Japan Management

7/29/2019 Japan Management

1/12

A.J. Toynbee and JapanJacobKovalio

INTRODUCTIONThis is a glance at British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee's evolving perceptionof Japan, and the remarkably strong following Toynbee (1889-1975) establishedthere in the last twenty years of his life. There are many events and symbolsattesting to the unusual affinity between Toynbee and postwar Japan. One tellingexample is that while alive, Toynbee agreed that only in Japan an organizationfor the dissemination of his ideas be founded, bearing his name. The Toynbeeshimin no kai (TSK - oynbee Citizens' Association) was established onJanuary 25, 1969, as its constitution states, "to strive for the proliferation ofA.J. Toynbee's magnificent vision of moral renewal in the world." No lesstelling is the fact that Toynbee's most famous work, the twelve-volume A,Studyof History (hereafter ASH), o date, has only been translated into Japanese. Itshould, therefore, come as no surprise that the Toynbee centennial in 1989,while almost ignored in his own country and in the West was amply celebratedin Japan. The popularly acclaimed but professionally maligned ASH, his Surveyof International ~ ffaa irs~SIA) and lesser known books and interviews haveserved in the analysis of Toynbee's views about Japan and Japanese reactionsto his ideas. A section presenting Toynbee's evaluation of Japanese civilizationin ASH, and including a brief introduction of the work and its methodology,is followed by an examination of the fertile ground his ideas found in Japanafter the Pacific War.JAPAN IN ASHToynbee began contemplating ASH under the combined influence of thecataclysmic First World W ar(which he sat out using dubious medical certificates)and the writings of Thucydides, Herodotus, Augustine, Ibn Khaldun, Gobineau,Nietzsche and especially Osw ald Spengler's The Decline ofthe West. The twelvevolumes of ASH were published, with interruptions, over a period of more thantwenty years; the first six volumes between 1934-39, volumes 7-1 1 in 1954and the last, subtitled Reconsiderations, in 1962. Spengler, mainly under theimpact of Heraclitus -the Greek philosopher's concept of a constantly flowingworld in which ultimately nothing remains -and Goe the's idea of themetamorphosis of plants -had identified human cultures with the natural world,describing their evolution as a cycle leading from birth through growth andmaturity to inevitable death. Toynbee adopted from Spengler the civilization


2/12

A.J. TOYNBEE AND JAPAN

as the fundamental unit of analysis and comparison, but unlike the German'sgloomy approach leading to inevitable decline, employed a semi-circularapproach, recognizing- ike Goeth e -hum ankind's remediable nature.Therefore, civilizations die only when unable to renew themselves, due to totalinternal decay, not senescence or external interference. Toynbee, as shown later,considered religious revival as a sine-qua-non for renewal.Toynbee's motives to write a history of the world were mainly scholarlyas well as, in a sense, practical-educational. Initially, it was the realization that"Western historians have been throwing...heir weight into the study ofdetails...having keener eyes for the trees than for the wood," that encouragedhim "to bring the wood back into focusv3 by taking "a synoptic view of allciv i~iz atio ns ."~ he commendable practical objective was "to help men ofdifferent civilizations ..understand and appreciate one another's histories... ndsee them as a common achievement and common possession of the whole humanfamily."5 Some have suggested that Toynbee wroteASH "to influence the courseof h i ~ t o r y , " ~specially through the implementation of the idea he would latercall "Ecum enopolis, the city that embraces the whole ecumene, the wholehabitable world,"' the global state, which he came to see as the only viablestructure for future human survival in the late industrial age. Toynbee consideredstates "parochial ... ptical illusions of na tio na li ~m ". ~ herefore, h e chosecivilizations as the basic units of analysis for his "empirical model," attemptingto capture the process through which they em erge, grow, mature, decline, breakdown and disintegrate or turn into a new structure, related to the defunct one. 'Briefly put, the initial element in the ASH model is that of CHALLENGEAND RE S P ONS E- u m a n s f o r m i n g g r o u p s i n o r d e r t o o v e r c o m eenvironmental obstacles as a first step away from the natural state. Gradually,the groups evolve into states, clusters of which develop a common culturalidentity (thus making them into a civilization), although they clash politicallyand militarily. Toynbee maintains that difficult -though not overwhelming-environmental conditions constitute positive stimuli for human creativity andresourcefulness. Growth of a civilization is advanced by a CREATIVEMINORITY -emulated and followed by the rest of society. Eventually, astate of conflict -identified as ROUT -emerges between those political units,reaching a stage of breakdown -the TIMES OF TROUBLES. Longing forsurvival, the fragments making up the civilization rally to form a UNIVERSALSTATE. However, this stage is but a temporary reprieve Toynbee calls theINDIAN SUM MER because the seeds of social conflict -the SCHISM -areat the heart of the exhausted state, now in the phase of disintegration. Theschism pits against each other three groups. On the one hand is the old creativeminority which, corrupted by power, turns into the DOMINANT MINORITY.On the other hand, there are the vast masses, previously shut out of the politicalprocess of which there are two types: the INTERNAL PROLETARIATE-the local destitute classes -and the EXTERNAL PROLETARIATE, groupsfrom outside the civilization - arbarians. The last major element is theUNIVERSAL CHURCH -a religion of foreign origin, offering salvation tothe alienated internal proletariate, becoming the mortal enemy of the old


3/12

JACOB KOVALIOcivilization and the potential CHRYSALIS for a new one. I fa new entity emergesafter a period of interregnum, on the ruins of the old civilization i t is said tobe in an APPARENTATION-AFFILIATION relationship with its predecessor.Since ancient Europe was his field of expertise, Toynbee chose the Helleniccivilization as "the specimen history of civilization"? considering the RomanEmpire as the universal state and Christianity as the universal church, thechrysalis of Western civilization. Originally, Toynbee identified twenty-onecivilizations, one of which was located in East Asia. Centred on China, it wasdescribed in the first six volumes as having evolved in two stages -a Sinicone and a Far Eastern one, of which Japan was an offshoot, others being Koreaand vietna m.lo In volume seven, together with the introduction of HIGHERRELIGION as the supreme type of surviving cultural systems (five in number-Western European, Christian-Orthodox, Islamic, Hindu and Sinic) Japan ispresented as a satellite of the independent Sinic civilization.In the ASH historical scheme, Japan became a branch of the Sinic civilizationthrough the adoption of Buddhism and Confucianized T'ang institutions duringthe Nara and Heian periods, beginning around the 7th century." Toynbee sawthe civil wars of the late twelfth century (the Gempei wars) as the start ofJapan's Times of Troubles -the victory of feudalism over imperial rule-which continued for 400 years until the establishment of the Tokugawa regime-the Japanese Universal State- n the 17th century. In the 12th century,Buddhism in popularized form, reached the masses for the first time throughfour sects: Hcnen, Shinran, Nichiren and Zen. Appearing at a time of crisis,they were, in Toynbee's view, Japan's U niversal Church, followed by the InternalProletariate composed o f Eta and RG i n and superseding, though not eliminating,pagan shinto.I2

Toynbee considered the samurai class as Japan's Creative Minority. After400 years of inner fighting, this class "survived to redeem their past" bycooperating in Ieyasu's constructive work "of converting a feudal anarchy intofeudal order."13 In the Meiji era, they rose to the height of "self-abnegation,by giving up their privileges to help the country modernize fast."14The only known reaction to the treatment of Japan in the first six volumesof ASH was that of Meribeth ~ a m e r o n ."Cam eron criticized Toynbee's omissionof China's influence on Japan during its earlier history as well as his insufficientexplanation of the reasons for Japan's successful modernization vs. China'sfailure. However, on the whole, she found most appropriate and inspiring thecomparative lines Toynbee drew between Japan -a Far Eastern culture -andother cultures, especially that of Russia, in volumes four and six. Cameron wasmost approving of equations Toynb'ee made between the political role of JapaneseBuddhism and the Russian Orthodox church as well as that of NardKyoto andKiev, Edo and Moscow, and the Meiji modernizers and Peter the Great. Cam eronpraised Toynbee for having "reduced Japanese history to its proper scale,showing it to be unintelligeable except as a phase of the Far Eastern civilization;


4/12

A.J. TOYNBEE AND JAPAN er

Indeed, with an open mind and an overstretched imagination, one canidentify in Japanese history the elements of Challenge and Response andCreative Minority -though probably not in the bushi class but in the kugk atKyoto. All other elements are either non-evident or inadequately labelled inan attempt to fit Japan into the straightjacket of Toynbee's theory. A quickchronological look shows that Toynbee ignored Japan's civilization prior tothe 7th century, including the relationship with China at that time. The Timesof Troubles, as identified by Toynbee, actually cover a period of stronginstitutional developm ent, in the 13th and 14th centuries, under the H5 jG regime,that enabled Japan, among other things, to withstand two Mongol invasionattempts and renew links with China. The reference to the Eta as t henon-assimilated remnants of the aboriginal Ainu is erroneous. Also, Eta andRonrn made up only a minority of the population which disqualifies them frombeing the Internal Proletariate, which in the Hellenic model comprises thealienated majority. The Tokugawa regime obtained the cooperation of hostiletozama daimyz, not in an atmosphere of enthusiastic building of orderlyfeudalism, but through the harshly imposed sankin-kztai (alternate attendance)system. Then, it was a very small group of bushi from tozama domains,traditionally hostile to the Tokugawa, after barely pulling off a coup, whoundertook utilitarian Westernization, to which the former regime had beencommined anyway, after 1867. Therefore, the major elements of UniversalState, and Internal and External Proletariate did not exist in the Japanese context.The same can be said about the Universal Church since Buddhism had absolutelynothing to do with the Meiji Restoration. What became State Shinto did, butonly much later, in the 1890s. The fierce commitment to modernization, of theMeiji leadership, packaged in an attractive wrapping of imperial symbolism-what Carol Gluck has called 'Japan's modem myths' -and slogans likefukoku-kyirhei was the country's "religion". Unable to explain the paradox ofthe ability of the pupil -Japan -to modernize quickly, as opposed to thetotal failure of the former teacher- hina -to do so, Toynbee, in the late1930s was s till expecting "Japan's occidentalized ruling class to meet its1917.""On Japan's two encounters with the West, Toynbee correctly contendsthat the first, in the 16th-17th centuries, ended in failure because of the threatCatholicism posed to political stability. Later, elsewhere, he justifies theexpulsion of Christianity from Japan by 1640 as stemm ing from the Christians'"Judaic fanaticism", the anti-Semitic flag of convenience which allows Toynbeethroughout his writings to easily explain away Christian (or communist....)excesses or failures.'' At the time of the second encounter, in the mid-1800s,only technology and trade, not religion, were offered to Japan, according toToynbee. Divorced from its Christian roots, secular Western civilizationdisillusioned the Japanese, ultimately resulting in rabid militarism. Probablyaware enough, neither that the Japanese religious environment had become oneof tolerance and apoliticism, nor of the strong, though unsuccessful, missionaryeffort after 1873, Toynbee prefers to present the Japanese as being in need ofsomething they did not request, then blames the West for Japan's militarism.


5/12

JACOB KOVALIO

Toynbee describes the methodology in ASH as empirical.19 However, itis just highly selective and dubiously interpretative. AAer establishing a s et ofpeculiarly-defined, Marxist-sounding elements of the Hellenic model, Toynbeeselects examples from world history which seem compatible with the "model",ignoring instances, even if of fundamental importance, which do not supporthis interpretation, or, at best, bending them to suit it.20 His major "empirical"approach is a readiness to endlessly change and reinterpret positions. Thus,recognizing that his Hellenic model was unsatisfactory, he tried to offer aChinese, a Jewish and then a Hellenic-Chinese model in which even the termdefinition is rcdcfincd -actually c ra ti n g more confusion than clarifying thetheory. It is true that historians, and writers in general, tend to be selective intheir choice of evidence when analyzing major issues. In the case of ASH,however, the scale of transparent selectivity is enormous, precisely because ofthe scope of the work. The fundamental reversal of focus from UNIVERSALSTATE to HIGHER RELIGION by 1946, resulted in a situation in which, inToynbeeanese, "what began as an analytico-classificatory comparative studyof human affairs, turned into a metahistorical inquiry."21 Indeed, Toynbee'sreligious predilections, as expressed in ASH and elsewhere, may justify hisclassification as a theodician or even a mystic, rather than a historian. In hisCivilization on Trial, he advises us "to relegate economic and political historyto a subordinate place and give religion primacy. For religion, after all, is theserious business of the human race."22 He sounds downright mystical in thetenth volume of ASH, defining history as "a vision, dim and partial...of Godrevealing Himself in actions to souls that were sincerely seeking ~ i m . " * ~till,his Augustinian vision of a higher religion as the core of a future world societydominated by love and selflessness, is a marvellous utopia.24 The suggestionof William McNeill, Toynbee's biographer, that a powerful mystical experiencein 1939 (one of many in Toynbee's life) affected the shift in emphasis in thepostwar ASH volumes, is of importance in this context.25ASH became an instant popular bestseller in Britain and the United States,in the abridged D.C. Somervell version of the first six volumes, published intwo tomes in 1947. However, the reaction of the academic community wasdiametrically opposed. A.J.P. Taylor sarcastically lauded the commercial successof ASH in the US, "which made it rank second only to whisky as a dollarearner." As to Toynbee's method "it is not that of scholarship, but of the luckydip, with emphasis on the luck."26 Hugh Trevor-Roper thrashed ASHmethodolog which "rests effortlessly on air" resulting in "terrible perversionof history."" To Pieter Geyl, Toynbee's "system is u ~ e le ss ," ~ 'while a gentlerPitirim Sorokin found ASH "an eclectic mixture of science, history, philosophyof history, politics, theology and religion."29TOYNBEE A ND JAPANA.J. Toynbee apparently first became aware of Japan at age five, being veryimpressed with London Illustrated News reports on its victory over


6/12


War. Toynbee's first trip to Japan was in late 1929, to attend a meeting of theInstitute of Pacific Relations in Kyoto. He was surprised to realize that Japan was"a classical culture still alive," an anomaly according to his perception ofhistory ,which made him "wonder about Japan's ~ n i ~ u e n e s s . " ~ 'n a public appearancein Tokyo, he bluntly warned his audience that Japan "treaded the path of Carthageand will meet the same fate."32 In his less famous, but down to earth andcarefully \vritten S I A , since the 1920s he consistently criticized Japan'saggressive policies toward China and the West as well as the growing infltrenceof the mili tary in poli t ics -anathem a to the com m itted acifist andanti-nationalist Toynbee had become after the First World War.8Toynbee's powerfbl relationship with the Japanese, who cam e to see himmore as a spiritual figure than a historian, began after the Second World W ar.It was only then that his works became available in translation. Toynbee returnedto Japan in 1956, in connection with the revision of ASH, in the earlier volumesof which Japan and the Pacific Rim had been relatively scantily mentionedand poorly a n a ~ ~ s e d . ~ ~he visit established him as an influential intellectualfigure among Japanese in all walks of life, a position that would continue evenyears after his death. The Japanese organized three symposia on Japanese, EastAsian and world history, while Toybee asked his counterparts questions onwhat he considered to be Japan's Sinicization and Westernization processes.He was especially interested in the collapse of the Tokugawa and the emergenceof the Meiji regime in which he saw a replay of the struggle in first centuryPalestine, between the Herodeans and the ~ e a l o t s . ~ 'oynbee's Japanese hostsdid not think much of his scholarship of their country; especially disturbingto them was his idea of the Tokugawa state as a Universal State, given thesignificant differences in size and geopolitical diversity between Edo Japanand the Roman or Gupta empires.36I-fowever, he Japanese side was very pleasedwith his profusely expressed admiration for their postwar performance andpotential role in the future as well as by his universal view of hi~tory.~'npublic appearances across the country Toynbee ceaselessly praised Japan'seconomic efforts and even more, its 1947 Peace Constitution, which, comingafter nuclear disaster and defeat, could lace Japan in a position of "builderof the formula for peace in the ~orld."~'Already then, Toynbee succeeded in"soothing Ja an's agony over its defeat... nd enlightening the Japanese on theirfuture He also suggested that the Japanese show other Asian countriesthe escape route out of their own nationalisms.

Toynbee, the universal non-M arxist, anti-nationalistic thinker made a strongimpression, especial1 on Japanese intellectuals who became "the transmissionbelt for his ideas."4JMost appealing to them was that in his global approachto history, as expressed in ASH, he placed Japan in a position of equality withother civilizations, in comparison with traditional historical writing which theyconsidered to be too western-centred?' Moreover, Toynbee's scathing criticismof all aspects of Western civilization -from Marxism, capitalism, nationalismand Christ ianity to ... able manners42 -wh ich had just d efeated Jap an,strengthened his appeal even more, as did his acifism and negative attitudetoward T 19 hreien nolicv. going back to 1945."lapanese business and labour


7/12

JACOB KOVALIO

were pleased with his disparagement of Britain's sluggish economic performanceand frequent labour unrest, which he contrasted with Japan's rapid growth andmore successful management techniques.44 Subsequently, Toynbee's strange,superficial, flattering attitude toward Japanese religion added to his popularityin the country. This stance emerged gradually after 1957. Before that, he haddreamed of "Christianity permeating Japanese life, replacing Buddhism'sinfluence so that at the subconscious level Japanese people may be finding thebread of life."45 It was again Toynbee 's rich im agination added to hisfundamental arrogance, that created in his mind the utterly inaccurate pictureof the Japanese spiritual scene in the early 1950s along the lines above. Hisextreme statements in the opposite direction a decade later make it almostinevitable for one to think of Toynbee as having had some ulterior, mainlypecuniary, motives in caressing the religious-spiritual ego of his Japanese"flock" for whom he "became a new b ~ d h i s a t t v a . " ~ ~Toynbee visited Japan for the last time in 1967, at the invitation of KyotoIndustrial University, where his eager disciple Wakaizumi Kei was teaching.He offered his opinions on the future of human civilization and the problemsof urban developm ent. On the first issue, hammering away at what he consideredto be the morality gap in the West between scientific advancement and spiritualstagnation, he urged humankind to commit itself to the power of "the ultimatereality," his postwar euphemism for God. Since, in his view, Western civilizationhad no moral answer to the atomic threat -the most urgent problem humanitywas then facing- e called on Japan and East Asia to provide spiritualalternatives." It was in this context that, after a visit to the Grand Shrines atIse, the holiest place in Shintoism, Toynbee wrote in the visitors' book: "Here,in this holy place, I feel the underlying unity of all religions."48 To his hostshe confided that he saw at Ise "the harmony between man and nature as opposedto the Judaic attitude of man ruling nature."49 On that occasion Toynbee showedthat he had come a long way since, in the first six volumes of ASH he describedShinto as a pagan, primitive, unsophisticated, creed.50One opportunity for Toynbee to air his ideas on the present and future ofthe world and his grow ing admiration for Japan as a source of spiritual inspirationwas a series of talks with Japanese lay Buddhist leader Ikeda Daisaku, thepresident of S k a Gakkai International. Toynbee mentioned the seriousness ofJapan's environmental problems and the need for restoring the trade balancebetween Japan and the United States. But, more than anything else, he expressedhis concern over the spiritual needs of mankind and Japan's potential role inthat regard. It is worth noting that while Toynbee stated that the human racewould not be able to survive without "a sudden widespread... evolution on thereligious plane, prior to global unification," the realistic Ikeda offered theexample of the ...European Community as a model for initial steps in thatdirection." On the religious future of the world, the dispirited Toynbee's advicewas "to discard Judaic monotheism and post-Christian non-theistic faith inscience... nd embrace pantheism as exem plified in ~ h i n t o . " ~ ~e expressed the


8/12


the ecumenical spirit of Confucianism" will eventually cause Japan "to gettogether with China, Vietnam and Korea and create an axis round which theunification of the whole world will be a ~ h i e v e d . " ~ ~Most of Toynbee's writings are of the type that has made authors fromTokutomi Soh5 to Rabbi Marvin Tokayer very popular in Japan. Writers likethese cater to those Japanese with an insatiable thirst for books mixing factswith (preferably mystical) fiction, which, they believe, give them a bettergrasp of their country, the world and the future. Conceivably, just like theirWestern counterparts, the Japanese fans are not disturbed by trivial matterslike factual accuracy, viability or logic in Toynbee's massiceus opus andelsewhere. Moreover, unlike Western specialists, Japanese scholars actually haveled the public at large in praising ASH and Toynbee's work. In particular,Toynbee's spiritualism and mysticism have appealed to them and to Japanesein other walks of life, many of whom consider themselves seishinshugisha(emotionalists). Professor Kam iyama Shumpei, in reaction to the harsh criticismlevelled at Toynbee in the West forASH,while conceding its accuracy, describedit as "too scholarly. History writing must be closer to man's humanness, thebasic approach somewhere between literature and scholarship. Toynbee's AStudy of History goes straight to our hearts because it has that quality."54

In 196 8, Toynb ee was decorated in Japan "for con tributing to thedevelopment of Japanese culture through the originality of his world view."By the early 1970s he had become Japan 's "Western guru."55 A series of 97interviews he gave to Professor Wakaizumi, carried by the Mainichi Shimbunbetween August and Decem ber 1967, became the longest in the history ofJapanese journalism. By 1993, no less than 276 m ajor publications by andabout Toynbee had appeared in Japan. Businessmen Matsunaga Yasuzaemonand Takashina Sonosuke and Professor Yamamoto Shin, Japan's foremostToynbee scholar, organized the translation of ASH which was published in 24volumes between 1968-72. The backbone of Toynbee research and relatedactivities in Japan remains the TSK, which publishes three periodicals, themost prominent of which is Gendai to Toynbee (Modem Times and Toynbee).The others are Toynbee kenkyii (Toynbee Research) and Toynbee to watakushi(Toynbee and I ) . The TSK sponsors regular monthly lectures and annual seminarsand conferences. Until his death in 1989, prominent industrialist MatsushtaKGnosuke was a central financial and intellectual supporter of the TSK. TheTSK put together a year-long celebration of the Toynbee centennial in 1989-90.A commemorative stamp is being negotiated with the authorities.When Toynbee died in 1975 , while in the W est he had almost beenforgotten, in Japan, newspapers were writing about him as "the conscience ofthe twentieth century," "the giant star of history." Fifteen years later, forJapanese specialists like Yoshizawa Gore "it goes without sayin that Toynbeewas the greatest historian England has produced this century.""The Toynbeecentenary brought about attempts at positive reappraisal of his work in theWestern academic world as well. C.T. McIntyre and Marvin Perry consider


9/12

JACOB KOVAI.10

CONCLUSIONSAs a young intellectual, Toynbee experienced the social and cultural environmentof Britain at the peak of its imperial might. Dissatisfied with the subsequentdecline of his country which he saw as a possible prelude to the collapse ofthe Western civilization -he set out to build a supposedly comprehensive,empirical model of comparative civilizations, based on one civilization he reallyknewS8 and the least measurable of all elements of human existence -thespirit. It is no surprise that he did not include an African civilization in hismodel until it was alm ost too late,59 that he largely ignored the United States,discounted Europe as a future major political factor, in one case establishedChina as the future unifier of the world and was convinced that the Japaneseconcept of J lHI (submissiveness) is more appro riate than Western love as theanchor of world social relations in the future.6g The fact that, as reported byW.H. McNeill, "he wrote fast and seldom revised" probably accounts not onlyfor Toynbee's prolificity but also for a level of self-confidence bordering onprofessional irresponsibility and, no less, for the frequent enormities in "theNonsense Book" (the way Toynbee and his family referred to ASH), andelsewhere. His biographer thinks that in "reading" Toynbee one has to consider"the interweaving of his personal affairs" -his relationship with his first wifeRosalind, his mystical experiences, his obsession with money matters -withhis thinking and decisions as an historian.62 These being issues of intimate andpsychological nature, therefore difficult to evaluate adequately, one is probablyon more solid ground stating that, especially in ASH, Toynbee is convincingwhen dealing with ancient Greece and Rome, or when staying the courseestablished by those whose expert knowledge he used in building his "model."Toynbee is at his professional best while writing the SIA and volumes 4-6 ofASH, those apparently being the cases in which he is least influenced by whatassociate Jane Caplan has called "his spiritual interpretation of history."63Toynbee the historian will always be remembered for ASH. Although hisintellectual arrogance and voodoo empiricism64 are to be avoided, his audacityin undertaking a project of that magnitude is not only commendable but even(mildly) inspiring. Still, when considering elements such as accuracy, necessaryintellectual modesty, indispensable attention to MAJOR details, Toynbee doesnot belong in the same league as McNeill, Braudel, Needham, or Wallerstein,though he is more sophisticated than H.G. Wells and Will Durant. Nevertheless,the post-Communist world, the world of the disorderly "new world order",inevitably brings to mind Toynbee the visionary thinker and his call for theestablishment of a unified world civilization, a message he delivered for fiftyyears and which, in the 1990s, is considered by a growing number of people,as the only antidote to the rampant nationalism that has erupted after the collapseof the USSR. And, with reference to Japan and its tortuous grappling withkokusaika (internationalization) and kokusai k5kn (international contribution),Toynbee predicted over twenty years ago: "Japan's ...mpact on the rest of theworld has doubtless only just begun and will certainly become a major issue


10/12

NOTES1 .-IToynbee, A Study of History 12 vols. (London, New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1934-1962). Volumes I I and 12 are a historical atlas and a detailed replyto criticisms, respectively.2. Survey of the International Affairs (London, New York: Oxford University Press,

1927-1 956) saw thirty-four volumes: five written by Toynbee, thirteen co-authoredby Toynbee and secretary and second wife, Veronica Boulter, and sixteen the writingof which Toynbee only supervised.3. ASH. 1: 10.4 Ibid.. 11.5 Ibld., 22.6 C I' Mclntirc and Marvin Perry. "Toynbcc's Achievement," in C.T. Mclntire,Marvin Perry,eds.. Toynbee- eappraisals (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1989), 10.7 A.J. Toynbee, Survlvlng the Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 34.8. ASH. 1: 27.9 Ibid., 52.10. Ibid., 54.11. Ibid., 12: 190.12. lbid., 5: 95.13. Ibid., 98-100.14. Ibid., 101-1 13.

15. Meribeth Cameron, "A Rehandling of Japanese History," in Far Eastern Q uarterly,1, No. 2 (February 1942): 150-161.16. Ibid., 160.17. ASH, 5: 89.18. "In fact the Japanese Government in the seventeenth century outlawed and repressedChristianity, from the same motive that today is moving twentieth century Westerngovernments to outlaw and repress Communism; and it has been an element thatis common to these two Western faiths- he fanaticism inherited by both fromJudaism- hat has been the stumbling block in any Asian country in whichChristianity has been propagated," A.J. Toynbee, The World and the West (London,Oxford University Press, 1953), 58. Also see Frederick M. Schweitzer, "Toynbeeand Jewish History," in McIntirelPeny, 195-227.19. ASH, 1: 51, 147; 5: 61; 12: 218.20. "Toynbee's empiricism is of the kind which already is keenly aware of what it isseeking...and in...history, it is all too easy to find evidence to "prove" almost anyproposition...by selecting for attention only those bits and pieces that fit in withone's notions, a convincing "empirical" validation of the preconception with whichone started out may often...be achieved." William H. McNeill, "Basic Assumptionsof Toynbee's A Study of History,'' in William H . McNeill, Mythistory and OtherEssays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 139.21. ASH, 12: 229.22. A.J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (New York: Oxford University Pres, 1948), 5923. ASH, 10: 42. John Barker considered ASH to have been written "with a stronicvangelical purpose," John Barker, The Superhistorians (New York: Charle.Scribner's Sons, 1982), 293. A similar opinion is expressed in Paul Costcllo's "ThReligious Premises and Goals of Arnold Toynbee's World History," in Paul CostellcWorld Historians and Their Goals (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Pres!1993). 70-97.


11/12

JACOB KOVALIO

24. Klaus P. Fischer In h ~ s ~srotyand Prophecy Oswald Spengler and the Decl~neofihe West (Durham, North Carolina: Moore Publishing Co., 1976). classifies Toynbeeas an historian of the "grand design school ...nsisting that the past is governed bygeneral laws analogous to the laws of the natural sciences," (p. 7) and ye t "anoutgrowth of theology" (p. 8).25. William H. McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee: A Llfe (London, New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1989), 267. See also Thomas W. Africa, "Toynbee: The TimeTraveller," in McIntirelPerry, 105-127.26. A.J.P. Taylor, "Much Learning," in M.F. Ashley Montagu, ed., Toynbee and History(Boston: Porter Sargent, 1956), l IS.27. H. Trevor-Ropcr, "Testing the Toynbec System," in Montagu, 124.28. Pieter Geyl, "Toynbee 's System of Civilizations," in Montagu, 43.29. Pitirim Sorokin, "Toynbcc's Philosophy of History," in Montagu, 190.

30. Yoshizawa GorTi, Toynbee (TiikyC, Shimizu shoin, 1987), 162.3 1. Toynbee: A Ltfe, 140.32. Yoshizawa, 168-9.33. Toynbee even saw the 1923 Great KantTi Earthquake as "a sign that Japan hadincurred the Envy of the Gods" for its aggressive acts between 1914-1920 (SIA,vols. 1923-1926, p. 425). He called 193 1 an "Annus Terribilis" (SIA, 193 1, p. 13)and in reference to the Manchurian Incident wrote: "the Japanese people ... ollowingthe lead of the Japanese army are reverting from the policy of economic expansionto the policy of military conquest" (p. 403). Indeed the situation was far differentfrom his prediction in 1915 that "Japan will join Canada, the USA, the SouthAmerican republics, New Zealand and Australia... nto a league to preserve the Pacificfrom Ch inese domination," - .J. Toynbee, Nationality and W ar (London, Toronto:J.M. Dent & Sons, 1915), 333.34. Even the one-volume ASH, which he co-authored with Jane Caplan in 1972, containsstatements like "In Japan... the abandonment of a self-imposed insulation from contactwith the West was initiated from below upwards" (New York: Oxford UniversityPress), 41 1.35. Yoshizawa, 172.36. Ibid., 173.37. Ibid., 6.38. Ibid., 175.39. Ibid., 176.40. Toynbee: A Life, 241.41. The Japanese saw Toynbee's writings and statements of praise for their country as"the day when the West learns from the East, approaching," Yoshizawa, 6.

42. "I feel like a civilized man when 1 eat using chopsticks, but as a total barbarian inmy clumsy attempts to use them properly....Westerners, of all classes, until the 17thcentury, used the knife as the main tool for a variety of purposes. When they didnot use it to cut food or kill animals with, they used it to kill other people ....Thatcompares in no way with the chopsticks, the refined tool which the Japanese haveemployed since Nara times." Hidemura Kinji and Yoshizawa Gor5, Chikyii bunmeino shua (Eky6: Keizai Craisha, 1983), 33.43. "War ought to have been abolished the instant after the atomic weapon had beenmanufactured. It could and should have been demonstrated to the Japanese peopleby their opponents in 1945 that this invention had made further belligerency impossiblefo r the Japanese and unthinkable for the inventors of the nuclear weapon; and Japan


12/12

A.J .TOYNBEE AND JAPANgenerous enough to make it physically possible for Japan to come to terms w~thoutfeeling humiliated." Surviving the Future, 109.44. Toynbee: A Life, 269.45. A.J. Toynbee, East to West (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 75.46. Toynbee: A Life, 271. McNeill emphasizes Toynbee's obsession with money andthe (characteristic) pecuniary generosity of the Japanese toward him. The Japanesealso must have liked statements like "the spiritual component is more importantthan the physical component in the human psychosomatic organism and I have theimpression that this is also the Japanese people's belief." Richard, L. Gage, ed.,Choose Lije, The Toynbee-lkeda Dialogue (London: Oxford University Press,1976), 237.47 Toynbee: A Lije, 272. Somewhere else, however, he writes: "the present religionsof India and the form of Buddhism that is practised to-day in the Far East, maycontribute to new elements to be grafted onto Christianity in days to come...withChristianity as the spiritual heir of all other higher religions...and the social heir ofall the other churches and all other civilizations." Civilization on Trial, 210.

48, Toda Yoshio, "Toynbce ni okeru shintiikan no tenkai," in HidemuraKinji, YoshizawaGorZi, Kawakubo Keisuke,eds., Ningen to bunmei noyukue (Tolry5,Nihon hy%onsha,1989), 234.49. Yoshizawa, 183. Aware of the deterioration of Japan's nature due to its fast economicgrowth, Toynbee saw Shinto as "a precision antidote...o the obliteration of thenatural environment by Japan's efforts to industrialize." Surviving the Future, 63.50. rlSH, 6: 89-93.51. Choose Lije, 245.52. Ibid., 300.53. Ibid., 230.54. Kamiyama Shumpei, "Nihon bunrnei no k5s5," Gendai to Toynbee, 71 (1989), 7 .55. Toynbee. A L$e, p. 240.56. Yoshizawa GorZi, 'Kyoshiteki tenb5 to fukai d5satsu," Ekyiishimbun, 3 June 1988.57. MclntirdPerry, Preface. The latest evaluation of ASH sees it as "heneneuticallyuseless" yet forecasts its "survival as a work of art long after most of its attackershave been forgotten" since as an "incredible compendium of world mythology andexotic fact [it is] a work of genius." See Costello, 95.58. "History for me was Greek and Roman history; medieval and modem history werean irrelevant and rather impertinent epilogue appended to history proper by theNorth European barbarians. This epilogue was not even in the main line of succession.It was a side-line." A.J. Toynbee, Experiences (London: Oxford University Press.1969), 106.59. ASH, 12.60. Choose Life, 301.61. William H. McNeill, "Basic Assumptions of Toynbee's A Study of Histov," ind4yfhistory, 138.62. Toynbee: A Life, 23.63. Jane Caplan, "Working with Toynbee," in McIntirePerry, 250.64. Theodore H. Von Laue sees in Toynbee's writings, especially ASH, "cognitiveimperialism [for] analyzing other civilizations by the light of his own, neverrealizing that people of different cultural conditioning arc experientiallyincapable of understanding each other," in "Toynbee Amended and Updated,"McIntirePeny, 236.65. A.J. Toynbee, Jane Caplan, A Study of History (London: Oxford University Press,

Japan Management

Documents

Transcript of Japan Management