Description

In July of 1942, in the midst of the Pacific War, a number of Japan's leading intellectuals held a symposium entitled "Overcoming Modernity." Led by the literary critic Kamei Katsuichirō 1(1907-1966), the participants debated a number of different topics centered on the theme of overcoming modernity, from the "west within us" to the "possibilities for the presentday Japanese." In the ensuing postwar discourse, this symposium has come to be seen as one of the best illustrations of the philosophical justification for Japanese fascism during the wartime period. 2However, to view the symposium in this way runs the risk of overlooking what had been the culmination of decades of concern regarding the modernization of Japan that had weighed upon the minds of many intellectuals throughout the early twentieth century.