The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 14 (2003)

A New Social Frame of Reference
for American Studies

Kensaburo SHINKAWAFirst of all I deem it a great honor to deliver an address at the annual
conference of the JAAS. Particularly, I am pleased to share the session
with President George Sanchez of the American Studies Association.
It is natural that we are inclined to cherish a desire or hope at the beginning of any season and particularly so this year as we stand at the dawnof the third millennium. In reality, however, we are confronted with a
new critical age; moreover, this crisis relates deeply to the United Statesand is of great importance to the perspective of American studies.
In considering American studies at such a critical moment, a passage
by a great historian, Charles A. Beard, comes across my mind. Giving apresidential address entitled “Written History as an Act of Faith” at theconference of the American Historical Association in 1934, which myteacher assigned me to read in the 1960s, Beard stressed the importanceof a new frame of reference in historical studies so that historical studies might be effective in analyzing serious problems of the day. I was
impressed by Beard’s address because the 1960s was really another critical age, and the ﬁeld of American studies as well as American society
was undergoing great upheaval.
Now in inquiring into the character and signiﬁcance of the present crisis, I would like to ﬁrst review brieﬂy the historical meaning of the 1960s
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and then in comparison of these two turbulent periods in mind, expressa more personal opinion about what is needed for a social frame of reference or a radical reconstruction for American studies in this criticalinternational arena.
I
Looking back upon the upheaval of the 1960s in academic circles, we
can recognize three conspicuous moves which had a view toward democratizing or reforming America. First, the New Left oriented criticism of
power structures, together with a vision of a thorough-going welfare statesystem. Second, the civil rights movement for minorities and women,
and provocative efforts to reconstruct American history from their standpoints. Third, a sort of inner or self-criticism of American interventionist strategy that had led to the Vietnam War. There were of course somemutual inﬂuences or linkage among them.
The ﬁrst point relates in essence to the function and nature of a “positive state” system which has developed since the late 19th century.
Based on an American liberal tradition, the main aim of the government’s role underwent changes through the long process of evolution
from original anti-monopoly regulation to the coordination of interests
through the so called “broker state” function, which, paving the way fora welfare state in the New Deal, had the meaning of a social democracy
designed to meet the needs of the working people. After the second world
war, however, while the expansion of social security policies was a continual national concern, under the serious international circumstances of
the Cold War, the United States was driven to build what might be calleda “national security state,” where political priority was put on national
security in conjunction with the military element, in scientiﬁc research
as well as in the national economy.
It was rather understandable that one of the radical reformist criticismsof the time was concerned with the question of how to restrain military
power or inﬂuence in society while accepting the expansion of government roles in welfare and civil rights programs. C. Wright Mills pointed out the existence of power elites consisting of executives, the military,and big business as early as the 1950s. Victor Perlo argued that the military-centricity of the economy even weakened the international competitive power of American business in main industries such as steel andautomobiles. This was not even to mention various criticisms of theA NEW SOCIAL FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

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growing military-industrial complex. Particularly harmful was the trendthat scientiﬁc research was not merely ﬁnancially dependent on defense
institutions but gave a higher priority to military needs or programs. The
military inﬂuence in the research and development ﬁeld became evenmore serious as major academic institutions cooperated positively with
defense institutions throughout the Vietnam War in order to secure abundant funds, consequently bringing about the military-industrial-academic complex. It was natural that the student revolt aimed, among otherthings, at checking military research as a part of the move to democratize academic institutions. However reasonable and desirable such ananti-military stance might be, nonetheless, it is difﬁcult to check a dominant military inﬂuence as long as it is a structural part of the national
security state system. In just such a case, one might have expected thatthe progress of détente after the 1970s, particularly the ﬁnal disappearance of the Cold War, would have offered favorable conditions for theUnited States to steer itself in that direction; though it would have beena hard task to sever the close interest relations of defense expendituresand military industries.
Judging from the course of US foreign policy, especially its consistency in nuclear arms development, the New Left oriented move to reform America has apparently failed to achieve any remarkable results.
While the United States has made progress in strategic arms limitationand then restriction talks with the communist bloc since the 1970s, nonnuclear weapons equipped with the most advanced technologies havebeen developed continually at amazing speed as clearly shown in the
Gulf War and the recent military actions in Afghanistan. It seems that
US military interests have been tenacious and consistent enough to reject
any inﬂuence from the favorable turn in international circumstances
caused by the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, the terrorist attacks
of 9.11 and the following military action afforded a big opportunity for
US military interests to push on with arms development and defense programs, with all their might. Furthermore, under the current dominant
patriotic mood of the nation we see no force or move to check this development, in contrast to the 1960s when anti-war criticism had considerable inﬂuence on public opinion; in the current climate one mustcertainly feel some apprehension about the boundless military enterprises in the United States.

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II
Another function of the “positive state” (the welfare state system)
made remarkable progress through the 1960s when welfare programs
were docked with the civil rights movement. In this respect, American
people, whom Mills had referred to as “the mass,” proved themselves
full of vitality and capable of reforming their society, while the federal
government strikingly expanded its role in combating racial discrimination; consequently marking a new and signiﬁcant development of thepositive state function. Certainly L.B. Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ policy
was of epoch-making character in connecting welfare policy with social
projects for disadvantaged minorities, both reﬂecting and pressed on by
the urgent social crises of the day. Moreover, domestic reform concerning racial discrimination had, needless to say, connotations for international relations, for it would be difﬁcult for the US to play a leading roleabroad without tackling internal injustices.
Of particular importance was the strong impact of the civil rights
movement on academic circles. With the social upheaval providing amomentum for radical reconstruction, American studies was offered an
opening for new and fruitful perspectives in approaches to analyzing or
examining American society and culture. One of the most signiﬁcantresults was, of course, the provocative move to review American history itself from the standpoint of the oppressed or disadvantaged, such as
minorities and women, thus bringing forth a boom in historical studies
of common people, labor, and immigrants. It was certainly a period ofgreat democratization for academic activities correlated with social
reform movements.
As this situation clearly shows, the boom of social history in the 1960s
was highly reformist-oriented and deeply rooted in political concerns. In
the process of its subsequent development, however, we cannot but recognize a possible degeneration of its social connotations. Now with arich, uncultivated frontier open for academic work, it was necessary thatthe study of social history should expand into the detailed examinationof ways of life and various cultural aspects. While detailed studies arealso basic and important to the understanding of the common people’s
life and culture, it would be difﬁcult to deny that some social-historical
works of this period were too minute in scope or personal in character.
Essentially, it would be necessary or desirable to set up a framework ofpolitical or social concerns as realized by the rise of multiculturalism. In

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this sense it may be said that works concerning social or cultural histories are tending now to promote social reform through scholarly activities, or coming to concentrate upon rather trivial subjects full offascination but of a non-political character.
Borne along with the social upheaval and dilemmas of the 1960s camethe recognition of another aspect of progress. The enactment of the Civil
Rights Acts and the welfare policies on behalf of minorities certainly
marked great progress in social democracy, but in fact, the anticipatedresults were too slow in coming. With no time to spare, the government
set out on another positive measure, afﬁrmative action. Intended to bringabout immediate results, this innovation made it inevitable that somebasic aspects of the American value system would have to change. While
all previous civil rights policies had aimed at realizing equality of opportunity, afﬁrmative action set out to achieve equality of results, by approving preference to the disadvantaged—contrary to the principle of equal
opportunity. It was unavoidable that the innovation should be criticizedas reverse discrimination, in contradiction to its intent of social reform.
Reﬂecting such a serious conﬂict in principle, public opinion was not
ﬁrmly in support of the new direction, as shown by the referenda in
California and Washington in the late 1990s. We also should not disregard some ambivalence on the side of African Americans about afﬁrmative action. In spite of its apparent design to act on their behalf, highly
capable African Americans may have been inclined to disapprove of themeasure as something even harmful to the status they had obtained
through their real capability and, vice versa, people in lower strata whoneeded propping-up support most urgently may have found it rather difﬁcult to take advantage of this radical policy. Considering all these contradictory elements, the issue of how best to ﬁnd a way forwards out ofthe problem forms a touchstone from which to judge American social
reform.
At this point there emerged another trend running counter to the social
reforms of the 1960s. This touched on the crux of the political stance of
criticizing the development of a “positive state” system itself, aiming at
switching over to “small government.” A basic factor for the trend was
the accumulation of a federal ﬁnancial deﬁcit, which had been accelerated by the Vietnam War. It is not too much to say that the realization ofa balanced budget became one of the most pressing political goals for
successive administrations after the 1970s, and that so long as the defense budget was maintained, it necessarily had the effect of restricting

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welfare expenditures. A most important trend, which had serious political consequences, was that the white working class became rather passive or even negative toward the welfare state system, as they were lessdependent on social security programs and more interested in tax reduction. Now that minorities were likely to be the main beneﬁciaries of welfare measures, a passive stance toward the welfare state became closely
related to a conservative social trend, which has gathered strength gradually in the past three decades. We may also refer to the busing problem
to demonstrate the dilemma facing white liberals. While properly supporting the reform to do away with racial discrimination in the South,
some liberals were forced to fall back in the face of the busing policy,
which was intended to mix while pupils from the suburbs and African
American pupils from the urban slums by means of long-distance rides
on school buses. Recognizing a disadvantage to their personal interests,
whites raised some resistance to the further progress of social democracy, which would cause a deterioration in the value of their real estate andfavorable living conditions. This might reﬂect some sort of limitation ofbasic human nature. Such being the case, the recovering conservative
trend would certainly be another serious barrier the social reform movement since the 1960s could not evade in struggling on towards its goal.
As one more factor lending a gloomy perspective to social securities
programs, we are also obliged to consider the remarkable increase of theelderly population. While in essence a desirable result of a civilized society, the high ratio of the elderly population would certainly exert an inﬂuence on the whole system of social security, particularly annuities,
making it a pressing question to reexamine the appropriateness and foundation of a welfare state. We should then consider this another challenging problem calling for a new social frame of reference.
III
New Left criticism of US interventionist global strategy also exerted
a remarkable effect on scholarly works about not merely American diplomatic history, but also post-World War II foreign policies. The so-called“Williams School” became accepted among academic circles, promoting the trend for coordinating the orthodox and revisionist schools.
Particularly impressive was the popular move to criticize the militaristic stance of US diplomacy, as demonstrated by the anti-Vietnam War
movement. While such peace-oriented public opinion certainly played a

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part in the current towards détente, one might remain cautious about
post-Cold War international relations and the speciﬁc role of the UnitedStates. The disappearance of the bipolar confrontation was certainly
desirable, but the subsequent unipolar structure of the international community essentially involved a serious, uneasy element, as an unbalanced
system under US hegemony.
What is called “globalization” not merely made US national security
more assured, but at the same time placed the US in a difﬁcult position
requiring a well organized, self-controlled, and open-minded posture andeven circumspect consideration of international welfare, all which must
be a heavy burden for the United States, requiring it to cast off its own
traditional nationalism.
Though it may be an unduly severe view, it does not seem that theUnited States has achieved this difﬁcult but signiﬁcant task in a spirit ofself-command. Accordingly globalization has in fact brought forth a system of what might be called American-centralism rather than the harmony of international interests; this has had unfortunate consequences
for the United States itself. The greater part of the reality concerning US
dominance might not be attributable to American diplomacy but to theinevitable progress of international power politics. Nevertheless it would
be difﬁcult to disregard the US unilateralist stance in many respects.
Some examples are the refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, the one-sided abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
the negative posture toward both the Kyoto Agreement concerning the
global temperature environment and the ﬁnal declaration to ban biological and chemical arms, and, above all, the missile defense program thatwill expand the nuclear stockpile despite international public opinion.
Let us now consider the economic aspect of globalization. It is often
pointed out that globalization means Americanization in this respect too,effecting the expansion of American principles based on market andcompetition over the world. The principle, of course, is appropriate andcertainly indispensable to economic development. As it is propagated ona global scale, however, the condition of areas not competent in capitalist economic rationality will deteriorate at a faster pace, making the economic disparity still more serious.
Furthermore we now see the trend of globalization making progressin cultural aspects, which also means the expansion of American culture
over the world, even into the former communist areas. It must be in asense a natural development caused by the fascinating substance and28

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vitality of American cultural activities. While it has a very remarkableability to suit the popular taste, we cannot but recognize that this kind ofcultural globalization has been in many cases closely related to the energy or power of American commercialism, promoted by the consideration of local economic interests. If cultural globalization leads to cultural
Americanization in line with American economic expansion, then it willbe all the more important for the United Stats to be mindful of the necessity of not regarding “American” as universal. This is another hard task,
but may be indispensable to maintaining American cultural inﬂuence ina sound way and the compatibility of various cultural traditions and value
systems. Interestingly, in 2000 the outgoing president of the JAAS,
Professor Hiroko Sato, stressed in her presidential address the importance of two dimensions of “otherness” in analyzing American society,focusing on the views of ethnic minorities and women. Though the context is different, it should be insisted upon again how important and necessary it is for the United States to examine its culture and society fromthe standpoint of “otherness” in the international arena. In a classic bookon American democracy The Liberal Tradition in America, Louis Hartz,
in his lucid argument, warned of the danger of the American inclination
to regard its creed or value system as absolute, however valuable theymight be. One might speculate that as a historian specializing in political thought in the Western world, Hartz was qualiﬁed to examine
America from a sort of “otherness” perspective, understanding well boththe universal merit and the uniqueness of American culture and society
in comparison to those of Europe. Such a standpoint, competent to grasp
America in a relative way, would be required even more acutely in thecircumstances of globalization.
IV
We have brieﬂy reviewed the consequences of the reform movementsof the 1960s and the serious problems the United States is confronted
with under the rather favorable conditions of globalization taking place
under US hegemony. I would now like to conclude by arguing for a newsocial frame of reference for American studies that I regard as desirable
for the United States to meet the critical international situation of today.
The ﬁrst point in my mind is the question of why the United States has
not been understood or well respected in the international arena, with all
its great merits and strong points. This may be the result of a wide gap

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between the inner image of American democracy, cherished by Americans
themselves, and the realities of American power, so impressive to theoutside. In order to ﬁll the gap, it would be appropriate to have the principles of American democracy function as far as possible not merely as
propaganda but in playing a leading role for the international community. In this respect there are two crucial elements in the history of how
American society has managed to pursue its course of stable and democratic development: the system of checks and balances, and the traditionof civilian control.
Without a doubt the system of checks and balances contributed greatly to the stability of American political institutions by preventing the
emergence of a dictatorial power. While experiencing the ﬂuctuation
among the three powers throughout its history, American society has
demonstrated the merit of the system fully in domestic politics. In contrast, the world society has lost a balanced structure, not to mention any
effective check system. Of course, we cannot argue that the domestic
and international societies are the same in rank, and it would be illadvised to expect any truly balanced system in world politics. Nonetheless, there can be various forces to check dominant powers, such as theUnited Nations and other international organizations as well as someworld powers themselves; in this regard, we should also consider various non-governmental organizations active in the international community. How much they can function as a force for checks and balances
would be to a great extent dependent on the American stance toward
them. In reality, the United States is apt to disregard too often the checking role of those institutions, including the United Nations. A more positive or voluntary posture respecting these checking forces should be
stressed with a view to the US leadership in such a way as to have theworld system conform to the principle of American democracy.
The establishment of civilian control was certainly another great workof the founding fathers, making military dominance or a coup d’état
impossible, and thus forming the basis of stable development. Though
the system is of course still maintained, nonetheless the international
image of America is without a doubt that of an ominous military power,
and this impression has been ampliﬁed as the United States has resorted
to arms on a global scale on almost every occasion. The greater part ofmilitary action might have been unavoidable, in view of the gravity ofworld politics, but it would be hard to overlook the estrangement of theactual situation from the American original principle. It seems that the

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military establishment in excess would be quite a disadvantage to theUnited States itself in playing a leading part, as American inﬂuence
would be perceived more as the result of military power than as the resultof the democratic character that US leaders publicize. It is also self-evident that military power cannot solve the causes of international miseries
and tragedies even if it appears to be temporarily effective in suppressing or controlling violence.
Comparatively new concerns with the democratic cause stimulated
through American social upheaval of the 1960s might be added to thosetraditional principles. One is a welfare measure principally for non-white
minorities. The stern fact of the ethno-class system, reﬂecting the inseparable relationship of minorities and poverty, conforms to the international community on an ampliﬁed scale, and thus contributes to theimpetus for terrorism and unrest. Of course, the idea and policy of economic aid has already a long history through the Cold War era, but up
to now it has been affected by the political interests of the major powers. In this post-Cold War period, the United States will be expected to
conduct the war on poverty, or a sort of afﬁrmative action, on a global
level, to support disadvantaged people or societies in cooperation withother afﬂuent nations. Needless to say the disbursement of any funds
would be more constructive when used for international welfare than in
the case of military expenditures, accordingly conducive to the overseas
demonstration of the kind of reformist stance shown in the 1960s.
From another new perspective, would it not be advisable to take aninterest in what may be called “international multiculturalism?” While
multiculturalism is still a serious issue in the argument over the appropriate course for American society, it should be applied to the international community with a view to the co-existence or co-living of various
societies and cultures. Such a positive posture toward mutual understanding on the global scale is needed and should be solidiﬁed particularly in the current environment where there is grave concern about the‘clash of civilizations.’ In the effort to pave the way toward this direction we are inclined to anticipate that the United States will take the lead
not only because the coordination of the dominant American culture orvalue system and those of other societies is vital to the realization of
stable international relations, but also because the process would certainly facilitate the situation in which American people would be able tostand in a position of “otherness” and contemplate their own society andA NEW SOCIAL FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

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culture from a relative viewpoint, a position no doubt amply to be rewarded.
The term “American Century” is often used in reviewing the 20th century. I would like to conclude the address by expressing my sincere desire
that, in the new century, the “American Century” will not be maintainedby means of a dominant position of military power but be appreciatedthrough the prevalence of democratic principles, and that American studies both at home and abroad will contribute greatly to the cause.