Nihilistic Practices of the Self. General Remarks on Nihilism and Subjectivity in Modern Japan

The question of nihilism in Japan is treated from a cultural and philosophical viewpoint, aiming to provide some hints for a critical discussion. Through the perspectives of Foucault and Bourdieu, different cultural phenomena in modern Japan could be defined as ‘technologies of the self’ and ‘habitus’: the practice of writing among some novelists; the practice of philosophy and (self-) awareness among thinkers influenced by Buddhism; as well as, in a completely different field, the practice of performing arts (dance, theatre, music), or martial arts (budo). The focus is on recognising two commonly spread hermeneutic tendencies: 1. Nihilism in Japan has been more often the problem of the individual than the problem of truth. 2. The debate on the individual and nihilism in Japan has not been dealt with in exclusively intellectual terms. Rather it has immediately referred to practical levels in which the dialectics between technologies of political control and technologies of the self have played a fundamental role.