宗教と近代化

Abstract

In the Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries where "Modernization" is taking place in a drastic way, the influence of religion in this process is stronger than we may think, because religion strictly regulates the way of life as well as the thinking of peoples. Modernization is essentially a European concept. These countries which are now in the process of modernization apparently are not able to grasp the significance of the European experience in which scientific rationalism, as reflected in secularism, successfully took precedence over religion, which was reflected in traditionalism. Thus, the inevitability of the conflict between modernism and traditionalism escalating into one between secularism and religion, faces these developing nations. Although these nations are making efforts to bring modern elements into the lives of their people by means of modern secularized education, these efforts will make little headway. So long as the essential conflict between religion and secularism is not solved, the apparent modernization achieved will be superficial. Observations of such superficial changes in society are not to be taken as valid measures of modernization. This paper proposes that, as in the case of Japan where religion played a comparatively small role in guiding people's lives, secularism apparently helps the people to accept modern concepts and to accelerate the process of modernization. Iran and Thailand have been used as examples to show how deeply imbedded religious traditions retard this process. In Iran, Zoroastrianism, at a point in its development when it stressed traditional, national concepts, had been superimposed upon its Islam, a nascent religion then more international in character. Despite the influences of Islam, the premodern characteristics, that is, the nationalism and traditionalism, are still basic concepts which prevail upon the lives of the Iranian people. In Thailand, it is the highly sophisticated Buddhist religion, superimposed upon indigenous animism. Thus, because religion is so deeply embedded, such nations as Iran and Thailand, will meet unfathomable difficulties in their transforming the social character of their people.