“Japanese have come to treasure the bonds among people.”
“No, the connections among people have been lost and everyone feels alone.”
“Today’s young people have lost hope.”
“No, young people in fact seem to be pretty satisfied with their daily lives.”


How do people see the world around them, and what feelings do the things they see arouse? In the broadest sense, the answers to these questions offer us a glimpse of what I call the “social mentality”. Social mentality constitutes the software, so to speak, that controls how the social system works. The idea that such a social mentality exists and can be apprehended is attracting renewed interest for its potential as a key to help us unlock the riddles of Japanese society today.
. . .
Metaphorically speaking the ship of Japanese society on which we are passengers is going to be steered solely by experience and gut reaction with no one checking the instrument panel. Social consciousness studies that are based on survey data analysis can establish the necessary “oppositional complementarity” to put forth sound arguments about the direction in which the social mentality is headed.


日本人の心のあり方、社会意識を計量的に分析し、現代日本社会を鋭く読み解いた好著『現代日本の「社会の心」-計量社会意識論』（有斐閣、2014年）の英語…