Travelling Theory and its Consequences: José Ortega y Gasset and Radical Conservatism in Post-Cold War Japan

The last decade of the Cold War and the early years of the post-Cold War international order saw the emergence of a radical conservatism in Japan which has since taken root as a key ideological force in the country’s conservative political culture. This article traces the neglected but important influence of José Ortega y Grasset’s theory of the masses on this contemporary movement. However, in this journey across time, space, and culture, the theory of mass society has mutated. The article examines the ways in which Japanese radical conservative thinkers Susumu Nishibe and Keishi Saeki interpreted and applied Ortega’s work to critique the development of Japan’s contemporary political landscape. Radical conservatives transformed Ortega’s theory of the modern masses and his argument for elite liberalism into a critique of the liberal international order which favours reactionary nationalism. To understand this shift, the article examines the conceptualisations of modernisation and national identity as a necessary background to such theoretical and political appropriation.