Sovereign Subjectivities: The Politics of Autonomy in English-Speaking Jodo Shinshu

Abstract

The tumultuous beginning of the 20th century, culminating catastrophically in World War II, had important implications for Japanese individuals on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Before and during the war citizens in Japan experienced first hand the destructive potential of blind obedience to (political) authority. Japanese Americans, meanwhile, were officially turned into enemies and interned en masse by the United States government. The Japanese defeat in World War II induced a mood of self-reflection and self-criticism to which Jodo Shinshu institutions and individuals were no exception (Amstutz 37-42). A significant part of this process of self-reflection involved revising “doctrines promoting submission to political authority” (Toshio 38). Apologies for the discursive and material collaboration between both Honganjis and the Japanese wartime governments were made in the late 1980s and 1990s. Many Shinshu scholars have since disavowed the wartime doctrines and their unquestioning, state-supporting ethos (Victoria 152-153; Amstutz 34-36; Curley 140-147). American Shinshu voices started expressing an ethic of critical distance and ndependence, which also moved away from pre-War attempts to make Shin Buddhism compatible with the normative politics of the United States.