Previously, I have considered, through Marx’s concept of the value form, the mutually exclusive positions of workers and capitalists in capitalist society, their oscillations between, likewise, two mutually exclusive positions in their lives, and how these oscillations pertain to the struggles between the two. In passing, I have also mentioned that money is, from these mutually exclusive positions, experienced differently. I dealt with money as one may any commodity, but money, obviously, is not just any commodity. We are often told that “money moves the world around”. It is a special commodity which plays a special role in capitalist, and, frankly, any monetary society. What, then, is money, or, more importantly, what does it do? This article will attempt to address this question.
The expanded value form and the general value form
The expanded value form is
x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B = z quantity of commodity C = …
The general value form is
y quantity of commodity B = x quantity of commodity A
also z quantity of commodity C = x quantity of commodity A
…
The expanded value form and the general value form occur at the same time. The expanded value form occurs when one person is exchanging their commodity (A) for many other commodities (B, C, etc.), from many other persons.1placeholder The general value form occurs when these many other persons exchange their commodities (B, C, etc.) for one commodity (A), from one person.
This one commodity (A), which everyone other than the one who possesses it strives to acquire, is called the “general equivalent”2placeholder. The one who possesses this one commodity, then, we may, more conveniently, simply call the possessor of the general equivalent.
Now, the possessor of the general equivalent, who exchanges it for many other commodities, from many others, may be seen as the center of a network of commodity exchanges. With their general equivalent, they can acquire, from every other person, their particular commodity. Every other person, in turn, converges around this center, as they strive to acquire from this center and person the general equivalent, exchanging their commodity for the general equivalent.
Money
Money is a commodity standing in the position of the general equivalent.3placeholder To rephrase what has been said in the previous section, replacing “general equivalent” with “money”: the possessor of money can buy the commodity of anyone other than themselves.4placeholder Everyone else can only sell their particular commodity to acquire, from the possessor of money, money for themselves. The possessor of money is the center of a monetary network of commodity exchanges, and everyone else converges around them, offering their particular commodity in exchange for money.
Capitalist society
In a capitalist society, the capitalist and the wage laborer take turns in being the center of the network of commodity exchanges. The capitalist, when they buy the labor power of wage laborers, is the center of capitalist society. The wage laborer, or wage laborers, as the capitalist stands at the center of capitalist society, converge around this center. The wage laborer, when they buy the commodities sold to them by the capitalist, is the center of capitalist society. The capitalist, or capitalists, as the wage laborer buys the commodities they (the capitalists) are selling, converge around the center who is the wage laborer.
Proto-money
Every person, in a network of commodity exchanges, who exchanges their commodity for many other commodities, and whose commodity is, therefore, for every other person they exchange commodities with, the equivalent,5placeholder is in possession of proto-money.
Proto-money: this seems to be a peculiar consequence of Marx’s theory of the value form, equivalent form, and money. In any society—not just a capitalist society—where one commodity can be exchanged for more than one other commodity, in a society which, having more than two persons (Can we, even, call a “society” consisting of two persons a “society”?), have more than two persons engaged in commodity exchanges, and more than two commodities being exchanged, money is already there, dormant, lurking in a potential form, which is actualized when one person begins to exchange their commodity for multiple other commodities, from multiple others.
Shin self
“Change” and “be yourself” are two slogans we see everywhere in the world, today. The latter, it seems to me, rarely, exhorts its audience to, merely, remain as they, presently, already, are. Rather, it exhorts its audience to become their “true self”, which is, rarely, merely, a “truer” form of oneself, but also a better form of oneself. I call this “true self”, then, the 真・私 or the shin self.6placeholder The term came to me when I was watching midnight television in Japan, and one program, reporting on an extraordinarily large tuna that has been caught off the coasts of Japan, called the tuna 真・マグロ or shin tuna. Now, of course, the tuna is, by no means, a “truer” tuna than every other tuna, but, without any doubt, it is an extraordinarily large one. This, I feel, corresponds well to the “true self” we are exhorted to pursue today.
To “be oneself”, then, is to be one’s shin self, a, purportedly, truer, and, most certainly, better form of oneself. “Change”, in turn, considered with respect to this “being oneself”, is either changing oneself to become one’s shin self, or changing the world so that all may, freely, equally, etc. strive towards becoming one’s shin self.
It may come as no surprise that Marx has entertained a similar thought, more materialistically, of course, with regard to money. In his 1844 manuscripts, we find a chapter entitled “The Power of Money”, where he wrote,
“I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good…Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary”?7placeholder
In short, “[t]hat which I am unable to do as a man, and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money”.8placeholder Or, as he eloquently put it before the passage quoted above,
“That which is for me through the medium of money – that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power”.9placeholder
Money, or, rather, to possess money means to stand in a position where one can buy every commodity of every other person, and, with these commodities, I become otherwise than I am. All the wants I could not satisfy by my own limited abilities, I can now satisfy with the commodities I have bought from others. I have attained a better form of myself, and, if I am told, or, in some other ways, come to harbor the impression that this better form of myself is my “truer”, if not, outright, “true” self, then, I can be said to have attained my shin self.
“Change” and “be yourself”, then, are slogans pertaining to, or, really, targeting those who stand in the position of the buyer and the possessor of money. If there is any objection which proceeds along the lines of there being immaterial and non-monetary means of self-betterment, I will ask only that we examine these means carefully and ensure that there is, absolutely, no economic component to these means whatsoever.
Motoori Norinaga
Motoori Norinaga was a 18th century Japanese thinker who worked on traditional Japanese poetry, Japanese linguistics, Shinto theology, among other things. Most importantly, and pertinently to this article, though, he was also a Sinophobe. In my previous articles, I have dealt with his earlier thoughts on poetry, human feelings, national politics, and so forth. Here I shall touch, briefly, upon his later thoughts.
Like Marx whose intellectual life is divided into the phase of the Young Marx and the phase of Mature Marx, and Heidegger whose intellectual life is divided by his “turn”, Norinaga, too, had two phases in his intellectual life. His earlier phase is generally called his “poetics” (歌論) phase, while his later phase is called his “Shintoist” (神道論) phase. In his later phase, he concerned himself with one of the two early “historical records”10placeholder of Japan commissioned by the imperial court in the 8th century, the Kojiki (古事記), composing the Kojiki-den (古事記伝), which, in addition to commentating on the Kojiki, also presents Norinaga’s Shinto theology and cosmology, developed from his reading of the Kojiki. Now, with regard to China and the Chinese, Norinaga has, since his earlier, “poetics” phase, taken a harsh stance towards “Chinese”, especially Confucian and Buddhist, thoughts. In his commentary on the Tales of Genji, Shibun Yōryō (紫文要領), he held that Confucian and Buddhist teachings were derived from human feelings, but, ultimately, turned away from human feelings, when they attempted to foster goodness and suppress evil, even though, within human feelings, there were both goodness and evil.11placeholder In Isonokami Sasamegoto (石上私淑言), his treatise on poetry which he left unfinished and moved on to the Kojiki-den, he attributed the scarcity of representations of indecent desires and emotions in Chinese writings to China’s not being the nation of Amaterasu Ōmikami, the abundance of evil persons in China, and the political chaos in China, brought about by these evil persons.12placeholder Now, in the opening essay to his Kojiki-den, titled Naobi no Mitama (直毘霊), in his later, “Shintoist” phase, he presented the history of Japan in the following way:
“Japan is where the awesome [Amaterasu Ōmikami], the ancestor of all the [kami], appeared” (皇大御國は、掛まくも可畏き神御祖天照大御神の、御生坐る大御國にして), and Amaterasu Ōmikami “decreed that Japan was to be the land where her descendants would reign forever” (萬千秋の長秋に、吾御子のしろしめさむ國なりと、ことよさし賜へりしまにまに).13placeholder These descendants were the Emperors of Japan, who, in their governance of Japan, “d[id] not deal with matters according to [their] own will” (何わざも、己命の御心もてさかしだち賜はず), but “t[ook] the will of the Heavenly [kami] as [their] own” (天つ神の御心を大御心として).14placeholder
“In antiquity all the people down to the lowest rank took the heart of the Emperor as their own” (いにしへの大御代には、しもがしもまで、ただ天皇の大御心を心として)15placeholder, selflessly serving the Emperors, without questioning the mandates handed down to them, but this changed when Chinese writings were brought into Japan, and the Chinese thoughts, presented in these writings, spread across Japan. “[T]he hearts of the Japanese people changed to Chinese ways” (靑人草の心までぞ、其意にうつりにける), and the subjects of the Emperors of Japan could no longer “identify [their] heart[s] with the Emperor’s and instead harbor[ed] personal desires” (天皇尊の大御心を心とせずして、己々がさかしらごころを心とする).16placeholder This Sinicization of the Japanese mind is “why disorder began to arise in Japan, which was at peace until that time” (さてこそ安けく平けくて有來し御國の、みだりがはしきこといでき).17placeholder By “disorder”, Norinaga seemed to be referring, especially, to the subversions of imperial authority by the Hōjō and Ashikaga clans in, respectively, the 13th to 14th century and the 14th to 16th century.18placeholder
Now, it may also be noted that Norinaga remained, somewhat, consistent in his treatment of China as well, as, in the same essay, he also spoke of China in the following way,
“Foreign countries are not the countries of [Amaterasu Ōmikami], so they have no predestined rulers. [Kami] thrive there like noisy summer flies and become violent, so people’s hearts are corrupt, their customs vulgar. Even a lowly slave can take over the country and suddenly become the sovereign. So rulers are on their guard lest they be overthrown by the lowly, while the lowly watch the ruler for a chance to steal his realm” (異國は、天照大御神の御國にあらざるが故に、定まれる主なくして狹蠅なす神ところを得て、あらぶるによりて、人心あしく、ならはしみだりがはしくして、國をし取つれば、賤しき奴も、たちまちに君ともなれば、上とある人は、下なる人に奪はれじとかまへ、下なるは、上のひまうかがひて、うばはむとはかり).19placeholder
From this Norinaga proceeded to argue, effectively, that the various Chinese intellectual principles which were dominant in the Japanese cultural, political, etc. landscape were, effectively, ideology advanced by the rulers of China to, first, “seize someone else’s country” (人の國をうばはむがため) and, second, “schem[e] to protect it from being seized” (人に奪はるまじきかまへ).20placeholder
What Norinaga said of China, though, is, really, of less importance than what he said of the influence Chinese writings have had on the Japanese mind, as well as Japanese society. In short, he attributed the political chaos which has, historically, occurred in Japan to the corruption of the native Japanese mind by Chinese thought, introduced into Japan through various Chinese writings. Sinophobia aside,21placeholder I think we may appreciate what Norinaga has done here. He has constructed a history of Japan which is centered around the movement of a specific object, a foreign object,22placeholder i.e. Chinese writings, introduced into Japan, by, historically, we know, exchanges with China, whose introduction and subsequent circulation from Japanese person to Japanese person produced a shift in the consciousness of the Japanese people. In other words, he constructed a history where international exchange, or the exchanges of objects between two nations, produced shifts in the consciousness of the persons living in, at least, one of the two nations.
Elsewhere, in the Kojiki-den, while discussing the myth of Ōkuninushi no Kami and Sukunabikona no Kami, where the latter, in Norinaga’s reading, sailed from foreign nations to Japan,23placeholder and aided Ōkuninushi no Kami in creating and uniting Japan, Norinaga, referencing this myth, argued that objects from foreign nations may prove a boon to Japan, just as they may do harm to Japan (故外國より渡參來つる事物の中には、皇國の助けとなり、寶となるもあり。又害となることも多し。是はた然あるべき趣なり).24placeholder This we may take to mean that international exchange, or, more specifically, the movement of foreign objects into a nation may reinforce, just as it may damage the social order of this nation. How it may do so we have seen, already, with the role of Chinese writings in Norinaga’s history of Japan. Foreign objects may work by producing shifts in the consciousness of the people of the nation (though, as we have seen, more contemporarily, with the supply of weapons to foreign nations, foreign objects may also, more directly, impact the social order of a nation.). In the case of Chinese writings, the Chinese thought presented in these writings supposedly transformed the Japanese mind form its native Japanese form, which selflessly submitted itself to the Emperors without question, into a Sinicized form, which dared to think for itself, and, on multiple occasions, opposed itself to the Emperors. Norinaga, who, by most accounts, is a nationalist, is, perhaps, better called an international nationalist.25placeholder
The international national three
There are, not one, not two, but three. Three persons stand in exchange with one another. Two are of the same nation, and the third is from another. The third person, foreign to the other two, stands in exchange with one of the other two. The one who stands in exchange with the third person, a foreigner to them, then, stands in exchange with their fellow national. In other words,
national A – foreigner, and then
national A – national B
These are the three who stood in exchange in Norinaga’s history of Japan. In Norinaga’s history of Japan, a Japanese person, or a group of Japanese persons, stood in exchange with a Chinese person, or a group of Chinese persons. From this exchange, the Japanese person, or group of Japanese persons, gained the Chinese writings they would, then, pass on to other Japanese persons. Thus, Chinese writings circulated among the Japanese people, and their consciousness was transformed, from one wholly submissive to imperial authority to one capable of resisting it.
In our globalized world today, we have a more flexible configuration of the three, but it remains an international national three. The capitalist, based in a developed nation, purchases the labor power of wage laborers in, not just one, but, potentially, many developing nations, and, afterwards, sells the products produced by these wage laborers to consumers in, again, not just one, but, for the most parts, many developed nations.
The three, in their exchanges, reinforce or disrupt the social order of, at least, one of the nations whose nationals are engaged in these exchanges. The introduction of Chinese writings into Japan and their circulation among the Japanese people disrupted the imperial social order of Japan. The exchanges between the capitalist and wage laborers in developing and developed nations, which is, of course, more commonly, referred to as the exploitation of developing nations, insofar as it does no harm to, and, indeed, even, swells the wallet of the capitalist, can be said to reinforce the capitalist social order of both developing and developed nations. In developing nations, the capitalist is the buyer of labor power, and, thus, in losing no money, and, indeed, even, gaining money, remains the center of the network of commodity exchanges in developing nations. In developed nations, the capitalist is the seller of commodities produced in developing nations, and, insofar as the commodities are bought by the consumers of developed nations, this position, which circles around the center that is the consumers of developed nations, is secure.
Societies of disjunctions
A society, as a network of commodity exchanges, is a society of disjunctions. By this I mean that, in every commodity exchange, the two persons standing in exchange stand in positions and experience the commodities being exchanged in ways which are mutually exclusive with one another. Making use, again, of the formula of x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B, the one exchanging commodity A for commodity B expresses the value of commodity A in commodity B, that is to say, commodity A is experienced as that whose value is expressed in commodity B. Commodity B, in turn, is experienced as the equivalent in which the value of commodity A is expressed. For the other, commodity A is experienced as the equivalent in which the value of commodity B, their own commodity, is expressed. Commodity B is also experienced as that commodity whose value is expressed in commodity A. These two positions and experiences occur at the same time, but are also mutually exclusive.26placeholder In commodity exchanges, the two persons standing in exchange never stand in the same position and never experience the commodities being exchanged in the same way. Moreover, one person can never “expand” upon their position and experience so as to include within them the other’s position and experience.27placeholder One is either in one position and experience, or the other.
This is so for the capitalist and the wage laborer, as well as the capitalist and other capitalists, the wage laborer and other wage laborers, should they ever stand with one another in exchange. This, it goes without saying, too, is the case for capitalists and wage laborers within the same nation, as well as within different nations. The sweatshop worker in developing nations is as much a stranger to the globalizing capitalist as the consuming wage laborer in developed nations. Each person, standing in commodity exchange with the other, is a complete stranger to the other. Not limited to capitalist societies, too, any society, which is a network of commodity exchanges, is, likewise, a society of disjunctions, where no person, standing in exchange with the other, ever encounters the other as anything short of the other.
Centralization
A society, as a network of commodity exchanges, and, therefore, a society of disjunctions, does not always remain a society whose every member confronts the other as an other whose position and experience are mutually exclusive with their own. Their mutual exclusivity with one another unharmed, these members, nevertheless, converge around the general equivalent, or proto-money, and the possessors of this general equivalent, or proto-money. Society—all societies which are networks of commodity exchanges, and, therefore, societies of disjunctions, it would seem to me, find their centers in the general equivalent, or proto-money.
This kind of centralization, it seems to me, is inevitable, or, at the very least, always, dormant in the societies of disjunctions. Any member of a society of disjunctions, who “subjectively” assesses the value of their commodity in the commodities of others in the society (“My commodity can be exchanged for this other commodity, belonging to this other person, this other other commodity, belonging to this other other person…”, or x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B = z quantity of commodity C = …),28placeholder has, “in mind”, the general equivalent or proto-money. This “subjective” assessment of their commodity, it seems to me, is a kind of germ of the general equivalent or proto-money, which becomes “objective” social reality, when this member of the society of disjunctions actually exchanges their commodity, with many others in the society, for their commodities.
If we must speak, then, of some kind of “human nature”, to combat the talk of “human nature” among proponents of capitalism, and, in general, any status quo, we may speak of a will to money, that is to say, a will which results in the establishment of one’s commodity as the general equivalent, or proto-money, and a will which results in the centralization of the societies of disjunctions around oneself and one’s commodity. This will to money, or “human nature” is not something found, already, in human beings prior to their socialization. It is, rather, a will and “nature” which occur in the interactions of human beings in societies of disjunctions, i.e. their exchanges of commodities.
With regard to the international national three, we may also say that the will to money is a will towards a transformation, or, more properly, stratification of the three, into a one around which the remaining two converge, offering their commodities to be exchanged for the commodity of the one. This one, whom we may call the One, is an almighty One, who has the power to buy everything (else) there is in the society of disjunctions.
The mystery of the center
The center of a society of disjunctions, that is to say, the general equivalent or proto-money, and the possessor of this general equivalent or proto-money, should it ever prove a mystery to the others converging around it, proves a mystery because of the mutual exclusivity of the position and experience of this possessor of the general equivalent or proto-money, with the positions and experiences of the others converging around them. In other words, because the others converging around the possessor of the general equivalent or proto-money “sees” the general equivalent or proto-money in a different way than the possessor of the general equivalent or proto-money, and because there is no “seeing” the general equivalent or proto-money the same way as its possessor, while remaining one of the others converging around this possessor, the center of the society of disjunctions proves, to the others converging around it, a mystery. Now, it bears mentioning that the positions and experiences of the others converging around the general equivalent or proto-money, which is where, as I have noted in the first section of this article, the general value form occurs, are positions and experiences which do not “see” the general equivalent or proto-money as a commodity. More precisely, they do not “see” the general equivalent or proto-money as a commodity which can express its value in the general equivalent or proto-money.29placeholder In our own monetary society of disjunctions, for any who exchanges their particular commodity for money, the value of their particular commodity (B) is expressed in a certain sum of money,
y quantity of commodity B = x sum of money
Money, here, is a commodity standing in the position of the general equivalent. The formula we have, above, is the general value form. Now, if we attempt to express the value of money with this general value form, we have
x sum of money = x sum of money
Here, the value of money is not expressed at all. What is expressed is only a definite quantity of money. Hence, in the general value form, money, or, in general, any general equivalent or proto-money, cannot stand in the position of the commodity which expresses its value in the general equivalent or proto-money. Attempting to do so results only in the expression of a definite quantity of the general equivalent or proto-money. This is the position and experience of the other who converges around the general equivalent or proto-money, and its possessor.
The same, however, cannot be said of the position and experience of the possessor of the general equivalent or proto-money, however. Their position and experience are where the expanded value form occurs, that is to say, for them,
x sum of money = y quantity of commodity B = z quantity of commodity C = …
Theirs is the position and experience of a buyer who can buy everything (else) there is in the society of disjunctions. This position and experience are mutually exclusive with the positions and experiences of the others converging around the possessor of the general equivalent or proto-money. This mutual exclusivity, it seems to me, results in whatever mystery there may be experienced concerning the center of a society of disjunctions. In the first place, it is a mystery.
This mystery, however, is not an unravelable one. Its unravelling occurs when the others who converge around the center of a society of disjunctions come into possession of the general equivalent or proto-money. In a capitalist society, this occurs when the wage laborer, having been paid a wage, now, has money to spend on the purchases of various commodities. Money is no longer a mystery, but a commodity which can be exchanged for every other commodity, from every other person, in the society. In simultaneity, standing, now, in a position of power, why they have ever submitted themselves to capitalists, selling their labor power for money, becomes a mystery. The wage laborer, standing in the position of the consumer, blissfully forgets that they have, previously, in the position of the wage laborer, or seller of labor power, “seen” money as merely a general equivalent, and not a commodity exchangeable for every other commodity.
Works Cited
Higashi, Yoriko. Norinaga shingaku no kakōsareta kamiyo no kōzō. Tokyo: Perikansha, 1999.
Karatani, Kojin. Transcritique on Kant and Marx. Translated by Sabu Kohso. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.
Marx, Karl. “The Power of Money”. In Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Translated by Martin Milligan. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1932. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm.
— . “The Value-Form”. Capital and Class, no. 4 (Spring 1978):130-150. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm
Motoori, Norinaga. “Isonokami Sasamegoto”. In Ashiwake obune, Isonokami Sasamegoto, 157-335. Edited by Koyasu Nobuyuki. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018.
— . Kokun Kojiki-den 1. Nihon meicho kankō-kai, 1930.
— . Kokun Kojiki-den 2. Nihon meicho kankō-kai, 1930.
— . “Shibun Yōryō.” In Motoori Norinaga shū, 13-243. Edited by Hino Tatsuo. Tokyo: Shinchosa, 2003.
— . “The Way of the Gods. Motoori Noriaga’s Naobi No Mitama”. Monumenta Nipponica 46, no. 1 (1991): 21–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/2385145.
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm (II., 5.). Marx has argued, too, in ibid., (III., 5.), that the expanded value form can occur in more “subjective” activities of a person as well, when the person “assesses the value of his own commodity in many other commodities”. That said, the expanded value form which co-occurs with the general value form, without any doubt, cannot be an expanded value form which occurs in the “subjective” activities of a person, because this co-occurrence is possible only when the person has, indeed, exchanged their commodity for others’ commodities, and others their commodities for this person’s. The expanded value form which co-occurs with the general value form occurs in an “objective” social process.
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978),(III., 2.).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), Ibid., (IV., 1.).
As Karatani Kōjin put it in Karatani Kojin, Transcritique on Kant and Marx, trans. Sabu Kohso (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 209, “[o]wning money amounts to owning ‘social prerogative,’ by means of which one can exchange anything, anytime, anywhere”. Though I avoid referencing him in this, and my previous article, due to my unfamiliarity with the other thinker and concept he engaged with in Transcritique, i.e. Kant and his antinomies, I am tremendously indebted to his reading of Marx in this work.
As Marx argued in Marx, “The Value-Form” (IV., 1.), the commodity which is to become money “confronts the other commodities as money only because it already confronted them before as a commodity”, and, “[l]ike all other commodities it also functions as equivalent”. It, then, “[l]ittle by little…functioned in narrower or wider circles as general equivalent”, and “[o]nce it has conquered the monopoly of this position in the expression of value of the world of commodities it becomes the money-commodity”. This “functioning” as general equivalent and monopolization of the position of the equivalent proceed when the commodity which is to become money is exchanged for many other commodities, from many others, such that, for all these others, the commodity is the equivalent. This, it seems to me, is how the commodity establishes itself as general equivalent and money.
More commonly, one would say 本当の自分. The modifier 真・is, really, used more often in promotional materials and other materials circulated on popular media (e.g. the title of the film Shin Godzilla) than in personal contexts (e.g. in the middle of an identity crisis), and this, of course, is, precisely, why I am using 真・, because the “true self” I am speaking of, here, is, hardly, the “true self” spoken of in personal contexts. It is the “true self” we are urged to become by advertisements and other corporate materials.
Karl Marx, “The Power of Money” in Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1932), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm.
Karl Marx, “The Power of Money” in Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1932), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm.
Karl Marx, “The Power of Money” in Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1932), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm.
Those who are aware of the contents of the Kojiki, and the other “historical record”, the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀), would understand why “historical record” is placed in quotation marks here. Both texts opened, not on the founding of the Japanese nation, but on the splitting of heaven and earth, and the becoming of various kami. It must be noted, however, that Norinaga treated the two as historical records, and, denouncing the Nihon Shoki as offering Sinicized and, therefore, distorted accounts of historical events, hailed the Kojiki, which attempted to reproduce, in writing, the speech of the ancient Japanese, as a genuine record of historical events. In other words, Norinaga held the events chronicled in the Kojiki to be real historical events. Motoori Norinaga, Kokun Kojiki-den 1 (hereafter KJK1), (Nihon meicho kankō-kai, 1930), 4, 7.
Motoori Norinaga, “Shibun Yōryō” in Motoori Norinaga shū, ed. Hino Tatsuo (Tokyo: Shinchosa, 2003), 87.
Motoori Norinaga, “Isonokami Sasamegoto” in Ashiwake obune, Isonokami Sasamegoto, ed. Koyasu Nobuyuki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018), 260.
The English translation is from Motoori Norinaga, “The Way of the Gods. Motoori Noriaga’s Naobi no Mitama” (hereafter NB), Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 46, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 27, and the original Japanese text is from Motoori, KJK1, 55.
Motoori, “NB”, 28, and KJK1, 56.
Motoori, “NB”, 39, and KJK1, 68.
Motoori, “NB”, 31, and KJK1, 60.
Motoori, “NB”, 31, and KJK1, 60.
The two clans, or, rather, three members of the clans who headed the shogunates of their times are mentioned, specifically, later in the essay. See Motoori, “NB”, 34, and KJK1, 63.
Motoori, “NB”, 29, and KJK1, 57.
Motoori, “NB”, 29, and KJK1, 57.
In truth, I think, one does not need to be Chinese, Sinophilic, or leftist to find Norinaga’s remarks on China and Chinese culture flattering.
I do not say “commodity”, because what occurred between ancient China and Japan, which brought Chinese writings into Japan, was not solely commodity exchanges.
Those who are familiar with the myth may recall that Sukunabikona no Kami was, in the Kojiki, said to have come from tokoyo no kuni (常世國), whose Chinese scripts hardly bring to mind the meaning of “foreign nations”. Norinaga, argued, however, in his Kojiki-den, that we should not understand tokoyo no kuni with respect to its scripts, which were only borrowed from the Chinese writing system to signify native Japanese meaning. What tokoyo no kuni really meant, Norinaga also claimed, was, simply, “a place is far removed from [Japan] in any direction, which cannot be visited or returned from with ease” (何方にまれ、此皇國を遙に隔り離れて、たやすく往還がたき處). Norinaga, also, afterwards, made the bold speculation that all foreign lands must have been created and solidified by Sukunabikona no Kami. Motoori Norinaga, Kokun Kojiki-den 2 (hereafter KJK2), (Nihon meicho kankō-kai, 1930), 617, 620.
Motoori Norinaga, Kokun Kojiki-den 2 (hereafter KJK2), (Nihon meicho kankō-kai, 1930), 620.
Higashi Yoriko has argued, in Higashi Yoriko, Norinaga shingaku no kakōsareta kamiyo no kōzō (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1999), 230, that Norinaga’s claim that foreign nations were created and solidified by Sukunabikona no Kami was integral to his construction of a Japanocentric view of the world. Norinaga differentiated Japan from other nations with respect to first, their different mythical origins, in, respectively, the union of Izanagi and Izanami no Mikoto, and the foam of the primordial universe, and, second, to the kami which created and solidified the lands.
Marx, “The Value-Form” (I, 1, b.).
Marx argued in “The Value-Form”, (III., 4.), with regard to the “polar opposition or inseparable interconnection” of the relative value form and the equivalent form, that “as soon as a commodity is in the one form it cannot at the same time, within the same expression of value, be in the other form”.
See note 1.
Marx, “The Value-Form”, (III., 4.).