Nakane’s Japanese Society as Utopian Thought

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1983

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English

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Hata, Hiromi and Wendy A. Smith. “Nakane’s Japanese Society as Utopian Thought.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 13.3 (1983): 361-88. VUW Analysis of Chie Nakane’s (b 1926) 1967 book, Tateshakai no Ningen Kankei (‘Human Relations in a Vertical Society’), which appeared in English translation in 1970 as Japanese Society. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Pelican Books, 1973. Hata and Smith assess Tateshakai’s theory of how the vertically structured nature of Japanese society explains Japanese social life; and analyse how it has framed the popular Western view of Japan. In particular, one section of the essay is devoted to Tateshakai as utopia, in which they analyse the book in terms of Ralf Dahrendorf’s five characteristics of utopian societies. They also consider her work as ideology supportive of the current Japanese power structure.

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VUW Analysis of Chie Nakane’s (b 1926) 1967 book, Tateshakai no Ningen Kankei (‘Human Relations in a Vertical Society’), which appeared in English translation in 1970 as Japanese Society. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Pelican Books, 1973. Hata and Smith assess Tateshakai’s theory of how the vertically structured nature of Japanese society explains Japanese social life; and analyse how it has framed the popular Western view of Japan. In particular, one section of the essay is devoted to Tateshakai as utopia, in which they analyse the book in terms of Ralf Dahrendorf’s five characteristics of utopian societies. They also consider her work as ideology supportive of the current Japanese power structure.