Acculturation for Resistance
HIRANO Kenichiro*

Key words: antagonistic acculturation, modernization of the non-Western
society, Herodianism and Zealotism, non-Western nationalism,
Chinese Westernizers / Japanese Europeanizers / Koreanreformers, national essence ideology

1. Antagonistic Acculturation

Antagonistic Acculturation In this article, acculturation stands for changes inculture that take place in consequence of its contact with another culture.
Here, we are specifically concerned with resistance to acculturation.
Generally speaking, we can divide resistance to acculturation into four types(See Figure 1). They are: type I— combination of resistance concerning
cultural elements and resistance against acceptance; type II—combination ofresistance concerning cultural elements and resistance against giving; type
III—resistance concerning a group in contact and resistance against acceptance; and type IV—combination of resistance concerning a group in contact
and resistance against giving. Most cases of resistance to acculturation are of
Figure 1 Four types of resistance to acculturation
resistance against acceptance resistance against giving
resistance concerning
cultural elements

type I

type II

resistance concerninga group in contact

type IIItype IV* This is a full English translation by the author himself, with a minimum ofadaptations, of Chapter 7 of Hirano Kenichiro, Kokusai Bunka-ron(International Cultural Relations), Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2000.
The book’s Korean translation by Kim Dong-Myong and Jang In-Sung has
been published from Seoul and the Chinese translation by Zhang Qi-xiong,
Zhou Zhao-liang, Huang Dong-lan and Feng Qing is going to be published
soon.

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type I, namely, resistance to accepting a particular cultural element because of
its characteristics. A culture resists acculturation, first, by refusing or
neglecting cultural elements that are being transmitted and presented (resistance at the first stage) and, second, by resisting or reinterpreting culturalelements that have been selected and accepted into the receiving culture(resistance at the second stage). Both first stage and second stage resistanceare types of cultural resistance by the receiving culture. Cultural resistance isoften accompanied by movements of social and political resistance by themembers of the receiving society.
Here, let us consider type III resistance, leaving aside for a moment resistance against giving (i.e., resistance types II and IV). This type of resistanceis resistance to accepting cultural elements from a group in contact becausethat group is specific. Because we detest the group in contact, we do not wantto accept its particular cultural elements, such as elements that are characteristic of that group and elements of which the group is proud. Rather, it ismore natural for us to refuse that group’s culture in toto in order to resist thegroup in contact. In this case, if we refuse the group itself, we can achieve
the goal. In real terms, we shall close off our own group, or distanceourselves from the group in contact in order to avoid contact with the groupin question. Typical is national seclusion, as in the case of Tokugawa Japan.
If the group in contact is so powerful, however, that it is impossible for
us to keep refusing it or to maintain the seclusion of our country, what can be
done? If the group that forces upon us contact with it is very powerful, we
must face it as an enemy. If we insist upon using our own culture for selfdefense against the other group, we shall be militarily, politically and/or
economically controlled by the group with its physically powerful culture; ourgroup may even eventually cease to exist. Seeing that that is likely, our groupwill do a volte-face, daring to accept the other’s culture—even a great deal of
it—in an attempt to defend itself. We use the enemy’s weapons, so to speak,
to defend ourselves. By doing so, we may prevent being defeated, even if weare not able to defeat them.
This type of acculturation, in which the other group’s culture is accepted
in order to resist that group, is called “antagonistic acculturation”1. In otherwords, while antagonistic acculturation is resistance of type III in that it isresistance against the group in contact, it is the reversal of resistance type I inthat the group’s culture is not refused but accepted, if only tentatively. Thus,
when a group barely succeeds in maintaining its existence through antagonistic acculturation, its culture is altered a great deal, even coming to
1 George Devereux and Edwin M. Loeb, “Antagonistic Acculturation,” American
Sociological Review, Vol.III (1943–44), pp. 133–147.

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resemble the other’s culture that was originally detested. “Modernization”
pursued by non-Western societies faced with the culture of the modern Westcan be regarded as antagonistic acculturation. In modern international relations, there have been cases in which non-Western societies yielded toWestern culture in order to defend their political and economic independence.
As is often said, however, the resulting changes were “modernization”, not“Westernization”. Antagonistic acculturation does not reproduce in thereceiver the culture of the provider. This is so much the case that antagonistic
acculturation is a type of acculturation.
Stimulus Diffusion Even if conditions make it impossible to seclude thecountry, however, antagonistic acculturation is not always the only method forresisting the group making contact. One possible way to defend ourselves is
to limit contact with the opposing group partly or with regard to particular
aspects. When total seclusion is impossible, it is still possible to attempt“defensive isolation”, or “purposive isolation”, by partially limiting social
contact (example: foreign settlements), or by prohibiting acceptance of certain
cultural elements (examples: embargos, boycotts, and tariff walls). In
so-called “silent exchanges” or “silent trade”, two groups alternately leavegoods for exchange, for example, under a tree on a border to carry out barterwithout direct contact. In terms of acculturation, it can be said that this primitive practice was the prototype of a sort of limited contact and acceptance of
cultural elements.
Another way to cut off the opposing group is to create a cultural elementof our own that differs from the other culture in means and in form and yet
makes it possible to achieve the same goal as the opposing group. It aims atcountering the opposing group without accepting their cultural elements. Thismethod may resemble attempts at inventing or discovering original culturalelements, but the context is different, as the receiving side is keenly aware of
the other’s presence and cultural elements. We may call this type of cultural
rivalry “negative acculturation”. One example is to try using shamanistic
prayers to obtain cures, while recognizing the curing effects of Western medicine. One of the methods of negative acculturation, like this example, is toretrogress to the pre-contact culture, resulting in nativistic culture change.
Another is a method called “differentiation of different aspects” by which theresisting group emphasizes and exaggerates the means and forms that are
different from those of the opposing group. Only because it is in contact withthe other, it exaggerates and displays its differences from the other, but oftentimes the differences exist only on a surface level. A more extreme method is
to intentionally adopt ways that are diametrically opposed to those of theother group, even to the degree of reversing the values of right and wrong forthe sole intention of negating the other.

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These methods all have the objective of resisting opposing groups, yetsome are structured in opposition to antagonistic acculturation. To repeat, theessence of antagonistic acculturation is to combine resistance to the opposing
group and acceptance of its cultural elements. In contrast to this, still anothermethod is to combine minimal resistance against the opposing group withincomplete acceptance of its cultural elements. This method of culturalchange is called “stimulus diffusion” or “diffusion of ideas”. Minimal contact
with the group in question ensures that only vague information or ideas
regarding its particular cultural elements are transmitted. Stimulated by theseideas, the group in question discovers or invents cultural elements of its own,
independently of the other. Stimulus diffusion is contrastive to antagonistic
acculturation, in that with minimal resistance against the opposing group,
there is little conscious desire for the group’s existence or little insistence
upon cultural uniqueness. Yet new cultural elements produced through stimuli
are different from those stimulating elements. In short, contact with the
opposing group is characteristically the condition necessary for antagonistic
acculturation.
It might have been inappropriate to refer at this point to stimulus diffusionthat lacks the conditions of contact with the opposing group or of resistanceagainst it. However, in actuality, many desperate attempts have been made toacquire the other group’s cultural elements—simultaneously maintaining
contact while keeping the opposing group away. We should pay attention to
the fact that many of the above-mentioned methods of cultural resistance thatare different from antagonistic acculturation in one way or another have
similar structures to stimulus diffusion.
Herodianism and Zealotism (or the opening and seclusion of a country) The
historian Arnold J. Toynbee has said that in the encounter of civilizations,
response on the side that encounters a more active, creative, or evenencroaching civilization can have two patterns: drastic resistance or a resistance that assumes the character of antagonistic acculturation. He maintains
that such responses have repeatedly taken place in history. He takes as representative examples the responses of Hebraism to contact with Hellenism
around the beginning of the Christian era. He names drastic resistance of
Hebraism against Hellenism “Zealotism”, and the attitude of resistancetending toward antagonistic acculturation, “Herodianism”. Needless to say,
Toynbee deals with encounters between great civilizations, but these twopatterns of responses can be applied to contacts between cultures.
Herodianism is the pattern of response by the Herodian party among theJews in the first century BC. The Herodians acquired the weapons of the
intruding foreign civilization, and used the borrowed weapons to defend
themselves against their original inventor-owners so as not to allow their

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civilization to look inferior to the opposing civilization. In contrast to the
fanaticism characteristic of Zealotism, it can be said that Herodianism is cooland calculating. In addition to the response taken by King Herod in the first
century BC, Toynbee lists as examples of Herodianism the responses andpolicies taken by Russia’s Peter the Great; the leaders of Japan’s Meiji
Restoration; Selim III; Mahmud II; Mehmed Ali; all of the sultans of the
Ottoman Empire; and Kemal Ataturk 2.
In contrast, Zealotism completely and fanatically excludes any intruding
alien civilization. Zealots, those fanatic believers of Judaism who wereconvinced that their God would save them from downfall if they kept faith,
tried to defend their civilization to the end by adhering to their traditional
way of living and by rigidly abiding by laws that passed down from theirancestors. The examples of Zealots that Toynbee lists in addition to the
Zealots of first-to-second century Palestine include the Wahhabi, Sanusi, andMahdist Muslims in Arabia and North Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries; the Japanese during the period of self-isolation; the Chinese from the17th century to the early 20th century, with the Boxers being most representative; and those American Indians who opposed white settlers in 19th century
America3.
Toynbee points out that Herodianism is in essence equal to Zealotism. He
asserts that they are based on the same principles, only differing from eachother in policies. Herodians too, hated alien civilizations that they wereforced to face, and therefore attempted to adopt tools and means only to theminimum extent that they were necessary for self-defense. As a result,
Herodians could have avoided the fate of annihilation or ruin that Zealots
invited unto themselves. But the Herodians in turn invited the fate ofadopting the aggressor’s alien civilization, causing themselves peculiar pain
and tragedy4.
For non-Western societies that suffered invasions of modern Western
powers or the threat thereof, the experiences had the nature of forced contact
with powerful alien cultures. To use Toynbee’s terminology, responses to suchchallenges could be categorized as either Herodianism or Zealotism. It
follows that those responses that have been called “modernization” in particular were antagonistic acculturation, or what Toynbee calls Herodian
2 A. J. Toynbee, Matsumoto Shigeharu, tr. and ed., Rekishi no Kyōkun (Lessons
from History), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1957, p. 89 [This is a collection of
Toynbee’s lectures given in Japan in 1956. See also Arnold J. Toynbee, A
Study of History, volume 8, Galaxy Book edition, Oxford University Press,
1963, pp. 592–593, 602–603].
3 Ibid., pp. 87–89 [See also A Study of History , vol. 8, pp. 596, 602–603].
4 Ibid., p. 90.

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responses. In the years at the cusp of the modern age, powerful alien culturescompelled non-Western societies to “open their countries”; the alien powers
did not simply compel the end of self-isolation but the replacement of
cultures. If the opening of a country led to a change of culture, then there wasno other choice for self-defense than antagonistic acculturation. To persist in“excluding foreigners” was not simply to retain isolation but to defend one’s
own culture by refusing to accept another culture. It seems that the exclusionof foreigners was a willful decision for annihilation as Zealots5.
Resistance by Giving Sides When we consider resistance in acculturation andacculturation as resistance, we are apt to concentrate our perspective on thereceivers. But resistance can be observed from the side of the givers as well,as we have indicated above in our two types of resistance against giving(types II and IV). Broadly speaking, resistance against giving is less problematic than resistance against acceptance, for giving another group a culturalelement does not extinguish that element from the giver’s culture, nor cause
any structural change to it. Yet when the other group is an enemy and, what
is more, is attempting antagonistic acculturation toward the giver’s culture,
the response by the giving side becomes complex. In some cases, the givingside prohibits giving certain cultural elements, just as the receiving side
restricts acceptance of certain cultural elements (Examples: military secrets,
trade restrictions, economic blockades, and prohibition on language learning).
On the other hand, attempts are often made to compel other groups to receive
the giver’s cultural elements, so as to subjugate them culturally or to makethem resemble the giving society.
In some cases, the giving side adds changes to its own cultural elements
so as to let the receiving group accept them. In those cases, acculturation
causes changes to the giver’s culture as well, sometimes initiating great resistance on the giving side to those changes. For example, when the Catholic
church tried to propagate Christianity in Qing China, discord broke out
among Catholics. The Jesuits had taken measures to facilitate propagation; inthe encounter between the two universal cultural doctrines of Confucianism
and Christianity, they did not reject Confucianism completely, but stressed the
5 cf. Fujita Yūji, “Sonnō-Jōi Undō ni tsuite no Kōsatsu”, jō and ge (“A study ofthe sonnō jōi movement”, part 1 and part 2), Kokusai-kankei-ron Kenkyūkai(Association of International Relations Studies, University of Tokyo), ed.,Kokusai-kankei-ron Kenkyū (Studies on International Relations), No. 6 andNo. 7 (June 1987, March 1989), and Fujita Yūji, “Kinsei Nihon ni okeru
jiminzoku chūshin-teki shikō: ‘Senmin’ ishiki toshite no Nihon chūshin shugi”(“Conception of the self-nation as the center in pre-modern Japan: The‘chosen people’ consciousness in Japan-as-the-center thinking”), Shisō(Thought), No. 832 (October 1993).

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similarities between the two teachings. They succeeded to a certain extent intheir mission by syncretizing Catholic dogma with Confucian teaching. This
caused a power struggle among the Catholic orders. The Jesuits, sponsored by
Portugal, were based in Macao and succeeded in moving up from Canton to
Peking. The other orders, such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans,backed by Spain and based in Manila, also tried to propagate Catholicism inAsia. Being jealous of the Jesuits, they started reproaching the order forcompromising Catholic doctrines. With reproaches against the Jesuits pouring
into the Vatican, a theological trial was opened at Sorbonne where a judgment was passed that the Jesuits had distorted Catholic doctrine, thus flattering the Chinese civilization and Confucianism. The Catholic fundamentalists were victorious. The pope sent a letter to the Yongzheng Emperor of the
Qing dynasty, saying that the Jesuits were incorrect in their teachings and that
the Franciscans and the Dominicans were to be permitted to continue their
mission. The Yongzheng Emperor disliked being embroiled in the conflict on
the giving side, which was later called the “rites controversy”, and prohibited
Catholic missions from operating in China once and for all.

2. Acculturation and Nationalism

Culture and the Modern State The following three elements are commonly
considered necessary for the formation of a modern nation-state: (1) theformation of national consciousness, (2) the establishment of a national
economy, and (3) the formation of a nation-wide structure of government andadministration. Karl W. Deutsch, who brilliantly explained the formation of amodern nation-state in terms of social communication, rendered this common
understanding more precise. He listed the following six partial integrations asconditions for the political integration of the nation-state: (1) the geographicalintegration of a people through the development of a communication system,(2) linguistic integration, (3) the integration among social elites, (4) the integration of a community moving up from the ethnic level to the national levelby the enlargement of “we-feeling”, (5) the establishment of the concept of a“nation” sharing meanings and the habit of interlocking communication, and(6) the achievement of political integration in the narrow sense by the integration of administrative sections6. We may say that five of these six partial
integrations are of a cultural nature. That is, when all the cultural conditions
6 Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Its Alternatives, New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1969, pp. 4–20. To be thoroughly informed of Deutsch’s study of the processof nation-state building with the theory of social communication, read Karl W.
Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into theFoundations of Nationality, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1953, 1966.

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are met, the nation-wide structure of government and administration finallycomes into being, like a ripe persimmon falling down to the ground. Benedict
Anderson defines a nation, the pre-stage of the nation-state, as “an imaginedcommunity” and considers its “cultural origins” to be of primary importance7.
In other words, the most crucial of the three commonly listed elements is thefirst element of the formation of national consciousness. To explain this pointas Deutsch would do, the development of modern science, technology, andindustry mobilizes people socially, a network of social communication isformed among the people, and then the formation of national consciousness isachieved. To build a network of social communication, it is necessary to build
the hardware of traffic and communication networks. But that is not enough.
We must have a software mechanism that, flowing over the hardware
network, enables communication of wills among people, namely, a common
language and the commonness of a culture that is centered around thecommonness of the language. In short, the existence of a common culture isvital for the formation of a modern nation-state.
In most cases, a common culture, or its foundation at least, which isindispensable to the formation of national consciousness, is the first condition
for the formation of a modern nation-state. A common culture exists by virtueof a long history of cultural changes occurring repeatedly in the area8. Butthat is not sufficient; it is necessary to make the culture have even morecommonality on that basis. For instance, if people who speak more than one
dialect want to be one nation, they must create a common language beyond
their dialects. In order to assign the same meaning to each word, it is necessary to make their values, judgment of right and wrong, preferences, aesthetic
feelings and so forth more similar. When people behave as their compatriots
anticipate and hope, their sense of solidarity becomes firmer. Likewise, it isnecessary to create or discover the myth or belief that they have had acommon basis on which they can become a nation.
Such efforts to make a culture have more commonality are made intentionally and simultaneously with the operation for nation-state building. Just
7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin andSpread of Nationalism, London and New York: Verso, revised edition, 1991,
chapter 2 [third edition, 2006].
8 For an example, please see Hirano Kenichiro, “Chūsei Nihon no Bunka-teki,
Seiji-teki Tōgō: Bunka Unpan-sha toshiteno Rengashi Sōgi o Megutte” (“Thecultural and political integration of medieval Japan: Sogi, the linked verse
poet, as a culture carrier”, Nihon Kokusai Seiji Gakkai (The Japan Associationof International Relations), ed., Kokusai Seiji (International Relations), No. 59,“Hi-kokka-teki Kōitai to Kokusai Kankei” (“Non-state Actors in International
Relations”), August 1978.

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as the nation-state to which those efforts give birth is regarded as if it had
been in existence for a long time, the efforts are regarded to be domestic andnot seeking acculturation. But in most cases, they actually bring about
cultural changes of the same nature as acculturation. For many people change
their ways of living and thinking from their own familiar culture to those ofa different one. Political leaders in the center intentionally promote culturalchanges in order to increase the commonness of the culture, by way of school
education policies, language policies, public opinion policies, and so forth.
The social foundation that enables these efforts is facilitated through themodernization of the means of traffic and communication9.
State-building and Acculturation Furthermore, international acculturation ispractically indispensable for the building of a modern state. The worldwide
development of science, technology, and industry created a modern age inwhich not only internal contacts and exchanges of people advanced greatly,
but international contacts and exchanges became inevitable. No nation could
avoid building its state, in disregard of other nations’ doing so. Once thegovernment of a nation takes policies and measures effective for statebuilding, the governments of other nations sooner or later must import andadopt them as well. They actively promote the importing, selecting, andaccepting of cultural elements required for state building by sending students
abroad and inviting to their country foreign engineers and advisers. In fact, as
far as the modern age is concerned, acculturation efforts described in books
and articles like this look as if they were all attempts by governments forstate building. We may paraphrase the modern age as an age in which thestate was the agent for almost all acculturation for its own sake. Whileparticipating in those attempts, people formed social forces that carried out
resistance to acculturation. In most cases, however, the resistance brought
about cultural characteristics of the nation by going through intense frictions
and conflicts, thereby contributing to strengthening the imagined commonnessof the nation and for building their unique state.
For example, the Tomioka Filature of Meiji Japan was an attempt at
acculturation undertaken at the initiative of the Meiji government. Had
Japan’s filature technology remained backward and in a conventional stage inthe midst of increasing international contact after the opening of the country,
an increasing volume of cocoons would have been taken abroad as raw mate9 As pointed out by Ernest Gellner and many other students of nationalism, during
the process of nation-state building, people move from the old sense of
belonging, restrained by their status and local folk culture, to the new sense of
belonging to a new nation that is based on a new culture created by compulsory education and a national curriculum. See, for example, Ernest Gellner,
Nations and Nationalism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, p. 57.

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rial. It was natural for the Meiji government to bring in new technology fromabroad, so as to make use of Japanese raw materials and acquire theresources for state building. Seeking to import new technology from Western
Europe at the expense of the indigenous technology, the attempt was typicallyantagonistic acculturation. In the field of production, employing foreign engineers ignited internal and partial resistance against the acculturation. The
people in Tomioka, the area that had had the most advanced indigenous technology, tried to resist the extraneous cultural elements through the nativistic
actions of seeking help from goblins believed to be living in the mountains inorder to protect their traditional culture. In short, we can see dual nationalism
involved in the Tomioka Filature case. As history records, Tomioka carriedout a perfect acculturation of accepting, while transforming, the new, extraneous technology after having aroused a nativistic resistance against it, andfinally producing a world-leading filature technology.
Incidentally, a study by Furuta Yoshida Kazuko reveals that of the tworegions of Japan in rivalry with advanced traditional filature technologies—
Jōshū and Shinshū—the Jōshū region, including Tomioka, which was moreadvanced in hand-reeling technology, staged a more violent resistance against
the extraneous machine-reeling technology. The Shinshū region, a little
behind in contact with foreign technology, became receptive of the new technology a little earlier, and produced a Japanese machine-reeling technology
after repeatedly making improvements. The Jōshū region followed suit, withboth regions eventually refining the technology. Thus, both the Jōshū and theShinshū regions sustained the filature industry, Japan’s major export industry
during the Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods, thereby contributing greatly tothe original accumulation of capital indispensable for state building10.
This is one of the many examples in which acculturation for the sake ofmodern nation-state building stimulated nationalism, which in turn facilitatedmore nation-state building. What is more, it is through acculturation that thevery notions of nation-state building and nationalism were introduced to many
countries. Hans Kohn, an authority on the study of nationalism, did comparative studies on Western nationalism and non-Western nationalisms andconcluded that the latter had been brought about through acculturation withthe former. Students who were sent from non-Western countries to the countries of the West became carriers of specific cultural elements in their respective fields. Many of them also brought back the knowledge of nations and
10 Furuta Yoshida Kazuko, “Meiji-shoki Seishi Gijutsu Dōnyū ni okeru Dochaku
to Gairai” (“The indigenous and the extraneous in the transfer of filature technology during the early Meiji period”), Kagakushi Kenkyū (Studies in the
History of Science), no. 121 (Spring 1977), pp. 16–23.

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nation-states and the ideas and devices of nationalism that they had seen andstudied in their host societies. They then tried hard to encourage their native
countries to adopt them. For example, Yan Fu, a Chinese student sent toEngland during the late Qing period, discovered that what was required tomake China a country of wealth and power was such imaginary culturalelements as the ideas of the nation-state and nationalism, rather than any one
concrete element. After his return home he went to the trouble of conveying
such ideas to his fellow countrymen. Yan Fu discovered to his surprise thenotion and reality that every individual member of a nation fully exercising
his faculty could contribute to making an organic body out of a society-nation
as a whole. For it had been unthinkable in China before then that a humanbeing as an individual and a society-nation as a whole could have common
interests. Yan Fu tried hard to convey that radical message to the Chinese
people11. Hans Kohn went further to say that non-Western nationalisms
formed their characteristics through acculturation with Western nationalism.
According to Kohn, because these societies were ignited by an acculturation
with Western nationalism that transformed into imperialism, the non-Western
nationalisms assumed a reactive nature against Western nationalism.
Characteristically, they exhibited a strong tendency to excessively praise
cultural heritages that their imagined nations had produced in the past. He
also pointed out that in non-Western societies in general, nationalism isemphasized more in the cultural arena than in the political one. He further
pointed out that whereas Western nationalism, which is the product of the Ageof Reason in the West, contains such elements as the idea of individual
freedom and rational cosmopolitanism, non-Western nationalism exhibits suchnon-rational characteristics as worship for myths and an “idealized fatherland” of the past, as well as Messianism, and even cargo cults, perhaps inreaction to alien liberalism and rationalism. He went on to say that the cargo
cult was a typical expression of a non-Western inferiority complex toward theWest12.
One may doubt if Western nationalism is that much more rational. Yet we
see a strong tendency to emphasize the spiritualism of the East vis-à-vis thematerialism of the West in such thinkers as India’s Tagore, one of Kohn’s
examples to the point. We also see in non-Western nationalism the conflicting
tendencies of rejection and worship of Europe in competition with each other.
11 Benjamin I. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964, esp. Chapter 3. (Thisauthor is the Japanese translator of this significant book by Professor
Benjamin Schwartz.)
12 Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study of Its Origins and Background,
New York: Macmillan, 1944, pp. 43–47.

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To shift the angle somewhat, whereas Western nationalism was formed in theprocess of “differentiating the same”, that is, when regions were separated in
the dismantling of the medieval Roman Empire, non-Western nationalisms
came into being in the process of “assimilating the different” (or “taming thedifferent”) while being confronted with Western nationalism and imperialism.
In other words, non-Western nationalisms arose during the incorporation of
local regions that had theretofore been separated. Therefore, as long as it wasfor “differentiating the same”, Western nationalism could be political andeven rationalistic. On the other hand, non-Western nationalism could not
avoid being more cultural, as long as it was for “assimilating the same”. In
short, we can conclude that non-Western nationalisms were formed by acculturation both internally and internationally.
Politics of Acculturation Many non-Western nationalist movements juxtaposed tendencies toward nativistic movements resulting from acculturation
with Western culture. When nativistic tendencies are compensated by theoperation of consciously denying the opposing groups or differentiating theself from them, instead of going into simple retrogression, they grow into
nationalism. When a non-Western developing nation enters into a process ofacculturation with a Western culture, the resulting nationalism first starts as a
resistance movement that seeks as its base, old, indigenous cultural elements
in reaction to new elements. In other words, the nationalism of a non-Westerndeveloping nation starts in the form of resistance against external pressure. It
produces charismatic leaders in the process, as the people start desiring
Messianic leaders who can lead them in an exodus from their predicament.
The leaders must be leaders of resistance as well as saviors. They discover intime that they cannot but take advantage of Western civilization as the means
for saving their people. Thus starts antagonistic acculturation. In order tostrike a balance, they praise native, traditional culture, but as acculturation
proceeds, the division between the indigenous and the extraneous becomeswider. Attacking the contradiction, second generation leaders who are more
nativistic, come to the stage, ending the period of the first generation leadersof nationalism. It is to be noted that many of the leaders of non-Western
nationalism in the early period were students who had been sent overseas tothe West, while many of the second generation leaders were of domestic
origin.
Lucian Pye, an American political scientist who studied political developments in Asia after World War II, surveyed intellectuals who played significant roles in the nation-state building of non-Western countries. He noted thatthe following generational changes took place among them: during the colonial period, intellectuals played the role of petty colonial officials. They
became Westernized intellectuals around the time of independence, and thenAcculturation for Resistance﻿

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shifted to the type of intellectuals who stressed that they were anti-Western,
despite being Westernized. And finally native intellectuals emerged. In orderfor the people of a country to learn the fundamentals of nation-state building,
not only the leaders but also the general public are required to experience
Western culture and acculturation to a certain extent. As a result, the generalpublic also comes into contact with the outside world, becomes informed, andrealizes that their leaders are not omnipotent. The acculturation process itself
brings the reverse effect of producing psychological reactions that will suffocate and frustrate the efforts of state building. In these ways, acculturation
with Western culture produces political effects on the nation-state building of
non-Western countries, but as acculturation proceeds, the effects suddenly arereversed at a certain point in time. At this juncture, a generational shift ofpolitical leadership takes place from those leaders with more contact with themodern world to those with less, and in the atmosphere of a nativism thatstresses national essence, even nationalistic leaders are purged for being “proWestern”13.

3. Modernization of the Non-West

Acculturation as Resistance by the Non-West The basso continuo
throughout the history of modern international society has been the rivalry
between the West and the non-West. For non-Western societies, the single,
almost absolute issue was how to resist the West expanding and threatening
them with overwhelming power. The resistance did not stop at being of amilitary, political and economic nature, but took on a wider, more fundamental cultural nature. As I have already pointed out repeatedly, the methodof cultural resistance was “modernization”, which exhibited the characteristics
of antagonistic acculturation. In order to oppose the other side and its overwhelming power, this side adopted a succession of cultural elements while
trying not to be swallowed up by them and not to resemble them. This was
an attempt at brinkmanship, replete with fundamental contradictions. Eachsociety within itself was deeply divided into two in regard to methods ofresistance. To take examples from East Asia, surprisingly similar patterns of
opposition emerged, as with the Westernizers (“yang-wu-pai”) vs. the conservatives in China; Europeanization (“ōka-shugi”) vs. national essence ideology(“kokusui-shugi”) in Japan; and enlightenment (“kaehwa”) vs. defense oforthodoxy in Korea. To apply Toynbee’s typology, the former of each pairwas Herodian and the latter Zealot, with the method of cultural resistance by
the former being none other than antagonistic acculturation. We shall see
13 Lucian W. Pye, Politics, Personality, and Nation Building: Burma’s Search for
Identity, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.

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below that there was significant contrast between the former and the latter.
Yet, the two were the same in that they both struggled to keep the independence of their societies and maintain the core of their cultures.
The oppositions of Westernizers vs. conservatives; Europeanization vs.
preservation of national essence; and enlightenment vs. defense of orthodoxy
are not the same as the opposition between the opening of a country and theexclusion of foreigners. Certainly, the attitudes of the conservatives, thenational essence preservationists and the defenders of orthodoxy were successors to the exclusion of foreigners, but the three oppositions were phenomenathat occurred after the exclusion policies had been abandoned and theopening of the countries had already become an actuality14. Since it was
already after the countries had been forcibly opened, acculturation that the
Chinese Westernizers, the Japanese Europeanizers and the Korean reformists
set out was also forced, and was not as simple as importing modern Western
civilization because of its “importability.”On the whole, it was acculturation carried out in the circumstance ofenforced contact. However, it was not the case that no voluntary selection of
extraneous cultural elements was possible. Actually, desperate efforts at
seemingly spontaneous selection were made more frequently than we would
expect. First of all, the Chinese Westernizers typically attempted to accept
Western cultural elements only in the area of military technology. This
attempt can be said to have been a selection of areas in acculturation. Areas
selected for acculturation shifted from military technology to technology in
general; to the area of institutions; from institutions for production toeconomic institutions, to legal institutions, and to political and administrative
institutions; and to the areas of education, science, and learning. The
receivers could take some initiative in the order of selection and transition ofareas. Further, in terms of more minute phases, the receivers decided to takeparticular elements in selected areas. A well-known case is the one in which
the Meiji government of Japan, after searching in a number of countries for a
14 Fujita Yūji, “Nihon, Chōsen, Chūgoku no Kindai ni miru Zeroto-shugi no Ronri:
Jōi-ron to Shukyū-ron ni kansuru Hikaku Kenkyū” (“The logic of Zealotism
as seen in Japan, Korea and China in modern times: A comparative study onarguments for the exclusion of foreigners and the preservation of tradition”),
Ph.D. thesis, Department of International Relations, University of Tokyo,
1999. This is the most recent and best study on this question. [Also, please see
the same author’s magnum opus, Fujita Yūji, Ajia ni okeru Bunmei no Taikō:Jōi-ron to Shukyū-ron ni kansuru Nihon, Chōsen, Chūgoku no Hikaku Kenkyū(Civilizations in Opposition in Asia: A Comparative Study on Exclusionism
and Conservatism in Japan, Korea and China), Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō,2000.]

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model constitution, selected the Prussian constitution and dispatched Ito
Hirobumi to learn about it. Some people maintain that there was little room
for selecting other than the state institution of constitutional monarchy and theenactment of a constitution, but selection was made on those points, too, andthe people concerned with the task had clear ideas about selecting a specificconstitutional model. In the case of China, the Qing government sent a teamfor investigating the constitutions of several countries. These selections,which seemed on the surface to be made by decision makers, were, essentially speaking, made based on the two principles of acculturation, namely,
necessity of and compatibility with the receiving culture.
The Chinese Westernizers, the Japanese Europeanizers, and the Koreanreformers may be considered to have pushed forward antagonistic acculturation in the ruling circles of their respective countries. Indeed, the ruling
regimes took the responsibility of carrying out acculturation, however explosive it might be. The responsibility for taking charge of opening the country,
though forced, could not but be linked to the responsibility of taking chargeof acculturation as well. Yet not all the groups within the ruling circles agreed
upon acculturation for the reason that it was antagonistic. On the contrary,
those who were strongly opposed to attempts at acculturation, like theChinese conservatives, held invincible strongholds inside the ruling circles
and stubbornly argued to preserve the national essence. Within the government, groups favoring acculturation and groups opposing it competed witheach other, because strong feelings of pros and cons toward it welled up
within each person. Person A might promote acculturation while person B
might oppose it to the death. Each position could be seen as arbitrary, somuch so that it would not be strange if either side changed positions. Thiskind of situation sharpened Zealot arguments against acculturation all themore, making them fundamentalist advocacies.
Antagonistic acculturation by a non-Western society to Western culture is
apt to be targeted by fundamentalist criticism not only from within but also
from other non-Western societies. For every neighboring society is situatedunder forced acculturation, with the internal rivalry between groups favoring
acculturation and groups opposing it being ever sharpened. It is also because
time lags between societies are inevitable in the progress of acculturation.
The time lags are caused in part by varied workings of the principle ofcultural commonality upon different societies (See: Chapter 2 of the original
Japanese edition). The progress of acculturation with Western culture by apreceding society especially stirs the feeling of crisis borne by groups
opposed to acculturation in the society that starts it later. The groups in Korea
that defended orthodoxy violently reproached the modernization policies ofJapan’s Meiji government for being the wrong kind of acculturation. For

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example, on the change of adopting Western clothes that was led by thegovernment in the early Meiji period, Korean critics charged that throwing off
traditional attire and adopting barbarian clothes was the act of beasts.
As a matter of fact, the same criticism of Meiji Japan was made by China,
and from the very person at that who was regarded as the magnate of theWesternizers, Li Hong-zhang. This tycoon of China’s Westernizers held
historic meetings with Mori Arinori, then the Japanese minister to China, in
1876 and with Ito Hirobumi in 1884, on the question of Korea’s international
status. During the diplomatic talks with Mori, Li Hong-zhang took up theissue of Japanese wearing Western clothing and repeatedly criticized the practice as abandoning Asia’s traditional culture. While he praised the Meiji
government’s modernization efforts, he was opposed to any acculturation in
the institution of clothing. Though it might have been antagonistic, he argued,
such acculturation was nothing but bad “Westernization” that might be sellingout the core of the culture. Such criticism against antagonistic acculturationthat could be considered to be modernization efforts was already brought up
in international discussions.
Europeanization The counter-argument to Li Hong-zhang’s criticism by Mori(later to become the Minister of Education) was full of confidence in Meiji
Japan’s selection. He maintained that now, for working effectively at desks,
the old, leisurely Japanese clothes were inadequate and Western clothing wasmore appropriate. He added that Japan, which had been right in adopting
many cultural elements from China in the past, was now making anothercorrect decision in adopting necessary elements from the civilization of theWest. His argument was based on the logic that changes in the social andpolitical milieu required changes in culture. Also, it can be said that his confidence was sustained by his regard of Western culture as “civilization”15. It
was the attitude of Westernizers in the ruling circles to unhesitatingly
promote a policy of Westernization, in the belief of the antagonistic nature ofacculturation and also in civilization and enlightenment. Perhaps there was noother choice but to take the Herodian way cheerfully, throwing off any hesitation.
Mori might not have expected Li Hong-zhang to focus on clothing. The
cultural element of clothing held different meanings for China and Korea on
the one hand and for Japan on the other. The changes in this cultural element,
15 The record of the conversations between Li Hong-zhang and Mori Arinori in
1876 is reproduced in Mori Arinori Zenshū (Mori Arinori Collections), Volume
1, Tokyo: Senbundō Shoten, 1972. [An English translation by this author of
the second Li-Mori conversation is appended to Kenichiro Hirano, “Korea andJapan in the Regional and Global Contexts: Seoul Lecture Notes”, The Waseda
Journal of Political Science and Economics, No. 371, 2008, pp. 101–134.]

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which Mori considered to be small, were purposely promoted from the beginning of the Meiji era by the Meiji government. They were small changes
necessary for the “important enterprise” of building the new Meiji state. The
necessity originated from the functional linkage of cultural elements, as Morihimself stated. The “linking effects” of cultural elements that changed one
after another took shape within a few years after the Meiji Restoration
started16. It must have been extremely uncomfortable for officials of the Meiji
government to suddenly wear frock coats and silk hats by government decree,and even more disconcerting to decide what clothes to change into once they
returned home. Wearing Western clothing was certainly a symbol of civilization and enlightenment, but it was not an importation of civilization per se; it
was a cultural change.
There is little need to point out here that one of the manifestations of
Meiji Japan’s civilization and enlightenment movement was a hall named
Rokumeikan. It was a Western-style ballroom built in 1883 in the center ofTokyo, and was considered necessary for another “important enterprise” ofthe Meiji government, that is, the revision of unequal treaties. The
Rokumeikan, where statesmen’s wives, clumsily clad in robes d’ecollete,gathered every evening to dance to Western music, is well known as anexcess of ridiculous Europeanization. From the viewpoint of acculturation,
this is another example of “effects of linking changes”. Yet, is the
Rokumeikan a symbol of Japan’s selling out its “body and spirit” to Western
civilization? Scenes like the Rokumeikan could be found nowhere in Europe.
Mistranslation Yan Fu, who was sent to England as a student by theWesternizers of China, started introducing the leading political and economic
thoughts of 18th and 19th century Europe shortly after his return home. He
focused on translating European thought of the 18th to 19th centuries because
he discovered that such thinking was behind the secret of modern Western
power (See: Chapter 6, Section 1 of the original Japanese edition). Hispoignant selection was based on his discovery that China at that time should
pursue acculturation with Western culture in the areas of ideas and visions,and not merely attempt to adopt technology and institutions. He himself
engaged in the translations. Translation is often an act of reinterpretation ofculture. But his works of translation contained many intentional mistranslations. For instance, his translation of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, publishedin 1903 under the Chinese title meaning “on the boundaries of collectives and
16 Kenichiro Hirano, “The Westernization of Clothes and the State in Meiji Japan”,
in Kenichiro Hirano, ed., The State and Cultural Transformation: Perspectives
from East Asia, Tokyo, New York and Paris: United Nations University Press,
1993, pp. 121–131.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol.1 2010individuals”, was a strange translation that contained many of his own
commentaries.
As is well-known, the characteristic of Mill’s theorem of liberty is that itelevated the concept of liberty from that of such outward action as appears in
the discovery and pursuit of material interests, to that of exercising spiritualindividualism. For Mill, individual liberty was not a means for liberating
human faculty to promote the economic development of society, but an end in
itself. Mill’s concept of liberty was that even people who are not favored withsuccess and talent should be able to maintain their own modes of being.
Mill’s advocacy of liberty of thought and speech served Yan Fu’s end as longas it was understood in the context of intellectual liberty that would advance
truth, which in turn would develop the people’s knowledge and virtue thatwould bring wealth and power to the state. But Mill’s concept of individual
liberty was distant from the state’s interests, and entailed unrestrained individuality. In his translation, Yan Fu could accept Mill’s ideas only by
replacing individuality with “people’s virtue” or the power of virtue of thepeople as a whole. Yan Fu could not escape from his thinking that the valueof the individual existed in its power to increase the wealth and power of thestate; he distorted the concept of individual liberty, interpreting it to be not theend but the means17.
Seeing their countries in sorrowful decline, intellectuals of the modern
non-West whom Yan Fu represented held it in their utmost interest to look forthe secret of wealth and power of Western society. Yan Fu discovered that thepower of the modern West was not material alone; spiritual and intellectual
powers occupied important positions. But after all it was predestined from the
beginning that that sort of power of the individual would be valued as ameans to ensure the power of the state. Yan Fu did highly value democracy,
but only in the sense that it was effective as a means for achieving state
power.
Such mistranslation and distortion by Yan Fu can be justified as the acculturation at that time of a non-Western society with Western society. In order
to compete with the overwhelming power of the encroaching group (thestate), it was inevitable, though tragic, to try likewise to strengthen the powerof the group (the state). It was an attempt to exert the subjectivity of thereceiving side to the fullest extent. In that sense, it can be said that Yan Fu’s
“mistranslations” in his efforts at acculturation manifested the nature of thereceiving society at the time. Moreover, as pointed out by Benjamin Schwartz
and Louis Hartz, distortions in reinterpretations by the receivers reflect backon the character of the culture of the giving society—a character not even
17 Schwartz, op.cit., Chapter 6 and passim.

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noticed by the givers themselves. It was because Western society and theinternational society it dominated in those years practiced the rule of powerthat Yan Fu and his contemporaries were captivated by the notion of power.
It was precisely because the collective power of the group had existed as animplicit pre-condition in the West that it emphasized the liberty of the individual.
The Meaning of National Essence Ideology Let us group together advocacies by such Zealots as China’s conservatives, Japan’s advocates of national
essence, and Korea’s defenders of orthodoxy under the rubric of “national
essence ideology”, and consider their meanings. By doing so, we shallconclude our investigation into the modernization of non-Western society
from the viewpoint of acculturation. National essence ideology here is an
advocacy for conserving the essence of the culture of a country; in our understanding, it is in the next stage that the ideology becomes an object ofcontention by political movements.
As is well-known, it was around the time when the Europeanization
promoted by the Meiji government reached the apparently caricaturesquestage of “Rokumeikan” that the national essence ideology of Meiji Japansurfaced as a social phenomenon. Nevertheless, thoughts similar to national
essence ideology already existed in the advocacy of exclusion of foreigners
during the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Although such oppositions
as Westernizers vs. conservatives; Europeanization vs. national essence preservation; and reformers vs. defenders of orthodoxy were not the same as
opposition between the opening of the country and the exclusion offoreigners, as stated above, defensive attitudes of national essence preservation and orthodoxy succeeded the tendency to exclude foreigners. So, it may
be plausible to think that the idea of national essence preservation existed
before the opening of Asian countries. But it was by opening the countries
that the national essence ideology took on its essential meaning. For only
when the opening of the countries resulted in directly facing powerful foreign
nations did the receiving societies realize that they were in contact with aliencultures. In that sense, it is better to consider the national essence ideology as,
first of all, a cultural reaction by the receiving societies to the introduction offoreign culture. What preceded was the selection and acceptance of extraneous cultural elements by the ruling regimes through forced contact resulting
from “the opening of the country”. In the case of Japan, this was
Europeanization. The ruling regime put policies of Europeanization into
effect, and then the national essence ideology was advocated by the antiestablishment as passive reaction to the policies; therefore, this form of opposition was inevitable. We must take note, however, that the opposition
between Europeanization and national essence preservation did not

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completely coincide with the division of the ruling regime vs. the anti-establishment.
Finally, it was some time after the opening of the country, or the firstcontact with foreign culture, that the national essence ideology took the clear
form of social movements, as in the case of Japan around the time of the
Rokumeikan. In other words, it is when many foreign cultural elements are
accepted in succession and begin replacing indigenous elements within thereceiving culture that national essence ideology assumes its historical significance. In the final analysis, national essence ideology is the social expressionof cultural resistance by the receiving culture. This is, from the viewpoint of
acculturation, the most significant meaning of national essence ideology.
As stated at the beginning of this section, given the conditions that nonWestern societies were placed under in modern times, antagonistic acculturation was the only means for cultural resistance. National essence ideology,
which is a reaction to that antagonistic acculturation, is as much culturalresistance as is antagonistic acculturation itself. In short, the national essence
ideology is resistance to and denial of acculturation as resistance. Thus, inconclusion, modernization of non-Western society had a dual structure ofresistance. It can also be said that the dual structure of resistance throughcultural contact was transposed onto the character of nationalism of nonWestern society. Why did national essence ideology, which is cultural conservatism by nature, become ultra-nationalism externally in the case of Japan?
This is an interesting question that must wait for another investigation. In any
case, to return to the question of the structure of acculturation in general,national essence ideology falls into the category of resistance that ordinarily
takes place in the process of acculturation. Why does national essence
ideology oppose acculturation? It is because it anticipates and intensely
awakens to the “effects of linking changes” resulting from acculturation.
National essence ideology is not simply cultural conservatism from the
beginning; it is borne out of the very mechanism of acculturation.