An Analysis of Fukuda Tsuneari’s Perception of the Individual : The Political Critique of Shimizu Ikutaro

Fukuda Tsueari has been perceived to be one of the leading post-war conservative thinkers in Japan. However, he also placed more emphasis on the importance of an individual in nation and society in contrast to other conservative thinkers in the country. In this article, I focus on some aspects of his emphasis on the importance of an individual, which has not been yet explored in previous research. I mainly discuss Fukuda’s critical paper on Shimizu Ikutaro, “Critique of a modern Japanese intellectual, Shimizu Ikutaro”, who published a paper “The choice of nucleus, Japan be a nation”, in 1980, which indicates his turn to a rightest nationalism from liberalism in his political thoughts. This article examines Fukuda’s perception of individualism which is revealed in his critical work on Shimizu