Publicity and the Formation of a “Japanese Style” Modern State

In this paper I shall consider the shape that the consciousness of communality and publicity assumed in Japan, situating my argument within an international context and the historical specificities of the formation of the modern state. The formation of the modern state in France, for example, progressed under central government direction as it purged the country of the old guard in the provinces. It was within this context, through a negation of the pre-modern communal polity, that a nationwide communal consciousness which transcended regional boundaries, and nation, composed of individuals possessing an independent and modern subjectivity, emerged. And in modern publicity, which had replaced the pre-modern, local communal polity, was born the idea that nation constitutes state. In the American case, formation of the nation was achieved through the confederation of regional communities of settlers. Consequently, citizens-individuals already equipped with a modern subjectivity-formed intermediary groups such as regional communities in which people voluntarily congregated. Communality and publicity materialized primarily via these intermediary groups, and the concept emerged that the central government qua state should not intervene in their affairs. One could say, then, that in both France and America, individuals-those who possessed a subjective consciousness released from the constraints of the pre-modern communal polity-constructed a modern communality and publicity, replacing the traditional communal polity. In the former case, this resulted in a nation-state, in the latter, intermediary groups. The formation of the modern Japanese State, however, followed a different path. Intermediary groups, such as the locality, the school and business, have retained what can be characterized as a restraining function vis-&e¥agrave;-vis the individual, and as the substructure of the state they are entangled within the system of central government authority. This has resulted in an antinomous relationship between the establishment of individual subjectivity and the longing for communality. Communality has been subsumed within groups which have abandoned subjectivity and there is an increasing sense that modern publicity can be found in neither intermediary groups nor the state.