| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,300,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This study attempted to give a sociological account of Japan's encounter with Western culture in course of its modernization process from Meiji to the pre-war period in Showa. The difference as well as interactions between the elite and mass culture are studied particularly around the following three questions : (1) How did the elite and mass populations form and transform their attitudes towards Western culture? (2) How did the foreign and Japan's indigenous culture serve, either to distinguish/differentiate the elite and mass as social stratifications, or to fuse that distinction? (3) In the situation of Japan's cultural Egalization that emerged in so-called Taisho Democracy, how did the Western culture serve to facilitate the mutual interation of the two?
The conclusion drawn from this study was as follows : (a) In the shapings of Japan's modern elite culture after the Meiji era, the Western culture had played a central role. It therefore showed great affinities towards the Western countries, while its mass counterpart was more inclined to take up nationalistic attitudes because of its continuous character with her indigenous culture. (b) In course of cultural Egalization after the Taisho era, those foreign-oriented elites had to become isolated and receive attacks from the nationalistic mass population.
These findings have been put into further considerations, and I have propounded my own theory of Japan's cultural transition from the Taisho Democracy to the Showa Militarism, which was issued in the co-authored book to be published at the end of March. In the end, it has to be noted that not only the eclectic acceptance of Western culture had a significant influence upon the differentiation of the elite and the mass culture in modern Japan, but it also had a greater impact upon the country to depart from Taisho Democracy and go into the direction of Showa Militarism.
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