Questioning Postwar Words: Jun Eto and the Juncture of Postwar Spiritual History 1950s to 1970s 1950s to 1970s

Questioning Postwar Words: Jun Eto and the Juncture of Postwar Spiritual History 1950s to 1970s 1950s to 1970s
Jun ETO is a critic who, from within postwar Japanese literature, has fundamentally questioned the language and values on which the postwar period itself was premised. After the defeat of the war, Japan restarted with the ideals of democracy, peace, and progress, but these words were fixed through censorship and self-censorship during the occupation, and eventually came to circulate as unquestioned correctness. Eto felt a strong sense of discomfort in the fact that postwar literature, while upholding anti-war and democratic ideals, did not adequately summarize the continuity and disconnection with the prewar period. He pointed out the paradox of the 1960s, when the Security Treaty struggle and rapid economic growth were simultaneously underway, and the situation itself, where progressive discourse was shared like air, was the object of criticism, and the question of war responsibility was formalized by taking the ethical high ground. The core of Eto's critique lies in the fac
t that he does not exonerate the prewar period, but rather calls into question the lightness of the postwar spirit that borrows only ideals without accepting the past. This question is still valid even today, when the postwar period is in the distance, as a tension to protect the freedom of thought.