QUESTIONS OF FORMATION OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN CONDITIONS OF THE CONFUCIAN IDEOLOGY IN JAPAN

Abstract

A modern state originates in the Western Europe as a result of reaction to this or that kind of absolutism. The valid forces of civil society oppose the tendencies towards absolutism in the state and mark the limits of these tendencies. In the process of such a confrontation, the boundaries between civil society and the state are established, which, however, does not prevent from building a strong and effective state. In Japan, the normative ideology that supported the state power was a kind of neo-Confucianism in which the state and society were very vaguely separated, and the individual was called upon to place the burden of solving his/her own problems on the state. With regard to civil society institutions, Confucius remains completely silent. In the classical formulations of Confucianism, there is no gap between the limits of the family circle and the face of the state. When the Meiji state was formed, little was known about any border between the state and society. The hierarchy of the new state was recruited from among the natives of feudal fiefdoms. Most of them were brought up in the spirit of the Confucian traditions.