Hedonism through polytheism: Towards a critique of the violence of normalisation

In this paper, I explore the possibility of discussing hedonism as an inherent feature of polytheism as a form of resistance and critique to the violence of normalisation and identity thinking that is increasingly visible in the contemporary socio-political landscape. In particular, it discusses the limits of what underlies the formation of the modern nation-state - a monotheistic belief system that functions less as a form of critique of identity thinking than as a means of criminalising (or normalising) pleasure. I argue that this violence stems from the exclusivity and untranslatability inherent in the monotheistic belief system when encountering other forms of gods/deities, i.e. other cultures (Assmann 2009, Beck 2010, Bettini 2023 and Onfray 2015). As a point of reference, I discuss the leaderless, seemingly apolitical carnivalesque riots that swept Japan in the mid-19th century, when the country was in the chaotic throes of polarisation in the face of regime change, modernisation and Western influence. In this context, ee ja nai ka seems to offer an example to signal the place where transgression, hedonism and rebellious potentialities meet in the eruption of polytheistic remnants beyond the political and ideological, the collective expression in itself, where the boundaries between the political and the apolitical are blurred.