Cognitive Resonance

Bibliographic Data: Ambaras, David Richard. Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

Main Argument:

If delinquency symbolized the dangers of uncontrolled social change and the defects of existing social arrangements, champions of juvenile reform and juvenile protection envisioned an orderly, productive Japan that could master the challenges of the modern era, from industrialization to imperialist expansion to total war. The ideas of these reformers, and the thick, intrusive network of socialization agencies that they constructed, have to this day played a critical role in shaping Japanese experiences of home, school, work, and play, and in fostering the culture of discipline and social vigilance for which contemporary Japan is internationally known. (2)

Historiographical Engagement: Lots of sociologists and Japanese historians

( The kids are(n't) all right )

Critical assessment: This is a well-written, thoughtful study that does what it says on the tin and illuminates one of the most pervasive aspects of modern Japanese society very effectively along the way. I am also very grateful for Ambaras' attempts to recover the politics of everyday life and the reactions of those subjects of these regimes to their workings, even if the evidence is sparse in some respects and he cannot offer a fully polyvocal history.

Further reading: Silverberg, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense; Kingsberg, Moral Nation; Jones, Developmental Fairy Tales; Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire