00392442

open access

Version of Record

ロンセツ キンダイ ト ブンカ ニ カンスル カセツテキ コウサツ : ヒカク ブンカ ケンキュウ エノ イチシザ トシテ

Cultural Adaptation in the Modern World : A Hypothetical Study

国際協力論集

11(1)

83-105

神戸大学大学院国際協力研究科

2003-09

2007-06-06

This is a hypothetical study on cultural adaptations of societies in the modern world. The intention of this study is to make it clear what kind of actual role cultures can play for modernization. Except for the case of England， which became the first modernized nation in the world history， the experience of modernization were trials and errors to adapt themselves to the modern world for their survivals. In other words， for such nations， successful modernization means successful adaptation to the new world. However， there is one hurdle for the nations to get over here. The modern world has no clear and fixed standard for the nations to follow. One of the most important characteristics of the modern world is fluidity of the society， as once Ernest Gellner mentioned. In the modern world， even ideologies or our understandings on our society are also rapidly changing. Here cultures must play two roles together. First， they must offer ‘chains of symbols' to the nations， by which the nations can effectively read their ‘crises' in the modern world. Culture also must offer other 'chains of symbols' to the nations to legitimate new systems. Experiences of Japan and South Korea give us lessons how actually these cultural adaptations processes are important in the modern world. One of the most important lessons we can draw from the experiences of these two nations is legitimation of the new systems. In Japan， people tends to use nationalistic symbols to legitimate their social systems. In this situation ， it is natural for the people to be afraid that changing their social systems and breaking the chains of symbols which have legitimated the systems may threaten their national identity. In contrast， Korean social systems are not legitimated by such ‘national' symbols. We may find one reason why Korea could dramatically change their systems after the financial crisis in 1997.

紀要論文