비정치적인(non-political) 것을 다시 생각하다 — 마루야마 마사오(丸山真男)의 재가불교주의와 민주주의의 역설 —

초록

This paper examines the relationship between religion and political thought in the work of Maruyama Masao, focusing on his concept of “lay Buddhism”(在家仏教主義). Widely recognized as a leading intellectual of Japan’s postwar democratic era, Maruyama is known for his emphasis on the formation of modern subjectivity and civic political participation. However, the political and ideological disillusionment surrounding the 1960 protest movement against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty led him to critically reassess the structure of democratic engagement. This study argues that his notion of lay Buddhism, developed during this period of transition, reflects an effort to reconfigure the relationship between professional politicians and ordinary citizens, seeking to restore the vitality and legitimacy of democracy through non-professional, lay forms of political practice. Maruyama further developed this idea in his 1964 lecture on Kamakura Buddhism, particularly through his engagement with Shinran’s thought. There, he identified multiple types of relationships between royal law (secular authority) and Buddhist law (religious truth), highlighting a particular type in which religious practice, while maintaining distance from secular power, remains reflectively engaged with it. This configuration informed Maruyama’s later articulation of the “non-political” — not as withdrawal from politics, but as a form of political engagement realized through the rigorous pursuit of one’s own vocation. For Maruyama, the concept of lay Buddhism exemplified this idea: that political vitality could be restored not through direct activism alone, but through everyday practices rooted in civic autonomy and professional integrity — much like his own scholarly commitment to the history of political thought.

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