Takaaki Yoshimoto
Encyclopedia
also known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, is a Japanese poet, literary critic, and philosopher from Tokyo. He is the father of the famous Japanese writer known as Banana Yoshimoto
and of the cartoonist Yoiko Haruno.
.
Yoshimoto attended Tashima Elementary School in the Kyobashi Ward of Tokyo, Yonezawa Engineering School (Now Yamagata University
), and graduated in 1947 from the Engineering Division of Tokyo Institute of Technology
with an a degree in Electrochemistry. During his studies, he became acquainted with the Mathematician Toyama Hiraku.
After graduatation, Yoshimoto moved to industry, became a research student in 1950, and in 1952 took a position at Tokyo Ink Manufacturing Company Ltd. He continued his poetic output, writing his first representative works, Dialogue with Particularity and Ten Works for a Change in Position, and won the Arechi prize for new poets. He published a work of criticism, On Takamura Kotaro.
, and gave a lecture at the June 15, 1960 resistance assembly inside the National Diet. Yoshimoto was arrested in the incident which followed, which resulted in deaths from clashes with the police who had arrived to suppress it.
Afterward, Yoshimoto founded the magazine Shikkou with the like-minded Tanigawa Gan and Murakami Ichiro. The journal published articles by Miura Tsutomu, who had been expelled from the Communist Party after the critique of Stalin, his disciple Takimura Ryuichi, Nango Tsugumasa, and others. Edazawa Shunsuke and others made their debuts as critics in Shikkou.
Yoshimoto developed a positive theoretical discourse in the midst of the collapse of the Communist Party's heroic status and splits in the new left. Yoshimoto was widely read and supported by students and intellectuals, for his work in The Decline of a False System (1962), which developed an independent theory of the arts in the face of criticisms of the Communist Party and sectarian literary theories, emphasizing the aesthetics of language and psychological phenomena, and The Common Illusion, which emphasized a theory of the State. This became a refuge for students and intellectuals exasperated by the then-current sectarian and bureaucratic Marxism. Yoshimoto's collected works were published beginning in 1968.
As a result, Yoshimoto's anti-sectarian philosophy of independence became a major influence and theoretical resource in the 1960s and 1970s for the Zengakuren, Zenkyoto, and other 'non-sect' New Leftists, and Yoshimoto came to be seen as an ancestor for some New Left activists. Yoshimoto gave qualified support to the activities of Zenkyoto.
wearing clothing by Comme des Garçons
. Criticized by Haniya Yutaka as "wearing capitalism itself", Yoshimoto was criticized for turning right. Indeed, afterwards Yoshimoto did become more politically conservative, becoming a supporter of Ichirō Ozawa
.
In the latter part of the 1980s, Yoshimoto criticized the anti-nuclear power and anti-nuclear weapons movements started by intellectual advocates of postwar democracy such as Kenzaburo Oe
as 'Anti-Nuclear Fascism".
In the 1990s, after characterizing the Yoga practices of Asahara Shoko of Aum Shinrikyo
as expressing the inner core of early Buddhist asceticism, Yoshimoto was criticized along with Nakazawa Shin'ichi as a defender of Aum following the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
.
In August 1996, Yoshimoto was in critical condition after falling unconscious while swimming in Toicho, Shizuoka Prefecture, but survived. After the mid-1990s his work has tended towards informal essays.
In 2003, he won the Kobayashi Hideo
Prize for his 'reading Natsume Soseki
,' and his collected works received the Fujimura Memorial prize.
, politics, society, religion (including Shinran
and the New Testament
).
Yoshimoto is known as a giant of postwar thought, and had an enormous influence in the 1960s and 1970s in Japan. He has published many dialgoues with overseas intellectuals visiting Japan, such as Michael Foucault, Félix Guattari
, Ivan Illich
, and Jean Baudrillard
.
Yoshimoto, who does not hold an academic pedigree, has supported intellectuals who have devoted themselves to solitary study.
There have been many critiques of Yoshimoto's thought on this basis. He has also engaged in a number of perhaps excessively belligerent exchanges. Famous among these have been his dispute with Hanada Kiyoteru, with New Testament
scholar Tagawa Kenzo, and his former friend and critic Haniya Yutaka.
Banana Yoshimoto
is the pen name of Mahoko Yoshimoto , a Japanese contemporary writer. She writes her name in hiragana.-Biography:Yoshimoto, daughter of Takaaki Yoshimoto, was born in Tokyo on July 24, 1964...
and of the cartoonist Yoiko Haruno.
Early life
Yoshimoto was born in 1924, in Tsukishima, Tokyo. His family were boatmakers who had moved from Amakusa, Kumamoto prefecture, making small rental boats. In his teens Yoshimoto came under the influence of literature while receiving the private tutoring, and began to write poetry in his teens. He was influenced by the work of Takamura Kotaro and Miyazawa Kenji. He was a 'militarist youth' during the war, but experienced the end of the war while mobilized for manual labor, and thereon became fascinated by MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
.
Yoshimoto attended Tashima Elementary School in the Kyobashi Ward of Tokyo, Yonezawa Engineering School (Now Yamagata University
Yamagata University
is a national university located in the Japanese cities of Yamagata, Yonezawa and Tsuruoka in Yamagata Prefecture.The university was established in 1949 but its origin can be traced back to the , a public teacher-training institution, founded in 1878 in Yamagata City.The university also has other...
), and graduated in 1947 from the Engineering Division of Tokyo Institute of Technology
Tokyo Institute of Technology
The Tokyo Institute of Technology is a public research university located in Greater Tokyo Area, Japan. Tokyo Tech is the largest institution for higher education in Japan dedicated to science and technology. Tokyo Tech enrolled 4,850 undergaraduates and 5006 graduate students for 2009-2010...
with an a degree in Electrochemistry. During his studies, he became acquainted with the Mathematician Toyama Hiraku.
After graduatation, Yoshimoto moved to industry, became a research student in 1950, and in 1952 took a position at Tokyo Ink Manufacturing Company Ltd. He continued his poetic output, writing his first representative works, Dialogue with Particularity and Ten Works for a Change in Position, and won the Arechi prize for new poets. He published a work of criticism, On Takamura Kotaro.
As a father figure to the New Left
Yoshimoto, who had pursued a theory of war responsibility of the literati, supported the movement against the 1960 ANPO treaty as an expression of the contradictions of the postwar order fifteen years after the end of the war. He was said to be number 2 of the intellectuals in semi-support of the ZengakurenZengakuren
Founded in 1948, Zengakuren is a communist / anarchist league of students in Japan. The word is an abridgement of which literally means “All-Japan League of Student Self-Government.” Notable for organizing protests and marches, Zengakuren has been involved in Japan’s Anti-Red Purge Movement,...
, and gave a lecture at the June 15, 1960 resistance assembly inside the National Diet. Yoshimoto was arrested in the incident which followed, which resulted in deaths from clashes with the police who had arrived to suppress it.
Afterward, Yoshimoto founded the magazine Shikkou with the like-minded Tanigawa Gan and Murakami Ichiro. The journal published articles by Miura Tsutomu, who had been expelled from the Communist Party after the critique of Stalin, his disciple Takimura Ryuichi, Nango Tsugumasa, and others. Edazawa Shunsuke and others made their debuts as critics in Shikkou.
Yoshimoto developed a positive theoretical discourse in the midst of the collapse of the Communist Party's heroic status and splits in the new left. Yoshimoto was widely read and supported by students and intellectuals, for his work in The Decline of a False System (1962), which developed an independent theory of the arts in the face of criticisms of the Communist Party and sectarian literary theories, emphasizing the aesthetics of language and psychological phenomena, and The Common Illusion, which emphasized a theory of the State. This became a refuge for students and intellectuals exasperated by the then-current sectarian and bureaucratic Marxism. Yoshimoto's collected works were published beginning in 1968.
As a result, Yoshimoto's anti-sectarian philosophy of independence became a major influence and theoretical resource in the 1960s and 1970s for the Zengakuren, Zenkyoto, and other 'non-sect' New Leftists, and Yoshimoto came to be seen as an ancestor for some New Left activists. Yoshimoto gave qualified support to the activities of Zenkyoto.
From the 1980s
Beginning in the 1980s, Yoshimoto published a theory of the masses, The Mass Image, and particular a theory of the city in The High Image I-III. At this time, Yoshimoto appeared in the women's magazine AnAnAnan
Anan may mean:Places:* Anan, Haute-Garonne, a commune in the Haute-Garonne département, in France* Anan, Nagano, a town located in Shimoina District, Nagano, Japan* Anan, Tokushima , a city in Tokushima, JapanPeople* Che Anan, king of Champa...
wearing clothing by Comme des Garçons
Comme des Garçons
Comme des Garçons, written コム・デ・ギャルソン in Japanese and French for "Like Boys," is a Japanese fashion label headed by Rei Kawakubo, who owns the company with her husband Adrian Joffe....
. Criticized by Haniya Yutaka as "wearing capitalism itself", Yoshimoto was criticized for turning right. Indeed, afterwards Yoshimoto did become more politically conservative, becoming a supporter of Ichirō Ozawa
Ichiro Ozawa
is a Japanese politician. Formerly a chief secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party , he later defected from the LDP. He was the president of Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan , from 2006 until May 2009, when he resigned over a fund scandal, and secretary general of the...
.
In the latter part of the 1980s, Yoshimoto criticized the anti-nuclear power and anti-nuclear weapons movements started by intellectual advocates of postwar democracy such as Kenzaburo Oe
Kenzaburo Oe
is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.Ōe was awarded...
as 'Anti-Nuclear Fascism".
In the 1990s, after characterizing the Yoga practices of Asahara Shoko of Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....
as expressing the inner core of early Buddhist asceticism, Yoshimoto was criticized along with Nakazawa Shin'ichi as a defender of Aum following the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
.
In August 1996, Yoshimoto was in critical condition after falling unconscious while swimming in Toicho, Shizuoka Prefecture, but survived. After the mid-1990s his work has tended towards informal essays.
In 2003, he won the Kobayashi Hideo
Kobayashi Hideo
was a Japanese author, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan.-Early life:Kobayashi was born in the Kanda district of Tokyo. He studied French literature at Tokyo Imperial University and graduated in 1927...
Prize for his 'reading Natsume Soseki
Natsume Soseki
, born ', is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period . He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales...
,' and his collected works received the Fujimura Memorial prize.
Philosophy and reception
Yoshimoto is a wide-ranging author who has written on literature, subcultureSubculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
, politics, society, religion (including Shinran
Shinran
was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period...
and the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
).
Yoshimoto is known as a giant of postwar thought, and had an enormous influence in the 1960s and 1970s in Japan. He has published many dialgoues with overseas intellectuals visiting Japan, such as Michael Foucault, Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
, Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
, and Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
.
Yoshimoto, who does not hold an academic pedigree, has supported intellectuals who have devoted themselves to solitary study.
There have been many critiques of Yoshimoto's thought on this basis. He has also engaged in a number of perhaps excessively belligerent exchanges. Famous among these have been his dispute with Hanada Kiyoteru, with New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
scholar Tagawa Kenzo, and his former friend and critic Haniya Yutaka.
External links
- "What Is Beauty for Language?" - Article about Takaaki Yoshimoto