unlimited growth propelled by capitalism" (1997, p. 161) captures the dynamic of revitalization that postwar Japan experienced for much of the last half of the 20th century.
But there is compelling evidence that over the course of the postwar decades, Japan resisted and continues to resist certain aspects of economic, political, and social transformation. This can be seen in reference to the issue of globalization. Globalization is the name given to a collection of policies and programs agreed upon by the nations that make up the world's largest economies. There is a view that globalization can be defined in both "innocuous" and "sinister" ways. In the first understanding of globalization, the emphasis is on foreign trade and a more or less "single world society" that is constructed by way of "mass communications, commerce, increased ease of travel, the Internet, popular culture, and the increasingly widespread use of English as an international language" (Progressive, 2003). In the second (and more "sinister") understanding of the term, globalization "refers to a process . . . which trends toward the undermining of national sovereignty, and therefore citizen's rights, in favor of gigantic transnational corporations" (Progressive, 2003). Robertson (1992, p. 183) makes the important point that globalization is not confined to either technological concerns or commercial interests. He continues:
Globalization . . . also refers to cultural and subjective matters. In very simple terms, we are thus talking about issues surrounding the idea of the world being "for-itself." The world is not literally "for-itself" but the problem of being "for-itself" has become increasingly significant, in particular because of the thematization of humankind in a number of respects. In that respect global consciousness has partly to o with the world as an "imagined community" (Robertson, 1992, p. 183).
The dichotomy of globalization presented by those...