<論文>農民と「近代」 : 戦前期農村社会における農民意識の重層

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make clear the social consciousness of the peasants in Modern Japan in terms of historical sociology. We tend to think that the peasants in Modern Japan were distant from modernity, modern things and modernization because we could see and feel the 'pre-modernity' of the peasants and the Japanese rural society, and even today we can see the continuity of their appearance from the pre-modern. In addition, we have always discussed about the 'premodernity' of peasants and rural society in Modern Japan. We haven't paid attention to how they received modern things or modernism, and how they lived under modernization. So I think we have failed to recognize many things about peasants and rural society in Modern Japan. Their attitudes and responses toward modernity, modernism and modernization were complicated. There were not only rejection of these changes, but also acceptance or yearning. Anti-modernism and modernism were together as one in the peasant's consciousness. Peasants at this time thus possessed contradictory attitude toward modernism and modernization. This kind of complexity can be seen in many situations, especially the discourse of "Noson Seinen" (the young generation in rural areas) . This was the most sensitive generation where modernity and modernism were concerned. To some extent they accepted modernity and modernism in their own way. However they became committed to anti-modernism because of the peasants' destitution under rapid modernization. So they did not simply reject modernity and modernism, but had ambivalent feelings about these things. We need to verify again the real life and consciousness of the peasants in Modern Japan, then we can understand the reason for the popularity of the anti-modernism at that time.