A Disagreement of Being, A Critique of Life and Vitality in the Meiji Era by Sean Koji Callaghan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Sean Koji Callaghan November 2012 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-79403-6 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-79403-6 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. The Disagreement of Being, A Critique of Life and Vitality in the Meiji Era Sean Koji Callaghan Doctorate of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto November 2012 Abstract My dissertation involves a critique of the concept of life or seimei as it emerged in modern use during the Meiji era (1868-1912). Specifically, I have outlined the conditions of possibility for thinking seimei at particular moments in the development of the modern, market-centered Japanese nation-state in historical and literary terms such that I can begin to use these conditions to think its impossibilities. In short, I argue that a central condition of possibility for thinking life in its modern, historical form is a process of individuation that takes hold of and shapes bodies at an ontological level. By critiquing life and its ontology of individuation, I unearth the traces of an impossible “apriori collectivism” - that is, a collectivism not merely reducible to a congregation of individuals, but originally collective – buried under the calls for individual freedom, self-help, and industrialization that were at the heart of the Meiji era’s modernization project. I track this apriori collectivism in a lineage relating (through non-relation) the mutual aid societies or mujin-kô of the Edo period to the life insurance industry of the Meiji 10s and 20s. I then use this material history of life as backdrop to my study of the literary trends in the latter decades of the Meiji era, and end with a consideration of the political and aesthetic implications seimei has for thought by taking up a study of Iwano Hômei’s Shinpiteki hanjûshugi (Mystical Demi-animalism). ii Acknowledgments There is such a strange tendency in acknowledgments only to tip one’s hat to those one felt had a hand in promoting the creation of a work like a dissertation. Reading about so much gratitude at the beginning of a text, I always wonder who were the figures that were left out of this account, since, in my case at any rate, I was “helped” just as much by those that hindered my progress, as I was by those who were in earnest support of my studies. Because I can think of nothing that expresses more the principle of apriori collectivism as engaging in a project. Whether it is a matter of research or artistic performance or simple work, a project and its products are always given expression through a series of pressures shaping the conditions according to which the project can find itself. It has been my experience that the site of production for these pressures are often more ambiguous than I might initially want to believe, while the authors of instigation were not always ones that I might have wanted to acknowledge. For the doctoral student, our instigators are just as much the figures we hold as our “enemies” to thought as our “friends,” because the former more than anyone gives us our reasons for thinking real definition. They are those that did what they could to delegitimate our position, and in so doing made us only more aware of the need to critique legitimacy itself. They are the hindrances that hid in the words of our colleagues that made us stop in our tracks, and suddenly think. At last, finally, think! If I am to acknowledge those that made this work possible, I must acknowledge those that hindered as much as helped, because they defined the community of thought that gave birth to this work, and I am indebted to their contributions. Often the best advice came from those who disagreed with me. These, the helpful and the hindering, are only the few in comparison to the wealth of aid I received from people whose names I never knew but whose own daily projects and labors interwove with my own in ways for which I can hardly even begin to account. These nameless contributors and their creations are just as much a part of this project as those whose names I can bring to mind, and it is to these creators that I owe a deep gratitude. My true wish, however, is that I would never have need to acknowledge. My wish is that projects would emerge without names, or that the project itself became the name iii designating a collective univocity that found its place in the world temporarily, and then dispersed. That its trace left behind would stand like ancient burnt stones marking a forgotten joyous occasion. That these names would say more about a world moving forever towards the fluid creation of collectivities rather than their decadence into selves. For now, I give the names simply to express a deep gratitude, and make of this gratitude my ongoing wish for the coming community: Janice Brown, Linda “Ma” Callaghan, Miyoko “Sis” Callaghan, Patrick “Bro” Callaghan, Robyn “Sis” Callaghan, Eric Cazdyn, David Chai, Paul Chin, Craig Colbeck, Greg Depies, Mark Driscoll, Ian Drummond, Norma Escobar, Olga Fedorenko, Takashi Fujitani, Christina Han, Fred Judson, Kie Kajihara, Ken Kawashima, Sunho Ko, Uno Kuni’ichi, Lori Lytle, Annie Manion, Maryon Mclary, Mark McConaghy, Arthur Mitchell, Ilona Molnar, Ryan Moran, James Poborsa, Janet Poole, Baryon Posadas, Paul Roquet, Gail Russel, Alex Schweinsberg, Celia Sevilla, Vincent Shen, David Stiles, Tooru Takahashi, Max Ward, Tim Yang, David Zadak, Denny Zadak, and Georgina Zadak. And to the one person who is the constant reminder that my wishes are not just idle dreams, but have a real texture and tension in the world, if only on a very small and private scale, to the one who is always my joyful displacement, Michelle Callaghan. This work was made possible by scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Japan Foundation. Their funding and support was greatly appreciated. iv A Note on Translations Though I have provided the standard English translations of texts where these are available, all translations of Japanese texts without a cited translator are my own, and I take full responsibility for their accuracies and inaccuracies. In terms of Japanese names, I have followed the Japanese convention of placing family names before given names (e.g. Tayama Katai), except in instances where the Japanese author publishes outside of Japan in a language other than Japanese, or is more commonly referred to according to a name order in which the family name follows given names (e.g. Stefan Tanaka). All romanizations of Japanese terms follow the Revised Hepburn format. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii A Note on Translations v List of Tables vii Introduction 1 Part I. History Chapter 2. Seimei and its Utopias 36 Chapter 3. The Mujin-kô and the Vital Breach of Trust 59 Chapter 4. The Historical Ontology of the Tokugawa State 125 Chapter 6. The Historical Ontology of the Meiji State 175 Part II. Literature Chapter 6. The Political Potential of Aesthetic Expression 240 Chapter 7. Iwano Hômei and the Individuation of Mystic Demi-Animalism 302 Conclusion 347 Bibliography 353 vi List of Tables Table 1. Form of Payments and payouts for a mujin-kô based on a bidding system 102 Table 2. Wagagun Saraki Village Mujin Pot Value Chart (Bunsei 3 ~ 6; 1820-23) 104 Table 3. Chôtatsu kô Registry (Bunsei 11, April, 1828, Middle Kire Village) 106 Table 4. Den’en tsumitate kô table (3rd year of the Ansei era, 1856) 118 Table 5. Counterfeit Coins Produced by the Government 151 Table 6. Trend in Wage Earnings 219 Table 7. Outline of Private Rail Company Development 227 vii 1 Introduction General Abstract My main purpose in the chapters to follow will be to develop an historical critique of the concept of life (seimei) in the Meiji era (1868~1912).