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Two Views of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s Attitude
toward Japanese Militarism and Education

Dayle M. BethelI

have just read Brian Victoria’s intriguing research paper, “Engaged
Buddhism: A Skeleton in the Closet?” Dr. Victoria, Senior Lecturer at
the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Adelaide, is convinced thatthe founders and leaders of some Buddhist organizations supported
Japanese militarism and its agenda of conquest before and during WorldWar II. In his research, reported in this paper, he sets out to look for evidence in support of this conviction. He believes he found what he waslooking for.
I am not a scholar of religion and am not qualified to comment or
evaluate the accuracy of Dr. Victoria’s allegations about the “distressthat the Buddhist tradition (or at least its leaders) has produced, especially in the modern period?” Neither am I able to judge the accuracy of
his research pertaining to the stance toward war and militarism upon thepart of two of the three Buddhist leaders he refers to in the paper, Nittatsu Fujii and Haku’un Yasutani. I do, however, know something about
the life and work of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the other Buddhist leader
about whom he writes. Thus, I will confine my observations in this article to his comments about Makiguchi.
Briefly, Dr. Victoria concludes that (1) Makiguchi was a staunch supporter of Japanese militarism, and (2) he perceived education as a meansof creating loyal subjects for the State, subjects who would willingly
serve the State by helping to carry out its militaristic agenda. If Dr. Victoria is correct in these conclusions, it will mean that we will need toview Makiguchi in a different light. We are faced, then, with the task ofdetermining the validity of Dr. Victoria’s allegations.
I suggest we begin our inquiry by taking a close look at themes whichwere central to Makiguchi’s life and work, as they are recorded in his
writings, particularly Jinsei Chirigaku, his first major work published in
1903, upon which Dr. Victoria bases the bulk of his conclusions. I will
rely primarily on Makiguchi’s own words to express these themes. (Fora summary of some of the themes and issues which were dear to
Makiguchi’s heart, see Appendix 1 of this article.)204

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How, one may wonder, did Dr. Victoria arrive at the conclusions hedoes in light of the ideals, values, and the deep yearning for a “morehumanitarian way” which would assure the “well-being and protectionof all people” which are so clearly revealed in Makiguchi’s writings. If
one compares Dr. Victoria’s article carefully with what Makiguchi actually wrote, it becomes clear that he (Dr. Victoria) violated a cardinalprinciple of scholarly research by quoting passages from Makiguchi’s
writings out of context, and in doing so interpreted the original text tomean the exact opposite of Makiguchi’s meaning. One example is thispassage from “Engaged Buddhism: A Skeleton in the Closet?”
It is my view that the sole cause of the present danger to world peace is
Russia’s promotion of its own viability. That is to say, in the present
age of economic struggle for existence, Russia seeks to exploit weaknesses among the international powers in order to acquire what it must
have: access to the oceans. Thus it is in the process of expanding inthree directions, from the Dardanelle Straits in eastern Europe to the
Persian Gulf in western Asia and the Yellow Sea in the Far East.
(Makiguchi 1903: 950–951).

This is Dr. Victoria’s translation of the last paragraph of Makiguchi’s
discussion of humanitarian competition, taken out of context and interpreted to support his thesis that Makiguchi supported Japanese militarism and territorial expansion through military conquest. He completely disregards, for example, such statements in the same section as thefollowing:Selfish expansion of territory and the conquest of other states are notnecessary. If the leaders of a state are persons of high moral characterand virtue, justice and humanity will characterize the life and affairs ofthat state.
It may seem unrealistic to apply such an approach to the real world ofcurrent international relations. However, the effectiveness of thisapproach has already been demonstrated in interpersonal relationships.
Thus, I submit that it is not as unrealistic as it may seem to expect that ahumanitarian approach to international relations will triumph eventuallyin human affairs.
... The important thing is the setting of a goal of well being and protection of all people, including oneself but not at the increase of selfinterest alone. In other words, the aim is the betterment of others and indoing so, one chooses ways that will yield personal benefit as well as
benefit to others. It is a conscious effort to create a more harmonious

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community life... (Chapter 29, p. 286—for the entire section dealing
with Humanitarian Competition, see Appendix 2 of this article. All references to page numbers, unless otherwise noted, are to A Geography of
Human Life, the English language version of Jinsei Chirigaku.)

Neither, it seems, did he read in other chapters of Jinsei Chirigaku suchstatements as:
If the peoples of European nations continue to devote themselves solely
to expanding their national power, by building arms and conducting
armed aggression, disregarding the extent to which their conduct not
only disturbs the peace and stability of other nations, but also createscrises in their own nations, ultimately they may end up witnessing thedisintegration and destruction of their own nations. (Chapter 26, pp.
242–243)

Apparently, Dr. Victoria would have us believe that Makiguchi condoned and supported for his own nation a course of action which he wasconvinced would lead the nations of Europe to “disintegration anddestruction.” A close look at “Engaged Buddhism: A Skeleton in the
Closet?” leads one to suspect that the writer did not, in fact, read Jinsei
Chirigaku. If he had, he could not have come to the conclusions he did.
Finally, a brief comment on the paper’s other main argument, that
Makiguchi perceived education as a means of creating loyal subjects for
the State, subjects who would willingly serve the State by helping tocarry out its militaristic agenda. Dr. Victoria bases this argument on aparagraph from a 1933 reprint of Makiguchi’s second major work, Kyodoka Kenkyu (Study of Folk Culture), first published in 1912:
Regardless of social class, everyone should be conscious of the nation’s
destiny, harmonizing their lives with that destiny and, at all times, prepared to share that destiny. It is for this reason that the work of national
education is to prepare ourselves to do exactly this, omitting nothing in
the process.... However, in order to do this, and prior to placing ourselves in service to the state, we should first contribute to the local areathat has nurtured us and with which we share common interests(Makiguchi 1933: 460–461).

Here, again, is an example of a passage interpreted in isolation andwithout regard to the context and the entirety of the author’s works. Dr.
Victoria appapently assumes that when Makiguchi refers to the “Japanese State,” he has in mind the same understanding and concept of the“state” as he (Victoria) does, that is, the then existing Japanese militaris-

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tic state, in the context of which Makiguchi lived and worked during his
entire adult life. When one reads Makiguchi’s writings in their entirety,
however, a very different image and perception emerges.
If one reads all three of Makiguchi’s major writings, including his lastand highly important work, Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei (the English versionof this work is entitled “Education for Creative Living,” of which Victoria makes no mention), it becomes clear that Makiguchi was calling theJapanese to envision an ideal Japanese society, a society that he fervently believed could be, if children and young people could learn and grow,not within the elite created factory schools of his day that had been
imported from western cultures, but in a holistic, community based educational system drawn from and related to the natural environment andJapanese traditional wisdom. It was for responsible participation in thiskind of society that Makiguchi wanted to prepare children and young
people.
The writer of “Engaged Buddhism: A Skeleton in the Closet?” completely missed, it appears, or deliberately ignored, such dimensions of
Makiguchi’s writings on education as these statements in Education for
Creative Living:
The aim of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide thelearning process, to put the responsibility for learning into the student’s
own hands. It is not the piecemeal merchandizing of information; it is
the provision of keys that will allow people to unlock the vault ofknowledge on their own. It does not consist of pilfering the intellectual
property amassed by others through no additional effort of one’s own; itwould rather place people on their own path of discovery and invention.
The words have been resounding in the ears of educators like ourselves
since the days of Comenius and Pestalozzi, but they have yet to be put
into real practice.
Education consists of finding value within the living environment,
thereby discovering physical and psychological principles that govern
our lives and eventually applying these newfound principles in real life
to create new value. In sum, it is the guided acquisition of observation,
comprehension, and application.
Thus if one possesses the keys to unlock the vault of knowledge, it
becomes possible to obtain for oneself all the learning one will everneed in life without having to memorize endless volumes of scholarship. What with the highly developed state of printing and publishingthese days, all one needs are powers of comprehension to search out

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information on one’s own. Furthermore, given today’s advanced divisions of labor, who can say just when a particular bit of information
might come handy? There is no reason to overload our lives with mountains of useless and trivial information that we may never need.

Again, it is clear, if one reads Makiguchi’s work in its entirety, that in
his passionate commitment to education and educational change andtransformation his aim was to prepare children and young people for living fully and productively, and as socially responsible participants, in a
Japanese State committed to a “more humanitarian way” which would
assure the “well-being and protection of all people.” To suggest, as Dr.
Victoria does, that Makiguchi’s sole aim in education was to create fodder for the Japanese militarists’ suicidal battles is a gross misinterpretation of what Makiguchi wrote and what he stood for.
APPENDIX 1
Central Themes in Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s Writings:
1. Respect and Appreciation for the EarthFor Makiguchi this was central. His concerns in this regard can be
grasped by comparing his view with that of the view stemming from
Western (predominately U. S.) culture, which was flooding into Japan at
the time he wrote. That view, as Alvin Toffler has succinctly summarized, is that “nature is an object waiting to be exploited.” In contrast, in
Makiguchi’s thought, being human meant to live in harmony with theearth: “... it is through our spiritual interaction with the earth that thecharacteristics that we think of as truly human are ignited and nurtured
within us.” (Chapter 3, p. 25)
2. A Sense of Awe and Respect for the Wonders of Nature
There seemingly is no end to the blessings of rivers for our lives...
... When I observe the heads of these rivers, I marvel at the work ofnature. Here is the wisdom of nature visible and apparent for any sensitive and alert person to see. But what is the basis of this splendid natural
phenomenon? The answer, of course, is the forest. Whether a river is asource of blessing for us or a source of suffering and disaster depends toa very great extent on the condition of the forest at its headwaters.
While the wise elder statesmen of former years valued the forest, took
measures to preserve it, and enabled us to receive the river’s blessings,
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without thought. Thus do we experience the wrath of the river and suffer its revenge. (Chapter 9, pp. 80–82)

3. Respect and Appreciation for Human Society and a Corresponding
Sense of Indebtedness to and Responsibility for Society
It is our nature as human beings to form societies. No one can live totally alone. It is through association in society that we can provide not
only for our basic needs and security, but for everything that makes ourlives fulfilling and rewarding. This realization leads to the universalization of sympathetic feelings initially directed toward a specific individual or object. Growing awareness of our indebtedness to our society
gives rise to feelings of appreciation and a sense of social responsibility
within us. It is this realization of our indebtedness to the society we callour homeland and our appreciation for its rich contribution to our lives
which produces feelings of patriotism and love of country. Beginning in
our very personal relationships in our homeland, our sympathetic concern and appreciation expands to include the larger society and, ultimately, the whole world. (Chapter 3, pp. 29–30)

4. The Local Community, One’s Homeland, as the Arena of Childhood
Learning and Education, and Geography as a Tool Available for
Teachers to Use in Teaching... I arrived at a conviction that the natural beginning point for understanding the world we live in and our relationship to it is that community of persons, land, and culture which gave us birth; that community, infact, which gave us our very lives and started us on the path toward
becoming the persons we are. In other words, we must start from that
community which has given us our rootedness as human, cultural,beings. The importance of this rootedness and personal identity which
are give to us by our native cultural communities, our homelands, canscarcely be overemphasized.
If we think seriously about it, we can see that every aspect of this universe can be observed in the small area of our homeland. Furthermore,because our homeland is the place where we live, where we walk,where we see and hear and gain impressions, where we perform, it ispossible for us to observe everything directly. Thus, it is possible toexplain the general nature of highly complex phenomena anywhere in
the world through use of examples found in abundance even in the mostremote village or hamlet. (Chapter 2, p. 20)... let me stress my basic position again: every aspect of the entire uni-

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verse can be found in the small, limited area of one’s home community.
But we have to be sensitive to these untold riches all around us, and wemust learn how to be effective observers. (Chapter 2, p. 22)

5. Child-Centered Le.arning
Makiguchi believed deeply that children must be allowed to learn naturally through direct observation and intimate participation in their natural and social environments, rather than being torn out of family andcommunity and isolated in schools, as had been the practice in his day,since the introduction of Western culture following the Meiji Revolutionof 1868. He reflects on this in his third and last major work, published infour volumes between 1930–1932:
In the days before there were schools, the prevailing method of guiding
young people to the proper roles in the general scheme of life was anextended home life, whereby one apprenticed at the family tradethroughout one’s formative years, with this training supplemented bythings learned from the local community. Then came the Meiji periodwith its modern education and the spread of schools... Everyone wastaken by the hand and dragged off to schools, and soon the other two
schemes of learning fell into disuse. This was the age of the school
reigning unchallenged and supreme. Only in recent years have we cometo see the error of our ways and tried to fill in the gap with various kindsof education and youth groups for extracurricular activity... From thispoint on... these three areas of education (home, community, andschool) must link together in an orderly system of mutual complementarity. (From Education for Creative Living (the English translation ofBook 4, Vol. 5, Chapter 4, “Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei,”), p. 181.)

6. Humanitarian Competition
Makiguchi observed that in the world of his day—the early years of the20th century—the various nations of the world were ever “on the alert
for opportunities to overpower and gain control over neighbors. In seeking to satisfy their ambitions they do not hesitate to exercise aggression
and commit atrocities. They even contend that this imperialistic model isnatural and appropriate.” He believed that nations which continued to
devote themselves solely to expanding their own national power would
ultimately “end up witnessing the disintegration and destruction of theirown nations.” (Chapter 26, p. 243)

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211... Ironically, this is a time when a man who steals from an individual
will be arrested and punished as a thief, but a man who robs people oftheir state and their culture is hailed as a hero. (Chapter 1, p. 14)

Makiguchi looked forward to a time when the peoples and nations of
the world would interact and co-exist with each other on a basis ofmutual respect and cooperation. The term he coined to describe thiscondition was that of “humanitarian competition.” However, in his
thinking, this was the fourth or culminating stage of a four-stage process
of moral development in human evolution. (The earlier stages were: military competition, political competition, and economic competition.)(Chapter 29)
But what, one may ask, is humanitarian competition? In answer tothis question Makiguchi replied:... I would describe it as the endeavor to achieve individual and social
goals through invisible moral influence, rather than military force or
naked economic power. In other words, instead of forcing submission
through force, intimidation, and fear, humanitarian competition seeks
the voluntary cooperation and loyalty of people by gaining their respect.
Selfish expansion of territory and the conquest of other states are notnecessary. If the leaders of a state are persons of high moral characterand virtue, justice and humanity will characterize the life and affairs ofthat state.
It may seem unrealistic to apply such an approach to the real world ofcurrent international relations. However, the effectiveness of thisapproach has already been demonstrated in interpersonal relationships.
Thus, I submit that it is not as unrealistic as it may seem to expect that ahumanitarian approach to international relations will triumph eventuallyin human affairs.
It should be understood that “humanitarian approach” does not imply
that there is a specific method which can be designated as such. Rather,
it is an effort to plan and conduct whatever strategies, whether political,
military or economic, in a more humanitarian way. The important thingis the setting of a goal of well being and protection of all people, including oneself but not at the increase of self interest alone. In other words,
the aim is the betterment of others and in doing so, one chooses waysthat will yield personal benefit as well as benefit to others. It is a conscious effort to create a more harmonious community life, and it willtake considerable time for us to achieve. (Chapter 29, pp. 285–286)

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MAKIGUCHI’S ATTITUDE TOWARD MILITARISM AND EDUCATIONAPPENDIX 2
Humanitarian Competition
Although humanitarian competition is not yet conspicuous in the international arena, persons who have gained some level of insight are
beginning to realize that the ultimate winners in the competition for survival are not necessarily the winners of the economic race. It may bereasonable, then, to expect that the next form of competition will behumanitarian in nature. But what, one may ask, is humanitarian competition? I would describe it as the endeavor to achieve individual andsocial goals through invisible moral influence, rather than military force
or naked economic power. In other words, instead of forcing submission
through force, intimidation, and fear, humanitarian competition seeks
the voluntary cooperation and loyalty of people by gaining their respect.
Selfish expansion of territory and the conquest of other states are notnecessary. If the leaders of a state are persons of high moral characterand virtue, justice and humanity will characterize the life and affairs ofthat state.
It may seem unrealistic to apply such an approach to the real world ofcurrent international relations. However, the effectiveness of thisapproach has already been demonstrated in interpersonal relationships.
Thus, I submit that it is not as unrealistic as it may seem to expect that ahumanitarian approach to international relations will triumph eventuallyin human affairs.
It should be understood that “humanitarian approach” does not imply
that there is a specific method which can be designated as such. Rather,
it is an effort to plan and conduct whatever strategies, whether political,
military or economic, in a more humanitarian way. The important thingis the setting of a goal of well being and protection of all people, including oneself but not at the increase of self interest alone. In other words,
the aim is the betterment of others and in doing so, one chooses waysthat will yield personal benefit as well as benefit to others. It is a conscious effort to create a more harmonious community life, and it willtake considerable time for us to achieve.
In the real world of international competition, each state employs its
own approach, depending on specific, given conditions. Russia, forexample, seeks to expand its territory through old power-oriented measures, while other European states are trying to gain more substantial
interests primarily through economic measures. The United States
seems to give signs of moving toward a slightly humanitarian approach.

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But overall, we must face the fact that we are now at the stage of economic competition. Thus, in our present world the complete energy ofstates is focused on building wealth and military strength. Individualstates cannot afford to explore a higher form of competition. Consequently, the forces which either link or separate states all derive from
selfish economic interests. In this situation, there is a constant danger ofmilitary clashes erupting when conflict of interests cannot be settled
through other means.
Several forms of economic competition can be identified, dependingon the degree of a state’s development. In cases of primary economies,
such as Japan’s and China’s, force or labor is the major means. In thesecountries, workers go abroad to work for minimal wages. The United
Kingdom and the United States, using their natural resources, primarily
iron and fuel, and trained manpower, are manufacturing and exporting
many kinds of products, which contribute to the national wealth. Thismeans of increasing national wealth is closed to Germany and France
because their domestic conditions do not allow it. However, they invest
capital in other states and receive interest. Other states invest manpower.
Each state is thus prepared to take advantage of whatever opportunities it sees to expand its economic and political influence. Just as air
flows from high atmospheric pressure zones into lower ones, the flow ofpower can be observed on the international map. Those states which aremainly dependent on economic measures also utilize political measuresand vice versa. The difference is in their relative importance. However,since open, unsophisticated political power expansion is now generally
recognized as being disadvantageous in comparison with the use of economic competition, most states use political power mainly for defending
existing territory, while being aggressive in expanding economic influence. Today, only Russia still depends mainly on the political power
approach. Thus, there is concern that Russia’s aggressive policies may
endanger the current world peace. Russia is now trying to expand its
influence in all three directions, the Dardanelles Strait, the Persian Gulf,
and the Yellow Sea, in order to become a major economic power in theworld. (Chapter 29, pp. 285–287)