Study On Japan’s Muen

Japanese society is based on geography, blood relationship, and social relationship. It can be understood as a collective society, in which people help each other and have strong group awareness. However, in recent years, the amount of people isolated from society has been increasing, showing a trend of disconnection from the society. Nowadays the words "muen", "Muen shi" (death in isolation) and "Muen-shakai" (a disconnected society), are often heard.In this paper, I’ll first introduce the appearance and definition of "Muen-shakai", as well as the two different opinions about "Muen-shakai". After this, I’ll analyze the situation by taking into account the increasing number of unknown deaths, the changes in family structure and the increasing number of short-term employments.There are several reasons for the "Muen-shakai" phenomena. Firstly, the connection between individuals has gotten weaker because of urbanization. Secondly, the transformation of family system has been destroying the traditional family structure. Thirdly, because short-term contracts have started to replace the life-time lasting ones, employees start to feel unsafe and unstable. Lastly, from the perspective of social psychology, not finding a suitable role in a certain group and the lack of intimate relationship leads to the feeling of loneliness.According to the public opinion survey on the social awareness, conducted by Japanese cabinet office after tohoku 3.11 earthquake, people have started to realize the importance of "kizuna" again. Meanwhile, with the introduction of social capital, its function to the "Muen-shakai" has been also discussed.Overall, people are social creatures. Although "Muen" can bring people freedom and individuality, it can not bring people safety and spiritual abundance. Nowadays, a lot of people have to accept the fact that they are isolated from the other people. No matter how the society changes, the social awareness of keeping connected with others will not change. In order to avoid the situation of "Muen", we need to take advantage of not only the traditional networks such as festivals, but also new networks such as E-mail, blogs and electronic meeting systems.