Jun Tsuji
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese author: a poet
, essay
ist, playwright
, and translator. He has also been described as a Dada
ist, nihilist
, epicurean, shakuhachi
music
ian, actor
, feminist, and bohemian
. He translated
Max Stirner
's The Ego and Its Own
and Cesare Lombroso
's The Man of Genius into Japanese
.
Tōkyō
-born Tsuji Jun sought escape in literature from a childhood he described as "nothing but destitution, hardship, and a series of traumatizing difficulties". He became interested in Tolstoy
an Humanism
, Kōtoku Shūsui
's socialist anarchism, and the literature of Oscar Wilde
and Voltaire
, among many others. Later, in 1920 Tsuji was introduced to Dada and became a self-proclaimed first Dadaist of Japan, a title also claimed by Tsuji's contemporary, Takahashi Shinkichi (高橋 新吉). Tsuji became a fervent proponent of Stirnerite egoist anarchism
, which would become a point of contention between himself and Takahashi. He wrote one of the prologues for famed feminist poet Hayashi Fumiko's 1929 I Saw a Pale Horse and was active in the radical artistic circles of his time.
, and many characteristics of Epicureanism
show through his lifestyle. For example, Tsuji avoided active engagement in politics and sought after a form of ataraxia
, which he was apparently able to experience through vagabond wandering and Egoism
. He also spent his time primarily trying to enjoy a simple life free of suffering (see Aponia
). While his writings themselves are significant, it seems Tsuji's own emphasis was on developing an experimental, liberated lifestyle. Most of Tsuji's writings describe the philosophy behind this, as well as the personal process Tsuji went through towards this aim. As Hagiwara Kyōjirō (萩原 恭次郎) wrote, “Tsuji chose not to express himself with a pen so much as he chose to express himself through living, as conveyed by his personality. That is, Tsuji himself was his expression's piece of work”. It is no coincidence that this resembles the lifestyle anarchism
described by Max Stirner
, who seems to be the most influential philosopher in Tsuji's development.
.
In “Death of an Epicurean”, Tsuji comments on the destruction of the Ryōunkaku
(Cloud-surpassing Tower) in the area of Tokyo he often called home, Asakusa
. This building was a skyscraper
that had become very much a symbol of modernity in Japan, and its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake came as a harrowing omen to many who saw it as reminiscent of the Tower of Babel
. This symbol would become a popular one in literature, used by such authors as Ishikawa Takuboku
.
Written in the wake of this event, Tsuji's “Death of an Epicurean” reads:
In this passage Tsuji describes the birth of an Epicurean out of someone who experienced the transience of such eternal-seeming icons as the Ryōunkaku
and greater Tokyo. The Epicurean is portrayed here as someone who, in their despair, embraces the Arts in response to tragic ephemerality. For Tsuji, whose residence was reduced by the earthquake to a "monster right out of Cubism
", this passage comes off as autobiographical, describing his own turn to revelling in Epicureanism
and the Arts
.
.
For being a controversial writer in the heart of Tokyo's radical art scene, Tsuji himself believed that had he been living instead as a peasant in the Soviet Union at the time, he would surely be have been shot to death. This political climate exacerbated Tsuji's urges towards vagabondage:
after what would become popularly known as the "Tengu
Incident". According to some accounts, one night during a party at a friend's residence, Tsuji climbed to the second floor and began flapping his arms crying “I am the Tengu
!”, eventually jumping from the building, running around, and jumping onto the table calling “kyaaaaaa, kyaaaa!!”
After hospitalization, Tsuji was diagnosed as having experienced a temporary psychosis probably resulting from his chronic alcoholism
. During this hospitalization Tsuji came to idealize the Buddhist monk Shinran
and read the Tannishō
many times over. Thereafter the once prolific Tsuji gave up his writing career, and he returned to his custom of vagabondage in the fashion of a Komusō
monk
, apparently as a sort of Nekkhamma
.
For the next few years Tsuji fell into various incidents with police and was readmitted to mental hospitals several times. At the age of 41 Tsuji suffered a major asthma
attack and after hospitalization became weighed down with substantial hospital bills. While book royalties and a sort of "Tsuji Jun Fan Club" ( provided some economic support, Tsuji was caught up in a harsh late World War II
economic environment and would spend the last few years of his life in vagabond poverty
. Tsuji often made endsmeet by going door-to-door as a busking
shakuhachi
musician. However, in 1944 Tsuji settled down in a friend's one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo where he was found dead by starvation.
Tsuji is now buried in Tokyo's Saifuku Temple.
, and Takahashi Shinkichi. Moreover, he was one of the most prominent Japanese contributors to Nihilist philosophy prior to World War II
. He is also remembered as the father of prominent Japanese painter, Makoto Tsuji (辻 まこと).
Tsuji was depicted in the 1969 film Eros Plus Massacre
and has been the subject of several Japanese books and articles. Tsuji's friend and contemporary anarchist, Hagiwara Kyōjirō, described Tsuji as follows:
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
ist, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and translator. He has also been described as a Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ist, nihilist
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, epicurean, shakuhachi
Shakuhachi
The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
ian, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, feminist, and bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
. He translated
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
's The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own is a philosophical work by German philosopher Max Stirner . This work was first published in 1845, although with a stated publication date of "1844" to confuse the Prussian censors.-Content:...
and Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...
's The Man of Genius into Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
.
Tōkyō
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
-born Tsuji Jun sought escape in literature from a childhood he described as "nothing but destitution, hardship, and a series of traumatizing difficulties". He became interested in Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
an Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, Kōtoku Shūsui
Kotoku Shusui
, better known by the nom de plume , was a Japanese socialist and anarchist who played a leading role in introducing anarchism to Japan in the early 20th century, particularly by translating the works of contemporary European and Russian anarchists, such as Peter Kropotkin, into Japanese...
's socialist anarchism, and the literature of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, among many others. Later, in 1920 Tsuji was introduced to Dada and became a self-proclaimed first Dadaist of Japan, a title also claimed by Tsuji's contemporary, Takahashi Shinkichi (高橋 新吉). Tsuji became a fervent proponent of Stirnerite egoist anarchism
Egoist anarchism
Egoist anarchism is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a nineteenth century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of...
, which would become a point of contention between himself and Takahashi. He wrote one of the prologues for famed feminist poet Hayashi Fumiko's 1929 I Saw a Pale Horse and was active in the radical artistic circles of his time.
Epicureanism and Lifestyle Anarchism
Tsuji was influenced by the philosophy of EpicurusEpicurus
Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
, and many characteristics of Epicureanism
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
show through his lifestyle. For example, Tsuji avoided active engagement in politics and sought after a form of ataraxia
Ataraxia
Ataraxia is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation.For the Epicureans, ataraxia was synonymous with the only true happiness possible for a person...
, which he was apparently able to experience through vagabond wandering and Egoism
Egotism
Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....
. He also spent his time primarily trying to enjoy a simple life free of suffering (see Aponia
Aponia
Aponia means the absence of pain, and was regarded by the Epicureans to be the height of bodily pleasure.As with the other Hellenistic schools of philosophy, the Epicureans believed that the goal of human life is happiness...
). While his writings themselves are significant, it seems Tsuji's own emphasis was on developing an experimental, liberated lifestyle. Most of Tsuji's writings describe the philosophy behind this, as well as the personal process Tsuji went through towards this aim. As Hagiwara Kyōjirō (萩原 恭次郎) wrote, “Tsuji chose not to express himself with a pen so much as he chose to express himself through living, as conveyed by his personality. That is, Tsuji himself was his expression's piece of work”. It is no coincidence that this resembles the lifestyle anarchism
Lifestyle anarchism
Lifestyle anarchism is a term derived from Murray Bookchin's polemical essay "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm." He used it to criticize those anarchists who dress the look or live in certain ways, but who don't really act on the basic tenets of anarchism at the...
described by Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
, who seems to be the most influential philosopher in Tsuji's development.
"Death of an Epicurean"
One notable play written by Tsuji is the dadaist/absurdist "Death of an Epicurean" in which a figure must confront Panta Rhei , or the transient nature of all things. Tsuji saw the concept of Panta Rhei to be related to Stirner's Creative Nothing, wherein it is because of the nihility of all things that there is potential for creativity and change. Tsuji also found this relevant to the Buddhist concept of nothingness, sometimes translated as muMu (negative)
or Wu , is a word which has been translated variously as "not", "nothing", "without", "nothingness", "non existent", "non being", or evocatively simply as "no thing"...
.
In “Death of an Epicurean”, Tsuji comments on the destruction of the Ryōunkaku
Ryounkaku
The was Japan's first western-style skyscraper. It stood in the Asakusa district of Tokyo from 1890 until its demolition following the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923...
(Cloud-surpassing Tower) in the area of Tokyo he often called home, Asakusa
Asakusa
is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...
. This building was a skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
that had become very much a symbol of modernity in Japan, and its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake came as a harrowing omen to many who saw it as reminiscent of the Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
. This symbol would become a popular one in literature, used by such authors as Ishikawa Takuboku
Ishikawa Takuboku
was a Japanese poet. He died of tuberculosis. Well known as both a tanka and 'modern-style' or 'free-style' poet, he began as a member of the Myōjō group of naturalist poets but later joined the "socialistic" group of Japanese poets and renounced naturalism.-Major works:His major works were two...
.
Written in the wake of this event, Tsuji's “Death of an Epicurean” reads:
In this passage Tsuji describes the birth of an Epicurean out of someone who experienced the transience of such eternal-seeming icons as the Ryōunkaku
Ryounkaku
The was Japan's first western-style skyscraper. It stood in the Asakusa district of Tokyo from 1890 until its demolition following the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923...
and greater Tokyo. The Epicurean is portrayed here as someone who, in their despair, embraces the Arts in response to tragic ephemerality. For Tsuji, whose residence was reduced by the earthquake to a "monster right out of Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
", this passage comes off as autobiographical, describing his own turn to revelling in Epicureanism
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
and the Arts
The arts
The arts are a vast subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines. It is a broader term than "art", which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts. The arts encompass visual arts, literary arts and the performing arts – music, theatre, dance and...
.
Censorship and Vagabondage
Tsuji wrote during the 1920s, a dangerous period in Japanese history for controversial writers, during which he experienced the wages of censorship through police harassment. He also experienced this vicariously through the persecution of close associates such as his former wife, anarcho-feminist Ito Noe, who was murdered in the Amakasu IncidentAmakasu Incident
The Amakasu Incident occurred on September 16, 1923, in the chaos immediately following the Great Kantō earthquake, in Japan. Fearing that anarchists would take advantage of the disaster to overthrow the government, a squad of military police led by Lieutenant Masahiko Amakasu arrested Sakae Osugi,...
.
For being a controversial writer in the heart of Tokyo's radical art scene, Tsuji himself believed that had he been living instead as a peasant in the Soviet Union at the time, he would surely be have been shot to death. This political climate exacerbated Tsuji's urges towards vagabondage:
The Tengu Incident and Buddhist Renunciation
In 1932 Tsuji was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospitalPsychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
after what would become popularly known as the "Tengu
Tengu
are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami...
Incident". According to some accounts, one night during a party at a friend's residence, Tsuji climbed to the second floor and began flapping his arms crying “I am the Tengu
Tengu
are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami...
!”, eventually jumping from the building, running around, and jumping onto the table calling “kyaaaaaa, kyaaaa!!”
After hospitalization, Tsuji was diagnosed as having experienced a temporary psychosis probably resulting from his chronic alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. During this hospitalization Tsuji came to idealize the Buddhist monk Shinran
Shinran
was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period...
and read the Tannishō
Tannisho
The , also known as the Lamentations of Divergences, is a late 13th century short Buddhist text generally thought to have been written by Yuien, a disciple of Shinran...
many times over. Thereafter the once prolific Tsuji gave up his writing career, and he returned to his custom of vagabondage in the fashion of a Komusō
Komuso
A was a Japanese mendicant monk of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism, during the Edo period of 1600-1868. Komusō were characterised by the straw basket worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego. They are also known for playing solo pieces on the shakuhachi...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
, apparently as a sort of Nekkhamma
Nekkhamma
Nekkhamma is a Pali word generally translated as "renunciation" or "the pleasure of renunciation" while also conveying more specifically "giving up the world and leading a holy life" or "freedom from lust, craving and desires." In Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path, nekkhamma is the first practice...
.
For the next few years Tsuji fell into various incidents with police and was readmitted to mental hospitals several times. At the age of 41 Tsuji suffered a major asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
attack and after hospitalization became weighed down with substantial hospital bills. While book royalties and a sort of "Tsuji Jun Fan Club" ( provided some economic support, Tsuji was caught up in a harsh late World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
economic environment and would spend the last few years of his life in vagabond poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
. Tsuji often made endsmeet by going door-to-door as a busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
shakuhachi
Shakuhachi
The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...
musician. However, in 1944 Tsuji settled down in a friend's one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo where he was found dead by starvation.
Tsuji is now buried in Tokyo's Saifuku Temple.
Influence
Tsuji is remembered for having helped found Dadaism in Japan along with contemporaries such as Murayama Tomoyoshi, MAVO, Yoshiyuki EisukeYoshiyuki Eisuke
was a Japanese author.He was born in Okayama prefecture. His son, Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, was also a noted author.- External links :* at Aozora bunko...
, and Takahashi Shinkichi. Moreover, he was one of the most prominent Japanese contributors to Nihilist philosophy prior to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He is also remembered as the father of prominent Japanese painter, Makoto Tsuji (辻 まこと).
Tsuji was depicted in the 1969 film Eros Plus Massacre
Eros Plus Massacre
is a Japanese black-and-white film released in 1969. It was directed by Yoshishige Yoshida, who wrote it in cooperation with Masahiro Yamada.-Plot:The film is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, who was assassinated by the Japanese military in 1923...
and has been the subject of several Japanese books and articles. Tsuji's friend and contemporary anarchist, Hagiwara Kyōjirō, described Tsuji as follows:
This person, “Tsuji Jun”, is the most interesting figure in Japan today... He is like a commandment-breaking monk, like Christ...
Vagrants and labourers of the town gather about him. The defeated unemployed and the penniless find in him their own home and religion... his disciples are the hungry and the poor of the world. Surrounded by these disciples he passionately preaches the Good News of Nihilism. But he is not Christlike, and he preaches but drunken nonsense. Then the disciples call him merely “Tsuji” without respect and sometimes hit him on the head. This is a strange religion...
But here Tsuji has regrettably been portrayed as a religious character. It sounds contradictory, but Tsuji is a religious man without a religion... As art is not a religion, neither is Tsuji's life religious. But in a sense it is... Tsuji calls himself an Unmensch... If Nietzsche's Zarathustra is religious... then Tsuji's teaching would be a better religion than Nietzsche's, for Tsuji lives in accord with his principles as himself...
Tsuji is a sacrifice of modern culture... In the Japanese literary world Tsuji can be considered a rebel. But this is not because he is a drunkard, nor because he lacks manners, nor because he is an anarchist. It is because he puts forth his dirty ironies as boldly as a bandit... Tsuji himself is very shy and timid in person... but his clarity and self-respect exposes the falsities of the famous in the literary world... [though] to many he really comes across as an anarchistic rogue...
The literary world only sees him as having been born in this world to provide a source for gossip, but he is like Chaplin producing seeds of humour in their rumours... The common Japanese literati do not understand that the laugh of Chaplin is a contradictory tragedy... In a society of base, closed-minded people idealists are always taken as madmen or clowns.
Tsuji Jun is always drunk. If he doesn't drink he can't stand the suffering and sorrow of life. On the rare occasion he is sober... he does look the part of an incompetent and Unmensch-ian fool. Then his faithful disciples bring him saké in place of a ceremonial offering, pour electricity back into his robot heart, and wait for him to start moving... In this way the teaching of the Unmensch begins. It is a religion for the weak, the proletariat, the egoists, and those of broken personalities, and at the same time-- it is a most pure, a most sorrowful religion for modern intellectuals.
External links
- Select e-texts of Tsuji's works. at Aozora bunkoAozora BunkoAozora Bunko is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-of-copyright books or works that the authors wish to make freely available....
(Japanese) - Tsuji Jun no Hibiki. (Japanese)