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Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman (1926)

theanarchistlibrary.org

1–10 of 16 posts

Re: Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman (1926)

#4

Wow. What a dream of a woman. Thx for posting.

Quite compatible with modern leftism.

Her struggle for equality and dignity didn’t strike me as particularly ideological.

If a person doesn’t succumb to learned helplessness, they might instead fight against an oppressor with whatever they can wield.

Re: Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman (1926)

#8

Wow. What a dream of a woman. Thx for posting.

Quite compatible with modern leftism.

did you read the memoir? I think her positions are far more interesting in context and are hard to abstract away to be independent of where they came from

Re: Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman (1926)

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite compatible with modern leftism.

How exactly is this memoir compatible with modern leftism

"Socialism did not have anything particularly new to teach me; however, it provided me with the theory to verify what I already knew emotionally from my own past. I was poor then; I am poor now. Because of this I have been overworked, mistreated, tormented, oppressed, deprived of my freedom, exploited, and ruled by people with money. I had always harbored a deep antagonism toward people with that kind of power and a deep sympathy for people from backgrounds like mine. The sympathy I felt for Kō, the menial at my grandmother’s in Korea; the feeling, almost as for a comrade, toward the poor dog they kept; and the boundless sympathy I felt for all the oppressed, maltreated, exploited Koreans I have not written about here but whom I saw while at my grandmother’s—all were expressions of this. Socialist ideology merely provided the flame that ignited this antagonism and this sympathy, long smoldering in my heart.

Oh how I want to… to give my life, to give everything, in the struggle for this wretched class of mine!"

Re: Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman (1926)

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite compatible with modern leftism.

How exactly is this memoir compatible with modern leftism

to be fair, it's on the anarchist library, which is very much leftist in and of itself - this looks to be, largely, and exploration of the role of natural hierarchy in anarchism. so saying it's compatible with modern leftism as an attack makes ... no sense ... but saying it's compatible with modern leftism insofar as it's an exploration does seem pretty accurate.
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