ABSTRACT
This chapter examines positive and negative aspects of the relationship between politics and education. It discusses the (dis)continuity of both and reconsiders the issue of the acceptance of Western thought in Japan. In this chapter, we consider the following question: How can we start a new dialogue between politics and education?
It is not easy for us to answer whether education can change real-world politics. Far from education as an instrument for changing political society, the reality is that dizzying changes in political society are placing various demands on education. Reconstructing the relationship between politics and education is required, but at a time when it is increasingly difficult for education to take a critical stance on the existing political regime’s demands, how can we recapture the leeway to criticise society and politics?
Masao Maruyama (丸山眞男) once regarded the lack of modern ‘subjective freedom’ in Japanese society as a sign of the system’s immaturity. He stated that because Japan had no first-hand experience with creating or fighting to secure modern institutions, there was often a tendency for the system to be treated as immutable, that is, as ‘complete’ or ‘ready-made,’ resulting in proneness to falling into the ‘fetishism of the system.’
This chapter will focus on the fact that socially critical educational practices were born during the democratic development of education in pre- and post-war Japan, such as Seikatsu-Tsuzurikata (life writing and composition), Seikatsu-Shido (life guidance), and Shakaika (social studies, especially early post-war social studies). The chapter will consider whether dialogue between politics and education is possible. Paying attention to both the necessity for and lack of such dialogue will invite us to reconsider the important question of how education is or is not a practice that enables social criticism.
