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This book begins with skepticism toward the habitual privileging of literature. We tend to view the language of literary works as unique. Since the early 20th century, the question of what kind of language literary works are written in has been examined repeatedly. Various answers have been proposed, such as the artistic view that sees literary language as artistic, or the formalist view that posits “non-ordinary language different from everyday language” as constituting literary works. One such approach compares literary language with the language used in business documents or administrative processes.
 
This book reexamines the boundaries between administrative language and literary works. This focus is significant because, as will be explained later, exploring the intersection of literature and administration can lead to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying language use and cognition in modern society.
 
In modern legal states, order is maintained by placing documents and procedures above the use of force or the (sometimes arbitrary) judgments of those in power. It is said that the dawn of the "administrative era" began with the French Revolution (Ben Kafka, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork, 2012, p.51). However, as such systems spread beyond state power and throughout society, they become more refined, which in turn leads to a sense of burden among society’s members due to "complex processing" (see David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs (2018), among others). Behind this lies not only the increasing complexity of administrative systems but also the emergence of massive and high-speed machinery since the Industrial Revolution, as along with materials and substances that require meticulous and careful management, such as radioactive materials. Addressing these challenges requires more than individual intuitive responses; therefore, manualization and proceduralization are essential. This is supported by the broad concept of document-based administration (operation of systems based on documents and procedures), but what arises from the operation of such systems is the "formatting" of all processes. The impacts are diverse; however, one of this book’s main focuses is control over the use of attention. We begin by questioning how the "norms of attention" unique to modern document-based administration were established, how they have influenced people's sensitivities, and how they relate to literacy education and literary norms.
 
This book neither critiques administrative processes nor endorses them. Rather, I have long believed that the perspective of administrative processes may reveal aspects of the world's underlying nervous structures that were previously obscured. For this purpose we should be more attentive to the fact of Jimu, or administration; we experience more than what we believe we do when involved in it. Jimu is not just a phase of life in which one is faced with tiresome business; we discover how one can be motivated, reassured, and even exhilarated by examining the psychological mechanism of Jimu.
 

(Written by ABE Masahiko, Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2024)