The Influence Of State Shinto In Modern Japan

The modern Japan created State Shinto as the state religion. It established State Shintosystem designed to maintain the modern Japan’s imperial system and universalize Japanesenational consciousness, which depended on Shrine Shinto that is the Japanese traditionalreligion and took advantage of the country’s political power. The ideology of State Shinto wasmainly from the thought of the late Mitogaku and Kokugaku of the Retro Shinto. These ideashad emphasized the special status of the emperor, and mixed with the ritual system of CourtShinto, which became to make “emperor worship” as the core faith of State Shinto. Themodern Japan wrote “emperor sacrosanct” into the Imperial Constitution, promulgated theImperial Rescript on Education to enhance the ethical construction of the “emperor worship”,and established the modern Japanese educational system to promote the propagation of theideology of State Shinto in the modern Japanese people. These had a profound impact on thenational consciousness of the modern Japan.There are three parts in the paper apart from introduction. The first part comprises theanalysis of the concept of “State Shinto”, divided into two aspects of the “spirit” and“material” for understanding, and proposing that it needs to use dialectical analysis in thecomprehension of the influence of State Shinto. The second part explains the “positiveimpact” of State Shinto, mainly before the Sino-Japanese war, State Shinto’s “positive role” inmodernization of the modern Japan. The third part analyzes the “negative impact” of StateShinto, mainly after Sino-Japanese war, State Shinto became the spiritual pillar of the modernJapanese foreign aggression and the ideological core of Japanese fascism.