Foreigner for Hire The Night Who Was the Greatest--Kaei Nenma The Foreigner Who Spoke of Democracy, Ranald McDonald (Kaei Nenma)

Foreigner for Hire The Night Who Was the Greatest--Kaei Nenma The Foreigner Who Spoke of Democracy, Ranald McDonald (Kaei Nenma)

During the Kaei era, Japan was a society in which politics was based on a class order with the samurai at the top. When foreign ships arrived in Japan, officials persistently checked the rank and status of the captains because negotiation was considered to be an act to measure the balance of status. Ranald MacDonald, a gaikokujin who was present, responded to these questions by explaining that in Western society, the people were the source of authority, and office and rank were merely roles temporarily delegated to them. The warriors, however, could not understand this idea and asked, "Then who is the greatest? Therein lay the assumption of a status society in which authority was always concentrated at the top. The idea of democracy may be translatable as a word, but it is not real in a society that lacks equality before the law and individual autonomy. McDonald did not challenge the controversy, but merely described the workings of his own society, but his explanation resona
ted as an unsettling idea that could shake the order on the Japanese side. This conversation symbolically illustrates the disconnect that existed in Japan just before the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, where values themselves were not shared.