The Gap Between Tradition And Modernity

On Dec.26th,2013, Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe visited Yasukuni Shrine that worships Class-A war criminals during World War Ⅱ. In a few days later, Yahoo Japan has done a public opinion poll researching that if the public agree with the conduct of Prime Minister’s visiting Yasukuni Shrine. Surprisingly,76.3%people thought that conduct was reasonable. It is not rare a Japanese Prime Minister prays in Yasukuni Shrine, but such a high level’s public support has never come out. From about50%support rate for Junichiro Koizumi to76.3%now, it is obvious that, behind the Yasukuni Shrine Problem, the public opinion is the key. In this paper, depending on the fact that Japanese people pledged their support on the Yasukuni Shrine Problem, the essence of Yasukuni Shrine and the social logic of Japanese political culture were analyzed clearly, and meanwhile, the gap between the Japanese traditional culture and the modern political form was revealed.This paper mainly talks about the Japanese social logic of YSP and Japanese political culture that behind it. Form1868, Meiji Restoration has brought Japan into capitalism. Until the end of World War II, under the government of allies led by USA, Japan was transformed into a modern western-pattern democracy. Pacifism is a main part of Japanese political culture, however it was totally contrary to whole country’s attitudes towards YSP, from the bottom to the top. The duplicity of Japanese political culture could explain it:for one part, culture of the Mikado as the core of Japanese traditional culture has a great influence on Japan politics and its social foundation; on another part, the form of western-pattern democracy cannot shake people’s traditional thoughts. This caused the gap between the thoughts and form of Japanese politics. This gap is not formed by accident. Taking UK as an example, it has gone through almost300years to finish its political reforms. But Japan, an agricultural civilization before Meiji Restoration, just spent several decades turning into an industrial country. Not mentioned that after the World War II, Japan was forced to establish a western-pattern democratic regime in a short time. The political institution of Japan was taken from the outside world directly, and there is no part of it being born of Japan. When the modern shell of western-pattern politics encountered the traditional core of Japanese culture, the rip in political culture is inevitable which caused the issues of historical conception of Japan.Chapter one introduces the historical development of Yasukuni Shrine and the essence of the Yasukuni Shrine Problem, at the same time, points that YSP (short for the Yasukuni Problem) is belong to the issue of Japan’s historical conception representing militarism and State Shinto. Chapter two focuses on Japanese social logic of YSP, reveals that the public opinion is the key to solve this trouble. Chapter three discusses the culture of the Mikado, the traditional Faction Politics, and the charters of Yamato People respectively. This indicates that the most important element to solve YSP is to see the gap between tradition and modernity of Japanese political culture. The last part of this paper summarizes why the gap forms, and hopes this paper could enlighten relative Foreign Ministry spokesman.