In May 1942, as the Japanese troops took the Philippines and Burma by
overpowering the Allies in the whirlwind battles of the Pacific War, three Japanese
critics—Kamei Katsuichirō, Kawakami Tetsutarō, and Kobayashi Hideo—invited
a group of leading thinkers to a symposium with a grand mission. Their goal,
broadly defined, was to discuss Japan’s struggles with the modern world. Ten
eminent scholars, scientists, composers, and thinkers accepted the invitation, and
the symposium, ambitiously titled Overcoming Modernity (Kindai no chōkoku),
opened in the sweltering Tokyo of late July 1942.1
Over two days of lively debates,
the participants discussed such diverse issues as the clash between modernity
and tradition, religion and spirituality, the need for imperial loyalty, Japan’s
place vis-à-vis the West and its responsibility to take on the cultural leadership
of Asia. The discussions also had a practical side, perhaps best summarized by
the philosopher Shimomura Toratarō, “to criticize what, how, and how much
we have received from the modern West,” and what to make of these lessons in
the new order that was dawning on Asia under Japan’s tutelage.2
The participants
clearly equated “modernity” with the West; “what is called ‘modern,’” wrote the
Kyoto School philosopher Nishitani Keiji, “means European.”3
Time was ripe for
Japan’s intellectual elite, represented by symposium participants, to decide what of
Western culture to abandon and what to keep for the service of the empire. The
time had come to overcome the West not only on battlefields but also in people’s
minds