User talk:Urashimataro/Temp
Sorry for being late with my reply, but I wanted to first think about what I wanted to say.
Talking with Kintetsubuffalo is fine, of course, but what I was hoping for, what I need, was a guideline on how to proceed in future edits on the issue. The articles affected are many. The community seems uninterested in the issue, and has expressed no opinion one way or another. I am therefore not going to risk doing a lot of work that may be strongly disapproved by some.
I would like however to riassume what I am trying to do with some quotations. I have more from other authors
The editors underline the enormous importance of this article (by Kuroda Toshio), which argued that Shinto as an independent religion took shape only in the modern period, having emerged in the medieval age as an offshoot of Buddhism. - Dismantling stereotypes surrounding Japan's sacred entities, Fabio Rambelli
This is a concise exposition of the thesis. BTW, about Kuroda Toshio himself, the authoritative Nanzan Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, in 1996 shortly after his death, dedicated a whole issue to his legacy, so he is no minor figure.
Recent scholarship has shown the term [Shinto] to be highly problematic - its current content is largely a political construction of the Meiji period. Karen Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship, page 219
This quote deals with another side of the thesis. It says that the word Shinto has changed meaning several times in the course of its history, and that its present content is recent and ideologically loaded.
In recent years researchers, when talking about this era (before the Middle Ages), to avoid using the easily misinterpreted term Shinto have acquired a strong tendency to use instead other terms like jingi shinkō (kami worship). Sueki, Fumihiko (2007) (in Japanese). Chūsei no kami to hotoke. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha. Page 13, my translation.
The new enthusiasm for the study of Shinto in academic circles outside Japan is due, in no small degree, to Kuroda's groundbreaking work. Breen, John; Mark Teeuwen, eds. (July 2000). Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, page 5
Unless you believe Sueki, Breen and Teeuwen are lying, I think these last quotations put to rest fears that we are talking about a fringe theory. While completely unknown and even shocking to the non-specialist, Kuroda Toshio's work has had an enormous impact on researchers, changing their outlook.
I think taking all this into account in writing about Shinto on Wikipedia is all but necessary. Warnings must be added where necessary that there's a controversy about what Shinto exactly is, and that conflicting theories are contained in specialistic books on the subject. The word Shinto should be used with discipline. Studying Shinto can be enormously confusing because of the incompatibility between the classic view of scholars like Joseph Kitagawa and the more recent research spurred by Kuroda. Frank (Urashima Tarō) (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)