Waking Night on the Street Corner - A Small Discourse at Shinjuku Petit Monde, February 1977 (1976-1977)

Waking Night on the Street Corner - A Small Discourse at Shinjuku Petit Monde, February 1977 (1976-1977)

The discourse of young people exchanged at Shinjuku's Petit Monde coffee shop on February 10, 1977, was not just idle gossip. At the core of their words was the weight of a single vote. Whether or not they could break through the cynicism that politics has nothing to do with them. The narrator urges those on the inside of the order to move and change the shape of the world. This is a record of a small awakening, a moment when we break through the slumber of indifference and bring the small task of voting into our own hands.

In the background is the Lockheed affair that was exposed the previous year. The case, which led to the arrest of Kakuei Tanaka, triggered by his testimony before the U.S. Senate, was one of the biggest upheavals in postwar politics, and the phrase "politics is a farce" became a common refrain on street corners. The genesis of the case, the date of Tanaka's arrest, and the lengthy judicial process confirm the atmosphere of distrust of politics in this era.

In the December election for the House of Representatives, the voter turnout was in the 73% range. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained its number one party position, albeit with fewer seats, and the New Liberal Club emerged with seventeen seats. It was an election in which the continuation of the old forces and the emergence of new alternatives occurred simultaneously, and it was precisely this "change within continuity" that the Petit Monde conversation illuminated.

In addition, the groundswell of the economy was also echoing behind the young sensibility. Prices soared after the first oil shock in 1973, consumer prices rose by more than 20% in 1974, and the real economy experienced negative growth for the first time in the postwar period. Inflation slowed down through 1996, but the touch of life changed rapidly. The shift to a value system that seeks security in one's personal stature rather than an excessive idealistic image thickens the circuit of empathy in the political scene as well.

The words of the evening do not hold up a great theory. They are modest, pragmatic hopes that a single move, such as placing a pencil on a ballot, will change the way we see the world. It is a small rebuttal exchanged on a coffee shop table at a time when cynicism has almost become the norm in the shadow of scandal. It was a gesture that brought politics back from the distant theater to the desk of accessible life. What we have here is not a loud theory of reform, but the restoration of politics that resides in the breath of everyday life.