ABSTRACT
Introduction In Japan, while literature on postmodernity is seen more in the fields of art, architecture and philosophy than in sociology, interest in postmodernity - understood either as referring to recent social changes within a capitalistic framework or as a reference to criticism of modernity - now seems to be shared by a wider range of sociologists (for example, Omura et al., 1990 on religion; Takeuchi, 1991 on education; Ueno, 1991 on feminism; Sato, 1991 on networking). However, nowhere - except perhaps in the works of Imada (1987, 1989, 1991) - has any monograph fully explored the meaning and significance of postmodernity. Imada emphasises the need to 'deconstruct the modern' (in images of science, society and humanity) in order to understand the nature of ongoing social change or understand the metamorphosis of the modern into a 'completely different society' (which might be called postmodern society). Tominaga (1989, 1990) on the other hand, partly in response to postmodernists such as Imada, stresses the 'backwardness' of Japanese society in the modernisation process, while he admits that contemporary Japanese society is a triumvirate of elements: the premodern, the modern and the postmodern. These writers have never directly contradicted one another in any publication or engaged in 'debate', but as we shall see, they have provided quite contrasting views of Japanese society and its current historical stage. Consequently, I am tempted to say that their works in total constitute a 'debate'. We will attempt to evaluate this debate in its empirical, theoretical and practical aspects, with particular emphasis on the topic of stratification and status perception in contemporary Japan; for it is in this topic that we find the widest divergence of these writers' views of the modern.
