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Cultural Premises and the Limits of Convergence in Modern Societies

An Examination of Some Aspects of Japanese Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Samuel N. Eisenstadt*
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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In this paper I shall attempt to analyze some comparative aspects of modern societies which bear on the problem of convergence of modern, especially industrial, societies and the closely related analytical problems of the relations between culture and social structure.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

Footnotes

*

Expanded version of a presentation to the Congrés de la Société Française de Littérature Générale et Comparée, Toulouse, 1987.

References

1 P. Burstein, "Review of Bringing the State Back," in AJS, 1987.

2 J. Baechler, "Aux origines de la modernité: castes et féodalités (Europe, Inde, Japon)," in Archives Européennes de Sociologie, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1986, pp. 31-57; J.A. Hall, Powers and Liberties, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985; Ibid., "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism," in Archives Européennes de Sociologie, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1985, pp. 193-223; M. Mann, The Source of Social Power, Vol. 1., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

3 S.N. Eisenstadt, "Macrosociology and Sociological Theory: Some New Direc tions," in Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 16, No. 5, Sep. 1987, pp. 602-609.

4 S.N. Eisenstadt (ed.), The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, Al bany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1986.

5 S.N. Eisenstadt, Culture and Social Structure: A Comparative Analysis of Civili zations, forthcoming, 1989.

6 S.N. Eisenstadt, L. Roniger, and A. Seligman, Centre Formation, Protest Move ments, and Class Structure in Europe and the United States. London, Frances Pinter Publishers, 1987.

7 S.N. Eisenstadt, Revolutions and the Transformation of Societies. New York, The Free Press, 1978.

8 S.N. Eisenstadt, M. Abitbol and N. Chazan, "The Origins of the State Recon sidered" and "State Formation in Africa, Conclusions," in The Early State in African Perspective: Culture, Power and Division of Labor, edited by S.N. Eisenstadt, M. Abitbol, and N. Chazan. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1988.

9 S.N. Eisenstadt and A. Shachar, Society, Culture and Urbanization. Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, 1987.

10 S.N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies, New York, The Free Press, 1978; E. Kamenka, (ed.), A World in Revolution?, Canberra, Aus tralian National University Press, 1970; Idem., "The Concept of a Political Revo lution", in C.J. Friedrich, (ed.), Revolution: Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, Nomos 8, New York, Atherton, 1967, pp. 122-138; B. Mazlish, A.D. Kaledin & D.R. Baloton, (eds.), Revolution, New York, Macmillan, 1971; J. Baechler, Revolutions, Oxford, Blackwell, 1976.

11 S.N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires, New York, Free Press, 1963, Chap. XII; Idem, (ed.), The Decline ofEmpires, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1966.

12 These comparative indications are worked out in greater detail in S.N. Eisen stadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies, op. cit., esp. Chap. 9.

13 On Japanese "traditional" (premodern) society see E.O. Reischauer, J.K. Fair-bank and A.M. Craig, A History of East Asian Civilization, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965; vol. 1; J.W. Hall, Japan from Prehistory to Modern Times, Lon don, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970; C. Nakane, Japanese Society, London, Weiden feld & Nicolson, 1970; H. Passin, "Japanese Society", in D.L. Sills, (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan and Free Press, 1968, Vol. 8, pp. 236-249.

14 Mark Bloch, Feudal Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1964; P. Duus, Feudalism in Japan, New York, H. Knopt, 1976.

15 T. Umesau, La formation de la civilisation moderne au Japon et son évolu tion, Leçons données au Collège de France, 1984.

16 M.E. Berry, "Public Peace and Private Attachment: The Goals and Conduct of Power in Early Modern Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies 12:1, 1986.

17 W.W. Kelly, Deference and Defiance in Nineteenth-Century Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985; A. Walthall, Social Protest and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century Japan, Tuscon, Arizona, The University of Arizona Press, 1986.

18 S.N. Eisenstadt and A. Schahar, Society, Culture and Urbanization, Beverly Hills and London, Sage Publications, 1987, ch. 11.

19 R. Smith, Japanese Society - Transition, Self and the Social Order, Cambridge University Press, 1983, ch. 2; J.O. Haley, "Sheathing the Sword of Justice in Japan:—an essay on law without sanctions," Journal of Japanese Studies, 1982, Vol. 8.2.

20 F.K. Upham, Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1986.

21 T.C. Smith, "The Right to Benevolence: Dignity and Japanese Workers, 1890-1920," in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 26, Oct. 1984.

22 I. Scheiner, "Benevolent Lords and Honorable Peasants: Rebellion and Peasant Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan," in T. Najita and I. Scheiner, (eds.), Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1978; W.W. Kelly, op. cit., 1985; A. Walthall, op. cit., 1986.

23 G. Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987.

24 J.V. Koschmann, (ed.), Authority and the Individual in Japan: Citizen Pro test in Historical Perspective, Tokyo, University of Tokyo, 1978.

25 E.S. Krauss, "Authority and the Individual in Japan," (Koschmann, ed.), Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, Summer 1981, pp. 165-180.

26 T.S. Lebra and W.P. Lebra, Japanese Culture and Behavior, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1986.

27 G. De Vos, "Dimensions of Self in Japanese Culture," J. Marsella, G. De vos, and F.L. Hsu (eds.), Culture and Self-Asian and Western Perspective, New York and London, Tavistock Publications, 1985, pp. 141-185.

28 The best illustration of the weakness of such actors is the Meiji Restoration, where no groups of this sort played an independent, formative role.

29 T. Ishida, "Non-Confrontational Strategies for Management of Interpersonal Conflict: Omote-Ura and Uchi-Soto," in Krauss & Rohlen, Steinhoff, Conflict in Japan, 1984, pp. 16-38.

30 J.L. Huffman, "The Popular Rights Debate - Political or Ideological,", in H. Wray and H. Conroy (eds.), Japan Examined - Perspectives on Modern Japanese History, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1983, pp. 98-107; R. Bowen, Re bellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan, Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, 1980.