In its ongoing campaign of inoculation against the pessimism born of current circumstances, business magazine President (Oct. 31) proposes a singular role model.
Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) was arguably Japan’s first thoroughly modern man. Born into the ancient, withering, reactionary social order he did so much to dislodge, he has multiple, memorable achievements to his credit. His immensely popular books preached a gospel of Westernism, industrialism, capitalism, democracy, freedom of thought, freedom of speech and gender equality — the latter almost shocking in his time and elusive still in ours. He founded Japan’s first modern university — Keio — and its first daily newspaper, the Jiji Shimpo.
His most famous book, “An Encouragement of Learning” (1872-76), stakes out his philosophical territory. People differ, he said, but “from the point of view of inherent human rights all men (and women) are equal.” Government has its place, but “the people are the real masters and bosses.” The Confucian air he’d breathed in childhood and youth choked the human spirit; those who clung to it were “as narrow-minded as the proverbial frog at the bottom of the well.”