明治前夜日本社会的体制阵痛

Japan's Painful Intuitional Reform before the Meiji Restoration

日本的近代化变革,是内外因素相激相荡的结果。在朽坏的封建制度与近代的外部价值遭遇于江户后期的非常历史阶段,幕藩旧制下进行的全部自我改革,不过呈显为希望与失望频相交替的起伏曲线,并最终在体制的困顿中步入绝境。仿佛是一个剖宫产儿,明治日本是在西力的冲击下突破"牢限",走上西方式近代化道路的。这并不意味着有一个精明的设计者事先就为日本的选择提供了清晰的路径和完美的方案。在感觉和理性交替上演、理想与现实相互缠斗中,日本庶几完成了近代转型工程,其中有经验,也不乏教训。

Japan’s modernization was the result of both internal and external causes.The corrupted feudal system encountered modern values from overseas in a particular historical stage in the late Edo era,Japan’s self-reformation within the traditional Baku-Han system had proved nothing more than a curve of hope and disappointment,and finally fallen into the desperation due to the institutional confusion.Like a baby born by caesarean-section,under the impact from the West,Japan broke away from the restraint and walk to the path of western way of modernization,which rewrites the political landscape in East Asia.In a mixture of ideal and reality,Japan rapidly completed the transformation as a modern country,the process of which included both experience and lessons.