本郷和人先生の『乱と変の日本』の中で、コジェーブが「人間の歴史を学びたいのであれば、日本の歴史を学べ」と述べていることを「はじめに」で紹介し、日本は気候、異民族支配などの影響がないところで歴史が展開されたので、人間がどのように発展するかを見る上で、もっともいい教科書になるとしていました(p.22-)。

　これが、どこから引用されたのかは不明なのですが、コジェーヴの『ヘーゲル読解入門』を元に、少し考えてみたいと思います。コジェーヴは同書の第２版に「日本化についての註」を付け加えます。

　ヘーゲル・マルクス主義者であったコジェーヴにとって、イエナの戦いで歴史は終わり、ロベスピエールとナポレオンによって行われたのはフランスで実現された普遍的な革命的勢力の空間における拡張に過ぎないことでした。また、フォードをマルクス主義者とみなし、米国はマルクス主義の「共産主義」の最終段階に既に達しているとみていました。そして、ソ連や中共への旅行を通して、アメリカの生活様式は世界を覆うと確信します。しかし、それは動物性への回帰にすぎないわけです。

　しかし、こうした見方をコジェーヴは1959年の日本への旅行で変えます。

《私がこの点での意見を根本的に変えたのは、最近日本に旅行した(1959年)後である。そこで私はその種において唯一の社会を見ることができた。その種において唯一のというのは、これが(農民であった秀吉により「封建制」が清算され、元々武士であったその後継者の家康により鎖国が構想され実現された後)ほとんど三百年の長きにわたって「歴史の終わり」の期間の生活を、すなわちどのような内戦も対外的な戦争もない生活を経験した唯一の社会だからである。ところで、日本人の武士の現存在は、彼らが自己の生命を危険に晒すことを(決闘においてすら)やめながら、だからといって労働を始めたわけでもない、それでいてまったく動物的ではなかった。「ポスト歴史の」日本の文明は「アメリカ的生活様式」とは正反対の道を進んだ。おそらく、日本にはもはや語の「ヨーロッパ的」或いは「歴史的」な意味での宗教も道徳も政治もないのであろう。だが、生のままのスノビズムがそこでは「自然的」或いは「動物的」な所与を否定する規律を創り出していた。これは、その効力において、日本や他の国々において「歴史的」行動から生まれたそれ、すなわち戦争と革命の闘争や強制労働から生まれた規律を遙かに凌駕していた。なるほど、能楽や茶道や華道などの日本特有のスノビスムの頂点(これに匹敵するものはどこにもない)は上層富裕階級の専有物だったし今もなおそうである。だが、執拗な社会的経済的な不平等にもかかわらず、日本人はすべて例外なくすっかり形式化された価値に基づき、すなわち「歴史的」という意味での「人間的」な内容をすべて失った価値に基づき、現に生きている。このようなわけで、究極的にはどの日本人も原理的には、純粋なスノビスムにより、まったく「無償の」自殺を行うことができる(古典的な武士の刀は飛行機や魚雷に取り替えることができる)。この自殺は、社会的政治的な内容をもった「歴史的」価値に基づいて遂行される闘争の中で冒される生命の危険とは何の関係もない。最近日本と西洋世界との間に始まった相互交流は、結局、日本人を再び野蛮にするのではなく、(ロシア人をも含めた)西洋人を「日本化する」ことに帰着するであろう。》
『ヘーゲル読解入門』アレクサンドル・コジェーヴ、上妻精・今野雅方訳、国文社、1987年 246-247頁

　コジェーヴが見出したのは、他民族の侵攻などがなく、大きな国内戦争が300年前に終了した「歴史の終り」の時代を生きている日本で現れた「純粋なスノビズム」です。彼はそれを能や茶道や華道に見出します。この三つとも支配階級の特権的な占有物であったのですが、コジェーヴはこれらが庶民も含めた社会全体のものとなった、とみています。だから、社会・経済的な不平等にかかわらず、日本人はすべて形式化された価値に基いて生きている、と。

　ヨーロッパ的な階級を破壊し、マルキストであるとみなしたフォードたちのおかげで平等な社会となったアメリカ社会でゴジェーヴが見たのは、主体性など持たない動物化した人間だったのですが、それに対して日本の社会は、同じ「歴史の終わり」を生きていても動物的ではなかったと。

　以下は"Introduction to the reading of hegel lectures on the phenomenology of spirit" the Japanese End of Historyの英語訳です。

Note to the Second Edition

The text of the preceding note is ambiguous, not to say contradictory. If one accepts "the disappearance of Man at the end of History," if one asserts that "Man remains alive as animal," with the specification that "what disappears is Man properly so-called," one cannot say that "all the rest can be preserved indefinitely: art, love, play, etc." If Man becomes an animal again, his arts, his loves, and his play must also become purely "natural" again. Hence it would have to be admitted that after the end of History, men would construct their edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals, and would indulge in love like adult beasts. But one cannot then say that all this "makes Man happy." One would have to say that post-historical animals of the species Homo sapiens (which will live amidst abundance and complete security) will be content as a result of their artistic, erotic and playful behavior, inasmuch as, by definition, they will be contented with it. But there is more.
"The definitive annihilation of Man properly to-called" also means the definitive disappearance of human Discourse (Logos) in the strict sense. Animals of the species Homo sapiens would react by conditioned reflexes to vocal signals
or sign "language," and thus their so-called "discourses" would be like what is supposed to be the "language" of bees. What would disappear, then, is nbt only Philosophy or the search for discursive Wisdom, but also that Wisdom itself. For in these post-historical animals, there would no longer be any "[discursive] understanding of the World and of self."

At the period when I wrote the above note (1946), Man's return to animality did not appear unthinkable to me as a prospect for the future (more or less near). But shortly afterwards (1948) I understood that the Hegelian-Marxist end of History was not yet to come, but was already a present, here and now. Observing what was taking place around me and reflecting on what had taken place in the world since the Battle of Jena, I understood that Hegel was right to see in this battle the end of History properly so-called. In and by this battle the vanguard of humanity virtually attained the limit and the aim, that is, the end, of Man's historical evolution. What has happened since then was but an extension in space of the universal revolutionary force actualized in France by Robespierre-Napoleon. From the authentically historical point of view, the two world wars with their retinue of large and small revolutions had only the effect of bringing the backward civilizations of the peripheral provinces into line with the most advanced (real or virtual) European historical positions. If the sovietization of Russia and the communization of China are anything more than or different from the democratization of imperial Germany (by way of Hitlerism) or the accession of Togoland to independence, nay, the self-determination of the Papuans, it is only because the Sino-Soviet actualization of Robespierrian Bonapartism obliges post-Napoleonic Europe to speed up the elimination of the numerous more or less anachronistic sequels to its pre-revolutionary past. Already, moreover, this process of elimination is more advanced in the North American extensions of Europe than in Europe itself. One can even say that, from a certain point of view, the United States has already attained the final stage of Marxist "communism," seeing that, practically, all the members of a "classless society" can from now on appropriate for themselves everything that seems good to them, without thereby working any more than their heart dictates.

Now, several voyages of comparison made (between 1948 and 1958) to the United States and the U.S.S.R. gave me the impression that if the Americans give the appearance of rich Sino-Soviets, it is because the Russians and the Chinese are only Americans who are still poor but are rapidly proceeding to get richer. I was led to conclude from this that the "American way of life" was the type of life specific to the post-historical period, the actual presence of the United States in the World prefiguring the "eternal present" future of all of humanity. Thus, Man's return to animality appeared no longer as a possibility that was yet to come, but as a certainty that was already present.

It was following a recent voyage to Japan (1959) that I had a radical change of opinion on this point. There I was able to observe a Society that is one of a kind, because it alone has for almost three centuries experienced life at the "end of History"— that is, in the absence of all civil or external war (following the liquidation of feudalism by the roturier Hideyoshi and the artificial isolation of the country conceived and realized by his noble successor Yiyeasu). Now, the existence of the Japanese nobles, who ceased to risk their lives (even in duel) and yet did not for that begin to work, was anything but animal.

"Post-historical" Japanese civilization undertook ways diametrically opposed to the "American way." No doubt, there were no longer in Japan any Religion, Morals, or Politics in the "European" or "historical" sense of these words. But Snobbery in its pure form created disciplines negating the "natural" or "animal" given which in effectiveness far surpassed those that arose, in Japan or elsewhere, from "historical" Action— that is, from warlike and revolutionary Fights or from forced Work. To be sure, the peaks (equalled nowhere else) of specifically Japanese snobbery— the Noh Theater, the ceremony of tea, and the art of bouquets of flowers— were and still remain the exclusive prerogative of the nobles and the rich. But in spite of persistent economic and political inequalities, all Japanese without exception are currendy in a position to live according to totally formalized values — that is, values completely empty of all "human" content in the "historical" sense. Thus, in the extreme, every Japanese is in principle capable of committing, from pure snobbery, a perfectly "gratuitous" suicide (the classical epee of the samurai can be replaced by an airplane or a torpedo), which has nothing to do with the risk of life in a Fight waged for the sake of "historical" values that have social or political content. This seems to allow one to believe that the recently begun interaction between Japan and the Western World will finally lead not to a rebarbarization of the Japanese but to a "Japanization" of the Westerners (including the Russians) .

Now, since no animal can be a snob, every "Japanized" post-historical period would be specifically human. Hence there would be no "definitive annihilation of Man properly so-called," as long as there were animals of the species Homo
sapiens that could serve as the "natural" support for what is human in men. But, as I said in the above Note, an "animal that is m harmony with Nature or given Being" is a living being that is in no way human. To remain human, Man must remain a "Subject opposed to the Object," even if "Action negating the given and Error" disappears. This means that, while henceforth speaking in an adequate fashion of everything that is given to him, post-historical Man must continue to detach "form" from "content," doing so no longer in order actively to transform the latter, but so that he may oppose himself as a pure "form" to himself and to others taken as "content" of any sort.