Some people seeing Japan under confusion over the legislation of national security may think that peace and country’s safety are bigger problems. I have also learned information and knowledge about politics and diplomacy because of my academic origin. But I will not argue the issues of constitutionality of that legislation or appropriateness of ‘collective self-defence right’ as some legal experts are doing. More than that, I would like to point out bigotry of Japanese which looks odd to foreign people: why they fuss about demilitarization―because their state of mind is closer to us and deeper and bigger problem affecting our life entirely.

It is useless asking them about probability of being invaded, because there is huge gulf between us and them in premisis of controversy: image of primitive world. How huge is it? Let us see the following advertisement by Takako Doi, a former leader of Social Democrats.



私たちは今、どんな時代に生きているんでしょうか。
一見穏やかな日々の暮らしも、揺れ動く情勢と共に大きな曲がり角を迎えています。
平和であることの安心。
働くことの安心。
育まれ、尊ばれることの安心。
そんな当たり前の安心な暮らしが隅っこに追いやられようとしています。
強い者だけが生き残ればよい、という政治でいいのでしょうか。
平和。年金。雇用。
安心な暮らしを支えるのは憲法です。
「社民党がいます」

What times are we living in?
Even daily life seeming peaceful is facing a big turning point with shaking situations.
Relief as being peaceful.
Relief as working.
Relief as being cherished and respected.
The natural life with relief is now confronting danger of being drived.
Is it right that politics approving dog-eat-dog world?
Peace. Pension. Employment.
It is the Constitution that supports peaceful life.
‘Social Democrats are beside you.’

(Emphasized by author)

‘Renouncement of War’
from About the New Constitution (1947)

She said ‘life with relief’ is ‘natural’. This is truly ‘plain’ world in which many Japanese―and the masses of the rest of the world―have implicit faith. That is to say, this world is originally peaceful, ‘and so in itself, that is, according to its natural constitution, is admirably arranged and a veritable abode of bliss’.11. Arthur Schopenhauer (E. F. J. Payne tr.), ‘On Jurisprudence and Politics’, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Volume 2, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 258. To them, peace and amenity will come to them voluntarily without any effort at their end.

The illustration presents their thought plainly. This is an illustration on About the New Constitution, a textbook for middle schoolers, published by Japanese education ministry in 1947, the year of enacting the Constitution of Japan. It says that if we disposed of all military equipments such as fighters, warships or bombs, a splendid civilization would gush out. Therefore, the Constitution declaring renouncement of war22. The Constitution of Japan, Article 9:
1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. has looked a new gospel to the optimists.

However, we can any amount of disproofs against their optimism. For instance, imagine whatever can be called human activities―entrepreneurship, pilotting an airplane, steering a ship, and so on. You should find that they are all, without exception, carried out under the meticulous preparations no matter how firm they may be and how much deep-rooted relief they may give us, and they are all dangerous actions like tightrope walking, which lead us to death as soon as the reins are loosened, so we cannot be too careful. All benefits of civilization are not ‘the spontaneous fruits of an Edenic tree’,33. José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses. but the results of numerous constant endeavours.

But today’s civilization is so perfect as we do not notice the efforts, that the masses never understand the value of the benefits which they enjoy. As mentioned above, they think that their confortable life ‘originally exists’, and contributors to the confortable life are mere ‘servants who have duty to maintain the spontaneous amenity’. Their behaviour is nothing but ‘radical ingratitude towards that has made possible the ease of’44. José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses. their existence as Ortega said. It is this that their ridiculousness of believing that not US military force but their ‘pacifist’ constitution protects them from warfare for seven decades comes from.

As a result of ingratitude of Japanese optimists, they always attribute their all dislikes to governments; they are always ready to make governments responsible for everything: poverty, lack of higher educational opportunity, unemployment and unmarried. Their various political demands can be summarized in one sentence: ‘Set me back to irresponsible childhood!’ Thus, they are as childish as they cannot anything without evacuation advise from authorities when a typhoon hits55. 松本浩司「伊豆大島土砂災害　出されなかった避難勧告」、日本放送協会、2013年10月22日。 and they need order from authorities what underwear they shall put on tomorrow.

Yet we cannot only be laughing them. There is danger that they may thrust unreasonable responsibilities upon a few people because their childishness means that they only enjoy benefits while they refuse risks bound up with them. I am annoyed that the former Tokyo Electric executives are charged over Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.66. Kentaro Hamada & Osamu Tsukimori, ‘Tokyo Electric executives to be charged over Fukushima nuclear disaster’, Reuters, 31 July 2015. The civilian judiciary panel who have forced prosecutors to indict insist that the ex-executives are guilty in a high-handed manner, but they have never thought who the devils on earth have needed dangerous nuclear energy.

Adolf Hitler, who leaded a horrible black magic so called Holocaust, is still being subject of detestation as a devil incarnate from around the world. However, I think he may be also one of victims of spoiled philistines. The real brutality of them, who are proud of their mediocrity and only insist the rights though they cannot do anything, will be revealed gradually as this series moves on.