Castaway of Thought: Takaaki Yoshimoto and the Turning Point of Japanese Knowledge (1970s)

Castaway of Thought: Takaaki Yoshimoto and the Turning Point of Japanese Knowledge (1970s)

1. who is yoshimoto takaaki?
Takaaki Yoshimoto (1924-2012) was one of Japan's leading postwar thinkers and poets, and had a profound influence on literature, politics, and society through his critiques. His stance of speaking from the "standpoint of the masses" distinguished him from postwar leftist intellectuals, and he developed his own original thought, which was particularly influential in the student movement and cultural debates of the 1960s and 1970s, and greatly influenced the intellectual currents of postwar Japan.

The 1970s: A Turning Point for Japan and Its Intellectuals
In the 1970s, Japan's rapid economic growth came to an end, and the oil crisis (1973) marked a major turning point for society as a whole. Meanwhile, the student movement of the late 1960s was in rapid decline following the "Asama-Sanso Incident" (1972), and the leftist movement as a political struggle was coming to an end. In such an era, Takaaki Yoshimoto's "Original Image of the Masses" and "The Idea of Self-Reliance" attracted attention as keys to deciphering social transformations.

In the 1970s, this theory became even more controversial as an important perspective for deciphering social change. In the 1970s, this theory became even more controversial as an important perspective from which to read social change.

3. the idea of isolation: between the masses and the state
Yoshimoto's thought was not only critical of "power" and the "state," but also questioned what "the masses" were. He emphasized how individuals should be "independent" rather than subservient to political ideology. This was an ideology that encouraged the "spontaneous awakening of the people," unlike the proletariat revolution espoused by the leftist intellectuals of the time.

However, this position was also sometimes a lonely one. He was at odds with Masao Maruyama and Jun Eto, who were at the center of the postwar intelligentsia, and his thought went beyond the conventional framework of "postwar democracy. For this reason, his ideas received support and criticism beyond the boundaries of the left and right, and he continued to maintain a unique position that did not belong to any one camp.

The End of the Student Movement and the Future of Ideology
In the late 1970s, with the end of the student movement, political idealism receded and Japanese society moved toward stability. It was during this period that Takaaki Yoshimoto shifted his interest from political theory to cultural criticism and began to focus on changes in popular culture. He analyzed the "postwar" sensibility found in the animation of Hayao Miyazaki and the literature of Haruki Murakami, and discussed the spiritual transformation of Japanese society.

In the consumer culture created by rapid economic growth, the masses were no longer political subjects, but had begun to take on the role of recipients of new forms of expression. Yoshimoto saw this change not as mere corruption, but as the "formation of a new spirit," and continued to explore the power of culture.

5. as a castaway of knowledge
The ideas of Takaaki Yoshimoto raised fundamental questions about the state of knowledge in postwar Japan: In the 1970s, amid the turning point of the era, the end of the student movement and the end of rapid economic growth, he sought "the ideas of the masses" from a perspective different from that of established left-wing intellectuals. His stance stood out from the crowd of intellectuals who had been defeated in political struggles and who were leaving society one after another.

His ideas were not mere political theories, but rather, they opened up new horizons of knowledge while confronting the changing consciousness of the masses in the course of time. As the 1970s drew to a close, his thought deepened and became an important key to deciphering Japanese culture and thought.