Sorimachi
We may have to revise our mentality in order to implement the promotion
of practical and useful social science study. To do this, we must to give up
the traditional pattern of imitating Western science education. Rather than
throwing young, lecturer level scholars into the academic world, let them
master the real world, developing problem-solving techniques by applying
what they have learned in universities.
Such an approach may be foreign to traditional social science methodology
and not helpful in, for example, promoting an individual's book back in
academic community because he is outside of the chair system. If that is the
case, no one will want to return to the universities. We must eliminate such
a reactionary system, otherwise young scholars will never mingle among other
groups, such as the business community.
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Tezuka
There are some of a new breed who have been trained in the United
States. They have very difficult time in writing their Ph.D. dissertations
and getting them approved as Japanese professors will not approve a new
dissertation which does not have at minimum of ten pages of direct
quotations from established dissertations.
Sorimachi
That situation has to be corrected. Otherwise, Japanese study of the
social sciences will die. The natural sciences share a common ground since
both academics and businessmen have to obey the same natural principles and
axioms, whereas the social sciences depend greatly on human factors rather
than the behavior of, say, a neutron. Unless there is mutual understanding
between academics and businessmen, it is hard to develop a common ground and
that leads to discontinuity between the two worlds. The university should
take the initiative by relaxing rules to allow the younger generation, those
now in their thirties, to move around more easily. The chair system freezes
individual dynamics. And those who are brave enough rid themselves of this
a chain may end up becoming valuable scholars but probably in the United
States. It is so important to implement fundamental university reform to
protect ourselves from experiencing a "brain drain."
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