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Emperor And Nationalist Ideology Essay

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The Emperor and Nationalist Ideology in Meiji Era Japan

The Meiji Era in Japan is known as a time of rapid industrialization and Westernization where many institutions of society were realigned in one form or another to be consistent with their Western counterparts. Ironically, at the same time, it was a period of growing nationalistic feelings that began to develop in Japanese society. However, besides being a reactionary or nostalgic feeling experienced by the population, this nationalist ideology was also actively promoted by the Meiji leadership. Central to this ideology was the emperor who was effectively and successfully used as a tool for legitimizing the Meiji government.

According to myth, the Japanese emperor is a …show more content…

and Dankwart A. Rustow eds., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, 1964), 465-466.>> Thus, “in the first years after the Restoration, from 1868 to 1881, the new government invoked the imperial institution at the symbolic center of the unified nation and displayed the young Meiji emperor as the personal manifestation of the recently wrought political unity.”<<4

Gluck, Carol. Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 73.>> The emperor, “as an embodiment of Japan’s sense of national identity, as a bridge linking traditional sources of legitimacy to the new state authority, as the father figure which justified his subjects’ self-discipline and sarifice [became] both a rallying point for his people and a means of concentrating authority behind the emerging national leadership; the emperor came to symbolize all the forces of self-control and enforced stability which combined to channel the prime energies of the Japanese toward meeting the foreign challenge and toward adopting essential social and economic reforms.” <<5
Hall, 14.>>

One of the first steps the Meiji leaders took was to make the public aware of the imperial presence. This was a serious issue to be dealt

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