ABSTRACT
It is a curious irony that social control can be enforced through subtle, almost imperceptible, psychological pressure and that the call for conformity often finds its loudest voice in the ranks of the oppressed. The conflict between assimilation to a central ideal on the one hand, and the promotion of local culture on the other, is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in the dialect debate (hogen ronso) which raged in Okinawa for most of 1940.
