Abstract
Our society is changing at an extraordinary speed and consequently we are caught in extreme busyness that is transgressing the limits of human physiology and virtually destroying everyday life. Globalization is the source of this "Alician speed" that full speed Alice has to maintain in running to stay where she is in the garden of Looking-Glass House. The America-centered globalization rooted in market-fundamentalism will aggravate the North-South problems and ecological difficulties. It will also confront the individuals directly with the ferocity of the globalized market economy. This crisis has brought about new types of nationalism and anti-globalization movements in various areas of the world. To overcome this crisis, it is most important to reconceptualize the state as an intermediate group, a safety net, or a mutual aid organization. In Japan, however, because neither politicians nor citizens are well aware of the significance of such world-wide attempts at reconstruction of states, people are tossed about by market-fundamentalism that has increased unemployment and suicide rates. At the same time, hedonism and mammonism caused by the growth of the hyper-consumptive society have been sharply accelerating the loss and corruption of human resources in this country. This is symptomatically revealed in such phenomena as death from overwork, social withdrawal, fertility decline, school collapse, degeneration of public and occupational morals and so on; this darkens the prospects of the future of Japanese society. In such circumstances, therefore, it is time sociologists came onstage, for their vocation is to critically examine society on sociological principles in its entirety. Japanese sociologists for the sake of their own raison d'etre must now regain their power to form a grand conception of society and voice their opinions for its future.
