Premodern Secularism

Abstract

This article argues that secularism is not an

exclusively modern phenomenon, but is rather a recurring pattern which arises

throughout different periods of premodern and modern history. I begin with a longue durée overview of Japanese

history as a case study, proposing a regime of such historical cycles over a 1,200-year period. I then zoom in on changes in religious-political relations which occurred in one specific, important cycle, through the transition from the late medieval into the early modern period. I argue that this period ushered in a new form of political-religious relations where Neo-Confucianism, instead of Buddhism, for the first time represented the religious element in Japanese politics. I demonstrate how this early modern regime of political-religious interaction supported by Neo-Confucianism was particularly stable and functioned to support public discourse. The last part of the article discusses the modern nation state’s destruction of this stable form of political-religious relations and notes that in both Japan and China, right up to the present, new regimes of stable political-religious relations have not emerged.