Tsuneari Fukuda

Tsuneari Fukuda was born to Kōshirō and Masa Fukuda on 25 August 1912 in the Hongō ward of Tokyo, the first of five children. While Fukuda's parents received limited formal education, his father, Kōshirō was able to acquire white-collar work as a salaryman at the Tokyo Electric Light Company through self-study, and was also a calligrapher. Fukuda's given name "Tsuneari" (恆存) was chosen by novelist Shian Ishibashi, and originates from a passage in the works of Confucian philosopher Mencius. His mother Masa was fond of the theatre, and often took him to see kabuki and Noh plays from the age of three or four. From 1919, Fukuda attended the prestigious Kinka Primary School, where he received a liberal education that placed emphasis on independent learning. His studies were interrupted by the Great Kantō Earthquake in September 1923, which destroyed his home and much of Tokyo. He was evacuated to the countryside, and did not return to school until March 1924. Fukuda, whose family was of working-class origins, felt isolated by his privileged peers. The gap between the progressive academic environment and his conservative homelife signified his intellectual isolation, a trait that would come to define Fukuda.

From 1925, he attended Tokyo No. 2 Junior High School, which was also known for liberal education. In 1930, he was admitted to the elite Urawa High School in Saitama Prefecture, where he enrolled in a humanities and English language course. The school was enveloped in a wave of left-wing student activism taking place across Japan at that time, but Fukuda never participated. During his high-school years, he developed an interest in literature and drama, and was particularly drawn to the works of Hardy and Shakespeare. In an article published in the school newspaper, Fukuda criticised the politicisation of art in the then popular shingeki theatrical genre, which was often used as a vehicle for leftist thought. Around this time, he wrote his first play, called Aru machi no hito (或る街の人), and submitted it to a new playhouse called Tsukiji-za run by shingeki actor Kyōsuke Tomoda. It received honourable mention, but was never performed.

In 1933, he matriculated at Tokyo Imperial University, where he read English literature, graduating in 1936. His thesis, which was written in English, was entitled "Moral Problems in D. H. Lawrence". In the paper, Fukuda used works such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Sons and Lovers to examine individualistic, modern man's capability for love. The whereabouts of this text are unknown. During his years at university, Fukuda worked as a private teacher to support his family, as his father had fallen into financial difficulties. Living at home, away from the intellectual safe space of the university dormitories, Fukuda retained a willingness to learn from everyday people that was rare in Shōwa-era intellectuals.

Fukuda's career reoriented towards drama in the 1950s. In his 1950 book What is Art? (藝術とはなにか, Geijutsu to wa nani ka), Fukuda argues that humans are fundamentally empty, and that only through performance, through becoming someone else, can they truly live. He expressed dissatisfaction with the dominance of empirical science, which he said acknowledges only those things present in the material world, and rejects the process of creating a fiction that expands beyond reality. Fukuda argues that, because of this, modernity had sapped humanity's lifeforce and creativity. He goes on to argue that traditional theatre allows the audience to project themselves into another world, triggering catharsis. Contemporary theatre, he says, fails in this function, because of its emphasis on realism.

Fukuda's next drama, Typhoon Kitty (キティ颱風, Kiti taifū) was also published in 1950. A parody of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, it is considered one of his best satires. Fukuda submitted the play to shingeki grandee Kunio Kishida, who lauded the work. On Kishida's recommendation, the play was performed by the Bungakuza theatre company from March 1950. It was nominated for the Yomiuri Prize, and also praised by Yukio Mishima, who said, "five years after the war, the first contemporary play in the true meaning of the word has finally arrived". Fukuda continued to release new plays, starting with The Siege (堅塁奪取, Kenrui dasshu) in 1950, which was performed at the Bungakuza's Atelier in a double billing with Mishima's Kantan (邯鄲). Together with Hiroshi Akutagawa and Sei'ichi Yashiro, Fukuda and Mishima formed the heart of an anti-realist branch of shingeki centred on the Atelier. They were also founding members of the Kumo no Kai, a group of writers and dramatists formed under Kishida's leadership in August 1950.

Fukuda was asked to give testimony as an expert witness in the obscenity trial of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in May 1951. A Japanese translation of the book by Sei Itō was published in 1950, but was then confiscated by police on grounds of obscenity. During the trial, Fukuda offered a defence of Lawrence, stating that the book was by no means obscene, and that it was of a superior moral character when compared with most Japanese novels. Despite his testimony, the defendants ultimately lost the case. In 1952, Fukuda formally joined the Bungakuza, and received his first Yomiuri Prize for the play The Man Who Stroked the Dragon (龍を撫でた男, Ryū o nadeta otoko). Known as Fukuda's "masterpiece", it was inspired by T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, and queries whether true love is possible in a godless country.

In 1953, Fukuda was invited to travel to America and Europe by the Rockefeller Foundation, after receiving a recommendation from Shiho Sakanishi, his former supervisor at the Japan Pacific Association. During this trip, which extended from September 1953 to September 1954, he was enthralled by performances of Shakespeare at the Old Vic in London, particularly Michael Benthall's production of Hamlet, which he viewed as a realisation of his own internal dramatic beliefs. The trip had a great impact on Fukuda; he came to believe that Japanese westernisation was hollow, because it lacked the spiritual, Christian grounding of tradition that was present in the west. After returning to Japan, Fukuda started translating Shakespeare's repertoire into Japanese, which became a life-long endeavour, and putting on performances reminiscent of what he had seen at the Old Vic. He saw Shakespeare's plays as a means to overcome modernity and the alienation of the individual in modern society, believing that their ritualistic nature could help facilitate the creation of communal bonds.

Fukuda was introduced to Tsurue Nishimoto by his former junior high school teacher, Minoru Nishio. They married in January 1945, and had two sons: Kanau Fukuda in 1946, and Hayaru Fukuda in 1948.

From the 1950s, Fukuda wrote political commentary in addition to his literary and dramatic work. A contributor to magazines such as Bungei Shunjū, Chūō Kōron, Shokun!, and Jiyū, he became known as a significant conservative voice for his critiques of pacifism and Japanese left-wing movements, which are more familiar to the Japanese public than his artistic achievements. Referred to by the epithets "rhetorician" and "magician of argument" (論争の手品師, ronsō no tejinashi), Fukuda frequently used cognitive reframing in his discourse. He stressed the importance of freedom of expression, and considered himself an advocate of individual liberty. As a dramatist, he believed that humans have an inherent desire for ontological security, namely, to play a necessary role in society. He rejected progressive conceptions of cosmopolitan individualism for cutting individuals off from their cultural and historical context through rationalisation and abstraction. He argued that the western values upheld by the Japanese left arose in a particular context that was foreign to Japan, and that it was necessary to reclaim a "natural" Japanese culture, even if only in a mythological sense. At the same time, Fukuda declared himself an "unlicensed Catholic", argued that Christianity curbed the excesses of modernisation in the west, and that Japan's lack of such spiritual grounding had led to the exaggeration of its negative effects.

While Fukuda came to be thought of as a "conservative" thinker, he rejected the label. In My View on Conservatism (私の保守主義観, Watashi no hoshu shugi kan), Fukuda wrote that, though his lifestyle and thought process were conservative, he did not think of himself as a "conservative", and argued that there could be no ideology of "conservatism", only a conservative "attitude". He identified the difference between reformist and conservative thinking as one of language: while reformist ideologies attempt to provide a "universal language" to convince the masses, the act of being "conservative" rejects the concept of universality. For Fukuda, to bandy about the word "conservative" as reformists do would be a contradiction in terms, as it would imply a universal "conservatism" that could be readily defined. Conservatives, wrote Fukuda, should convince others with their attitude, not by trying to make them submit to an ideology. Fukuda argues that to be conservative is to be irrational, to accept the fallibility of humanity and its imperfections, and to believe in something greater than the self, or what Fukuda refers to as the "whole". The reason that holders of a conservative attitude express doubt about any small change, reform, or progress, Fukuda says, is precisely because of this lack of confidence in humanity's ability to foresee the potential impact of any change.

Upon Fukuda's return to Japan, the chief editor of Chūō Kōron, Hōji Shimanaka, asked him to write an article about his travels abroad. Fukuda declined, instead offering to write on an alternative subject of his choosing. Shimanaka was shocked by the essay Fukuda eventually produced. Originally titled "Questioning Pacifism" (平和論に対する疑問, Heiwaron ni tai suru gimon), its content was watered down by editorial staff before release. Retitled "Questions About the Advancement of Pacifism" (平和論の進め方についての疑問, Heiwaron no susumekata ni tsuite no gimon), it was published in December 1954 at Shimanaka's personal discretion. In the essay, Fukuda challenged the common conception of the Cold War then put forth by Japanese progressives: that the communist Soviet Union represented peace, while capitalist America was a warmonger, and that Japan should co-operate with the Second World to achieve disarmament and neutrality. According to Tsuyoshi Kawakubo, criticising this conception had been considered taboo in the 1950s Japanese media. Fukuda argued that the anti-nuclear pacifist ideology, rooted in Japan's suffering of the first atomic bombings during the Second World War, amounted to an abrogation of responsibility, rendering security issues unsolvable and negatively impacting Japan's relationship with the United States. Refusing to engage with the government, Fukuda said, was effectively a means to allow the activists to maintain their ideological purity and avoid having to actually do the work of addressing the problems of the day, in what he called the "disease of self-denial".

The essay received scathing criticism, and shocked pacifist activists. Shimanaka was warned that featuring essays like Fukuda's would hurt his magazine's sales. Fukuda, who had just returned from his year-long trip in America and Europe paid for by the Rockefeller Foundation, was accused of having written the article as a quid pro quo. Takeshi Shinmura wrote in The Mainichi Shimbun that Fukuda's viewpoint "was the sort of anti-communist ideology frequently found among Japanese, not the healthy, conventional wisdom held by most scholars of American and European literature". Chūō Kōron published Fukuda's reply to this criticism in February 1955, wherein he argued that his remarks had only been deemed problematic because, while many Japanese shared his opinion, it had become difficult to express such thoughts in contemporary Japan. What was needed, said Fukuda, was a space for free, open debate, stating "freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to express progressive thoughts alone". Three months later, the original essay and Fukuda's reply were republished as a book by Bungeishunjū under the original title, Questioning Pacifism. Fukuda was labelled a "dangerous thinker" and a "conservative reactionary" for the arguments he made in these works. Fukuda later said that, as a result, he was "ostracised" by the broader community of intellectuals and journalists. The controversy even had an impact on his dramatic work. Both the Mingei and Haiyuza theatre companies, which had previously performed Fukuda's plays, abandoned further collaboration.