Aiming at Social Self-Governance - Reflections on Publicness form the Viewpoint of the Lifeworld.
Same as this semester.
Our project is a platform where you deepen your investigation to write graduation thesis, it is never a place in which you passively listen to lectures by teachers. That is the bottom line you must understand before participating our project. And you must fix your specific study case before participate our project.
A Our interests
Mainly we are interesting in three domains:
Studies on China (A in the following figure) Studies on civil society or the third sphere in various areas in the world (B in the following figure) Studies on civil society or the third sphere in China (C in the following figure)
My personal study case is 3, but aspects of civil society or the third sphere are global or universal to some extent, for example, Japan also faces some problems concerning civil society, for example, grass-roots movement against nuclear power, government's new policy on national security and the new US-base in Okinawa in these days. Now I will introduce the background and basic concepts concerning such problems to help you to understand our project.
B "Official = public, non-official = private" is misleading.
For long time, people have thought that only "official" can be "public", while "non-official" can be only "private". However do our government and government officials really pursue public interests ? For example, do Japanese "independent administrative agencies" exist only for our public interest ? We know government offices do never give up any part of their power, is it for people or for themselves ? To put it the other way around, is "non-official" really "private" ? For example, NGOs are not government official organization. but they always assert their non-profit and "public" characters. National governments will not give up their antipersonnel mines for so-called "national interests", while NGOs demand to discard them for more public interests like human rights. It seems that "non-official" sphere has two faces like Janus: market as a purely private sphere and civil society or the third sphere as a public sphere. In other words, "non-official" sphere can be new "public" while as opposed to the old "public" represented by "official".
C The risk of delegation
We often hear someone on TV-shows or newspapers says "What are our administrative agencies doing ? How useless they are!" after a lonely child killed him/herself who had been suffered at the hands of his/her rough schoolmates for a long time or a lonely old man/woman had been left in his/her room for a long time after his/her death. In middle ages, most of welfare was provided by religious organizations like christian churches or Buddhism temples. They took care of homeless people, refugees of disasters, poor people suffered from sick and so on. And you should be also a believer of such religions in this ages. Your conscience would feel serious challenge from God or Buddha when you met such poor people. God or Buddha would ask you why you would not help those poor people in spite of wonderful grace and love from Jesus or Buddha. You had to respond this question, because it was responsibility. But we are very easy today. You can pass all buck to your government, because you are taxpayer and responsibility belongs only to your government in modern secular states. You can ask your government, just like God or Buddha who asked you a serious question in middle ages, whether it will fulfill its responsibility as a public servant or not. In other words, you can delegate responsibility to government and government officials today. However is it delegation of responsibility or delegation of self-determination ? Is it liberation of your conscience or nationalization of your conscience by your government ? A lot of people will pretend not to see the latter answers and make themselves consider the division of roles between government and society as wonderful progress. This is why we are often deceived by an illusion like "official = public, non-official = private". We can develop "new publicness" only when stop such delegation, recover our self-determination to participate public affairs, and recapture our conscience.
D For good life
New "public" is also skeptical about market. It want to overcome mammonism and materialism to pursue "good life". Market often hates voluntary labor, because such labor cannot be valued in money. Temples in some countries of South-east Asia are built by people without any expense, because the people believe such labor is service for Buddha, voluntary labor for Buddha is pleasure for them. But in Japan, Miyadaiku(carpenters who make or repair Japanese traditional palaces, shrines and temples) are engaged in construction of temples. They are professional, highly paid craftsman, of course their labor is not free (it can be valued in money). From this point of view, we can say Japan is more secular and more capitalistic than those countries in South-east Asia. In other words, Japanese temples can make a contribution to GDP growth. The labor of Japanese housewives is, however, absolutely voluntary and free. Their labor is completely for their family they love. Such love will seriously disappoint market and capitalists, because it cannot be valued in money, it is meaningless for GDP. So the more capitalistic Japanese political leaders are, the more obvious palaver is given to housewives by the leaders. The leaders will say with smile: "Women have huge potential power, they should enter professions. Household affairs can be left in the charge of housekeepers. Childcare can be left in the hands of babysitters." It is a wonderful idea for the capitalists, isn't it ? Women who have abandoned household affairs can make a great contribution to GDP growth, because their labor in offices can be valued in money, and so, it is taxable. The labor of housekeepers and babysitters is, of course, also taxable. This is why the political leaders in the capitalistic states hates voluntary labor like housewives' household affairs. However, can religions which can be valued in money really make you happy ? Are children who babysitters take care of really happy ? It seems that GDP growth may or may not provide "good life". New "public" sphere is a place in which we can think and discuss about such questions. We need new "public" sphere as the third sphere, because both of the first sphere (official institutions like government) and the second sphere (market) are all too capitalistic.
E The society which rejects facile delegation to government and market
In other words, we can say new "public" is a sort of attitudes which rejects facile delegation to government and market. In China after CCP's socialism revolution in 1949, actors in the civil society like NGOs and religious associations were dissolved or condemned by Mao Zedong, his Party (CCP) and his government, only "public" represented by government completely overwhelmed Chinese society. In this age, Chinese people had given up their self-determination and their consciences had been nationalized. But from 1980's to 1990's, Deng Xiaoping left Chinese society in the charge of market under the cloak of "socialism with Chinese characters（有中国特色的社会主义）".Chinese society vacuumed by Mao Zedong has been occupied by mammonism and materialism brought by Deng Xiaoping.
Many people remember Adam Smith as the author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). But we must also remember that he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). He knew that wholesome market needed good moral sentiments and an active civil society. But people whose consciences are nationalized and lost self-determination cannot verify the morality of their market, and so cannot win the temptation of mammonism and materialism. Only people who keep their consciences and self-determination can verify system: government and market. Hence not only wholesome market but also political democracy are hopeless for Chinese people to accomplish, at least in the next two or three decades, I think. Some ask me whether China can change into a democratic state or not. My answer is YES, but there are important preconditions: Chinese people must recover their consciences and self-determination in their own civil society, and this process will spent a long time. Civil society, which is independent of government and market, will make Chinese people a chance to reconstruct their "public" sphere and participate new movements in which people struggle to resolve serious problems, for example, environmental pollution, infringement of human rights, gap between the rich and the poor and so on. This is why I focus on the growth of Chinese civil society. Of course, the recovery of civil society is very important not only for China bu also for the other countries and areas.So we will accept students who want to study civil societies, NGOs or other associations in the other countries or areas.
Our project is suitable for students like:
a. ones who will study Chinese society. b. ones who will study social thoughts of religions in any country or area. c. ones who will study NGOs or other associations as actors of civil society.
If you have any question, you can write an e-mail to tjm@sfc.keio.ac.jp. Only English, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese are available.