Future Perfect: Tolstoy and the Structures of Agrarian-Buddhist Utopianism in Taisho Japan
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 5
Abstract
This study focuses on the role played by the work of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) in shaping socialism and agrarian-Buddhist utopianism in Japan. As Japanese translations of Tolstoy’s fiction and philosophy, and accounts of his life became more available at the end of the 19th century, his ideas on the individual, religion, society, and politics had a tremendous impact on the generation coming of age in the 1900s and his popularity grew among young intellectuals. One important legacy of Tolstoy in Japan is his particular concern with the peasantry and agricultural reform. Among those inspired by Tolstoy and the narodniki lifestyle, three individuals, Tokutomi Roka, Eto Tekirei, and Mushakoji ¯ Saneatsu illustrate how prominent writers and thinkers adopted the master’s lifestyle and attempted to put his ideas into practice. In the spirit of the New Buddhists of late Meiji, they envisioned a comprehensive lifestyle structure. As Eto Tekirei moved to the village of Takaido with the assistance of Tokutomi Roka, he called his new home Hyakusho Aid ¯ oj ¯ o (literally, Farmers Love Training Ground). ¯ He and his family endeavored to follow a Tolstoyan life, which included labor, philosophy, art, religion, society, and politics, a grand project that he saw as a “non-religious religion.” As such, Tekirei’s utopian vision might be conceived as an experiment in “alter-modernity.”
Authors and Affiliations
James Mark Shields
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26023
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9050161
- Views 342
- Downloads 11
Magicians, Sorcerers and Witches: Considering Pretantric, Non-sectarian Sources of Tantric Practices
Most models on the origins of tantrism have been either inattentive to or dismissive of non-literate, non-sectarian ritual systems. Groups of magicians, sorcerers or witches operated in India since before the advent of...
The Effects of Provincial and Individual Religiosity on Deviance in China: A Multilevel Modeling Test of the Moral Community Thesis
This paper examines the moral community thesis in the secular context of China. Using multilevel logistic regression, we test (1) whether both individual- (measured by affiliation with Islam, Buddhism and Christianity)...
The Cross-Cultural Kingship in Early Medieval Kamar ¯ upa: Blood, Desire and Magic
Kingship in early medieval Kamar ¯ upa (Assam) was influenced by the collision of orthodox ¯ and heterodox Brahmanic traditions with various tribal cultures. Since the last part of the S´alastambha ¯ period (seventh–te...
The Relative Effectiveness of the Minimum Wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit as Anti-Poverty Tools
In the search for effective measures to combat poverty, two government policies have been given much attention. One is the establishment of a federal minimum wage to help workers secure a decent standard of living. The...
Climate Weirding and Queering Nature: Getting Beyond the Anthropocene
Though many scientists and scholars of the environmental humanities are referring to the current geological era as the anthropocene, this article argues that there are some problems with this trope and the narrative th...