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Shinto and the State, 1868-1988
Helen Hardacre, a leading scholar of religious life in modern Japan, examines the Japanese state's involvement in and manipulation of shinto from the Meiji Restoration to the present. Nowhere else in modern history do we find so pronounced an example of government sponsorship of a religion as in Japan's support of shinto. How did that sponsorship come about and how was it maintained? How was it dismantled after World War II? What attempts are being made today to reconstruct it? In answering these questions, Hardacre shows why State shinto symbols, such as the Yasukuni Shrine and its prefectural branches, are still the focus for bitter struggles over who will have the right to articulate their significance.
Where previous studies have emphasized the state bureaucracy responsible for the administration of shinto, Hardacre goes to the periphery of Japanese society. She demonstrates that leaders and adherents of popular religious movements, independent religious entrepreneurs, women seeking to raise the prestige of their households, and men with political ambitions all found an association with shinto useful for self-promotion; local-level civil administrations and parish organizations have consistently patronized shinto as a way to raise the prospects of provincial communities. A conduit for access to the prestige of the state, shinto has increased not only the power of the center of society over the periphery but also the power of the periphery over the center.
Where previous studies have emphasized the state bureaucracy responsible for the administration of shinto, Hardacre goes to the periphery of Japanese society. She demonstrates that leaders and adherents of popular religious movements, independent religious entrepreneurs, women seeking to raise the prestige of their households, and men with political ambitions all found an association with shinto useful for self-promotion; local-level civil administrations and parish organizations have consistently patronized shinto as a way to raise the prospects of provincial communities. A conduit for access to the prestige of the state, shinto has increased not only the power of the center of society over the periphery but also the power of the periphery over the center.
224 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 4, 2016
This book should probably better be called Shinto and the State 1868-1920 or so, because the vast majority of its subject matter covers post-Meiji, pre-war Shintō and its relationship with the Japanese Empire. That's not surprising, since it's the time when Shintō underwent the greatest changes, but I was looking forward to more coverage of post-war Shintō that wasn't just talking about Yasukuni Shrine.
Shinto and the State 1868-1988 starts by pointing out that the modern concept of Shintō--and indeed, the very word "Shintō"--are largely if not completely inventions of the Meiji Restoration. Seeking to provide a common background factor to unify the population under Imperial control and looking at the influence of religion as a unifying factor in European history, the reformers sought to turn the thousands of small, individual shrine cults into a single top-down organization, headed by Ise and dedicated to the divinity of the Emperor and the unity of the Japanese people under his leadership. Shintō was the result of their efforts.
As the book goes on to state, this mostly didn't work, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the biggest one is that the Meiji reformers tended to think of religion in European terms, as a matter of individual belief that could guide action, rather than as a matter of social ties and ritual performance. The problem is that the disparate groups that now made up "Shintō" had always been much more about the latter than the former, and all their attempts to develop a unified ideology for Shintō sounded a lot more like nationalist propaganda than a religious creed. This led to governmental trying to split hairs and define Shintō as not being a religion. Religions, after all, were about personal belief, and Shintō was about ritual for the health of the nation, so it's perfectly possible to have laws for religious freedom and also mandate the performance of Shintō rituals for certain jobs, like schoolteachers bowing to the Imperial Rescript on Education. It's not religious, it's just a display of patriotism.
A hierarchy was set up, with three degrees of shrines, the Imperial shrines like Ise, large prefectural shrines with a hereditary priesthood, and government funds were allocated in proportion to the shrines' size. After that, in an attempt to perform a census of the populace through shrine registration the way that the Tokugawa had done it through temple membership, the government tried to reduce the number of shrines per polity to one. Finally, they began the Great Promulgation Campaign to have Shintō priests proselytize to the populace.
Almost all of this was a wash at best and a failure at worst. The Great Promulgation Campaign spent a bunch of money for nothing, since Shintō priests were primarily ritualists and had little to no experience explaining an ideology; the actual ideology of Shintō was unclear at best; the people resisted the attempt to consolidate shrines, since many of them in the same towns were dedicated to different kami and thus had different rites; and the amount of money given to shrines peaked early and then went down every year until 1945. It wasn't until after the Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War that State Shintō actually achieved any prominence, as the patriotism inspired by the wars finally provided a way for the Japanese public to identify with Shintō's focus on nationalism.
I knew a lot of this already, particularly the part about how Shintō was cobbled together from a variety of local groups, but the historical debates about whether Shintō is a religion or not were really interesting and do a lot to help explain Shintō's position in modern Japanese society. Something like 75% of modern Japanese people describe themselves as 無宗教 (mushūkyō, "without religion"), but the vast majority of those people say that religious belief is important if asked, and most people in Japan will go to shrines on New Year's, lay offerings on the graves of their ancestors, and pray for good luck on their entrance exams. Is Shintō a religion? Well, yes--it's a tribal religion, the religion of a particular people in a particular place. But most tribal religions don't have a large mindshare in developed nations because they're exclusive, so "religion" is still usually defined the way it was by the Meiji authorities--Buddhism, Christianity, Islam.
The only problem I have with the book is that it's extremely dry. There's no reason to read this unless you're interested in an academic study of Shintō's rise to power, but it's not like it's advertised as anything else. Other than that and the focus on Yasukuni Shrine in post-war Shintō,
Shinto and the State 1868-1988 is excellent.
Shinto and the State 1868-1988 starts by pointing out that the modern concept of Shintō--and indeed, the very word "Shintō"--are largely if not completely inventions of the Meiji Restoration. Seeking to provide a common background factor to unify the population under Imperial control and looking at the influence of religion as a unifying factor in European history, the reformers sought to turn the thousands of small, individual shrine cults into a single top-down organization, headed by Ise and dedicated to the divinity of the Emperor and the unity of the Japanese people under his leadership. Shintō was the result of their efforts.
As the book goes on to state, this mostly didn't work, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the biggest one is that the Meiji reformers tended to think of religion in European terms, as a matter of individual belief that could guide action, rather than as a matter of social ties and ritual performance. The problem is that the disparate groups that now made up "Shintō" had always been much more about the latter than the former, and all their attempts to develop a unified ideology for Shintō sounded a lot more like nationalist propaganda than a religious creed. This led to governmental trying to split hairs and define Shintō as not being a religion. Religions, after all, were about personal belief, and Shintō was about ritual for the health of the nation, so it's perfectly possible to have laws for religious freedom and also mandate the performance of Shintō rituals for certain jobs, like schoolteachers bowing to the Imperial Rescript on Education. It's not religious, it's just a display of patriotism.
A hierarchy was set up, with three degrees of shrines, the Imperial shrines like Ise, large prefectural shrines with a hereditary priesthood, and government funds were allocated in proportion to the shrines' size. After that, in an attempt to perform a census of the populace through shrine registration the way that the Tokugawa had done it through temple membership, the government tried to reduce the number of shrines per polity to one. Finally, they began the Great Promulgation Campaign to have Shintō priests proselytize to the populace.
Almost all of this was a wash at best and a failure at worst. The Great Promulgation Campaign spent a bunch of money for nothing, since Shintō priests were primarily ritualists and had little to no experience explaining an ideology; the actual ideology of Shintō was unclear at best; the people resisted the attempt to consolidate shrines, since many of them in the same towns were dedicated to different kami and thus had different rites; and the amount of money given to shrines peaked early and then went down every year until 1945. It wasn't until after the Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War that State Shintō actually achieved any prominence, as the patriotism inspired by the wars finally provided a way for the Japanese public to identify with Shintō's focus on nationalism.
I knew a lot of this already, particularly the part about how Shintō was cobbled together from a variety of local groups, but the historical debates about whether Shintō is a religion or not were really interesting and do a lot to help explain Shintō's position in modern Japanese society. Something like 75% of modern Japanese people describe themselves as 無宗教 (mushūkyō, "without religion"), but the vast majority of those people say that religious belief is important if asked, and most people in Japan will go to shrines on New Year's, lay offerings on the graves of their ancestors, and pray for good luck on their entrance exams. Is Shintō a religion? Well, yes--it's a tribal religion, the religion of a particular people in a particular place. But most tribal religions don't have a large mindshare in developed nations because they're exclusive, so "religion" is still usually defined the way it was by the Meiji authorities--Buddhism, Christianity, Islam.
The only problem I have with the book is that it's extremely dry. There's no reason to read this unless you're interested in an academic study of Shintō's rise to power, but it's not like it's advertised as anything else. Other than that and the focus on Yasukuni Shrine in post-war Shintō,
Shinto and the State 1868-1988 is excellent.
July 4, 2011
While I agree that Yasukuni is a central symbolic force that is still being used for political gain and legitimacy, I think the shrine is still sacred to most Japanese. Though Japanese religiosity and Shinto underwent major changes during the Meiji and post-war era I am not convinced that the elements of honoring the dead, ancestor worship, etc. are only enticements used to manipulate the populace into believing pro-government/patriotic messages. This is an excellent source for anyone interested in modern Japanese religious studies or Yasukuni itself, since she discusses Yasukuni specifically in depth.
January 8, 2016
the making of Shinto, told from the priests and the pilgrims' point of view ... in addition to the state. Hardacre never ceases to amaze me with her inginuity to ask different questions
June 20, 2017
This was a very interesting and comprehensive look at the synthesis and fabrication of Shinto belief(s) into a semi-unified system, started during the Meiji period as a way of fostering nationalism and centralizing control under the religious persona of the emperor, continuing through the militarization of the early twentieth century, all the way through to the repercussions of "official" visits to the Yasukuni shrine and modern attempts to reintegrate Shinto rites with the national government. The author touches in depth on numerous aspects of Shinto, from the fundamental question as to whether or not it is properly a religion, its changing historical interactions with Buddhism in Japan, the enduring fractalized nature of Shinto practice (especially with regard to the "New Religions"), significance of Shinto rites with regard to national programs, the nature of the different gradations of shrines, life of the priesthood both inside and outside of the official bureaucracy, and Shinto's relationship with freedom of religion (or lack thereof) in Japan.
February 26, 2016
An excellent study and overview of Shinto and its relationship with the state over 120 years of Japanese history. Hardacre shows how it was not only the Japanese government which embraced and "used" Shinto, but how religious and human players benefited and engaged with new concepts of religion and the state and nation during volatile periods in Japanese history.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews