EAST 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Bunmei, Meiji Period, Consumer Capitalism
5 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
==> last week was centered around tokugawa period = commercial cultures within pleasure quarters, consumer capitalism that undermined the neo-confucian system + caste system. ==> today = transition into being self-consciously modern. When we talk about tokugawa period = early modernity and pre-modernity = we talk abt ppl who are thinking of themselves as modern. ==>after meiji period people start being very interested in being modern. ==> // transition from spatial to temporal differences, the rise of bunmei = comparative timeline advanced/backward civilizations. First seen with the rise of the bunmei =civilization following colonization model = pretext to take over and educate uneducated (also defence mechanism used by jp to avoid being colonized) Shift from bunmei to bunka (culture) shift from production to consumption/consumerism. Shift btw modes of life == defining oneself by what one consumes. Also shift in way of thinking from neo-confucianism and idealism + also in art + debate btw manual and mental labour.
