| The Theme of “Not in This World, Not in That World” This text was written as a postscript to “Not in This World, Not in That World,” which is currently being written. As long as the text is not completed, there is no doubt that this text will be changed in the future. I have posted it because I thought it would be meaningful as a summary of my thoughts at the midpoint of the book. Although there is no such thing as a non-religious society, it seems that after the summer of 1945, people living on the island of Japan thought that their society had been reborn as a scientific, non-mythical society. This is not to say that the previous society was unscientific, mythical, or fanatical, but August of that year created a break with the times, and a religious “stronghold” of “100 million zange or repentance” permeated the people. However, the people did not do this on their own initiative. They had long worshipped the emperor as a god and had lost the ability to think under a clever and mysterious surveillance system, and this time, too, someone had cleverly arranged it. The emperor could have remained a god and hidden himself in the heavenly realm, but instead, he attempted to establish a series of new names for the emperor by means of a strange plan to demote a god to the human world. If we call this a tradition, then we are probably right. However, this caused a great deal of confusion and bewilderment among the people. One of the psychological aftereffects of this was the collective onset of a syndrome that I call “irreligiousness.” In modern parlance, a cluster of irreligious disorders occurred on a nationwide scale. However, most people had no subjective symptoms of this mental illness. In the late 19th century, after the start of the Meiji Era, under the name of “wealthy nation and strong army,” the Japanese Empire went to war with the Qing Dynasty and the former Russian Empire, colonized what is now Taiwan, South Korea, and North Korea, and established Manchukuo in the northeastern region of China. In the 1930s, it expanded its war areas to inland China and Southeast Asia, and in the 1940s, it went to war with the United States. In the process, soldiers from both sides killed each other, and the Imperial Japanese Army destroyed the peaceful lives of the people of Japan and the rest of Asia, violated their human rights, and slaughtered them. On the other hand, they advocated a policy of harmony among the five ethnic groups and lied about the liberation of Asia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and its propaganda are reminiscent of the former invasion by the Japanese Empire and its control of the press. Although Japan surrendered unconditionally in August 1945 and the Empire of Japan seems to have been dissolved, remnants of that era still exist somewhere in Japanese society. No, it is more than just remnants. The Meiji 150th anniversary, the 150th anniversary of the railroads, and other such events have been held to glorify the former empire and to establish the image of a glorified Meiji Empire. In the last 20 years, the conservative autocratic and public administrations and the forces surrounding them have been strongly motivated by a desire to return to the old empire. Let us return again to the year 1945. At that time, new religions sprang up in Japanese society like bamboo shoots after rain. Many of them were non-religious as well, as a reaction against the pseudo-religions of the prewar period, but people were unable to distinguish between religion and non-religion, and were either taken in by these new religions or decided to have no religion. The Soka Gakkai was active in such an era, carrying out missionary activities in the name of “shakubuku” throughout Japan. The Buddhist movement kicked out existing Buddhist sects, Shintoism, Christianity, and other religions as “paganism.” Surprised and perplexed by this mass movement, people called the Soka Gakkai “Gakkai” for short and abhorred its members, calling them “Gakkai members,” but they did not understand its true nature. People scorned and ostracized the Gakkai, calling it “a group of poor and sick people,” as the media and opposing forces shouted. Some people even described the Gakkai as a totalitarian organization based solely on the activities of its well-organized members. In 2023, however, the view of “religion” among many people living on the island of Japan appears to have changed little since the latter half of the 20th century. Rather, irreligiousness has deepened further, and smartphone addiction and, by extension, mental exposure disorder, have become widespread and endemic. In postwar Japanese society, where “irreligiousness” was considered normal and acceptable in reaction to the prewar emperor-centered state Shintoism, shrine prayers are considered a tradition different from “faith,” and everyone pays a visit to shrines on New Year’s Day. In addition, at funerals and Buddhist rituals, having a Buddhist priest read sutras and recite the nembutsu is considered a rite of passage and a way of mourning for the dead. As in the prewar period, these are treated as something different from “faith” and incorporated into traditional events. The author calls modern Japanese society a “non-religious society” as a hypothesis. “Coming to This World, Going to the Other World” is based on that hypothesis. In a “non-religious society,” those who “believe” in something are regarded as unscientific, and those who have “faith” are marginalized as weak. Those who preach “faith” and invite people to join religious organizations are regarded as shady. People who had been under the control of ideas and information for a long time and did not have the habit of thinking for themselves had lost the ability to think for themselves. Eighty years have passed since the end of World War II, and not much has changed. “Gakkai” appeared in the vacuum of people’s thinking and beliefs, and it aroused social antipathy. To be a “Gakkai member” is not only to declare one’s faith. It is a denial of the existing gods and Buddha that people have adopted as their customs. Knowing this, Bangja became a member of the Gakkai. She chose to become a member of the Gakkai even though people around her belittled her, slapped her behind her back, and her husband hated her. Why, I wonder, did she decide to join the Buddhist movement? And how did Hyooya, who continued to rebel against Bangja, accept the Gakkai and its members? I would like to consider these questions through the lives of two generations of a family and their way of life. (Bangja and Hyooya are main characteristics of the story I have been writing.) |
Why do I write?
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