Lecture: On the Cultural History of Retirement: The Meiji Rejection of Inkyo

One of the more colorful characters to mount the stage of Japan’s public fascination in the last 15 years has been the vintage figure of the inkyo (“retired master”, or “recluse”). Tinged by the aura of crisis enveloping an aging and depopulating workforce in post-Bubble, post-1990s Japan, the deceptively quaint figure of the inkyo is everywhere being embraced – from mass-marketed “inkyo lifestyle” manuals sold in subway kiosks, to inkyo-themed government campaigns, to new and unfamiliar modes of progressivist critique. Surrounded by such enthusiasm about inkyo, it is easily forgotten that for a brief window of time, more than a century ago, in the 1880s and 90s, the figure of the inkyo found itself in almost exactly the opposite predicament: as an object of deep suspicion and relentless critique. What might turning back now to consider this all but forgotten event – the Meiji rejection of inkyo (haiinkyoron) – have to offer our ongoing attempts to understand the nature of Japan’s present?

Eric W. Johnson is a Whiting Fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago.