Introduction - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 19

always part of what becomes knowledge. This distinguished him

from his contemporary Durkheim, and his belief in the possibility of an
objective analysis based on a deductive view of

' objective '

. While much
criticism has been made about such knowledge production, it still char-
acterises much political science literature, where fundamental issues of a priori
conceptualisation go mostly unacknowledged. Standards of objectivity bear
their clear mark of history as does the process of recognising this fact. In
Discourse On Language (1972), Foucault discusses how the production of
truth is to be understood as statements capable of being taken seriously as true
or false. This dilemma is central to anthropological knowledge, and central to
understanding the power or resistance to the homogenising discourses.
I discuss the fascinating but rather problematic issue of motivation in
regards to three main issues here:

' social facts '

first, whether the claim to religious moti-
vation should be accepted at face value, especially as religious adherents
engage in politics. Alternatively, the modern dominant view has been that
politicians are essentially power-seeking, something that makes participation
in politics troublesome when there are connections to

' religion ' . Second, this

relates to the ' secular ' critique that ' religious ' motivation is somehow improper

or abnormal as it is set against scienti c rationalism which is simultaneously

regarded as rational and proper by its very de nition. Such assumptions are

part of the Japanese media ambivalence or even hostility to religious groups '

involvement in politics despite the fact that their involvement is common in
Japan, and certainly in the case of Soka Gakkai is not reactionary. The
dichotomies and ambivalence revolve around the secular critique of religion,
and around Japan is experience of State Shinto. A third issue is the way my

own relative co-religionist subject position as an SGI (Soka Gakkai Interna-
tional) member in the UK led to a di

'

'
about the people under study. The insider/outsider distinction is usually taken
for granted to mean being more subjective/more objective. As a relative insi-
der, it does predispose me to accept some irreducible component to religious
experience and the motivations that stem from it. This does not mean that I
think everyone has the same experience or is motivated in the same way, but
it does result in being less likely to accept the ambivalence or hostility felt
towards this religion displayed by those classi

erent kind of ' knowledge production

ed as outsiders by their greater

' experience. I would argue that independent

of the seeming distance from the topic of research, there is a need to make great
e

distance ' from their informants '

ection whereby con-
ceptual frameworks that inform observation become apparent and critically
approached.
A more abstract, deductive approach de

ort to strive for objectivity as a process of self-re

nes social phenomena more in
line with a priori notion in which subjects tend to be viewed as objects in need
of accurate categorisation. There is less recognition that this framing

is
also a social practice. While the anthropologist takes this issue more seriously,
this does not, of course, guarantee objectivity. However, as the search for an
objective external reality dissipates into the historical reality it is, the question

' truth '