The historical emergence of a “familial society” in Japan

Theory and Society

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 237-279

  Lo, Ming Cheng M ^a,b   Bettinger, Christopher P ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035535216     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1011089425333     Document Type: Review

References (113)

1. Diagoro Goh, "The Family Relations in Japan." Paper read at the eighth ordinary meeting (fourth of the second session), April 12, 1893 (London: The Japan Society, 1893), 5.
2. Lawrence Hsieh, "Japan Sees the Firm as Family: A U.S. View," National Law Journal 14 (1992): 27. Hidemasa Morikawa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992); Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970); Eisuke Sakakibara and Yukio Noguchi, "Dissecting the Finance Ministry - Bank of Japan Dynasty," Japan Echo 4 (1977): 88-124.
3. Lawrence Hsieh, "Japan Sees the Firm as Family: A U.S. View," National Law Journal 14 (1992): 27. Hidemasa Morikawa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992); Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970); Eisuke Sakakibara and Yukio Noguchi, "Dissecting the Finance Ministry - Bank of Japan Dynasty," Japan Echo 4 (1977): 88-124.
4. Lawrence Hsieh, "Japan Sees the Firm as Family: A U.S. View," National Law Journal 14 (1992): 27. Hidemasa Morikawa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992); Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970); Eisuke Sakakibara and Yukio Noguchi, "Dissecting the Finance Ministry - Bank of Japan Dynasty," Japan Echo 4 (1977): 88-124.
5. Lawrence Hsieh, "Japan Sees the Firm as Family: A U.S. View," National Law Journal 14 (1992): 27. Hidemasa Morikawa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992); Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970); Eisuke Sakakibara and Yukio Noguchi, "Dissecting the Finance Ministry - Bank of Japan Dynasty," Japan Echo 4 (1977): 88-124.
6. Kumiko Makihara, "In the Diet, It's All in the Family: The Prevalence of Second-Generation Politicians Raises Fears that Politics is Being Restricted to an Elite Kinship Network," Time 135 (1990): 46.
7. Karl Taro Greenfeld, Speed Tribes (New York: Harper Colins, 1994); John C. Pierce, "Culture, Politics and Mass Publics: Traditional and Modern Supporters of the New Environmental Paradigm in Japan and the United States," Journal of Peace Studies 49 (1987): 54-79.
8. Karl Taro Greenfeld, Speed Tribes (New York: Harper Colins, 1994); John C. Pierce, "Culture, Politics and Mass Publics: Traditional and Modern Supporters of the New Environmental Paradigm in Japan and the United States," Journal of Peace Studies 49 (1987): 54-79.
9. Joy Hendry, Understanding Japanese Society, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 1995); Karl van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).
10. Joy Hendry, Understanding Japanese Society, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 1995); Karl van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).
11. Electronic Tribe (Northbrook, IL: Coronet Film & Video, 1988); Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power.
12. Electronic Tribe (Northbrook, IL: Coronet Film & Video, 1988); Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power.
13. There are, of course, many anthropologists who make similar observations without imposing the teleology of modernism. See Takie Sugiyana Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976).
14. Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior; Ichirō Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan (Tokyo: Kondansha International, 1994); Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power. While these works and others certainly include kinship ties and family structure as causal variables, it is important to note that few give these factors the main causal impact in creating the social problem they are addressing.
15. Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior; Ichirō Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan (Tokyo: Kondansha International, 1994); Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power. While these works and others certainly include kinship ties and family structure as causal variables, it is important to note that few give these factors the main causal impact in creating the social problem they are addressing.
16. Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior; Ichirō Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan (Tokyo: Kondansha International, 1994); Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power. While these works and others certainly include kinship ties and family structure as causal variables, it is important to note that few give these factors the main causal impact in creating the social problem they are addressing.
17. Hall, among others, develops a more rigorous definition of civil society, which includes "the presence of strong and autonomous social groups able to balance the state" as well as "a high degree of civility in social relations." John A. Hall, "In Search of Civil Society," in John A. Hall, editor, Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 1-31. Other scholars have put forth similar arguments. For Bryant, civil society should be understood "in terms of the associations of citizens - social self-organization - between households and state and aside from the market"; with a focus on civility, civic associations are conceptualized to be "conducted within a framework of law and convention." Christopher G. A. Bryant, "Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 148. Similarly, Giner's conception of civil society also stresses "the network of relatively independent institutions. as well as the cultural attitudes of civility and tolerance which are an indispensable part of [a country's] civic and political culture." Salvador Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 303.
18. Hall, among others, develops a more rigorous definition of civil society, which includes "the presence of strong and autonomous social groups able to balance the state" as well as "a high degree of civility in social relations." John A. Hall, "In Search of Civil Society," in John A. Hall, editor, Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 1-31. Other scholars have put forth similar arguments. For Bryant, civil society should be understood "in terms of the associations of citizens - social self-organization - between households and state and aside from the market"; with a focus on civility, civic associations are conceptualized to be "conducted within a framework of law and convention." Christopher G. A. Bryant, "Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 148. Similarly, Giner's conception of civil society also stresses "the network of relatively independent institutions. as well as the cultural attitudes of civility and tolerance which are an indispensable part of [a country's] civic and political culture." Salvador Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 303.
19. Hall, among others, develops a more rigorous definition of civil society, which includes "the presence of strong and autonomous social groups able to balance the state" as well as "a high degree of civility in social relations." John A. Hall, "In Search of Civil Society," in John A. Hall, editor, Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 1-31. Other scholars have put forth similar arguments. For Bryant, civil society should be understood "in terms of the associations of citizens - social self-organization - between households and state and aside from the market"; with a focus on civility, civic associations are conceptualized to be "conducted within a framework of law and convention." Christopher G. A. Bryant, "Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 148. Similarly, Giner's conception of civil society also stresses "the network of relatively independent institutions. as well as the cultural attitudes of civility and tolerance which are an indispensable part of [a country's] civic and political culture." Salvador Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 303.
20. Habermas locates a "public sphere" between these institutions of private interiority and public authority. He argues that, in the Western past, it was precisely the formation of individuality in the private sphere that enabled participation in both the spaces of public sphere and public authority. See Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: the MIT Press, 1989), particularly Chapter II, "Social Structures of the Public Sphere." Within this realm of private individualism, "the political self-understanding of the bourgeois public originated." It was through this self-understanding that state control of public functions "was contested and finally wrestled away by the critical reasoning of private persons," (29). Thus, the "subjectivity originating in the intimate sphere of the conjugal family" (29), in Habermas's and his followers' understanding, provides the foundation for the development of Western public spheres. It is useful to remind ourselves that for Habermas, his theorization about the public sphere is never meant to be abstracted from the specific historical context of the European High Middle Ages. See Craig Calhoun, "Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere," in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: the MIT Press), 1-48. By implication, the role that the "subjectivity originating in the intimate sphere of the conjugal family" plays should also be understood in varying contexts.
21. Habermas locates a "public sphere" between these institutions of private interiority and public authority. He argues that, in the Western past, it was precisely the formation of individuality in the private sphere that enabled participation in both the spaces of public sphere and public authority. See Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: the MIT Press, 1989), particularly Chapter II, "Social Structures of the Public Sphere." Within this realm of private individualism, "the political self-understanding of the bourgeois public originated." It was through this self-understanding that state control of public functions "was contested and finally wrestled away by the critical reasoning of private persons," (29). Thus, the "subjectivity originating in the intimate sphere of the conjugal family" (29), in Habermas's and his followers' understanding, provides the foundation for the development of Western public spheres. It is useful to remind ourselves that for Habermas, his theorization about the public sphere is never meant to be abstracted from the specific historical context of the European High Middle Ages. See Craig Calhoun, "Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere," in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: the MIT Press), 1-48. By implication, the role that the "subjectivity originating in the intimate sphere of the conjugal family" plays should also be understood in varying contexts.
22. Şerif Mardin, "Civil Society and Islam," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 295.
23. Bryant, "Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion," 143 and 145.
24. Ernest Gellner, "The Importance of Being Modular," in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, 41-42.
25. Gellner, "The Importance of Being Modular," 42.
26. Hall, "In Search of Civil Society"; Frank Trentmann, "Introduction," in Frank Trentmann, editor, Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on Modern German and British History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 3-46.
27. Hall, "In Search of Civil Society"; Frank Trentmann, "Introduction," in Frank Trentmann, editor, Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on Modern German and British History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 3-46.
28. Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," 306.
29. Trentmann, "Introduction," 4.
30. Somers offers one of the most elaborate explanations of the term "emplotment." According to her, "narratives are constellations of relationships (connected parts) embedded in time and place, constituted by what I call causal emplotment. Unlike the attempt to explain a single isolated phenomenon. The connectivity of parts is precisely why narrativity turns 'events' into episodes, whether the sequence of episodes is presented or experienced in anything resembling chronological order. It is causal emplotment that gives significance to independent instances, not their chronological or categorical order." Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation," Social Science History 16 [1992]: 601. In a later article, Somers clarifies the role of human agents in the process of emplotment. According to her, actors embed themselves in a web of social and discursive relationships, which, to be sure, change over time and space. Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach," Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605-649. Thus, they are constantly weaving an ever-changing story that incorporates other stories and cultural products. Janet Hart provides us with a detailed empirical example of narrative analysis in social science. She concurs with Somers in identifying emplotment to be "the most important element in the construction and deconstruction of narratives." Hart, New Voices in the Nation: Women in the Greek Resistance, 1941-1964 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996) 48.
31. Somers offers one of the most elaborate explanations of the term "emplotment." According to her, "narratives are constellations of relationships (connected parts) embedded in time and place, constituted by what I call causal emplotment. Unlike the attempt to explain a single isolated phenomenon. The connectivity of parts is precisely why narrativity turns 'events' into episodes, whether the sequence of episodes is presented or experienced in anything resembling chronological order. It is causal emplotment that gives significance to independent instances, not their chronological or categorical order." Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation," Social Science History 16 [1992]: 601. In a later article, Somers clarifies the role of human agents in the process of emplotment. According to her, actors embed themselves in a web of social and discursive relationships, which, to be sure, change over time and space. Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach," Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605-649. Thus, they are constantly weaving an ever-changing story that incorporates other stories and cultural products. Janet Hart provides us with a detailed empirical example of narrative analysis in social science. She concurs with Somers in identifying emplotment to be "the most important element in the construction and deconstruction of narratives." Hart, New Voices in the Nation: Women in the Greek Resistance, 1941-1964 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996) 48.
32. Somers offers one of the most elaborate explanations of the term "emplotment." According to her, "narratives are constellations of relationships (connected parts) embedded in time and place, constituted by what I call causal emplotment. Unlike the attempt to explain a single isolated phenomenon. The connectivity of parts is precisely why narrativity turns 'events' into episodes, whether the sequence of episodes is presented or experienced in anything resembling chronological order. It is causal emplotment that gives significance to independent instances, not their chronological or categorical order." Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation," Social Science History 16 [1992]: 601. In a later article, Somers clarifies the role of human agents in the process of emplotment. According to her, actors embed themselves in a web of social and discursive relationships, which, to be sure, change over time and space. Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach," Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605-649. Thus, they are constantly weaving an ever-changing story that incorporates other stories and cultural products. Janet Hart provides us with a detailed empirical example of narrative analysis in social science. She concurs with Somers in identifying emplotment to be "the most important element in the construction and deconstruction of narratives." Hart, New Voices in the Nation: Women in the Greek Resistance, 1941-1964 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996) 48.
33. Chandra Mukerji, "Monsters and Muppets: The History of Childhood and Techniques of Cultural Analysis," in Elizabeth Long, editor, From Sociology to Cultural Studies: New Perspectives (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 158.
34. Mukerji, "Monsters and Muppets," 158.
35. Ibid., 159.
36. Such ideological structures are sometimes referred to as collective narratives. Steinmetz coined this term and Somers, in the same arena, used the term "public narratives." George Steinmetz, "Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation: Narrative Theory in the Social Sciences," Social Science History 16 (1992): 489-516; and Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action." Somers defines collective/public narratives as "those narratives attached to cultural and institutional formations larger than the single individual. [which] range from the narratives of one's family, to those of the workplace (organizational myth), church, government, and nation. " Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity," 619.
37. Such ideological structures are sometimes referred to as collective narratives. Steinmetz coined this term and Somers, in the same arena, used the term "public narratives." George Steinmetz, "Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation: Narrative Theory in the Social Sciences," Social Science History 16 (1992): 489-516; and Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action." Somers defines collective/public narratives as "those narratives attached to cultural and institutional formations larger than the single individual. [which] range from the narratives of one's family, to those of the workplace (organizational myth), church, government, and nation. " Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity," 619.
38. Such ideological structures are sometimes referred to as collective narratives. Steinmetz coined this term and Somers, in the same arena, used the term "public narratives." George Steinmetz, "Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation: Narrative Theory in the Social Sciences," Social Science History 16 (1992): 489-516; and Margaret Somers, "Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action." Somers defines collective/public narratives as "those narratives attached to cultural and institutional formations larger than the single individual. [which] range from the narratives of one's family, to those of the workplace (organizational myth), church, government, and nation. " Somers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity," 619.
39. Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 16.
40. For a discussion on how the postwar period has been constructed as a prolonged moment in Japanese history, see Andrew Gordon, editor, Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
41. Pierre Bourdieu, "Principles for a Sociology of Cultural Works" in The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, edited and introduced by Randal Johnson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 187.
42. Ryōsuke Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era, translated and adapted by William J. Chambliss (Tokyo: Pan-Pacific Press, 1958), 578.
43. W.G. Beasely, The Rise of Modern Japan (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990); Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths.
44. W.G. Beasely, The Rise of Modern Japan (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990); Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths.
45. The term "lawmaker" should not be taken to denote a popularly elected official who forms legislation as a representative of some broad constituency. We use it here simply to identify those who were responsible for drafting, debating, and eventually issuing laws. These officials are probably better described as bureaucrats and oligarchs who imposed laws without paying much attention to the wishes of those who would be affected. Of course, the terms "bureaucrat" and "oligarch" have their own connotative problems and so we use "lawmaker" in a simple descriptive sense. We are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possible confusion.
46. As quoted in Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, 19.
47. The perception of Western civilization and Japanese morality as a binary opposition was widespread among the elite during the Meiji period. Court Confucian scholars, political oligarchs, and reformed-minded scholars who favored the separation of a secular state from any religions concurred on one thing - the need for a civic morality in this new and unsettling era. "The perception that 'civilization' and a constitution without moral foundations would result in the destruction of common social decency and the disappearance of a higher ethical sense was widespread among members of the establishment." Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, 111.
48. Takeshi Ishida, Nihon kindai shisōshi ni okeru hō to seiji (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1976), 145, translation ours. These debates involved numerous parties and covered a broad range of issues. The process and content of these debates were very important in shaping the final outcome of the Civil Code and, as we are not able to do justice to reviewing the topic in our limited space here, we have to bracket this issue. For a good summary of these debates on the role of the family, see Masao Fukushima, Fukushima Masao Chosakushi (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1993-1996).
49. Takeshi Ishida, Nihon kindai shisōshi ni okeru hō to seiji (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1976), 145, translation ours. These debates involved numerous parties and covered a broad range of issues. The process and content of these debates were very important in shaping the final outcome of the Civil Code and, as we are not able to do justice to reviewing the topic in our limited space here, we have to bracket this issue. For a good summary of these debates on the role of the family, see Masao Fukushima, Fukushima Masao Chosakushi (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1993-1996).
50. The Civil Code created a new public sphere where interactions between people were no longer personal issues. The creation of the concept of "public sanction" represents the authority of the newly established space that existed outside of the state and the private sphere. See Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era, 634. Furthermore, contractual behavior based on private ownership became the rational model for regulating this civil society. See 623-626 and 638-657. It appears, therefore, that ideas of the public sphere and contracts were the concrete products of state initiated debate over the Civil Code.
51. For a comprehensive discussion of the Civil Code in English, see Part Three of Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era. For an English translation of the complete code, see J. E. de Backer, Annotated Civil Code of Japan (London: Butterworth, 1909-1910).
52. For a comprehensive discussion of the Civil Code in English, see Part Three of Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era. For an English translation of the complete code, see J. E. de Backer, Annotated Civil Code of Japan (London: Butterworth, 1909-1910).
53. See Sections 2 and 3 of chapter two in the Book on Relatives in the Civil Code.
54. Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, 111.
55. James Boyd White, Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law, and Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
56. This universalized "tradition" originated from the samurai class, which constituted about five percent of the population during the Tokugawa period. It was more an imposed invention than a "tradition" to other social classes. For example, the law almost completely denies the legitimacy of farmers' traditions. See Sharon H. Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, "The Meiji State's Policy Toward Women, 1890-1910," in Gail Lee Bernstein, editor, Recreating Japanese Women (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).
57. Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era, 664.
58. Ishii provides a very good explanation of the samurai origin of family laws: "During the Edo period, the livelihood of the samurai became completely enmeshed in a vassal-lord relationship that made the vassal both dependent on the lord for a grant of land and subject to the lord's interference in all spheres of his personal relations. [T]he standards of the commoners with respect to their relatives and succession were left undisturbed except where these standards direcly or indirectly affected feudal relations. But in attaining uniformity, there was uncertainty for awhile as to whether the standards of the bushi or the commoners would prevail. At first there was some chance that the Civil Code might adopt the standards of the commoners, which were less feudalistic than those of the bushi, and infuse them with the principles governing the modern family. Nevertheless, in the end., The law relative to status had become reactionary and had veered toward the feudalistic standards of the bushi. This result was perhaps only natural, because the officials responsible for reviewing and revising the draft code were mostly of bushi origin and, what is more, the government desired to keep the feudalistic Japanese house under the rule of the traditional house head." Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era, 660-661.
59. For a concise discussion of the feudalistic nature of the rules governing the household in the Civil Code, see Yutaka Tezuka, Meiji Minpō shi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Keiō Tsūshin, 1991), 23-29.
60. Tezuka, Meiji Minpō shi no kenkyū, 11-15; Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era.
61. Tezuka, Meiji Minpō shi no kenkyū, 11-15; Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era.
62. Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era; Nobushige Hozumi, Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law, 6th edition, revised by Shigeto Hozumi (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, [1912] 1940).
63. Ishii, Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era; Nobushige Hozumi, Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law, 6th edition, revised by Shigeto Hozumi (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, [1912] 1940).
64. The gembun itchi was one of the first among a vast number of literary movements that emerged during the mid to late Meiji Era. These movements were spurred on by enormous expansions of the publishing industry after the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. From the publication of Tsubouchi's article to the end of the Meiji Era, the number of newspapers in Japan increased by a factor of five. See Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths for an excellent overview of this expansion.
65. Marleigh Grayer Ryan, Japan's First Modern Novel: Ukigumo of Futabatei Shimei, translation and critical commentary by Marleigh Grayer Ryan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 201-202.
66. Ryan, Japan's First Modern Novel, 246.
67. Ibid., 248.
68. Osei is the product of a prior union of Omasa's. She is not a blood relation of Bunzō's.
69. The disgrace of giving up your surname was actually taken up by Futabatei again in his second novel, Sono Omokage (An Adopted Husband) and, as here in Ukigumo, it is closely linked to female aggressiveness.
70. Ryan, Japan's First Modern Novel, 206.
71. Ibid., 206.
72. Osei is an ideal object of competition since she has little of her own subjectivity to complicate the competitive equation. "Osei was a faddist by nature and found it necessary to mimic others even when she grew up." Ryan, Japan's First Modern Novel, 209. Because she wants to mimic a neighbor's daughter, she becomes educated and actually studies English, although with an ambivalence that reflects her failure to determine why she is studying. Without a strong ethical foundation of her own, she is fair game for the two competing principles represented by the two characters.
73. It is important to note that Meiji lawmakers and Futabatei shared a common project of universalizing samurai family norms as the singular, worthwhile Japanese tradition. Just as only samurai family obligations enter into the Civil Code, the only extra-samurai presence in Ukigumo is found in the person of a vacuous maid who has no autonomous ability to act or make moral choices. She is without culture and therefore can posit no third choice outside the social contract/samurai family obligation dichotomy.
74. Leslie Pincus, Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 228.
75. Chūta Itō, Nihon Kenchiku no Kenkyū, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Hara Shobu, 1983 [1937]).
76. Most of the lobbying efforts concerning Meiji Jingū centered around the issue of Shintoism. The Department of Shinto had been dissolved in 1871 because the government found it undesirable to promote Shintoism as a de facto state religion if it alienated Buddhist and Christian citizens. Shintoism was brought back into official government circles with the establishment of the Shrine Bureau of the Home Ministry in 1900. However, Shintoism's return was in a much different form. The Shrine Bureau managed to maintain a highly ambiguous position on Shintoism, most often arguing that shrines could be non-religious public memorials that drew on the Shinto celebration of the universal Japanese kokutai. Such statements were decried by both Shintoists (who saw themselves being denied their rightful government sanction) and Buddhists and Christians (who saw this as a transparent attempt to favor Shintoism). Nevertheless, the Shrine Bureau was able to maintain this ambiguous position and, as a result, Meiji Jingū is at once both a religious shrine and a secular memorial. The Emperor Meiji can be worshipped in this space but the decision to do so is individual; the shrine facilitates but does not require such religious compliance. For an excellent discussion of these issues, see Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, 138-143.
77. Magali Sarfatti Larson, "Reading Architecture in the Holocaust Memorial Museum: A Method and an Empirical Illustration" in Elizabeth Long, editor, From Sociology to Culture Studies: New Perspectives (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 84.
78. Itō Chūta was one of the greatest pioneers of Japanese architecture and the foremost advocate of a theory of "progressive/evolutionary Japanese style," which attempted to integrate national character and modernity. In the Meiji Era, Western architectural styles and materials (such as concrete and steel) were considered by many to be more suitable for public buildings than traditional Japanese wooden structures. See Shōishirō Fujii and Hroshi Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen (Tokyo, 1973). However, Itō questioned whether either total Westernization or self-conscious combination of Japanese and Western traditions could form Japanese national identity. Based on his studies of the history of building in Japan as well as Chinese design and European architecture, Itō developed the theory of kenchiku shinka (architectural evolutionism) See Fujii and Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen, and Teijirō Muramatsu, editor, Nihon no kenchiku - Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, v. 18 (Tokyo: Sanshōdō, 1983). He argued that building in any country was rooted in a particular cultural background and that it evolved in accordance with social and material change. While foreign elements could be absorbed slowly into one's tradition under the appropriate conditions (as in the example of Chinese influence on Japanese architecture), suddenly adopting such elements would only undermine original styles. In short, Itō argued that the route to a modern Japanese architecture was to improve Japanese tradition with gradual and "Japanized" foreign influence.
79. Itō Chūta was one of the greatest pioneers of Japanese architecture and the foremost advocate of a theory of "progressive/evolutionary Japanese style," which attempted to integrate national character and modernity. In the Meiji Era, Western architectural styles and materials (such as concrete and steel) were considered by many to be more suitable for public buildings than traditional Japanese wooden structures. See Shōishirō Fujii and Hroshi Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen (Tokyo, 1973). However, Itō questioned whether either total Westernization or self-conscious combination of Japanese and Western traditions could form Japanese national identity. Based on his studies of the history of building in Japan as well as Chinese design and European architecture, Itō developed the theory of kenchiku shinka (architectural evolutionism) See Fujii and Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen, and Teijirō Muramatsu, editor, Nihon no kenchiku - Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, v. 18 (Tokyo: Sanshōdō, 1983). He argued that building in any country was rooted in a particular cultural background and that it evolved in accordance with social and material change. While foreign elements could be absorbed slowly into one's tradition under the appropriate conditions (as in the example of Chinese influence on Japanese architecture), suddenly adopting such elements would only undermine original styles. In short, Itō argued that the route to a modern Japanese architecture was to improve Japanese tradition with gradual and "Japanized" foreign influence.
80. Itō Chūta was one of the greatest pioneers of Japanese architecture and the foremost advocate of a theory of "progressive/evolutionary Japanese style," which attempted to integrate national character and modernity. In the Meiji Era, Western architectural styles and materials (such as concrete and steel) were considered by many to be more suitable for public buildings than traditional Japanese wooden structures. See Shōishirō Fujii and Hroshi Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen (Tokyo, 1973). However, Itō questioned whether either total Westernization or self-conscious combination of Japanese and Western traditions could form Japanese national identity. Based on his studies of the history of building in Japan as well as Chinese design and European architecture, Itō developed the theory of kenchiku shinka (architectural evolutionism) See Fujii and Yamaguchi, Nihon Kenchiku Sengen, and Teijirō Muramatsu, editor, Nihon no kenchiku - Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, v. 18 (Tokyo: Sanshōdō, 1983). He argued that building in any country was rooted in a particular cultural background and that it evolved in accordance with social and material change. While foreign elements could be absorbed slowly into one's tradition under the appropriate conditions (as in the example of Chinese influence on Japanese architecture), suddenly adopting such elements would only undermine original styles. In short, Itō argued that the route to a modern Japanese architecture was to improve Japanese tradition with gradual and "Japanized" foreign influence.
81. Chūta Itō, Nihon Kenchiku no Kenkyū, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Hara shobō, 1983 [1937]), 270-271.
82. The correspondence between state and social elite productions is by no means clear or unvaried. However, recent work would seem to indicate a strong correspondence. See Pincus, Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan.
83. Itō, Nihon Kenchiku no Kenkyū, vol. 2, 269.
84. Ibid., vol. 2.
85. Similarly, the Shinto family-state claimed that Buddhists and Christians alike could enjoy the shrine since it was part of a common heritage. Shintoism claimed the supreme ground by allowing these other groups "freedom" under its umbrella.
86. For example, Kazue's study finds that a Western concept of "home" began to threaten and replace the traditional notion of ie in the Meiji period. "There appeared in early-Meiji Japan a consciousness of the need for a new type of family. This desire eventually came to be symbolized in the word 'home' (katei). This new consciousness was influenced by modernization, industrialization, and a general leaning toward the West. It incorporated a critique of the patrilineal extended family system that made it absolutely imperative to maintain the family property and to have successive heirs at the head of the family. It also implied an attitude that attempted to place priority on the affection and comfort of family members." Kazue, 1994, 67. However, this modernized "home" was described as the very foundation of modernization and industrialization, and hence constructed as an agent for the national-family. "It seems clear that this situation was promoted by the ideology of the family-state." Muta Kazue, "Images of the Family in Meiji Periodicals: The Paradox Underlying the Emergence of the 'Home,'" U.S.-Japan Women's Journal (English Supplement) 7 (1994), 68.
87. In Gellner's words, the non-modularity of the ideology of the family-state was symptomatic of the marginalization of critical, universalistic interpretations that would balance against a dominant, traditionalistic "Umma." For Gellner, "the coming of civil society, a society liberal in the modern and not in the ancient, non-liberal, cousinly and ritualized though plural sense, presupposed two things: a political stalemate between the rival contestants, such as in fact occurred in seventeenth-century England, leading to a compromise consisting of a watered-down ritualism and mediation at the centre, and a so-to-speak privatized Umma at home among the minoritarian enthusiasts; and, prior to all this, the kind of balance between mediation-cum-ritualism (the left-over from communal religion) and universalistic-doctrinal elements, which in fact is found in Christianity." Gellner, "The Importance of Being Modular," 38.
88. J. Victor Koschmann,"Intellectuals and Politics," in Andrew Gordon, editor. Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
89. Gordon, Postwar Japan as History.
90. For excellent overviews on this process of recovery, see Carol Gluck, "The People in History: Recent Trends in Japanese Historiography," Journal of Asian Studies 38 (1993): 25-50; and Koschmann, "Intellectuals and Politics."
91. For excellent overviews on this process of recovery, see Carol Gluck, "The People in History: Recent Trends in Japanese Historiography," Journal of Asian Studies 38 (1993): 25-50; and Koschmann, "Intellectuals and Politics."
92. In this respect, they shared ground with Marxist scholars of the time. The differences between the two groups have to do with the Minshūshi scholars' belief in a greater autonomy of culture and its impact on social structure as well as the inability of Japanese culture to be captured by Western categories.
93. Gluck, "The People in History: Recent Trends in Japanese Historiography," 26-27.
94. Daikichi Irokawa, Meijino Bunka, translated by Marius B. Jansen (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), 276.
95. Irokawa, Meiji no Bunka, 14.
96. Ibid., xiv.
97. Ibid., 263.
98. Ibid., 275. Emphasis ours.
99. Ibid., 275.
100. Ibid., 279-280.
101. Ibid., 281.
102. Bryant, "Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion," 153.
103. Ibid., 145.
104. This is not to say that fragmentation of the Church alone accounts for the historical development of cool civility. In his classic The Civilizing Process, Elias traces the long and circuitous development of civility in the West, illuminating a complex web of influences. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994). Moreover, "to understand the control of conduct which a society imposes on its members, it is not enough to know the rational goals that can be adduced to explain its commands and prohibitions; we must trace to their source the fears which induce the members of this society, and above all the custodians of its precepts, to control conduct in this way" (519). The development of courtly courtoisie in the form of prohibitions on weapons at the dining table or using table knives in a "warlike" manner arose in part from fears of unchecked knightly aggression and a need to constrain violent behavior. The coolness of social relations based on such temporarily checked hostility is illustrative of the distinction we are drawing. We are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this example.
105. Trentmann, "Introduction," 39.
106. Ibid., 39. Emphasis ours.
107. Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," 307.
108. See Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989); Craig Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992).
109. See Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989); Craig Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992).
110. Giner, "Civil Society and its Future," 307.
111. Trentmann, "Introduction," 27.
112. Ibid., 39.
113. Ibid., 38.