Abstract
In this paper, I examine the discourse on “Shinshi” (gentleman), who symbolized Westernization, modernization, and civilization in books on etiquette and successful life and articles in magazines from the Meiji to the Taishou era. I focus on the types of discussion and rhetoric used in the banter surrounding “Shinshi” . Through this focus, I study the powerful influences of the “West” and “civility” and the reactions of Japanese people to these influences in modern Japan.
The most popular types of rhetoric in “Shinshi” banter can be categorized as (1) the social construction of “Ese Shinshi” (pseudo-gentleman) and (2) the reconstruction of “Shin no Shinshi” (true gentleman). The social construction of “Ese Shinshi” criticized the Japanese pseudo-gentleman from the perspective of the Western true gentleman, while the reconstruction of “Shin no Shinshi” argued that the ideal type of “Shin no Shinshi” existed in “Bushido” (spirits of samurai) and “Edoshumi” (culture of Edo) in pre-industrialized Japan. Both types of “Shinshi” banter rhetoric set the utopia or ideal in a different place and time, and criticized the present time and place from the point of view of the utopia or ideal. In the historical period in which these books and articles appeared, Japan was pulled in one direction by the need for modernization and Westernization, and in another by the desire to maintain and construct a “traditional Japanese culture”. By suggesting that the Western “Shin no Shinshi” existed in “traditional Japanese culture (as in the spirit of samurai)”, these works attempted to reconcile these conflicting missions.
