"How might political disillusionment define a new form of politics? Age of Disaffection explores this question by tracing how artists and intellectuals critiqued conventional forms of political engagement-from party organizing to protest in the street-in1960s Japan. It argues that this critique produced an "ethos of disaffection" that made the transformation of self the basis for radical change. While studies of the 1960s tend to conceptualize politics in terms of contestation, Age of Disaffection foregrounds cultivation, or the production of ways of thinking and feeling in efforts to redefine the political itself. In doing so, it reveals how the cultural production of 1960s Japan confronted a crucial question that continues to vex efforts at radical change today: transform institutions or alter how people relate to themselves and others?"-- Provided by publisher.
The 1960s in Japan have long been understood as a period of radical political engagement. But as political movements from Old Left Communism to New Left revolts appeared to fail in their efforts to revolutionize Japanese society, artists and intellectuals came to reject the ideals of postwar politics. Instead, they advocated withdrawing from political participation and making self-transformation the grounds for social change.
This provocative book uncovers a paradox at the heart of the 1960s: how political disillusionment became the basis for a new form of politicsa politics of the self. Examining aesthetic criticism, popular literature, avant-garde art, cinema, and political theory, Patrick Noonan argues that cultural producers in 1960s Japan cultivated what he calls an ethos of disaffection toward revolutionary politics and postwar society. Departing from approaches that define politics as contestation, Age of Disaffection foregrounds cultivation, or the production of ways of feeling and relating to the world in efforts to redefine the political. It presents an unorthodox account of the 1960s: withdrawal from political activity developed not as the decade ended but as it was unfolding. Noonan reveals how Japanese artists and intellectuals in this period confronted a crucial question that continues to vex efforts at radical change today: transform institutions or alter how people relate to themselves and others?
Examining aesthetic criticism, popular literature, avant-garde art, cinema, and political theory, Patrick Noonan argues that cultural producers in 1960s Japan cultivated what he calls an ethos of disaffection toward revolutionary politics and postwar society.
