Page 36 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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their work and worry chiefly about hiding things from their superiors." "The way of the world nowa-
days," he further observed, "is to go about doing things, making haste.... [Everyone] temporizes, which
means that, in order to avoid incurring the displeasure of their self-indulgent superiors, it is thought
that the right thing to do for underlings is to run about, scurrying around with a stern mien, which is
why everything and everyone hustles about in such a hurry." 49

F O R M AS N O R M The emphasis on form that so often produced the empty formalism decried by Sorai may to some
degree be related to the outmoded military model according to which Tokugawa society was structured.
Correct form is preeminently a theatrical quality of precise mimesis, and one encounters it in the 35
theater, the army, or bureaucracy. The Muromachi-period founder of no theater, Zeami (1363 -1443),
theorized, however, that perfect outward form does not constitute the flower of artistic performance
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unless it is animated by a special quality that the actor has to bring out from within. It was the ab-
sence of such an inner state of being that Sorai regretted. Since ritual and rites are one form of theater,

Confucian etiquette also emphasizes that observance of form ought to be preceded and accompanied
by the properly cultivated mind. Thus, by extension, the mind also expresses itself through the pre-
scribed forms of cultural practices such as calligraphy, the tea ceremony, or flower arrangement, which
were all in vogue among commoners in late Tokugawa Japan.
A number of thinkers in eighteenth-century Japan minimized the inner component, ultimately
to the point of disappearance. In Sorai's opinion, the inner quality that should accompany ritual behav-
ior (in the widest possible sense as standardized forms of social interaction) could not be developed
independently from ritual form itself. The right pattern of social interaction, which was fixed by ritual,
produced the right kind of mind-set. The best learning, he argued, was the kind that dispensed with
words and occurred through the whole body, from things and situations, thus producing the proper
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habits and dispositions. Put more generally, matter properly patterned would produce a properly
patterned mind, and consequently a properly mannered human being.
The spiritual concerns of Sorai's student Dazai Shundai (1680 -1747) were even further limited,
for they stopped at the behavioral level. All one had to do was to act in the prescribed way, no matter
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what one's inner state of mind; external conformity was the only thing that counted for him. External
forms, which choreographed social interaction, were the most important if not the only thing human
beings had in common. These forms were expected to channel human emotions and sentiments into
cultured patterns that constituted the basis for human communication. To be uncivilized (or not human)
was to lack such forms. Many influential Tokugawa thinkers argued that humans had not much in

common otherwise. Contrary to what Song Confucians emphasized endlessly in their discourse on
human nature, these thinkers denied the existence of a common nature that all humans would share.
For example, Confucians who relied on Mencius argued that the mind of all humans is alike:
"All palates enjoy the same tastes, all ears the same sounds, all eyes the same beauty. Should only
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minds not share the same things?" Mencius argued for sameness based on an everyday, "obvious"
consensus regarding sensory experiences. Sorai opposed this in order to privilege difference. "People
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differ in their natures; their minds are [as different] as their faces." Why assume that unseen reality
differs from what strikes the senses?