Technology and Culture

The starting point for this study is the contention that, in the modern world, national identity is no longer defined in the political or military terms of the past, but rather in relation to “the pursuit of the good life [End Page 958] through consumption.” What we are, as individuals and citizens, has come to be determined by our consumption choices in a conflicted process, mediated through popular culture, rooting national identity in the practices of everyday life. Nowhere has this been more the case than in post– World War II Japan, where devastating defeat necessitated the search for something to replace the discredited forms of prewar nationalism. In this context, economic growth and rising living standards proved to be the goals which could unite an impoverished and divided country, redefining it as a prosperous, democratic, and modern nation.

To date, however, little scholarly attention has been paid to the forms in which these goals were embodied in day-to-day consumer practice, with economists tending to focus on supply-side studies of industrial growth and cultural historians engaged in a much more ethereal analysis of Japanese expressions of modernity. Nonetheless, as Smith argues, the pursuit of economic goals necessarily involved the reformulation of Japanese identity in terms of the goods and practices of individual consumption that embodied improved living standards. This exposed issues and anxieties inherent in the attempt to reconcile democratic freedom and autonomy with the unavoidable internationalization of the postwar world and the limitations imposed by Japan’s dependence on the United States for military protection.

The popular media played a key role in the process of imagining and defining the forms of both national and individual identity. Hence Smith seeks to illuminate the issues involved by means of material taken from weekly and monthly magazines aimed at segments of the emerging middle-class consumer market: young working women, housewives moving to the cities’ newly-constructed housing estates, and so on. His chapters summarize opinion pieces and roundtable discussions, beginning with food but moving on to matters less obviously grounded in everyday consumption practices: overseas travel, national symbols, the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and the political and international-relations issues facing Japan from the late 1960s. By the conclusion, the discussion has entered the realms of theoretical debate over the nature of Japanese nationalism and the “theories of the Japanese” that explicitly attributed Japan’s economic success to a unique national identity.

The magazines which provide the book’s evidence were financed by advertising revenue and presumably did seek to promote and reflect the emerging consumer lifestyle in which new forms of national identity might find expression. However, the articles selected for summary, which may or may not be representative of the overall content of the magazines, are in large part opinion pieces that provide little real evidence as to what their readers might actually be buying and using. So, we have the magazines hosting discussions and offering expert opinions on student protests, the Vietnam War, the flag and the national anthem, even advice on how to date foreigners during the Olympics, but little evidence of how national [End Page 959] identity became grounded in the actual consumption of goods. In the period covered, overseas travel, meeting foreigners, even taking part in a demonstration were activities barely accessible to most people, unlike ordinary consumer goods. What do the magazines tell us about the fashion, food, electrical goods, and so on which might more realistically have embodied modern identity for their readers? The one concrete example concerns rice and its place in a Japanese diet increasingly subject to global influences, with the focus on policies, subsequently largely abandoned, promoting a more diverse and less rice-centred diet.

Hence, although the magazines’ evidence of popular attitudes may be of interest to those engaged in debates over the nature of modern nationalism, the book seems to represent a missed opportunity in relation to the production and consumption of the actual goods and services in...