Jun Tsuji

• Name — Tsuji Jun • Born — 4 October 1884 • Birthplace — Tōkyō, Japan • Died — 24 November 1944 • Place of death — Tōkyō, Japan • Death Cause — Starvation • Era — 20th century philosophy • School Tradition — Nihilism, Epicureanism, Egoist anarchism, Individualist anarchism, Dada • Main Interests — Stirner, vagabondage, Shakuhachi as Dada, Japanese Buddhism • Notable Ideas — Dada as the Creative Nothing, the Unmensch • Illustration — The cover of Jun Tsuji's translated edition of The Ego and Its Own. Tsuji Jun was a Japanese author: a poet, essayist, playwright, and translator. He has also been described as a Dadaist, nihilist, Epicurean, shakuhachi musician, actor and bohemian. He translated Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own and Cesare Lombroso's The Man of Genius into Japanese. Born in Tōkyō, Tsuji sought escape in literature from a childhood he described as "nothing but destitution, hardship, and a series of traumatizing difficulties". He became interested in the works of Tolstoy, Kōtoku Shūsui's socialist anarchism, and the literature of Oscar Wilde and Voltaire, among many others. Later, in 1920 Tsuji was introduced to Dada and became a self-proclaimed first Dadaist of Japan, a title also claimed by Tsuji's contemporary, Shinkichi Takahashi. Tsuji became a fervent proponent of Stirnerite egoist anarchism, which would become a point of contention between himself and Takahashi. He wrote one of the prologues for famed feminist poet Hayashi Fumiko's 1929 (I Saw a Pale Horse and was active in the radical artistic circles of his time.

Tsuji was influenced by the philosophy of Epicurus, and many characteristics of Epicureanism show through his lifestyle. For example, Tsuji avoided active engagement in politics and sought after a form of ataraxia, which he was apparently able to experience through vagabond wandering and Egoism. He also spent his time primarily trying to enjoy a simple life free of suffering (see Aponia). While his writings themselves are significant, it seems Tsuji's own emphasis was on developing an experimental, liberated lifestyle. Most of Tsuji's writings describe the philosophy behind this, as well as the personal process Tsuji went through towards this aim. As Hagiwara Kyōjirō (萩原 恭次郎) wrote, “Tsuji chose not to express himself with a pen so much as he chose to express himself through living, as conveyed by his personality. That is, Tsuji himself was his expression's piece of work”.

One notable play written by Tsuji is the dadaist/absurdist Death of an Epicurean, in which a figure must confront Panta Rhei, or the transient nature of all things. Tsuji saw the concept of Panta Rhei to be related to Stirner's Creative Nothing, wherein the nihility of all things provides potential for creativity and change. Tsuji also found this relevant to the Buddhist concept of nothingness. In Death of an Epicurean, Tsuji comments on the destruction of the Ryōunkaku (Cloud-surpassing Tower) in the area of Tokyo he often called home, Asakusa. This building was a skyscraper that had become very much a symbol of modernity in Japan, and its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake was a harrowing omen to many who saw it as reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. Authors such as Ishikawa Takuboku popularized the building's symbolism in literature.

Tsuji wrote during the 1920s, a dangerous period in Japanese history for controversial writers, during which he experienced the wages of censorship through police harassment. He also experienced this vicariously through the persecution of close associates such as his former wife, anarcha-feminist Itō Noe, who was murdered in the Amakasu Incident. For being a controversial writer in the heart of Tokyo's radical art scene, Tsuji himself believed that had he been living instead as a peasant in the Soviet Union at the time, he would surely have been shot to death.