The Cultural Analysis Of Naito Konan’s "the Theory Of Kinsei Sons Dynasity"

Naitō Konan’s Kinsei theory of Song Dynasty was based on the understanding of the nature difference of the cultures in Tang and Song Dynasty. He believed that the nature difference reflected the era intension and it was the watershed of Chinese mediaeval and Kinsei history. He thought that the cause of the difference was rooted in the combined inside and outside effect. That is, the central plain culture, born in the Huanghe valley in the later Han dynasty, was not only fully developed, but also stopped cultural expansion. Naitō Konan regarded this was the first period of Chinese history, Chinese ancient period. From the period of sixteen kingdoms of five ethnic groups, Chinese cultures began to be influenced by the outside, which was the second period of Chinese history, Chinese middle ancient. From the period of Song and Yuan Dynasties to the later Tang Dynasty, the other groups developed strongly, and then China came into the third period, Chinese Kinsei period. Therefore, Naitō Konan concluded that different historical periods had different cultural characteristics. Chinese ancient period and middle period were featured in noble culture. However, Chinese Kinsei period had characteristic of common people culture. According to him, he thought culture was the combination of historical periods and regions, which was cultural center. Luoyang was the cultural center of Chinese ancient period. When it came to Chinese middle ancient period, Chang’an became the cultural center. In kinsei period, the political center was in northern china, while the cultural center was in southern china. With the changes of historical period and regions, the cultural center would also was changed. Moreover, Naitō Konan also believed that kinsei culture center would go beyond nationalities and boundary and a new Japanese cultural center would appear. After the Meiji Reform, Japan was strong to compete with western civilization. So Japan wanted to replace China to become the new cultural center, which would be Japanese bounden duty in the future. The reason that Naitō Konan looked down upon Chinese culture lied in Kinsin Song Dynasty. He thought China stepped into Kinsin period in 800 AD and 1000 AD. Although China was five-century earlier than the world history, it was the root cause of maladministration. Under the kinsin monarch dictatorship, officials of government took little care about government affairs. So the minor officials and the common people were lack of responsibility to nation and political righteousness and they just stopped the development of Chinese civilization. Naitō Konan believed that Japanese cultural center would be pushed by outside forces, just like Chinese history. He also put forward that the homogeny of cultures would weaken the national differences. He did so to find an excuse for Japanese invasion, which lost moral basis and was hard to continue to exist. People realized that they should keep researchers’ conscience. Although, Naitō Konan’s theory of kinsin Song Dynasty had academic value and was an academic model for the later researchers. If the researchers were neutral, the unbalance of eastern and western culture improved self-reinforcing and identity, which was Naitō Konan’s limitation.