Japan's New Middle Class; The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb by Ezra F. Vogel

Author:Ezra F. Vogel [Vogel, Ezra F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Social Science, Sociology, History, Asia, Social History, Japan, Social conditions, Social Classes, Middle class
ISBN: 9780520020924
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1971-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

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source of solidarity which tends to place limitations on the extent to which they are subject to the authority of the superiors.

A second change in the pattern of loyalty is in the narrowing of the range of loyalty. The most popular epithet for criticizing traditional patterns is "feudalistic." In Mamachi, many traditional bonds have loosened or evaporated. For example, elders in the community who arbitrarily impose their will on community organizations would be considered feudalistic. Main family members in the country who make demands on the branch family in Mamachi are considered feudalistic. High status people who try to control some activities of low status people in the community are considered feudalistic. Too much interference by a work superior in the personal life of an employee would be considered feudalistic. All this means that group loyalties in contemporary Mamachi are focused on the nuclear family and the immediate work group.[9] The link between the work group and the company means on certain occasions that one is loyal to his own company vis-à-vis other companies and to his nation vis-à-vis other nations, but this wider loyalty never takes precedence over the loyalty to one's immediate group.

The narrower range of primary loyalties has minimized potential conflicts between loyalties. In comparison, for example, in the traditional Chinese or southern Italian family, which lacked a sharp limit to the loyalty required on both sides of the family, continual conflicts existed between loyalties to various relatives. In those societies, gifts or favors to certain relatives were taken as an insult to others, and lineage fission was often accompanied by family quarrels or feuds. Even in traditional Japan loyalties and obligations sometimes conflicted, and a hierarchy of primacy evolved by which conflicts were resolved. For example, in conflicting loyalties, a samurai was to neglect his family in favor of his lord. In some cases, however, as in the loyalty conflicts of friends versus relatives, it was not clear how these were to be resolved.

In contemporary Mamachi, however, because the basic loyalty is to one's immediate group, the conflicts of loyalty generally do not

[9] Caudill and Scarr found that responses to questions dealing with community relations and relations with relatives were very individualistic. Caudill and Scarr, op. cit .

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