A Research Into Umesao Tadao’s Theory On Japanese Culture

Umesao Tadao is one of the most representative Japanese scholars after World War II. His paper Civilization From an Ecological View, published in1957, raised a classic theory to explain Japan’s location in post-war world and Japanese culture’s formation. Thus, an exploration intoUmesao Tadao’s Study of Japanese culture is significant to the research into the change of post-war Japanese studies.The Comparative Study of Civilizations, which is based on the ecological-view of civilization, has been the core of Umesao Tadao’s theory on Japanese culture. In other words, An ecological view of civilization Is only an lead-in part of his whole theory on Japanese culture. However, previous studies have only focused on the research about An ecological view of civilization. Therefore, the present study attempts to adopt a comparative civilizations study view and make a comprehensive investigation of Umesao’s theory of Japanese culture. The present study has the following two purposes. Firstly, it aims to point out the characteristics of Umesao’s academic study by introducing his life and writing experience. Secondly, by selecting and analyzing Umesao’s wrting on Japanese civilization and culture, it attempts to show the constitution and main content of Umesao’s Japanese study identify Umesao’s position on Japanese culture.The thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter introduces Umesao’s life experience, and points out that Umesao’s academic feature is his emphasis on filed-work.The second and third chapter focus on An ecological view of civilization. Japanese Civilization in the Modern World:Comparative Study of Civilizations, and The Formation and Development of Modern Japanese Civilization for the aim of analyzing the main content of Umesao’s Japanese study and point out its problems.An Ecological View of Civilization is the beginning and foundation of Umesao’s theory on Japanese culture. Umesao holds that feudalism and a high degree of modernization achieved through capitalism is Japan and Western Europe’s common characteristic, so he divides Eurasia into the First Area, which is made of Japan and Western Europe, and the Second Area, which is made of China, India, etc. He then proposes the ecological view of history theory to support the Parallel Evolution between Japan and Western Europe. However, the standard of Umesao’s world map is confusing, arid the ecological view of history theory doesn’t have solid evidence, and has not been proved before been applied into Umesao’s other Japanese studies.In Japanese Civilization in the Modern World, Umesao proceeds to the specific parts of Japanese civilization and culture and builds the theoretical framework of Comparative Study of Civilizations, and thus provides a new paradigm for Japanese Study. As a social science, the Comparative study of Civilizations attempts to extract the rules of civilizations’different components’combination through horizontal comparison about the social phenomenon and historical materials. However, it is still based on the unconfirmed ecological view of history theory and is confined to the word map of First Area Vs. Second Area.Based on the above framework, Umesao published The Formation and Development of Modern Japanese Civilization. He emphasizes the continuity between Japan’s "Kinse (also called as early-modern in Umesao’s words)" and "modern" times, and advocates the independence of Japan’s modernization. However, the excessive efforts to obliterate foreign cultures’impact on Japanese culture are obvious.In general, Umesao’s theory on Japanese culture has three main features. Firstly, he usually discusses Japan in the comparison with other civilizations, especially in the comparison with the under-developed areas of Asia. Secondly, he is good at making analogies between natural and human world, thus his theories about civilization are based on nature science’s theories. Thirdly, his theory can function as an ideology.The ecological view of history is presented in1957, a year when Japan is going to take off as an economic giant. Compared to the critical points of view promoted by the Modernist and Marxist, Umesao’s ecological view of history theory and Parallel Evolution theory make a high valuation of the contemporary Japan. This view greatly increased people’s confidence, and reasonably is warmly welcomed by the politics and the business. Afterwards, with the backing of the government and financial circle, Umesao keeps propagating his Japanese portrait, which is based on the ecological view of history, to the world, and keeps taking an active role in political affairs himself.