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From Withdrawal to Resistance. The Rhetoric of Exit in Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Carl Cassegard
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Abstract

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This paper traces the emergence and development of the idea of “exit” as a form of resistance or challenge to the system in the writings of Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin. I show that the rhetoric of exit as resistance grows out of the climate of political disillusion in the aftermath of the political activism of the 60s as a strategy for finding a potential for popular resistance. With Karatani's attempt to create a social movement, NAM (the New Associationist Movement), the rhetoric shifts from emphasizing a defense of withdrawal from the “public” in order to elude control, towards emphasizing exit as an offensive weapon to be used actively by social movements in confronting the system. Today the idea of exit remains an important influence among activists and intellectuals associated with social movements. At the same time, there is a dilemma, which stems from its paradoxical attempt to mobilize political disillusionment and withdrawal from public involvement into a political force.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , March 2008 , e4
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
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Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

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