kotodama
introduction :
With the formation of an authoritarian, quasi-fascist regime in the Thirties, the concept of kotodama was used as an ideological justification of obedience and submission to the military junta acting in the name of the emperor. according to the doctrine, there was no space for autonomous, subjective activity: the meaning of one’s life is to be found in the imperial will.
The “spirit of the words”
Kotodama means language that is filled with sincerity, and such language possesses... limitless power and is comprehensible everywhere without limitation [...] the word that possesses sincerity, by reason of kotodama, must inevitably be carried out. Thus, sincerity is found in the fundamental principle of the word able to become the deed. There is no room for self in sincerity. All of oneself must be cast aside in speech, for it is in the deed and in the deed alone that sincerity is to be found (Quoted in Miller 1982: 133-134).
According to this definition, Japanese language is only used to tell the truth, and to say things that can be carried out; it cannot be used to lie. Individuality is separate from language, which by speaking the truth solely refers to and produces disinterested action. In a different section, the text emphasizes the idea of self-effacement that results from this vision of language: The spirit of self-effacement is not a mere denial of oneself, but means living to the great, true self by denying one’s small Buddhist war ideology was supported by a disingenuous interpretation of epistemological and hermeneutical concepts, such as nondualism (funi ) and the direct contact with truth and reality
kotodama as we shall see, was one of the key concepts discussed by Edo period Nativists—in order to define the nature of Japanese language, the inherent character of the people, and the central role of the emperor in all this. In particular, Japanese language is used not to convey meaning and personal interpretations (an aberration which results from Western individualism), but to enact, perform, carry out deeds. The important difference between the two, however, is that the former grounds its vision of language and truth in theology and the divine nature of the emperor and its subjects. In other words, speaking the truth is a divine commandment that preserves the sacred ordering of the Japanese military state. The ideas of sincerity, action, utmost respect for the imperial orders in the Kokutai noHongi were used to enforce mindless and uncritical obedience to the authoritarian regime : here we see the most dangerous effect of the connection between semiotics and ideology in the formation of cultural identity.
One fundamental assumption : Japanese culture (and the life of the Japanese) is centered on the figure of the emperor; the Japanese people, whose paramount virtue is sincerity (makoto), have the ability to attain the true essence of things; the Japanese language is unique in that it possesses a “spirit” (kotodama) which enables it to tell the truth and to make things happen—what is said must be converted into deeds. Once again, signs cannot be used to lie (at least not by the Japanese), signs are directly related to the truth, the essence of reality without the mediation of interpretation and meaning, and language is perfectly transparent to reality. All this is predicated upon the figure of the emperor—the “empty center” of Japan. As we shall see below, the semio-ideological edifice of Japanese modernism was based on the ideas developed by the Nativist tradition (kokugaku) during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868).
Nativism (kokugaku) and the Spirit of the Japanese Language (kotodama)
During the Edo period (1600-1868), language became an important field of inquiry. A new intellectual tradition in particular, known as kokugaku, “national learning” or, Nativism, developed an intellectual discourse on Japanese authenticity based on a minutious study of ancient and classical texts, such as the Kojiki, the Man’yoshu, and the Genji monogatari . The main exponents of this traditions were Keichi, Kada no Azumamaro, Kamo no Mabuchi,
Motoori Norinaga, Fujitani Mitsue, and Hirata Atsutane. It is in this context that arose the peculiar semiotics which grounds modern discourses of Japanese identity. These authors envisioned the peculiarity of the Japanese experience of the world as poetic and irrational. It was based on a unique language whose sounds were considered directly in contact with the reality they signify without the mediation of writing—a language whose signs are incapable of lying, and whose magical qualities are called kotodama (the “spirit of the words”). Kamo no Mabuchi began to associate a sense of Japanese moral and cultural superiority with the qualities of their language.
Foreign ideas were seen (mainly, Chinese Confucianism and Indian Buddhism) asabstruse and complex, and can be expressed only through the unnatural mediation of writing; they were distortions of the simple, perfect, and natural ways of ancient Japan, and ended up by corrupting the Japanese.
Motoori Norinaga further developed Mabuchi’s themes by attributing to the ancient Japanese a strong sense of irrational wonder for the deeds of the deities (kami) and poetic sentiment toward nature and humans. Motoori was a strenuous opponent of the rationalistic tendencies of Neo-Confucian philosophy and the complexities of the Buddhist cosmology. One of the themes that runs through the entire Nativist discourse concerns the nature and function of language—and the Japanese language in particular. All the authors emphasize sound rather than written characters—in an open polemics against Confucian “grammatology” which takes the Nativists to identify speech with authenticity. The phonological system of the Japanese language embodies the “Yamato spirit,” the fundamental principle of the entire Japanese culture, because those sounds are a symbolic representation of the cosmic order sustaining Japan as the “land of the gods”. Mabuchi and other Nativists posited at the basis of the Japanese language a spiritual essence which they called kotodama, after a rare and archaic word appearing in the Man’yøsh¥ and the Kojiki.
kotodama refers to the primitive belief according to which in words there is a spirit that makes the things one says happen. For example, if one says “it’s going to rain,” then it will rain. This belief, explained is based on the synonymy in ancient Japanese of the two terms “word” and “fact,” both pronounced kotoin Japanese—even though they are written with different Chinese characters.
For the Nativists, the connection between language and signs in general, cultural identity, and imperial ideology was clear and explicit. They considered the language of the Japanese empire (køkoku), and in particular its phonological system, the only perfect one; foreign languages were imperfect and wrong. The perfection of the Japanese language was due to the sacrality of the language itself, the country, and its ruler, the emperor. Among the most important Nativist thinkers, Hirata Atsutane was the most fanatical supporter of the theory of kotodama, to the point that he found the ground of his imperial ideology in the Japanese phonetics, which he envisioned as a sublime, divine, and spiritual entity.
The concept of kotodama permeates early modern and modern Japanese philosophy of language; even though different theories and explanations were proposed, they all assume a peculiar status of the Japanese language. Furthermore, kotodama is always associated to a certain cosmology, and a vision of the other world in particular.
Conclusion
There is no theory or explanation of the term kotodama and the conception of language it implies dating back to the Nara period; the term itself was very rare in ancient texts; kotodama becomes an important philosophical term only with the development of Nativism, in which it is used as one of the crucial marks of Japanese cultural identity and superiority. It is very possible, then, that kotodama was a very successful philosophical anachronism—a rare, archaic word appropriated by the Nativists in order to carry out their intellectual and ideological agenda by projecting back onto a mythological past contemporary Buddhist ideas about language and culture. In any case, it is clear that the role of the term kotodama in Japanese intellectual history cannot be taken for granted.
With the formation of an authoritarian, quasi-fascist regime in the Thirties, the concept of kotodama was used as an ideological justification of obedience and submission to the military junta acting in the name of the emperor. according to the doctrine, there was no space for autonomous, subjective activity: the meaning of one’s life is to be found in the imperial will.
The “spirit of the words”
Kotodama means language that is filled with sincerity, and such language possesses... limitless power and is comprehensible everywhere without limitation [...] the word that possesses sincerity, by reason of kotodama, must inevitably be carried out. Thus, sincerity is found in the fundamental principle of the word able to become the deed. There is no room for self in sincerity. All of oneself must be cast aside in speech, for it is in the deed and in the deed alone that sincerity is to be found (Quoted in Miller 1982: 133-134).
According to this definition, Japanese language is only used to tell the truth, and to say things that can be carried out; it cannot be used to lie. Individuality is separate from language, which by speaking the truth solely refers to and produces disinterested action. In a different section, the text emphasizes the idea of self-effacement that results from this vision of language: The spirit of self-effacement is not a mere denial of oneself, but means living to the great, true self by denying one’s small Buddhist war ideology was supported by a disingenuous interpretation of epistemological and hermeneutical concepts, such as nondualism (funi ) and the direct contact with truth and reality
kotodama as we shall see, was one of the key concepts discussed by Edo period Nativists—in order to define the nature of Japanese language, the inherent character of the people, and the central role of the emperor in all this. In particular, Japanese language is used not to convey meaning and personal interpretations (an aberration which results from Western individualism), but to enact, perform, carry out deeds. The important difference between the two, however, is that the former grounds its vision of language and truth in theology and the divine nature of the emperor and its subjects. In other words, speaking the truth is a divine commandment that preserves the sacred ordering of the Japanese military state. The ideas of sincerity, action, utmost respect for the imperial orders in the Kokutai noHongi were used to enforce mindless and uncritical obedience to the authoritarian regime : here we see the most dangerous effect of the connection between semiotics and ideology in the formation of cultural identity.
One fundamental assumption : Japanese culture (and the life of the Japanese) is centered on the figure of the emperor; the Japanese people, whose paramount virtue is sincerity (makoto), have the ability to attain the true essence of things; the Japanese language is unique in that it possesses a “spirit” (kotodama) which enables it to tell the truth and to make things happen—what is said must be converted into deeds. Once again, signs cannot be used to lie (at least not by the Japanese), signs are directly related to the truth, the essence of reality without the mediation of interpretation and meaning, and language is perfectly transparent to reality. All this is predicated upon the figure of the emperor—the “empty center” of Japan. As we shall see below, the semio-ideological edifice of Japanese modernism was based on the ideas developed by the Nativist tradition (kokugaku) during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868).
Nativism (kokugaku) and the Spirit of the Japanese Language (kotodama)
During the Edo period (1600-1868), language became an important field of inquiry. A new intellectual tradition in particular, known as kokugaku, “national learning” or, Nativism, developed an intellectual discourse on Japanese authenticity based on a minutious study of ancient and classical texts, such as the Kojiki, the Man’yoshu, and the Genji monogatari . The main exponents of this traditions were Keichi, Kada no Azumamaro, Kamo no Mabuchi,
Motoori Norinaga, Fujitani Mitsue, and Hirata Atsutane. It is in this context that arose the peculiar semiotics which grounds modern discourses of Japanese identity. These authors envisioned the peculiarity of the Japanese experience of the world as poetic and irrational. It was based on a unique language whose sounds were considered directly in contact with the reality they signify without the mediation of writing—a language whose signs are incapable of lying, and whose magical qualities are called kotodama (the “spirit of the words”). Kamo no Mabuchi began to associate a sense of Japanese moral and cultural superiority with the qualities of their language.
Foreign ideas were seen (mainly, Chinese Confucianism and Indian Buddhism) asabstruse and complex, and can be expressed only through the unnatural mediation of writing; they were distortions of the simple, perfect, and natural ways of ancient Japan, and ended up by corrupting the Japanese.
Motoori Norinaga further developed Mabuchi’s themes by attributing to the ancient Japanese a strong sense of irrational wonder for the deeds of the deities (kami) and poetic sentiment toward nature and humans. Motoori was a strenuous opponent of the rationalistic tendencies of Neo-Confucian philosophy and the complexities of the Buddhist cosmology. One of the themes that runs through the entire Nativist discourse concerns the nature and function of language—and the Japanese language in particular. All the authors emphasize sound rather than written characters—in an open polemics against Confucian “grammatology” which takes the Nativists to identify speech with authenticity. The phonological system of the Japanese language embodies the “Yamato spirit,” the fundamental principle of the entire Japanese culture, because those sounds are a symbolic representation of the cosmic order sustaining Japan as the “land of the gods”. Mabuchi and other Nativists posited at the basis of the Japanese language a spiritual essence which they called kotodama, after a rare and archaic word appearing in the Man’yøsh¥ and the Kojiki.
kotodama refers to the primitive belief according to which in words there is a spirit that makes the things one says happen. For example, if one says “it’s going to rain,” then it will rain. This belief, explained is based on the synonymy in ancient Japanese of the two terms “word” and “fact,” both pronounced kotoin Japanese—even though they are written with different Chinese characters.
For the Nativists, the connection between language and signs in general, cultural identity, and imperial ideology was clear and explicit. They considered the language of the Japanese empire (køkoku), and in particular its phonological system, the only perfect one; foreign languages were imperfect and wrong. The perfection of the Japanese language was due to the sacrality of the language itself, the country, and its ruler, the emperor. Among the most important Nativist thinkers, Hirata Atsutane was the most fanatical supporter of the theory of kotodama, to the point that he found the ground of his imperial ideology in the Japanese phonetics, which he envisioned as a sublime, divine, and spiritual entity.
The concept of kotodama permeates early modern and modern Japanese philosophy of language; even though different theories and explanations were proposed, they all assume a peculiar status of the Japanese language. Furthermore, kotodama is always associated to a certain cosmology, and a vision of the other world in particular.
Conclusion
There is no theory or explanation of the term kotodama and the conception of language it implies dating back to the Nara period; the term itself was very rare in ancient texts; kotodama becomes an important philosophical term only with the development of Nativism, in which it is used as one of the crucial marks of Japanese cultural identity and superiority. It is very possible, then, that kotodama was a very successful philosophical anachronism—a rare, archaic word appropriated by the Nativists in order to carry out their intellectual and ideological agenda by projecting back onto a mythological past contemporary Buddhist ideas about language and culture. In any case, it is clear that the role of the term kotodama in Japanese intellectual history cannot be taken for granted.
posted by ロマン at 1:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home