Tanabe was regarded by contemporaries to be the most influential Japanese philosopher of the early postwar years, and the source of his appeal is not hard to discern. His tone was confessional yet formal. He preached repentance and rebirth, and resurrected an indigenous culture hero. While the victorious Allies were denouncing his country as a failed culture and archcriminal aggressor state, he accepted Japan’s wrongdoing and guilt but denied their uniqueness, rejecting also the idea that traditional culture had nothing to offer. “Surely our own misguided nationalism stands in need of
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