memecucker:

memecucker:

Tosaka Jun is a proper name and thus no one from that weirdass cultnat clique is gonna ever address this point (since it’s harder to bullshit knowing something about a proper name). ut I like how in his essay he goes out of his way to show that the nationalistic mentality he’s critiquing is not exclusive to rightwing militarist by also critiquing the role the concept of “the Japanese spirit” plays in certain anti-militarist and anti-imperialist writers of his day (who would say that the “true spirit of Japan” is peace and is being bastardized and distorted by the militarists) and basically says even if their intentions are far better the bad seeds are still present when you conceptualize the world by means of “cultural spirits” and myths of origins and the reactionary potential is still present even there

The way Tosaka does it is really interesting as well. Basically he says let’s grant for a second that the true “national spirit” (of Japan) is one of selfless love of peace which had been twisted by the imperial factions. Couldn’t it still be the case though that there are other lands where the inhabitants do not have such a spirit or something close to it? If “we” love the people in those, Tosaka argues, shouldn’t it be correct to these proponents of a “benevolent spirit” try to find a way to export this “spirit of love” to those who lack it? It’s basically a slippery slope according to Tosaka.

Incidentally I think this applies pretty cleanly to what people say about liberal criticisms of Trump that call him “un-American”. While some people dispute those criticisms by saying its white washing what America historically stands for, the way Tosaka would’ve done it would’ve simply been to grant those premises and show how it turns out these small seeds of well-intentioned exceptionalism can still grow into something implicitly chauvinistic and imperialist and eventually explicitly. What happens if we restore “real American values” and seek to follow them consistently, will it still look progressive after long?