Paper short abstract:

This paper will consider various approaches to Japanese Modernity (the convergent Modernity model; Eisenstadt's multiple modernities and the entangled/postcolonial/hybrid modernities approaches as in Therborn, Bhambra and Kōtō), and will question the validity of the dichotomy modernity/traditions.

Paper long abstract:

The relationship between Modernity and Japan has always been complicated by the status of "Japanese traditions". This complication is due to many factors, not least the importance of the development of Japanese national identity, which although intrinsically modern, is allegedly based on "traditions" more or less transformed, domesticated, selected and homogenized in the modern era. In this paper, I will deal with some theories of Modernity that in many respects thematize the relationship between Japanese "traditions" to Modernity. The first one is the theory of modernization, according to which Modernity is considered as a convergent movement toward one, specific idea of society and institutions. This approach may identify some similarities between Maruyama Masao and some Marxist theorists, behind their obvious ideological differences. The second approach is the theory of multiple modernities, developed by Samuel Eisenstadt and Robert Bellah, based on the theory of axial and non-axial civilizations, which recognized a special role to Japan in the Modern world. Whereas these two approaches define modernity in juxtaposition to "pre-modern traditions", other more recent theories explore the possibilities of bypassing or confining the dichotomy Modernity/traditions. After a brief recap of the debate on "invented traditions" by E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (1983), critically enriched by S. Vlastos' (1998) approach to Japanese modern traditions, I will focus on Göran Therborn's "entangled modernities". This model of modernity explores the possibilities of postcolonial sociology in a way comparable to Gurminder Bhambra's work and Kōtō Yōsuke's "hybrid modernity" paradigm.