Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

I examine the possibility of a non‑nationalistic form of conservatism in modern Japan via the approaches of Mannheim, Ogino, and my own research. , I argue that Japan’s intellectual history contains alternative conservative orientations , particularly what I refer to as “life‑attuned conservatism.”

Paper long abstract

This paper explores the possibility of a non‑nationalistic form of conservatism in modern Japan by integrating three strands of scholarship: Karl Mannheim’s theory of conservatism as grounded in the ”Erlebnis” (pre‑reflexive lived experience), my own typology of postwar Japanese conservative thought, and Masahiro Ogino’s conceptualization of “ambivalent others” based on his reading of Yanagita Kunio. Although conservatism is frequently conflated with nationalism or reactionary attitudes, this study argues that Japan’s intellectual history contains alternative conservative orientations rooted in lived practices, sensory attunement, and flexible communal relations. I address this concept as “life‑attuned conservatism.”

My doctoral dissertation classified postwar Japanese conservatism into four types: (1) ethnonationalist conservatism, exemplified by Yasuda Yojūrō and Hayashi Fusao; (2) cultivation‑oriented conservatism, represented by the ”Kokoro group,” which emphasized the cultivation of cultural refinement among the populace; (3) life‑attuned conservatism, articulated by Fukuda Tsuneari, who emphasized the practical knowledge embedded in artisans’ and ordinary people’s lived practices; and (4) folk‑cultural conservatism, associated with Yanagita Kunio’s investigations of local lifeworlds. I use “life‑attuned conservatism” as a collective term for (3) and (4), and this paper focuses particularly on the fourth type.

While my dissertation placed Yanagita in this fourth category, my subsequent research suggests that his analyses of how ancestral‑spirit‑based communities accepted “ambivalent others” contain an underexplored dimension. I propose that the acceptance of such boundary figures depended not only on ritual or formal criteria but also on subtle, affective responses that arise in encounters with difference. Ambivalent others, by occupying liminal positions, relativize dominant norms and state‑centered ideologies, generating a productive unsettlement that opens possibilities for reorienting social life in new and generative directions.

By situating these insights within the sociology of knowledge, the paper argues that life‑attuned conservatism constitutes a distinct mode of social belonging—one that embraces heterogeneity, foregrounds everyday relationality, and offers conceptual tools for reimagining conservatism beyond exclusionary identity politics.

Keywords: life‑attuned conservatism, ambivalent others, sensory attunement,Yanagita Kunio, Japanese conservatism