This chapter aims to show that Japanese modernity is a case in point in which a non-Western country, characterized by Leo Strauss as “much less civilized” country, falls into fanaticism and nihilism in its own way, driven by the perceived need to catch up with Western civilization. To this end, I will critically examine the thought of Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–1901), the founder of Keio University and the most influential enlightenment 165thinker in modern Japan, by focusing on his theoretical book An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (1875). By critically examining his views on civilization in general and the emperor in particular, I will consider how Fukuzawa, though normally praised as one of the greatest minds in modern Japan, by aiming to catch up with Western civilization unwittingly planted the seeds of conformism, relativism, and fanaticism. In my analysis, I will show that Strauss’s arguments on moral issues involved in “exceptional situations” help us critically examine Fukuzawa’s thought.