Great Construction

Barbarous Civilization

  Although this title may seem to be a little strange, I wrote it as the title because I could not help but do so. To begin with, we should consider the meaning of civilization. Of course, there could be various conditions for civilization, but after all, the first one is security of human life together with a philosophy that denies the use of violence. The second is that all matters are dealt with on the basis of reason throughout all levels of society. So then let me explain how these issues relate to the essence of civilization. Needless to say now, unless people have a feeling of security of human life, the word “civilization” cannot make any sense at all, as I suggested above. In other words, only after the world is realized where people do not come down with any diseases all through life and have no war, can they benefit from civilization and achieve happiness which humankind wishes the most.
For this very reason, our World Messianity makes it a principle to produce human beings with no disease. That is why humankind has been paying the greatest attention to disease since as early as a long time ago in ancient Roman times, and Western medicine was established around the modern era and made astounding progress, so that humanity has come to believe in medical science as the only means of curing disease and each country of the world has adopted medical science, leading up to the present situation as you know. However, as I always point out, the truth is that this medical advancement is only by appearance and such medicine barely works in reality, which is evident from the facts. Behold. The sick are flooding on all sides, and the present state of affairs is that men and women are always screaming out for help to deal with, say, various infectious diseases, let alone tuberculosis, stroke, cancer, mental illness and polio, which is the present real situation that well shows how little the medical science works.
What we must stop here to think about is how human health was in the age of barbarism when there was no medical science. The explanation to this question given by today’s medical theory will be the following. Because there was no medical hygiene at all in those days, people were easily affected by disease and died one after another, and since nutrition was unknown they suffered from malnutrition and their bodies became so weak that they could not endure overwork or heavy labor, and further, even if they wanted to go to a distant place they would get tired very soon without any means of transportation, so they never thought of exploiting the land and natural resources. However, according to that medical theory, such weakened human beings have become as healthy as seen today owing to medical care and medicines having come to the world, so the more medical science is developed the healthier we will become as a matter of course, and we can rest assured because thanks to the advancement of surgery in many diseases our internal organs are removed one after another. If so, what is called the Creator would be a kind of fool in having created the unnecessary appendix, as many as two kidneys, useless tonsils and adenoids, etc., so that we smart human beings can cut out and extract these so-called hazardous organs; this will be a logical conclusion. However, since it is the very Creator that created such conceited insane humans, God the Creator will frown at these outrageous sinful creatures. Considering this point only, you surely can realize the low level of intelligence those scientists have. Besides, they are frightened of germs so obsessed with disinfection and sterilization, and large hospitals are constructed everywhere furnished with countless beds, which need huge amounts of money, labor, time, etc. with large sums of taxes imposed. If such things happened, however, while that might mean a medically ideal world in terms of material science, consideration should be given to what would become of disease. In this regard, you should first consider the health of ancient people. As you know from the relevant histories, legends, written records and others, the people at that time had incomparably greater physical strength than modern people do, which can be imagined also from a number of the remains. Judging from these things too, my consistent view that medicine weakens human beings and makes diseases will be corroborated as well. Therefore, even though modern medicine appears to have made progress, you will understand that actually it increases human suffering and is opposite to civilization.
The next issue is war. In criticizing it, I would like to make clear beforehand that war is definitely a relic of barbarous ages and the most vicious one. For basically, what we call barbarians are the closest to beasts, in short, half-man half-beast. However, when we examine modern civilized people thoroughly, we find they are not so different internally from those in barbarous times. Contemporary people are very much cultured externally and have no barbarous nature at all in appearance to be sure, but much brutal barbarity remains at the bottom of their minds and their combative spirit is very high. Even the two opposing great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, are like a tiger and a lion that, glaring at the other and showing their fangs, are on the verge of biting each other. Yet, they differ in that they, as might be expected of as human beings, are intelligent in everything, having advanced weapons, planning a strategy in collective organization, and waiting for an opportunity. This is the only difference. However, what is even more difficult to deal with is that in the case of a tiger and a lion, the other’s life alone is enough as a victim of a deadly fight, but in the case of human beings that is not going to happen. The safety of the one leader alone ensured, lives of tens of thousands people are sacrificed to fight it out, and both the winning side and the losing one form piles of dead bodies, so in terms of results human beings exceed beasts in the degree of barbarity.
  The next question is how much rationality contemporary society has. To be sure seen on the surface, each country has a constitution, political and economic systems, with a thoroughly organized social structure, and an exhaustive study of them has been made as far as human intelligence allows, but human beings who run them display the barbarous nature everywhere. For once the mask is removed it is surprising that so much irrationality is rampant underneath. To cite politics as an example, as you see that state of the Diet, the abusive language, clamor, etc. are such that it is difficult to be regarded as an assembly of those who should be on a high level, indeed a sight one cannot endure, as if a gathering of rogues on the street. Nevertheless this parliamentary system is reasonably well-made in all respects, but which is also spoiled by barbarous nature. And speaking of members of political parties, I cannot but help thinking that they make their own interests the first priority, the party’s the second and the people’s the third. It is troublesome that such self-interested individuals are bragging that they are representatives of the people. Elections are in the same situation; the laws and regulations are indeed extremely strict in great detail, but this is only the surface as well and actually it is considered smart to exploit legal loopholes.
  It is the same with the nation of Japan, which is delighted that democracy has been established in government but the insides are contrary to expectations. There are some who act arrogantly, taking advantage of their position in the bureaucracy and could not care less about a violation of human rights, the fact of which is routinely in all the headlines as you know. The real situation is such an undemocratic one that third persons can never imagine its true nature. We have to say this is the very civilization of outer surface and barbarism of inner spirit. Furthermore, the problems of corruption too, as everyone knows, are probably no more than the tip of the iceberg.
  Above are just a few thoughts that have come to mind, but the rest may easily be guessed. Putting these together, the present society is civilized only externally and barbarous nature has still strongly remained in its internal aspect as I said at the beginning. Therefore I believe there is nothing wrong with the words of the title of this article.

Eikô, Issue 201, March 25, 1953
 translation by taki