Regeneration
Regeneration
Forging a New Japan Through Spiritual Renewal and Fiscal Retrenchment
This chapter discusses the need for spiritual renewal in Japan in the wake of the Great Kantō Earthquake. Japan's greatest natural disaster unleashed a cacophony of voices calling for the need to reinvigorate the minshin or the popular mind to counter perceived laxity, extravagance, hedonism, flippancy, and selfishness and curb economic excess. It was therefore necessary to implement a glorious Taishō Restoration that would put Japan on a new ideological and economic trajectory. Numerous social commentators looked to the song entitled Saigo kokumin no kakugo sanken no uta (A song of three ken) written by Munakata Itsurō as the embodiment of the new spirit that Japan needed. Mukanata believed that there were three practices or virtues the people of Japan had to embrace to forge a new spirit. These three were the shinken or earnestness, kinken or diligence and thrift, and kōken or contribution.
Keywords: spiritual renewal, Japan, Great Kantō Earthquake, Taishō Restoration, Saigo kokumin no kakugo sanken no uta, A song of three ken, Munakata Itsurō
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