Paper short abstract:

This study regards public discourse of mujō (impermanence) by intellectuals after the triple disaster of March 2011 as ecological Nihonjinron and analyzes how it emphasized the uniqueness of Japanese perceptions of nature and supported the intellectuals' discontent with nuclear energy.

Paper long abstract:

In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 and resulting Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accidents, many Japanese intellectuals and writers reflected on their nature and national identity by referring to unique Japanese perceptions of nature and aesthetic sensibility. One concept that became especially salient was that of mujō (impermanence), which signifies that "all the phenomena and relationships we experience in our daily lives are bound to disappear with time" (LaFleur, 1983, p. 5). By invoking this concept, they emphasized a duality of nature (e.g., violent and beautiful) and their feelings of akirame (resignation) toward most of the consequences of the earthquake. To support their arguments, they often referred to classical literature such as Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (Account of My Hut) and classical studies by Terada Torahiko and Watsuji Tetsurō regarding the relationship between nature and Japanese identity. At the same time, they expressed their discontent with nuclear energy because they regarded the nuclear crisis as a "human-made" disaster as opposed to a "natural" disaster. Some even argued that the nuclear disaster was a consequence of Westernized civilization's attempt to conquer nature. These discourses shared similar characteristics as a postwar genre of writings known as Nihonjinron or theories of the Japanese which seek to identify unique or exceptional cultural characteristics of contemporary Japanese society and people. Given these characteristics, the author argues that the Japanese intellectuals' and writers' ambivalent reactions/emotions to the natural disaster (earthquake and tsunami) and the human-made disaster in Fukushima revitalized ecological Nihonjinron by appealing to mujō's interconnectedness with Japanese unique senses of nature and aesthetics and its aura of continuity derived from the medieval times. In other words, it was "an idealization of the past, that is, the pre-Western, pre-industrialized, pre-capitalistic Japanese civilization as an antithesis of everything negative in the present" (Moon,1997, p. 228).

References

LaFleur, R. W. (1983). The karma of words. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

Moon, O. (1997). Marketing nature in rural Japan. In P. J. Asquith & A. Kalland (eds.), Japanese images of nature (pp. 221-235). Richmond: Curzon Press.