMercy (New York:PantheonBooks, 1986), p. 205.

83. Ibid., p. 228.
84. Hall, ed., KokutaiNo Hongi, pp. 100-101. Couched in terms of a defense of Japan's
particularityin opposition to the universalistdiscourseof the West, Kokutaino hongi includes
an extended polemic against the intellectual abstractionswhereby man "loses sight of the
totalityand concretenessof humanbeings" (p. 176). In this respect it sharesmuch with Ango's
essay.
Dorsey:SakaguchiAngo 375
mediated expression of desires, was a part of this as well. One explicitly

imperialistictract that reveals the link between Ango's purity and Japan's
national mission is philosopher Nishitani Keiji's contributionto the infa-
mous "Overcomingthe Modern"symposiumof 1942. Building on the work
of his teacher,Nishida Kitar6,Nishitani arguedthat the only way to over-
come the fragmentedmodern self was to attain a "position of subjective
nothingness"(shutai teki mu no tachiba).85This move parallelsAngo's idea
of authenticityand his "emptying"of Japan'snationalidentity throughhis
iconoclasm.
Nishitani,however, does not stop there. The attainmentof a "subjective
nothingness" creates a "true subjectivity" (shin no shutai-sei) capable of
creatingculturefree of the contradictionsof modernity.86Nishitani'sreha-
bilitationof a subjectivityfromthe "nothingness"to which he hadrelegated
it just a page before parallels Ango's resurrectionof a national self based
upon a lofty spirit that had transcendedjust such plebeian concerns. This
antinomicaltrope allows Nishitani to make his next move. ConcerningJa-
pan's military aggression in China and the constructionof a GreaterEast
Asia, Nishitaniwrites:
the situationshouldbe one in whichthe nation[Japan]is manifestingthat
aspectof itself thatis a fundamental denialof self. This beingthe case,
Japan ... couldrightly its
assert authorityas theleadingnationof thepres-
enttime.In short,Japan'sdenialof self makespossiblea properself affir-
mation .... This denial of self is also behind our awakening anew to the
conceptof "theeight cornersof the worldpulledunderone roof [hakko
ichiu]"as theguidingprincipleof ournationtoday.87
This "self affirmation"takes the form of Japaneseaggression on the conti-
nent and the warwith the Allied Forces;the "one roof" underwhich all will
standis, of course, Japan's.Nishitani'sexplicit (albeitconvolutedandsome-
what tortured)advocacy of Japan'smilitaryaggressionis rootedin the very
same logic as SakaguchiAngo's "Nihon bunkashikan."The conceptionof
nation,too, is the same.
Conclusion: "Darakuron"and the

AbidingNationalismof PostwarJapan
The definingmomentin Ango's careeris undoubtedlythe publicationof
"Darakuron"in April 1946. Okuno comparedits impact to the emperor's
declarationof the end of the war, and anothercritic has gone so far as to
claim:
85. Nishitani Keiji, "'Kindai no ch6koku' shiron,"in KawakamiTetsutaroet al., Kindai
no chokoku,ed. TakeuchiYoshimi(Tokyo:Toyamab6,1990), p. 24.
86. Ibid., p. 25.
87. Ibid., p. 34.
Thereis no otherdocumentin Japan'sentirelong historythatso captured

theessenceof its ageandhadsuchanenormousimpacton people'sspirits.
"OnDecadence"[ "Darakuron" ] freedpeoplefromthepossessionof war,
returnedto themtheirrightfulselves,andgavethemtheconfidenceto live.88
Though the claims may be somewhat exaggerated,there is no doubt that

"Darakuron"struck a chord in the ruins of postwar Japan,inspiringmany
in the task of restructuringtheir ideas as they rebuilttheir homes and lives.
This postwaressay sharesmany things with the wartime "Nihonbunka
shikan." In terms of contents, Ango's rereadingof the classic story of the
47 samurai in "Nihon bunka shikan" appears almost word for word in
"Darakuron"as well. More importantly,though, the two essays are very
similar in terms of rhetoricaltechnique and message. Both are ruthlessly
iconoclastic and both advocate as proper spiritual goal a more authentic,
close-to-the-bonemode of life, one free from ideological filters.Whereasin
"Nihon bunkashikan"Ango had toppledicons such as the Horyuji,the tea
ceremonywith its wabi aesthetic,and Kyoto as the city of a glorious ancient
culture, in "Darakuron"he turns his sharp wit on military icons and the
ideology of the emperorsystem.
The literary (and literal) deification of the tokkotai,the Special Attack
Forces, which epitomized selfless sacrifice for the nation is negated in one
sharpline: "The young kamikazepilots scatteredlike cherryblossoms, but
now half the bunch are black marketeers."89Ango also takes on the most
sacred, untouchablesymbol of the nation: the emperor.This had been the
most taboo of topics since the mid-1930s, when Minobe Tatsukichiwas
persecutedfor proposingthat the emperorwas not sovereign but ratherthe
highest organof the state(tennokikansetsu).90The emperorsystemwas fair
game now, though, and Ango avails himself of the opportunityto work his
magic on this icon, too.
The emperorsystemdid not come into being becauseof the emperors.
Thoughthereareoccasionswhenanemperorpulledoff a coupall by him-
self,generallyspeakingtheydidnothing,andthereis nota singlecoupthat
88. Nihon bungakuno rekishi,Vol. 12, p. 368; quotedin Jay Rubin, "FromWholesome-
ness to Decadence: The Censorshipof Literatureunder the Allied Occupation,"Journal of
Japanese Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 1985), p. 77.
89. SakaguchiAngo, "Darakuron,"in SAZ,Vol. 7, p. 197. This translationis fromRubin,
"FromWholesomeness to Decadence," p. 77. Interestingly,as soon as postwarJapanbegan
vilifying the kamikaze,Ango switched his stance and began praising them. The U.S. Occupa-
tion forces labeled his essay, "Tokk6taini sasagu" (An offering to the kamikaze,1947), "mili-
taristic,"and repressedit. It appearedin print for the firsttime in 2000. See SakaguchiAngo,
"Tokkotaini sasagu," in Vol. 16 of Sekii Mitsuo et al., eds., SakaguchiAngo zenshu (Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobo, 1998-2000), Vol. 16, pp. 740-43. I would like to thank Ogino Anna for
calling this essay to my attention.
90. See Mitchell, Censorshipin ImperialJapan, pp. 274-77.
ended successfully. In the end the emperorwould always end up exiled to

some island or escaping deep into the hills. Furthermore,in the final analy-
sis, the recognition of the imperialhouse was always for a political reason.
Just when it had been forgottenby society, it would be hauled out by poli-
ticians; its political raison d'etre was something sniffed out by politicians
who had observed the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese people. In response
they came up with the emperorsystem. Whatthey proposeddid not have to
be the imperialhouse. It could very well have been the family of Confucius,
Gautamathe Buddha, or even Lenin. It was pure coincidence that things
didn'tturnout that way.91
Portraying the emperor as a pawn in the hands of more astute political play-
ers, and the entire imperial house as a random product fully interchangeable
with a host of alien authorities, was a shocking deviation from the homage
paid the emperor during the war. Though the targets have changed, Ango's
"Darakuron" is the same sort of wild rampage in the field of the sacred that
he had worked in his wartime essay.
A key word in Ango's "Nihon bunka shikan" had been "vulgarity"
(zokuaku), a concept Ango had recast to signify the spiritual authenticity
inherent in actions uncompromised by intellectual considerations. In the
postwar essay the very same concept is represented by the word "deca-
dence" (daraku) and the related "to fall" (ochiru). As Jay Rubin notes, this
was Ango's answer to the repressive ideologies of sacrifice and wholesome-
ness that were emphasized during the war.92Ango writes:
Man does not change. He just returnsto his humanstate. Manfalls. Faithful
retainersand saintly women fall. There is no way to avoid this, nor would
an avoidancesave man. Man lives, man falls. There is no convenientshort-
cut to salvation that exists outside of this. We do not fall because we have
lost the war. We fall because we are human; we fall because we are
alive.... Like man, Japan,too, must fall. It must redeem itself by falling to
the very depths and therefinding itself. Redemptionthroughpolitics is but
a surfacephenomenonand of no value at all.93
Just as he had in "Nihon bunka shikan," Ango conflates a pure state of

humanity with a true image of the nation of Japan. The essence of both is
located in a mode of existence that has escaped, or fallen through, attractive
but inevitably misleading intellectual constructs.
It is easy to see how this vision would reverberate in the consciousness
of postwar Japanese. On one level, it put a positive spin on what was a very
destitute moment. By emphasizing the potential for salvation in a landscape
wiped clean of both material and ideological legacies, Ango inspired hope
91. Sakaguchi,"Darakuron,"p. 199.

92. Rubin, "FromWholesomenessto Decadence," pp. 79-80.
93. Sakaguchi,"Darakuron,"pp. 203-4.
in many and paved the way for the many radicalchanges that were soon to
come. As Dower claims, the American occupationforces "set aboutdoing
what no other occupation force had done before: remaking the political,
social, cultural,and economic fabric of a defeatednation, andin the process
changingthe very way of thinkingof its populace."94This ambitious,wide-
ranging occupation agenda meant that without an acceptance,or ratheran
embrace, of their "fallen" state, the people and the nation were doomed
to continue the fight, though now on ideological ratherthan geographical
battlefields.Ango's vision allowed a tiredpopulationto avoid this battle.
Ango's message was comforting on a second level as well. His appeal
to a spiritualpurity distinguishedby its transcendenceof obsessions with
traditionalculture and national characterwas a familiar refrain.It echoed
his own wartime writing as well as the antinomicalrhetoricof other,more
nationalisticthinkers (including Nishitani Keiji with his "position of sub-
jective nothingness"). In this sense, Ango's wartime and postwar essays
provide a concrete example of an ideological trope that not only survived
both the war and its aftermath,but actuallyserved as an integralcomponent
of the revolutionarydimensionsof both.
Ango was slightly off the mark in the reason he provides for man'sin-
ability to fall completely, his inability to slip the chains of ideological
constructs.
Still,it is notpossibleformanto fall eternally,it is notpossibleforhimto
hitrockbottom.Thereason?Inthefaceof hardshipmancannotmaintaina
heartof steel.Manis pathetic,manis frail,andforthishe is laughable. But
he is justtoo weakto fallto theverybottom.95
In fact, the obstacle preventinga complete fall from ideological castles in
the air is not human weakness, as Ango would have us believe, but rather
the ubiquityof ideology. We cannot conceive of a "fall" withoutthe space
to fall through. Without recognizing and engaging that space, we are
doomed to plummet out of control, like Ango feeling the thrill of the fall
but able neitherto determinewhere we land nor to affect the space through
which we fall. Thoughhe escapes the moreexplicitly repressivedimensions
of the ideology of self and nation, these concepts themselves remainfully
intactin his work.
WhereAngo did get it right, though, was his qualificationof the radical
changes he was noting in "Darakuron":"People haven'tchanged,they've
always been like this. The times have changed.The world. Its outerskin."96
94. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wakeof World War II (New York:W. W.
Norton and Co., 1999), p. 78.
95. Sakaguchi,"Darakuron,"p. 204.
96. Ibid., p. 197. Translationby Rubin, "FromWholesomeness to Decadence," p. 78.
People did stay the same-the wartimecensors and the postwarpublicboth

embracingAngo's vision of a nationalcultureso deep thatno theory could
exhaustivelyexpress it nor any logic effectively dislodge it.
DARTMOUTH
COLLEGE

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Culture, Nationalism, and Sakaguchi Ango

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Abstract:Studies of the writerSakaguchiAngo (1906-55) conventionallypor-

"Nihonbunkashikan"(A personalview of Japaneseculture,1942) by Saka-

A numberof people provided valuable suggestions at various stages of this article. I

1. The guidelines, distributedto publishersand newspapersby the Home Ministry(Nai-

In addition to justifying the sacrifice of Japan'sgrand architecturaland

antecedentto such abstractionsand ideology. Although presentedas a lib-

TheRise and Fall of Icons

7. See Louis Althusser,"Ideology and Ideological StateApparatuses,"in Leninand Phi-

tion based on traditionalicons while simultaneouslypromotingan austere

8. See Inoue Shoichi, TsukuraretaKatsura Rikytushinwa (Tokyo: K6bund6, 1986),

lightness and refinement.... The day I spent looking at the Horyuijiwill

second popularwartime slogan, "eight corners of the world pulled under

Ishida'sreticence is evidence that in the 1940s the topic of things Japanese

the realm of signifiers of nation in its entirety.This was a bold, unconven-

ClearlyTautconflatesbeautywith culturalpurity;the KatsuraDetachedPal-

16. BrunoTaut,Nihon bunkashikan,trans.(to Japanesefrom German)Mori Toshio (To-

completely plebeian, its gaiety is inappropriate, and its tediousness is ex-

Obviously popular treatises on Japan's cultural traditions were influencing

20. Ibid., p. 50.

In "Nihon bunka shikan" Ango gleefully upsets these ideologically

25. Sakaguchi, "Shikan,"p. 134.

boring a deep-seatedhatredover long periods is beyond them;the best they

CriticalReceptionand Slippage in the Record

Readersmoved by "Darakuron"naturallyturnedto the wartime"Nihon

AkutagawaAward-winningnovelist andprofessorof FrenchliteratureOgino

turnednot to proletarianliteraturebut ratherto, of all things, the study of

47. Saegusa Yasutaka, "Nenpu," in Sakaguchi Ango, Darakuron (Tokyo: Kadokawa

Ango's "Nihon bunka shikan," which in the standard reading is certainly

53. Jay Rubin,Injuriousto Public Morals, especially pp. 225-78.

Thoughthere seems no room for dissent even within this system,restric-

Though generations have championedAngo as a voice of resistance,

manandforever,for eternity,andin perpetuityaffirm,affirm,affirm,and

This indiscriminatingaffirmation,and the sense of liberationit induces, is

contriveddiscursiveconstructionsof nation is the productionof an alterna-

Here we see a rhetoricaltropeused by Ango throughoutthe essay, the use

67. Ibid., p. 124.

individual. Of Taigado and Ryokan, Ango writes, "Studios and temples

Although that harsh critical spirit centered on nothingness as an ultimate

69. Ibid.,p. 134.

It is this rejection of intellectualcontrivance(the method of a tea room) in

74. Ibid., p. 141.

between Hideyoshi's legacy of invasion and the imperialismof their own

76. Sakaguchi,Furenzokusatsujinjiken, in SAZ,Vol. 10, p. 88.

SakaguchiAngo possesses a grandnessof scale thatpropelshim beyondthe

Like Takahashi, Okuno does not recognize the contradictionin reading

82. JohnDower, WarWithoutMercy (New York:PantheonBooks, 1986), p. 205.

mediated expression of desires, was a part of this as well. One explicitly

Conclusion: "Darakuron"and the

Thereis no otherdocumentin Japan'sentirelong historythatso captured

Though the claims may be somewhat exaggerated,there is no doubt that

ended successfully. In the end the emperorwould always end up exiled to

Just as he had in "Nihon bunka shikan," Ango conflates a pure state of

91. Sakaguchi,"Darakuron,"p. 199.

People did stay the same-the wartimecensors and the postwarpublicboth

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