ABSTRACT
Kunio Yanagita discusses the idea of communality on three different levels. The first is the sense of communality shared nationally, that is, the sense of being Japanese; the second is the sense of communality shared within a family; and the third is the local sense of communality, found mostly in small agricultural villages. Yanagita writes of the general changes in society that had taken place since the beginning of the Meiji period. In Yanagita’s view, the persistence of a communally oriented family tradition served profoundly to stabilize the spiritual structure of Japanese society. Yanagita was particularly concerned with its destructive impact on people’s financial life. The complexity of the problem was due to the fact that a sense of communality was required at a time when the traditional communal structure was rapidly disintegrating at its very foundation. The major issue was how to re-awaken the kind of communal consciousness.
