ABSTRACT
In 1968 members of conservative groups, which had dominated Japanese politics for two decades, prepared to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the "Meiji Restoration." For over a century many Japanese have been fascinated by the term "modernization" (kindaika) and intrigued by the process. In pursuit of the modern muse, thoughtful Japanese and outsiders have reflected on the ancestry of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan. In contemporary Japan, popular attitudes toward Tokugawa feudalism have been somewhat ambivalent. In modernization theory, traditional Japanese emphases on group loyalty, group coherence, group decisionmaking by consensus, and obligations to the group made possible the smooth and swift transition from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan. Meiji was an imperial era name for the period beginning in 1868. In subtle style Japanese writers have served as the social critics—the skeptical observers of modernization and its effects. Some of the elements of Tokugawa feudalism inherited by Japanese in the modern era did encourage militarism.
