The study of Alexis de Tocqueville in Japan
 
 

Takeshi NAKATANI

�@�@�@Studies of Alexis de Tocqueville in Japan started in the early years of modern Japan. Japan had already adopted aspects of European though and scienti‚†‚‰ c technology including medical science through Dutch merchants from the middle of the Edo Period. However, European thought and literature was not known to the general public because of the isolation policy that continued until the Maiji Period (1868-1912). Many foreign books were translated and introduced to Japan in the early Meiji period as Japan was in a hurry to modernize by introducing European thought. In the case of Tocqueville,�h De la De�L mocratie en Ame�L rique (published in 1835) was translated into Japanese from the English version and it is said that Yukichi Fukuzawa, the prominent social philosopher, was greatly influenced by this book.
�@�@�@Nevertheless, the academic study of his books started about six years after the end of the Second World War (August 1945) when democracy was revitalized in Japan.�h The Modern Nation and Social Liberty (Hosaku Igarashi. 1951) and�h The Democracy of Tocqueville (Hasshaku Takagi, 1956) are known as the major works of this period. Takagi evaluated Tocqueville�fs thought from the view of liberal-democracy and it is of great signi‚†‚‰ cance that his thought was studied in the context of the growing tendency toward�h postwar democratization .
�@�@�@When the issue of�h mass society became the center of interest in journalistic and academic circles-from the end of the 1950s to the 1960s- ,�h Tocqueville�fs Theory of Mass Society (Koichi Ogawa,�h Shiso , 1956) was published. It presented the problem of liberty without servility from the viewpoint of the theory of mass society. In 1970, Haruo Tanaka de‚†‚‰ ned Tocqueville as one of the school of�h philosophy of liberty following B. Constant and F. Guizot in his�h The Generation and Development of French Liberalism . He elucidated the form and function of French liberalism through the analysis of the thought of three scholars. In the meantime, Takeshi Nakatani published�h Tocqueville and Democracy (1974) to study the track of his thought and action in historical context. Moreover, Koichi Ogawa wrote�h Tocqueville�fs Political Thought to shed light on his life story.
�@�@�@In the 1980s Tsutomu Oyama published a series of treatises which analyzed Tocqueville�fs political thought as the comparative study of civilizations (e.g.�h The Politics of �eesprit libre�f of Tocqueville , 1-5, 1982-83). Moreover, in�h The Political Thought of French Civil Society . (Takeshi Nakatani, 1981), Tocqueville�fs thought was analyzed in relation to the issuse of his day and presented as an explanation of the contradictions of civil society. One further point to mention is that�h Shiso , a major academic magazine in Japan, put together a special issue entitled�h Reading Tocqueville to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the publication of�h Democracy in America (July, 1985). While his thought had been slighted in the ideological climate influenced by the Marxism, the political situation changed, and his thought gradually came to the forefront. The distinguishing characteristic of 1990s scholarship is that succeeding scholars have published their works using Tocqueville�fs books and manuscripts. The‚†‚‰ rst result of this was�h The Study of Tocqueville (Reiji Matsumoto, 1991) which approached Tocqueville�fs works considering�h family religion ,�h nation and�h democracy . Furthermore,�h Living in Democracy (Shigeki Uno, 1998) which mainly studied Tocqueville�fs political view was published. Now,�h Ancien re�L gime et la Re�L volution and�h Souvenirs have also been translated and published along with his primary work and they are contributing toward disseminating Tocqueville�fs thought.
�@�@�@In the meantime, studies which compare J. S. Mill and Tocqueville have also been developed. For instance,�h The Intellectual Exchange Between Mill and Tocqueville (Masashi Sekiguchi) which described the relation of their thought by analyzing their letters was published. Furthermore,�h Going to America with Tocqueville (Naoyuki Agawa) which actually traced Tocqueville�fs journey through America while reading his travel journal was also published. 

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2. Tocqueville as a postmodern thinker

�@�@�@Here I present a post-modern interpretation of Tocqueville�fs thought. He was a thinker who lived in a rapidly changing Europe after the French Revolution. The following sentences in�h Democracy in America , Vol. 2, reveal the degree to which he profoundly felt the change.
�@�@�@Working back through the centuries to the remotest antiquity, I see nothing at all similar to what is taking place before our eyes. The past throws no light on the future, and the spirit of man walks through the night.
�@�@�@He saw the new world as entailing tremendous change that was unprecedented. This very view is in common with those of Postmodernists. While Tocqueville thought that the cause of this series of changes lied in democratic impulses, at the same time he used the word�h democracy to express the various influences and phenomena caused by the changes. This made his writings, especially�h Democracy in America , Vol. 2, dif‚†‚‰ cult to understand for many readers. All of his thought was, so to speak, constructed around the�h democracy . But�h democracy was used to denote both the cause and the effect of these changes.
�@�@�@Furthermore, while he saw thefluidity in democracy, he also sought to clarify the stable foundation of politics and society on which a free and common human life could be established. In his words, he aimed to build�h institutions libres .
�@�@�@It is clear that he assumed an Anglo-Saxon institutional model. This is because he thought it to be an effective means of dealing with the abuses of democratic society (e.g. individualism, centralized administration of government, democratic despotism). At the same time, he understood democracy, the greatest cause of the changes in society and politics, as an irresistible revolution. The conflict between his cool understanding of history and his hope of building free institutions privided the energy of his thinking. He always felt uneasy about the abuses caused by democracy, or, in other words, equity (e.g. the danger of excessive care for material welfare).
�@�@�@In any event, he drew a fresh image of the new politics engendered by democracy. This is exempli‚†‚‰ ed in the famous sentence about the despotism in democratic society,�h The Nation is no more than aflock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd . Of particular interest in this connection is that the metaphors that compare people to sheep and their government to a shepherd have common ground with M. Foucault�fs theory of power,�h pouvoir pastoral .
�@�@�@It is well known that Foucault carried out an acute analysis of the relationship between Subject and Power and his functional approach to analyzing the origin, nature, phenomenon and existence of power greatly appeals to many scholars. Moreover, his observations regarding the ways of using power are also extremely interesting. At the center of his theory of power lies the�h pouvoir pastoral , the nature of which Tocqueville was afraid. Yet it can be understood more easily through Foucault�fs method of analysis. Tocqueville had predicted that a new despotism would emerge in democratic society in his�h Democracy in America , and he referred to the role of its power as a�h temper . It clearly differs from Montesquieu�fs view of despotism which gives a more severe, oppressive impression. By predicting the new despotism which intervenes not only in people�fs material life but also in their spiritual life, he accurately foresaw the controlled society of our day. Regarding this interpretation of Tocqueville�fs thought, see my treatise,�h Reading Tocqueville (Ritumeikan Zinbunkagakukenkyusyo, Kiyou, no. 72) .