Talk:Kokugaku

"State socialism"

From the article:

state socialism (which contrary to its name was actually much more akin to fascism than Marxism)

That's not contrary to its name. It's the same thing as National Socialism - the theory that views nations as collectives, but international relations as predator-prey. National socialism developed from dispirited Marxists who gave up on the idea of an international proletarian revolution, decided that the masses were willing serfs who wanted to be led, and flipped the Marxist concept on its head to seek a national and anti-rationalist revolution based on leader-worship. This is the common root of Communism and Fascism, and it's the reason why communism usually ends up looking fascist: the dictators share the opinion that the masses are cattle, and the implications follow as above.

Mitogaku

Someone in 2006 inserted a section on Mitogaku. Mitogaku was a separate phenomenon from kokugaku, although it converged with kokugaku in the 19th century to produce a virulent strain of Japanese nationalism and racial superiority that helped discredit the kokugaku tradition.

I've deleted the material on Mitogaku. If someone thinks it's important, go ahead and create a new article on Mitogaku. Don't put the information here -- it's blatant ideologising.

The article on kokugaku really needs to be filled out with more information. As it stands, it takes the later Hirata Atsutane reworking of kokugaku as the standard view. Kokugaku may have been eventually hijacked by the likes of Hirata and eventually become as extreme in its thinking as Mitogaku, but the modern view of kokugaku as "xenophobia personified" fails to do justice to the school and its history. Motoori Norinaga may have planted the seeds of xenophobic kokugaku, but it's a moot question (and totally unprovable) whether he would have supported the Hirata version of kokugaku.

Bathrobe 06:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)