18
RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
patterns of feudal and familial Communalism under the stimulus of Western
ideas and practices exemplified by industrialism, technology, urbanization,
and democracy. This generalized view of change is consistent with the
major thrust of Western social-science work on modernization and Western-
ization which, since the time of Max Weber, has viewed the world from
Western perspectives of stability and change.
This view of change is by no means entirely false, but it is inadequate to
handle all the Japanese facts. In the first place, the efficiency of Japan’s
transformation was due in large part to the preexisting social system. Thus,
the effectiveness of urbanization in Japan was due as much to preexisting
patterns of urban life and rural-urban relations as to any borrowing of
Western concepts of urbanism. Similarly, the success of the family system
in accommodating itself to change was attributable as much to its own
structure as to any changes introduced from abroad, or to any necessary
alterations made subsequent to industrialization. The use of kin roles as
models for instrumental action was a “feudal” custom that greatly faciliated
institutional growth (Ishino 1953).
Some of the microsociai phenomena of special interest to anthropologists,
moreover, have been either resistive to change, accommodative of change,
indifferent, or neutral. The current debate over the role of kinship and
family illustrates the problems that arise when microsocial phenomena are
introduced into the argument, especially without clear acknowledgement
of the time factor. Vogel (1963) attributes the loosening of the postwar
family structure to legal changes in the Family Code, but Koyama (1962)
regards these same changes as prolongations of trends begun a long time ago
and based on industrialization and democratization. Matsumoto (1962)
and others tend to see little change and instead call attention to the persis-
tence of traditional husband-wife roles and persisting features of dozoku
relations. The same debate waxes over the issue of changes in the village
community. Namiki (1960) sees change taking place; Fukutake (1962b)
deplores the persisting sameness but has recently (1967) modified his position,
What is needed is a theory of change in the context of the relation of
micro- to macrosocial phenomena in a historical context. In general, such
a theory will necessarily take into account the distinctive forms of networks
of national social structure that have been part of the Japanese social heri-
tage since mid-Tokugawa times. This will require an alteration of the view
of Japan as undergoing wholesale change toward Western models or, where
such change is not visible, retaining “traditional” patterns. There is needed,
first, a concept of change as relative to the distinctive contemporary social
problems as the Japanese themselves define them. The modification by
communal social patterns of tensions produced by pressures to conform is
an example: these communal features may cushion the development of
alienating conditions and thereby become stronger in the process, but at