Can literature finish religion?

Quoting javi2541997

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books?

Seems like it would be something a bit less mundane than just improving education. I wonder if he meant that literature could replace religion to fill a human need for meaning. Did he have anything less cryptic to say about it?

Reply to T Clark

It is another interesting point of view indeed but I guess his quote was not close to it because Kawabata was a really lonely person back in the day... So probably he did not wonder about fulfil our lives that much.
Yes, there is some aspects about him to consider of. His discourse was titled: Japan, the beautiful. His self where we can see a lot of examples of where Japanese writers and poets reach (somehow) nirvana or something related through literature. Probably, he was closer to promote the imagination rather than believe in "dogmas"

Since religion has historically had its greatest power among the illiterate and nowadays those who dont read literature to gain knowledge, it seems pretty unlikely superstition will be defeated that way - or any other way in my opinion..

By religion does he mean Shinto, Judaism, Christianity, some set of beliefs or practices or rituals?

By literature does he mean only written works? Are religious myths distinct from literature? Are Kojiki and Nihon Shoki distinct from literature? Is what is referred to as 'biblical literature' not, at least in part, literary?

Reply to Fooloso4

Yes, he was referring to all types of religion.

Are Kojiki and Nihon Shoki distinct from literature?

To be honest I do not know because this is why the phrase was so controversial. Probably this debate is correlated to the famous old question: Who came first? Philosophy or Greek poetry?
I guess we can match it to that way...

The day holy books are put on the same library shelf as The Lord of The Rings, literature would have eradicated religion from the world!

That day will come...and go (as usual).

Without context, it's just a line, and I can't find the context. From his nobel lecture I don't even get the impression that literature and religion are "fighting". So what's the context? Where'd you get the quote from?

Reply to Dawnstorm

I got the context from an interview he had among other Japanese writers. They were debating about the art of writing poems and books. He hinted on the debate that literature could defeat religion.
It is important to keep in mind that Kawabata was atheist... Probably this could be connected to.

Quoting javi2541997

Probably this debate is correlated to the famous old question: Who came first? Philosophy or Greek poetry?

Perhaps the more important question is whether they are to be understood as distinct. The writings of Homer and Hesiod appeared before the birth of Thales. As to what Plato calls the 'ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry' we need to look more closely at the dialogues and the poets. It should not be assumed that because Plato is regarded as philosopher rather than poet that he thought the issue was in any way resolved in favor of philosophy. Plato's writings are philosophical poetry. He was a maker (see the Greek poiesis, from which we get the terms poet and poetry). Much more recently Wittgenstein said :

Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.

(Culture and Value)

Quoting javi2541997

I got the context from an interview he had among other Japanese writers. They were debating about the art of writing poems and books. He hinted on the debate that literature could defeat religion.
It is important to keep in mind that Kawabata was atheist... Probably this could be connected to.

Thanks. It would be interesting to read that interview, but I suspect it'd be hard to find a translation online. I'm an atheist, too, but I can't even really guess what he meant. What T Clark said sounds like a reasonable guess. Or maybe it's that poetry, even if it's religious, transcends its origin and can be enjoyed by everyone. It's probably something I can't think of, though.

He said it to be provocative and make pretense to having some noble, unseen cause, talking out his ass as scholars do.

Reply to Fooloso4

Perhaps the more important question is whether they are to be understood as distinct.

Yes, that's right. If we consider it as distinct matters, we can put literature itself on the equation. Then, we can argue and understand what Kawabata said. Speaking about literature about something related to values, culture, ethics, etc... That is somehow an opposition to religion.

Quoting javi2541997

Speaking about literature about something related to values, culture, ethics, etc... That is somehow an opposition to religion.

These are things that are central to religion, not only formatively but as ongoing concerns.

Reply to javi2541997 Religion, ritual, beliefs; poetry, novels, prose; film, drama; music; plastic arts; painting; dance; opera: ALL of this is human culture. The media (plural of medium) which people use to find meaning will vary from time to time, but they are in play all the time. Not all for everyone, of course, but something for everyone. [Then there is science, math, and technology--another cultural activity of a different sort than religion and literature, but with great power.]

So, will the novel or opera or film finish off religion? Of course not. No more than religion has finished off any form of literature or music. Every component of culture is changed from year to year, reinvented, reinvested, refurbished, replaced, et cetera.

IF we are still here a thousand years from now, we will still engage in multiple forms of culture, including belief systems (religion) and cultural expression (the arts). We will still have science, math, and technology. (If we don't, go to the final chapter, "Totally Screwed" for further information.)

Quoting javi2541997

javi2541997

Glad your back!

Reply to Bitter Crank

I see your point that all of those components of what we call as culture cannot face religion. But what I see from Kawabata's thought is that (somehow) religion is pretty far from literature and then all forms of culture itself.
We can match this argument to this idea: "encouraging people into culture and books could get them away from all forms of religion"

When you read complex novels or see philosophical operas/dramas you make a step forward of how you see the world. Supposedly, not that dogmatic from a religious point of view.

But yes, as you wrote previously, these facts cannot end religion at all

Quoting Bitter Crank

Glad your back!

Glad to be here debating again with you! :100: :up:

Quoting javi2541997

"encouraging people into culture and books could get them away from all forms of religion"

Although many religious people can give damning evidence about the failures of their religion (I can), it may not be a good idea to get all 'the religious' away from their religion. For many, religion is the key to their making sense of the world, and how they orient themselves in the world. They would need something pretty good to replace the function of religion. There ARE such replacements, but they may not be be assimilated easily or readily, and not all the replacements are especially good.

You may be familiar with Christian fundamentalism. If not, it's a movement that takes the Bible literally -- creation took place on 7 days, for instance. (That's the first thing in the Bible they take literally -- there are another 1000 things that are also taken literally and as fact.).

Christian fundamentalism was a reaction to the scholarship and culture of the 19th century that produced textual criticism of the Bible, and undermined the previous framework of understanding about how the Bible was written, edited, and developed. Science also caused the reaction -- particularly Darwin's books about evolution--they were a bombshell that a lot of people still haven't gotten over.

Christian fundamentalism, like Islamic fundamentalism, is reactionary -- a reaction to the very culture that might lure them away. (You are correct here: secular culture is pretty attractive to many religious people and they are lured away. Like me, for instance.)

Quoting javi2541997

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books?

I imagine there may be a specific Japanese context to this claim. The status of religion in Japan is likely to be quite different to the West's. 'Defeat" is an interesting word. Is literature at war with religion? Not entirely. But there is a banal observation to be made here. If religion is going to be surpassed by other, perhaps 'better' ideas, it is likely to be done via literature. The key ideas in public discourse are still written down and presented in textual form.

Quoting Tom Storm

Defeat" is an interesting word. Is literature at war with religion? Not entirely.

You are so right! When I read it I thought it was a brave phrase to start a debate with. Until this day it is still opened about what Kawabata was thinking.
I do not say it is "war" neither but I guess it is closer to the development of culture and values, which for atheists, tend to be so far from religion, because religion - itself- is just a dogma and then probably the quote is connected to the art of writing with pure freedom

Quoting Bitter Crank

Christian fundamentalism, like Islamic fundamentalism, is reactionary -- a reaction to the very culture that might lure them away.

Sure they are, and also we have to keep them in mind. But when we start something as "Christian" or "Islamic" I guess you are already surrounded by a "dogma" whatever you like it or not... Even if those are perfectly reactionary

Reply to javi2541997 Mass literacy, not just "literature", had pacified religions in the modern, secular, West for, at most, a few centuries, but mass vidiocy in recent decades has begun to radicalize religions again (re: sectarian fundamentalisms, like ethnonationalist populisms, are conspiracy-fuelled reactionary bonfires of illiteracy & denialism). Kawabata – who's major works (& those of Mishima) I'd devoured back in the mid-1980s – could not foresee this ubiquitous, 24-7-365, social media dark age.

Quoting 180 Proof

Kawabata – who's major works (& those of Mishima) I'd devoured back in the mid-1980s – could not foresee this ubiquitous, 24-7-365, social media dark age.

It feels like we made a step backwards whenever I see something like dark age of social media (specially Facebook, Instagram, tik tok, etc...) nowadays, young people seems to be easy manipulative. A lot of fake news and disinformation.
About Mishima! What an excellent writer and good pupil of Kawabata. Should we consider that he predicted the decadence of humanity in his works? More than the intelligence, I guess both was referring to the act of making art through books without dogmas. I mean, seeing literature (overall) as a manifestation of culture not marketing.

Nevertheless, I read in a interview of Murakami: "Japan is no longer like Mishima's and Kawabata's books"...
Whatever we like or not, we are forced to change during the decades. But it feels like our society did not change for good

Reply to javi2541997 :up:

I only read the Go Master. I found it rather mystic, or zen. Though of course I know nothing about zen.

Quoting javi2541997

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books?

I don't know that he did say that. Nor can I speculate as to what it relates to.
As @Dawnstorm's https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/653994
More context is required.
It would help if you could share whatever you have read (? source) that leads to your questions.
Your response to Dawnstorm moved the alleged quote from the Nobel Prize speech to a 'hint' during an interview. Perhaps you read something between the lines?

Quoting Dawnstorm

I got the context from an interview he had among other Japanese writers. They were debating about the art of writing poems and books. He hinted on the debate that literature could defeat religion.
It is important to keep in mind that Kawabata was atheist... Probably this could be connected to.
— javi2541997

Thanks. It would be interesting to read that interview, but I suspect it'd be hard to find a translation online.

It would be interesting to read that interview; the debate about the art of writing poems and books. It seems the concern is related to the production and appreciation of art forms and their relationship to religion, or aspects thereof. So, where can it be found @javi2541997?

Quoting javi2541997

...We can match this argument to this idea: "encouraging people into culture and books could get them away from all forms of religion"
When you read complex novels or see philosophical operas/dramas you make a step forward of how you see the world. Supposedly, not that dogmatic from a religious point of view.

The possibility is there, for sure, but religion is not likely to be killed off. And without the context, I'm not sure that is what Kawabata was getting at. Or even wanted. How sure are you?

I agree that a wider, deeper reading experience, rather than an obsession with one author, subject or style, is required if we are to be helped to see different perspectives; all the better to avoid dogmatism wherever it might be found.
'Reading' in every sense of the word, the 'texts' of music, art, science, philosophy, religion.
And they don't have to be complex as long as we can relate to past, present, future ideas and conversations. Just as in TPF's Short Story Competition!
What it is to be a better human; reading, writing and learning with care and attention.
Religion and fiction. Common ground; both can affect or influence our behaviour, for better or worse, depending on our critical faculties.

***

I appreciate very much your thread and discussion; for the introduction to Kawabata.
I intend to read his short stories which can be downloaded free from the Internet Archive, Open Library.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-of-the-Hand_Stories

***

Kawabata is intriguing for another claim he made.
''Looking at old works of art is a matter of life and death"

Quoting “A Matter of Life and Death”: Kawabata on the Value of Art after the Atomic Bombings Mara Miller

This article explores the possible interpretations—and the implications of those interpretations—of a comment about the importance of art made by Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), later the first Japanese Nobel laureate for literature: that “looking at old works of art is a matter of life and death.” (In 1949, Kawabata visited Hiroshima in his capacity as president of the Japan literary society P.E.N. to inspect the damage caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that helped end World War II. On his way back to his home in Kamakura, he stopped in Kyoto. He came under severe criticism for “sightseeing” at such a time. This comment was his response.) The introduction explains why we should take him seriously as a commentator on art. The body of the article examines why our looking at art might be more, not less, important after the post War situation, the kinds of art Kawabata might have meant, why some possibilities are more likely than others, and how they differ in what they offer us and the value of art under conditions of trauma and mass trauma.

The article might answer some of your questions re education and knowledge (Section III).
Either way, it provides substantial and clear information. I have a better appreciation of Kawabata.
"So just who is this Kawabata and what does he know about this matter of art and survival?"
Read on!

* addendum to previous post re the Palm-of-the-Hand stories:

Quoting Kawabata

Kawabata’s writing career started and ended with short stories. He developed a style of brief, sharp and lucid prose pieces, often only a page and a half to two pages in length, that he termed ‘Palm-of-the-hand stories’, a delightful image that also serves as the title of a collection of many of these pieces. Of these stories Kawabata commented:

Many writers, in their youth, write poetry; I, instead of poetry, wrote the palm-of-the-hand stories. Among them are unreasonably fabricated pieces, but there are more than a few good ones that flowed from my pen naturally, of their own accord…. [T]he poetic spirit of my young days lives on in them.

Kawabata wrote with a graceful and light touch that retained a sense of refined composure even when dealing with subject matter as dark as suicide, adultery and abandonment. His novels exemplify a honed efficiency, many of them can easily be read in a single long afternoon and even the longer works are written in a clean and concise prose that allows the reader to glide through the pages. The brevity of many of Kawabata’s writings, however, is not for want of depth or content, but rather evidence of an aversion to excess and an artful balancing of a few carefully selected elements that come across as unmistakably and quintessentially Japanese in character.

[ ... ]

For those looking to broaden their reading of ‘serious’ literature beyond the Western canon, Yasunari Kawabata is a fine starting point, eminently readable and accessible, providing a glimpse into the troubles of his own time and society whilst still offering us a way of seeing our own.

Reply to Amity

It is in Spanish the papers I have about Kawabata's life and works. Some of them are even commented by Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel Prize 2010). These papers comes from editors as emecé. They are -supposedly- pretty aware of Kawabata life and what he was thinking during the books, interviews, etc... It is important to put in context that those are literally translated from Japanese.
Anyway here ks the text translated into English by myself.

[i]Kawabata Yasunari, Nobel winner of 1968, killed himself at age of 73 but even he wrote more than twelve thousand pages, he did not leave a not or poem about his tragic decision.
Despite the political crisis of WWII, Kawabata was off his political and social context of Japan. He was a the mentor of Yukio Mishima.
The works of Kawabata are connected to loneliness and the problem of eroticism. Atheist but with a lot of respect on Shintoism. He prophesied that literature would substitute religion. [/i]

Sorry but I do not have more about him rather than some notes of the translators. But here: Kawabata it looks like Yasunari was referring to the relationship between women and men when he shouted that phrase rather than a critique to religion as a dogma.

Here I share with you another paper that is so interesting and can clarify some ideas: KAWABATA'S UNREQUITED LOVERS

“A Matter of Life and Death”: Kawabata on the Value of Art after the Atomic Bombings Mara Miller

The article might answer some of your questions re education and knowledge (Section III).
Either way, it provides substantial and clear information. I have a better appreciation of Kawabata.
"So just who is this Kawabata and what does he know about this matter of art and survival?"
Read on!

Already seen it. Yes, pretty clarifying and interesting indeed. There are a lot of papers around which helps a lot

@Amity

Just an opinion or comment I found about his speech when he received the Nobel Prize:

Kawabata definitely does not link himself to European literature; he identifies himself very clearly and very strongly with the Japanese aesthetic tradition, first with the tanka poetry of medieval Zen priests, then with the tea ceremony, calligraphy, flower arranging, landscape gardening, ink painting, ceramic art, and, ultimately, the whole range of spiritual values stemming from the Zen Buddhist discipline developed in Japan in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, but informed by the nature imagery of cherry blossoms, maple leaf, autumn moon, and winter snow derived from the fundamental Shinto values and the classical literature of even earlier centuries. Kawabata obviously saw himself as peculiarly Japanese-- and took great pride in that fact.

In his Nobel Prize speech Kawabata made definite and strong connection with the Zen tradition of emptiness. I personally like that formulation, that the best thing an old man can learn to do is to drink tea from an empty cup.

Reply to javi2541997

All of this leaves unanswered the question of what it is he means by religion. He mentions spiritual values, Zen, and Shinto which some regard as matters of religion or at least not distinct from religion.

Reply to Fooloso4

I do understand. That's why I started this thread. Trying to find an answer from you all

Quoting javi2541997

When Yasunari Kawabata (?? ??) was honoured with the Nobel Prize of literature, he said: literature will defeat religion. This statement made a good debate among Japanese readers and philosophers back in the day that they wondered what Kawabata was considering about.

It is not the first time where through books or novels religion is criticised. Poets or writers, when they wrote their plays, sometimes suffered the consequences or even were banned by church.
This is why somehow literature is also seen as a good knowledge tool against sacred texts and so.

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books?

Note: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1968 was awarded to Yasunari Kawabata "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." The Nobel Prize in Literature 1968

Better put perhaps: literature Is religion. How so?

Just some thoughts: Let's call literature a kind of mimesis, to borrow from Aristotle, of a praxis, which simply means it imitates life. But not only imitates, does so poignantly, with an eye to something about our "dramatic" human situation--"its tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral..." (Polonius). so in literature we do not get simply the affairs of life. We get an affective erudition of life played out before us so that we can stand apart and wonder. What Dewey would call a consummatory performance played out in the author's imagination. What has this to do with religion?

Much philosophy fails in that it concerns itself exclusively with an abstract mimesis called propositional truth: what is in the world and what are the conditions for knowing it? Religion, mostly, is an abundant muthos, affectively satisfying, but caring little for propositional truth. Literature, however, displays both, contains both: wonder and truth.

Reply to Constance

I see your point that they are clearly different aspect with different proposes. But where I disagree with you is in the fact, you shared, that religion finds out truth. I guess this is exactly where Kawabata made the debate. For him, probably literature is the only available matter where we can pursue freedom because we are opened to write/read whatever we like.
But, in the other hand, religion tends to be dogmatic, because you would not see religious books of killing God, loneliness, suicide, etc...

Quoting javi2541997

I see your point that they are clearly different aspect with different proposes. But where I disagree with you is in the fact, you shared, that religion finds out truth. I guess this is exactly where Kawabata made the debate. For him, probably literature is the only available matter where we can pursue freedom because we are opened to write/read whatever we like.
But, in the other hand, religion tends to be dogmatic, because you would not see religious books of killing God, loneliness, suicide, etc...

I don't think about popular religion here, just as I don't think of bad reasoning when I think of Kant. what people do with religion is an entangled business, a lot of which has nothing to do with religion as such.

But it is a very good question, that regarding the truth of religion. What can religion be reduced to once all of the arbitrary entanglements are put aside? Science takes care of the facts, so to speak. Religion takes care of the affectivity of our existence, something science cannot do since affect is not observable. I mean, we can, of course, witness its presence, but there is a dimension of affectivity that which is not observable, and that is its good and bad essence. Put me in screaming pain and after the sciences give all due analyses, there is a residuum of what altogether defies analysis. As Wittgenstein put it, it shows itself, like logic, yet resists analysis because the bad of the screaming pain is not a construct. It is simply a given, a "presence" that language may reveal to us, but its language values do not exhaust what it is.
In this, it is metaphysical, but then: there is no metaphysics that is not "made of" the stuff in our actual presence.
Religion begins here, in the primordial scream, fist clenched raised to heaven. Or, in the bliss of being in love that seeks foundational consummation. Literature can "show" these to us.

One might say that philosophy is simply a rigorous form of literary narrative, which has gone astray in its metaphysics, just like religion.

Quoting Fooloso4

All of this leaves unanswered the question of what it is he means by religion. He mentions spiritual values, Zen, and Shinto which some regard as matters of religion or at least not distinct from religion.

Exactly. I think a distinction is being made between the absolutes of traditional Western Religion and a particular type of Spiritual truth as found in Zen. The different types of Scriptures and the ways to find enlightenment, whatever that is.

In study, there are questions and answers. As here. Words leading in circles of confusion towards a degree of clarity if we're lucky.
In the end, or the beginning of the end, it is up to the individual, perhaps best found by writing or reading with a free spirit...a natural flow or intuition? Perhaps no apparent dogma of any description but there remains a belief, a kind of truth?
Still to be analysed with that sharp knife cutting through the empty spaces.

How this translates, or might lead, to a defeat of religion is anyone's guess.

It seems to me that, from the parts I bolded, that there is an opposition to study and reason, even as he writes almost religiously that the disciple must be master of his own thoughts. But I really don't know - only having a passing acquaintance.


***

On the subject of truth or Truth.
From Kawabata's Nobel lecture:


Quoting Kawabata Nobel Lecture

There are of course masters of Zen, and the disciple is brought toward enlightenment by exchanging questions and answers with his master, and he studies the scriptures.

The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in “the discarding of words”, it lies “outside words”. And so we have the extreme of “silence like thunder”, in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra.

[...]

Saigyo frequently came and talked of poetry. His own attitude towards poetry, he said, was far from the ordinary. Cherry blossoms, the cuckoo, the moon, snow: confronted with all the manifold forms of nature, his eyes and his ears were filled with emptiness.

And were not all the words that came forth true words?
When he sang of the blossoms the blossoms were not on his mind, when he sang of the moon he did not think of the moon.

As the occasion presented itself, as the urge arose, he wrote poetry. The red rainbow across the sky was as the sky taking on color. The white sunlight was as the sky growing bright. Yet the empty sky, by its nature, was not something to become bright. It was not something to take on color. With a spirit like the empty sky he gives color to all the manifold scenes but not a trace remained.

In such poetry was the Buddha, the manifestation of the ultimate truth.”

Here we have the emptiness, the nothingness, of the Orient.

My own works have been described as works of emptiness, but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West. The spiritual foundation would seem to be quite different. Dogen entitled his poem about the seasons, “Innate Reality”, and even as he sang of the beauty of the seasons he was deeply immersed in Zen.

Reply to javi2541997
Thank you for the translation and links. Will read later.

Quoting javi2541997

Already seen it.

Looks like you've done a whole load of research. Is this for an academic qualification?
What were your conclusions after reading the article?

Quoting javi2541997

In his Nobel Prize speech Kawabata made definite and strong connection with the Zen tradition of emptiness. I personally like that formulation, that the best thing an old man can learn to do is to drink tea from an empty cup.

Yes. Noted.
Even as we might appreciate his writing, we can still consider:
How much of it is a true reflection of himself, his thoughts or no thoughts ?

Quoting Amity

Is this for an academic qualification?

No, it is just that I am curious about Japanese literature, specifically Kawabata.

Quoting Amity

What were your conclusions after reading the article?

I think he reached what Japanese mind looks like but in the ancient times, like previously to 1945 when literally everything changed to Japan.
It is important to highlight how Kawabata describe two important pillars to their books: loneliness (most of the characters tend to feel lonely in unique ways) and the role of Geisha (it is strange, but it seems that their characters pay to stay with Geishas just to pursue some affection, not sex. Nevertheless, I think they do not reach it at all)
To understand how important the Geisha role was, I think we should get into a deeper knowledge on Japanese culture.

Quoting Amity

How much of it is a true reflection of himself, his thoughts or no thoughts ?

It is known that Kawabata was a lonely man. He lived in Osaka, in an abandoned house where only a few friends or disciples can go there, you can see a video here: Kawabata and Mishima.
I personally think he developed with pride what Japan looked like through his books: green tea, haiku, silence, the art of expressing the snow, geisha, etc...