The Evils of the City
If we were to assume that the city brought no harm to either
human beings or to the Earth, there would be no need for a
discussion (or condemnation) of the spread of the cities as in
the previous chapter. Yea, it would be verily the opposite: Just
as most urbanites believe, the city is an ultimate good since it
helps them achieve prosperity. We may even say, then, that
urbanization must be aggressively promoted not only
quantitatively (in terms of the city's boundless expansion), but
also qualitatively (in the quest of ever greater modernization
and technological advances).
But sorry to say, such is just not the case. The city is, in
actuality, the very root of the evils that threaten the future of
humanity and the Earth.
Though to the denizens of the city it is a good, since it allows
them to pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease (that is,
prosperity), that "good" is, minute by minute, turning into a
future -- yea, a present -- evil, and we (the city dwellers
first) will in time be exterminated by the city's poisons. So
that the city can pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease, we
must be visited by the accumulation of waste, destruction, and
contamination, which will, needless to say, end in a dreadful
catastrophe.
The City's Endless Plunder
The city itself is unproductive, and cannot supply its own needs.
No matter how many trinkets and gimcracks the manufacturing and
processing industries make, this cannot be called production; we
must in fact regard this as the consumption of resources and
energy. Since the city is therefore nonproductive and non-self
sufficient it must either rob all needed supplies from some other
place or lose the ability to keep itself alive and functioning.
Urban residents will not be able to pursue extravagance and ease,
let alone continue living.
Because it robs everything from another place the city causes
trouble for others, and trashes the Earth is the process. Let us
now try listing the various evils inherent in the city's
plundering ways.
Evil One
The first evil is deforestation.
Cities were first built by chopping down the forests. No matter
what city, unless it floats in the air or on the water, the place
it occupies was most likely originally forest. Thus the city, in
order to establish itself, cut the trees. And though it is the
destroyer of trees, the city at the same time requires the
oxygen produced by trees (for its overflowing people, its legions
of automobiles, and its multitudes of factories). Counting on the
oxygen from the trees of other areas, the city is barely able to
maintain its life and functions.
If that were all, we might be able to put up with it, but the
high-handed, arrogant city, in order to increase its benefits and
extravagance, continually plunders and destroys the forests in
these other areas as well. If one goes to the port at Shimizu,
one can see the shiploads of lumber and pulp robbed from the
forests of developing nations. The countries thus plundered are
now watching their clearcuts turn into wasteland and desert.
Thus, by means of producing vast quantities of throwaway
wrapping paper and packing boxes, and its idiotic newspapers,
magazines, and leaflets, by becoming drunk on its own
extravagance and convenience, the city is cutting its own throat;
it is carrying on activities that contribute to the reduction of
its all-important oxygen. What is more, after consuming these
vast quantities of paper, the city disposes of them by burning,
consuming yet more oxygen.
The city should take a good look at what is happening. By
plundering the forests of the southern hemisphere it is not only
bringing about a crisis there. It is using up its own supply of
trees as well -- the trees without which it cannot survive.
Evil Two
The second evil is the plunder of farmland.
In the previous section I wrote that the city was built by
destroying the forests, but land which was formerly forested is
first and foremost that which can and should be used for farming.
The cities are built almost solely on the level, most fertile
land. And other urbanized areas, such as those along rail lines
and roads, or the centers of villages -- though there are a few
places which have been made by cutting into the mountains -- have
been built on plundered farmland. The urbanization of farmland is
accomplished by such high-handed legal stratagems as taxing the
land as if it were residential property, or employing urban
planning laws.
The residents of the cities had best not forget that the very
farmland they continue to urbanize is the source of their food.
Evil Three
The third evil is, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, the
covering of the earth with concrete.
In order to profit from plundered farmland, the city usually
covers it with concrete, thereby making the land forever useless.
All living things are borne and nourished by the Land. Rain is
absorbed by the Land, becoming the source of well water and
stream water, water that is released gradually in dry times by
means of the Land's regulatory and retaining capabilities. The
Land also purifies all contaminants (except for things like heavy
metals and chemicals). The Land has, for millions of years,
continued its work of reducing waste products, dead plants, and
fallen leaves by means of bacterial action, and returning them to
the soil.
But by covering the Land with concrete we paralyze this
function, and it dies. Dead land (concrete) will not grow plants
or absorb water, or give it forth in dry times. And contaminants
on concrete just stink without being purified; if we don't clean
up the mess we cannot even live there.
The functions of the earth -- giving life to the plants and
animals, regulating the rainwater, purifying waste and returning
it to the soil -- may be said to form the main artery of Nature's
cyclical function. If the earth is blocked off, the flow of blood
will halt, and the Earth will turn into a dead planet. And it is
none other than concrete that is responsible for cutting off the
flow of blood.
The big city is a great mass of concrete, and it is here that
the rape of the Land attains its highest perfection. Should the
multitudes of buildings collapse, how would they dispose of the
mountains of rubble? No matter where they put the rubble, it will
cover the earth, and the bottom of the ocean should also be
considered earth. Whether a factory, an office building, or a
paved road, once it is built we have condemned some part of the
Land to be covered with it. The more you block off the Land, the
more the functions of nature are necessarily impaired, and we
will pay for this sooner or later. The net of Heaven is coarse,
but allows nothing to escape [4] -- is it possible that Nature
will miss this or generously overlook it?
Evil Four
The fourth evil is the theft of the farm population.
The cities have burgeoned by stealing the farm population. The
expansion of the cities is in other words the growth of those
employed by the secondary and tertiary industries, and the growth
of the secondary and tertiary population represents the decline
of the farming population.
In order to feed a large non-tilling population with a small
farming population, labor-saving, high-yield agriculture is an
absolute necessity, and this leads to plundering, contaminating
agriculture using machines that run on petroleum. As long as the
increased secondary and tertiary population tries to enjoy a
modern lifestyle (convenience, extravagance, and ease), it only
stands to reason that the consumers (the non-tilling population)
will have to put up with, and pay the price of, contaminated
agricultural produce.
Evil Five
The fifth evil is squeezing food out of the farmers. Since the
concrete cities are incapable of supplying themselves with food,
the inhabitants must, in order to survive, squeeze everything
they eat -- be it an apple, a tomato, or a grain of rice -- out
of the farming villages. Long ago the cities expropriated
agricultural produce through the feudal lords and landlords, and
in more recent times they forced the farmers to give it up by
means of the Food Control Act. Now, however, they take mountains
of food by means of money. These are necessary, desperate
measures taken to keep the cities alive. No matter what means
they employ, the cities must forever (until they collapse into
rubble) continue to extort food from the farmers. They can do
nothing else, even if they have to send in the military and seize
food from the farmers at gunpoint.
What is more, as long as one has to rip it off, why not grab the
best (even dogs and cats take the best first)? That is why the
feudal lords and landlords issued orders for rice to be sent to
them. "Millet will not do. Such is for farmers to eat." Thus
they ruled. And now the city dwellers say, "Let us pay a lot of
money for sasanishiki and koshihikari." [5] How is this different
from the arrogance of the feudal lords and landlords?
In this way the best of the agricultural produce continues to
flow into the cities, while in the country we continue to satisfy
ourselves with the leftovers. It ought to be the other way
around.
Evil Six
The sixth evil is the destruction of the seashore and the
prodigal consumption of marine products.
Once upon a time Tokyo Bay was a famous fishing ground for
shorefish, but now the shore of the bay is concrete and great
quantities of sewage pour into the water, destroying the fishing.
In order to make things better for themselves, the cities have
destroyed the natural seashores (it is not just Tokyo Bay -- the
better half of Japan's seashores are concrete) and sacrificed the
lives of the fishermen living there.
The shore has always been the greatest mechanism for the sea's
ability to purify itself. [6] Great numbers of marine organisms
live near the shores, so that as long as we do not cover them
with concrete and fill the littoral areas with garbage, there is
no need to go far out to sea to fish, thereby being a nuisance to
other countries.
Japan's deep sea fishing industry, for example, has taken too
many shrimp near Indonesia, and in order to get 8,000 tons of
shrimp, once discarded 70,000 tons of fish (according to an Asahi
Shimbun feature entitled "Food"). Extravagant city dwellers will
pay high prices for shrimp, but they will not pay much for other
marine foods, and since the fishermen cannot make money by
offering ordinary fish, all the dead ones are thrown back into
the sea after sorting. Such fish are a precious source of protein
for the people of Indonesia.
Thus the egomaniacal cities waste 70,000 tons of fish so that
they can gorge themselves on shrimp (I will answer later to the
charge that people in the country eat shrimp, too). And what is
more, they so recklessly take shrimp that the shrimp are now in
danger of running out. Just as with the forests, Indonesia's fish
crisis is intimately connected with our cities' appetite.
Evil Seven
The seventh evil is the copious consumption of resources and
energy. The functions of the cities are supported by vast
quantities of energy and underground resources. Almost all these
resources are used to maintain the extravagance and convenience
of the cities (like elevators, automatic doors, neon signs,
transportation systems, heating, and air conditioning), and to
make idiotic trinkets and gewgaws (like cars, cameras,
televisions, and robots). The cities (industries) are built on
the assumption that petroleum and metals will be supplied
forever, and in unlimited quantities. However, it should be
manifest even to a little child that such things are limited, and
what remains dwindles day by day.
The incredible fight over, and waste of, resources is an
indication, along with the pursuit of profit inherent in a money
economy, of the competitive ideology of the city mind. Modern
urban civilization -- that is, the extravagance and prosperity of
the cities -- is a fruitless blossom fed by this waste of energy
and underground resources.
Evil Eight
The eighth evil is the excessive consumption of oxygen and water.
The consumption of oxygen is just as I noted in the section on
forests (Evil One). Were it not for oxygen, even the convenient
energy provided by petroleum would not be available. Oxygen is
the most important thing in maintaining the functions of the
cities, and they consume it with wild abandon. Oxygen decreases
minute by minute, so that in time we too might not have enough to
breathe (it is said that in one minute a jet consumes as much
oxygen as a human being consumes in a year).
The cities also think nothing of wasting water for convenience
and money-making, for their flush toilets and their factories.
The cities take water from others by force, and then dump their
wastes everywhere.
Evil Nine
The ninth evil is the way the city forces sacrifices on others so
it can obtain electricity and water.
The egotism of the city is more than apparent in its method of
obtaining electricity and water. We all remember when Tokyoites
insisted that, in order that they could live a convenient,
pleasant life, it was only natural that the village of Okawachi
sink beneath the waters of a dam reservoir. In this way the
farmers of the village were turned out of the place that had been
their home for generations, while the citizens of Tokyo, in their
pursuit of convenience, extravagance, and ease (not to mention
money-making), never even looked back. And the tragedy of such
obscure villages is just like that of the villages ruined by
nuclear power. Why don't the cities build their nuclear reactors
right in the middle of the cities? Why don't they build them in
one of their seaside industrial zones? If city residents do not
have enough water for their flush toilets or electricity for
their automatic doors (though I would expect they too have hands
with which to open doors), they should leave the cities.
The Evils of Urban Wastes
The preceding nine sections are an outline of the plundering,
destructive acts that the cities must perpetrate in order to
maintain themselves.
Now, having consumed all of these plundered resources, the
cities are left with wastes -- both industrial and human -- and
they then proceed to dump them on others, all the while thinking
it a perfectly natural thing to do. No matter that the cities
have been so devilishly clever in devising a civilization built
on all manner of amazing apparatuses -- the law of conservation
of matter guarantees that they cannot do away with their garbage
by sleight of hand.
Let us now list and examine the various evils of the cities as
represented by their wastes.
1. Carbon Dioxide
The first of the wastes is the excessive release of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. The result of robbing great amounts
of oxygen and consuming it is the production of similarly great
amounts of carbon dioxide. Trees would be expected to consume
this carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen to us, but since the
cities are also destroying the trees, this conversion process
cannot keep up; if there were no cities in the world, we could
expect the consumption and production of oxygen to be in balance.
Thus the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily
increases, and it is said that by the years 2025-2050, there will
by twice as much in the atmosphere as there was before
industrialization. Because of the greenhouse effect the
temperature at the surface of the Earth will rise two or three
degrees, the glaciers will melt, and the surface of the oceans
will rise five meters above their present levels. Most of the big
cities of the world will then be flooded. They shall reap as the
have sown.
2. Atmospheric Pollution by Exhaust
The second is the production of particulate matter and exhaust
gases. Prodigious amounts of poisonous gases and particulate
matter pour from the smokestacks of the cities' innumerable
factories, from the throngs of automobiles crowding their
streets, and from the swarms of jets in the skies (and even a
little from all the cigarettes; I will answer later to the charge
that we have cigarettes and cars in the country, too). Not only
does all this pollute the atmosphere, it is also said that the
particulate matter blocks the light of the sun, thus causing a
drop in the temperature on the Earth. There is no reason to
believe that this will be balanced off satisfactorily by the
greenhouse effect. The increase in carbon dioxide, poisonous
gases, and particulate matter in the atmosphere threatens the
lives of all living things on our Earth.
3. Depletion of the Ozone Layer
The third is the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer.
Those ever-so-convenient city inventions the jet plane and the
aerosol spray, and the nitrogen fertilizer that the city
invented to dominate the farming villages, are the instruments by
which the city is destroying the ozone layer.
The effects of the exhaust gases and nitrogen oxides released in
the stratosphere by jet planes will, in the final estimation,
reduce the ozone by 6.5 percent. And it is thought that the CFCs
used in aerosol sprays, which rise to high altitudes upon their
release, will, even if their use continues at the 1974 rate,
cause a 14 percent loss of the ozone over the next 50 years. The
nitrogen suboxide released when the nitrogen fixed in chemical
nitrogen fertilizers is denitrified will, it is estimated, cause
a future 3.5 percent reduction of ozone.
A 1 percent reduction in ozone translates to a 2 percent
increase in ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface,
and an increase in ultraviolet radiation is a threat to all
living things on Earth; it is said that, if nothing is done about
this -- if the ozone layer continues to be destroyed -- certain
species will be faced with extinction. Since all species in their
interactions work to maintain the ecosystem, the loss of even one
could signify grave consequences for the ecosystem as a whole. As
for human beings, should there be a 10 percent reduction in
ozone, it is thought that cases of skin cancer could increase 20
to 30 percent.
The cities steal nitrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere, they
rob metals and petroleum from the earth, and their wonderful
scientific achievement is to put us and the entire ecosystem in
mortal danger by means of the production and use of their
inventions.
4. Sewage
Fourth is the dumping of sewage into the ocean.
In order to maintain convenience, extravagance, and ease, the
city must somehow dispose of the great amounts of water it
converts into sewage, and that sewage always ends up in the
ocean. The amount of sewage produced is about equal to the amount
of water consumed.
This sewage is treated and divided into water and sludge; the
sludge is used for landfills, and the water goes to the sea via
the sewage system. However, since this treatment is not perfect
the water flowing into the ocean contains, depending upon the
substance, 10-60 percent of what it originally contained. In
addition, most cities have a sewage system in which rain water is
collected along with the sewage, so that on a rainy day the
treatment plants cannot handle the volume, and the result is that
some of it goes to the sea just as it is. Thus the ocean has
become a cesspool.
Washing one's hands means that one must dirty some water. And
doing the laundry means that one pollutes the ocean by cleaning
one's clothes. Flush toilets are no different. As long as I can
live under sanitary conditions, it doesn't matter if the ocean
becomes polluted -- this is the egotism that the city is built
upon.
5. Mountains of Garbage and Wastes
The fifth is landfills of garbage and sludge. No matter what kind
of garbage one has, it is quite impossible, even if one changes
its form or appearance, to make it disappear. Unburnable solid
trash goes without saying, but burnable trash is no different:
even after burning, the gaseous part disperses in the atmosphere,
and the ashes still remain. And there is no proof that these are
harmless. Even if the city had the technology to make them
harmless, these great amounts of waste (ashes) must still be put
somewhere, and that will cause problems for someone.
The cunning, arrogant city is able to maintain the pleasantness
of its own environment by shoving its tons of garbage off on the
country, or by dumping it in the ocean. But do we tolerate it
when someone dumps his garbage in his neighbor's house in order
to keep his own clean? The beautiful cities and spic-and-span
factories which receive awards from the Environment Agency are
showing us that they are shoving more garbage off on others than
are other cities and factories.
Of all the kinds of trash brought out of the cities the most
voluminous is demolition wastes. It is said that this makes up
one-third of the waste from the big cities. Whenever they begin
some new enterprise, they remove the old buildings since they are
now just in the way. And the place they discard this waste is
(take for example Nagoya) farmland purchased for the purpose.
Every bit of junk that the city produces in order to achieve even
greater benefit and extravagance (even the wastes produced in one
day could not be kept in the city) are taken to the country and
forced off on us. If the people in the country bought some land
in the city and began to haul things like straw, wood chips, and
rocks to the city and dumped them there, would the city stand by
silently and allow this?
Second to demolition wastes, the wastes of greatest volume are
those created by the manufacturing and processing industries.
Next come domestic wastes, and then those produced by the
services (included are of course such poisonous substances as
mercury, PCBs, and ABS). These wastes are disposed of, along with
the sludge from sewage treatment plants, on land or in landfills
near the ocean. [7]
6. The Flood of Merchandise
The sixth is the flood of products (merchandise).
I have already written about how, in its activities of
manufacturing and processing, the city robs and wastes resources;
how it spreads pollution everywhere; how it shoves its garbage
off on others. But these are not the only evils inherent in the
city's industries.
The city produces vast quantities of products (merchandise),
piles them high everywhere, and threatens the very future of
human society with this flood. [8] Look at the packs of
automobiles crowding the roads. Look at the great quantities of
agricultural chemicals in use. Look at the mountains of medicine
and food additives being shoved down our throats. It is the same
for the worthless cigarettes produced in mountainous quantities;
for the oceans of alcohol meant to help city people forget that
there is no longer any meaning in their lives; for the heaps of
records and tapes, which, like sonic narcotics, produce noise and
dementia; for the weekly magazines and comic books that overflow
with idiotic stories and pictures -- one could go on without
limit. It would not be an overstatement to say that all
merchandise produced by the city is the same. And just as I
mentioned before with jet planes and aerosols, they produce
pollution not only when they are used, but, as outlined in
section five, become pollution themselves after use, thus causing
the utmost trouble for people in other places. No matter what
product, it cannot stand up to use indefinitely; sooner or later
it becomes trash and the city must dispose of it somehow (these
days we see many products that were made purposely to last only a
short time). [9] Everywhere we look we see discarded junk like
televisions, washing machines, and automobiles (strangely enough,
these were supposed to be the very symbols of prosperity) -- does
it not make one feel the desolation foretelling the end of an
age? When a tiger dies it leaves its hide, but when city
merchandise dies, it leaves more evil. [10]
Will human beings in the end be crushed under the load of their
merchandise and trash? [11]
7. Excessive Services Forced onto Us
The seventh is how the city forces excessive services off on us.
Take, for example, public employees. It is said that the number
of public employees increases at a fixed rate. Even that
illustrious, tyrannical dictator Hitler met with defeat when, in
an effort to streamline the government, he ran up against the
firm resistance of the bureaucrats, so there is no reason to
believe that today's pusillanimous cabinet members or boneheaded
Government Reorganization Committee members would be able to
change anything no matter how many handstands they perform.
The overpaid bureaucrats, in order to increase their staff and
expand their territory, are continually planning new "services"
and getting their politico friends to appropriate money for them.
It is the citizens who have to put up with these nuisances. Fill
out this form, cooperate in this survey -- there is no end to
their worthless, time-consuming services.
Private service enterprises are no different in that they
hard-sell services. These days we see the emergence of strange,
previously unheard-of services, and there are numerous instances
of their swindling the innocent public for all they can get.
There is no saying where all this will stop. According to 1982
employment survey results published by the Gifu Prefectural
Statistics Section, a mere 0.9 percent of all youths 15 to 24
years of age are employed in primary industries (this figure has
shown a steady yearly decline). This means that the other 99.1
percent are making a living in the spiffy secondary and tertiary
industries. Let us take careful note of the fact that the present
urbanizing social structure allows only 0.9 percent of the young
to feed the other 99.1 percent prodigal sons.
8. The City as Warmonger
The eighth is that the city is a warmonger.
Both guns and ammunition are made by the city. And nuclear
weapons go without saying.
Needless to say, those who directly manufacture and sell weapons
for killing people are the merchants of death, but a careful look
reveals that the cities are chock full of merchants of death. If
I may be allowed an extreme statement, I would say that it is not
an overstatement to say that those who engage in the secondary
and tertiary industries are all merchants of death. For example,
those who manufacture and sell such harmful things as food
additives, agricultural chemicals, cigarettes, automobiles, and
jet planes, and make money at it, are all merchants of death. But
this hardly bears mentioning.
"But surely...not me!" However, even the sacred profession of
teacher, those relieved because they believe they are innocent,
are just as guilty as the merchants of death as long as they
engage in any kind of education, for all education teaches
"progress," "development," "improvement," and "prosperity," i.e.,
destruction and contamination.
And physicians, practitioners of the benevolent art of medicine,
work in tandem with the drug companies, dribbling, injecting,
inserting, and popping huge quantities of drugs into their
patients, bringing about iatrogenic diseases; they are but
epigones of the merchants of death.
And the entertainers, professional athletes, men of letters,
painters, composers, critics, and even the archeologists and
anthropologists, who appear to be able to excuse themselves by
saying that their work at least does no harm -- these
leisureologists all plan ways to continue their idle and
gluttonous [12] ways without dirtying their own hands; sitting
back in their armchairs they force the small number of farmers to
carry on labor-saving, high-yield agriculture, and contribute to
poisoning by agricultural chemicals, frequent occurrences of
greenhouse diseases, and the production of great quantities of
contaminated agricultural produce. As long as this state of
affairs continues, they can never remove themselves from the
ranks of the merchants of death.
Having thus listed some professions, I wonder if there is even
one person living in the cities who can prove that he or she is
an exception? Even if it is possible to demonstrate this, there
is still no possible way to deny the fact that urban dwellers are
living in the city for convenience, extravagance, and ease, and
that they are accomplices to the city's plundering and
destructive acts.
While it was obvious that the producer of murderous weapons is
the city, let us in addition take note of the fact that the city
is also the starter of wars.
As I wrote in the beginning of this chapter, the city itself is
non-self-supporting and non-productive, so that if it does not
commandeer its supplies from some other place (and since the city
cannot clean itself, if it does not shove its garbage off on
someone else), it cannot maintain its functions or continue its
activities. Competition among cities then naturally arises, and
if a dispute cannot be resolved by money or discussion, they
resort to a settlement by means of armed force. There is no
telling how many wars of this kind have been fought in human
history.
In the country (which will be defined in Chapter III) it is
possible to keep oneself alive by self-sufficient practices and
the blessings of Nature, so there is at least no reason why one
must resort to war.
You, in the cities! If you still insist on getting rid of
nuclear weapons, then you must first dismantle the city, which is
both the hotbed and ringleader of war. If you do not do so, you
will be destroyed by the nuclear weapons that the city itself has
produced. [13]
NOTES
4
Lao Zi, chapter 73: "Heaven's net is great in size; though its
mesh is coarse, nothing gets through." Usually interpreted to
mean that Nature never lets evil go unpunished. (Translator's
note)
5
The finest, and most expensive, varieties of rice. (Translator's
note)
6
If river water flows through 100 meters of rocks, sand, and
plants, impurities will be removed, but even if it flows through
a thousand-meter length of concrete channel, it will not be
purified.
7
In an interview (Asahi Shimbun, July 24, 1985 evening edition)
with one of the promoters of the "Phoenix Project," a land fill
planned for the disposal of Osaka-area wastes, the interviewed
person recognized the fact that "if we burn 100 tons of garbage,
15 tons of ashes remain." The project, which will destroy what
little remains of Osaka Bay's natural seashore, was ironically
named after the phoenix since, its promoters claim, though the
ocean will be filled in, the area will be reborn as new land for
Japan. Though the total planned volume of the landfill is a
staggering 45 million cubic meters, it will serve the needs of
the area for a mere six years. (Translator's note)
8
Though the cities are already overflowing with manufactured
goods, why is it that the cities madly pursue increased
production? This is, as I mentioned before, due to the magical
power of money. In order to make more money -- that is, in the
pursuit of profit -- people are manipulated by the magical
strings of money, and thus increase production.
No matter what the original purpose of money, it has always been
used as a weapon to seize food. At present, however, it is used
not only to bring food to the cities, but is also the life blood
of all industrial activities. Thus its role is to carry on by
force the destruction and contamination of the natural
environment, the robbery and waste of resources, the
overproduction of goods, and dumping of wastes on others ("As
long as we pay money, no one will gripe even if we make a mess of
things.").
I could have established a separate section for the harm caused
by money, but will let this note serve for now.
9
The average lifetime of a one-family home in Japan is now said to
be 20-25 years. (Translator's note)
10
A play on the proverb "When a tiger dies it leaves its hide, but
when a man dies he leaves his name." (Translator's note)
11
I am not especially trying to ignore the "good" of the city's
products, but allow me to remind the reader that there is no
denying the harm rendered to people by cigarettes, food
additives, and cars.
12
"Idle and gluttonous" (fukou donshoku) is a term from the
Japanese feudal-age thinker Ando Shoeki, whom Nakashima will
introduce later. I have borrowed the translation from E. H.
Norman. (Translator's note)
13
On a special program, "Earth in Flames," aired by NHK on August
5, 1984, they told of the effects of a nuclear attack on Tokyo (a
single one-megaton bomb exploded over Tokyo Tower). The many
high-rise buildings, the Shinkansen trains, jet planes, and cars
on the expressways would all be set afire and blown away in an
instant; furthermore, computer operators, people enjoying
themselves downtown, housewives shopping in the marketplaces, and
children playing on the school playgrounds would similarly be
blown away in an instant, their flesh half melted; in this way
the six million people within a 15 km radius of the explosion
would all die instantly. This is bad, but I must take issue with
the view that all these Tokyoites are just innocent, pitiful
victims. There is absolutely no difference in this case between
the attacked and the attacker, because both are destructive,
rapacious, haughty, arrogant, tyrannical cities. The civilization
of the city, which produced the high-rise buildings, the
Shinkansen, the jet planes, the computers, and the supermarkets
likewise produced nuclear weapons. Therefore, if we are to get
rid of nuclear weapons, we must also get rid of the cities.
Nuclear weapons are like the bull's horns -- we cannot just cut
off the horns and then believe it is all right to let the bull go
on living.
You in the cities! Open your eyes! Your belief that if we just
get rid of nuclear weapons then we are assured everlasting peace
and prosperity is nothing more than a delusion.
In order to maintain this peace and prosperity how much evil
(destruction, contamination, waste) must the city perpetrate?
What great catastrophes must the city bring down upon humanity
and the Earth?
There is little difference between dying by nuclear weapons and
dying by contamination and destruction. If the city is destroyed
(of course it will take the rest of us down with itself) by its
own nuclear weapons, then it will have reaped as it has sown.
Special Chapter
The City and Food
-- The Excess, Insufficiency, and Importation of Rice --
Whether or not to import rice is COMPLETELY the problem of the
city. Can there truly be a reason why the farmers must be up in
arms over this issue?
It is absurd that this problem of rice excesses and shortages
should be fussed over as if it controlled the fate of the
farmers! [14]
The Farmers Have No "Food Problem"
Originally farmers were people who grew their own food and
survived on that, and if because of frosts they lost half their
rice crops, they would get along on the half they were able to
harvest. The cities (consumers), however, receive the full impact
of that lost half of the rice crop, so this must therefore be
considered a big problem which completely controls the fate of
the city. If on the other hand there is a bountiful harvest of
rice the farmers have cause for celebration, and have no reason
to consider this a burden. Even if they have far too much rice
for themselves they can give it to their domestic animals, and if
they still have some left over (or if they have no animals) they
can return it to the earth.
It is also of no concern to the farmers whether the city decides
to import rice or not (there is no reason why farmers must eat
imported rice even though they still have some stored), so this
is therefore purely the consumers' problem. Thus it comes down to
being simply a matter of the city securing its staple food from
its own country or another country, and making the wrong choice
could mean running out of food. If the city relies upon another
country for its staple food, and this supply is for some reason
interrupted, then logic dictates it is the people in the cities,
and not the farmers, who will be in a pickle.
Don't tell me that this is my egotism. What I want to make plain
here is that the city (the system) is taking a problem that
completely controls its own destiny, and making it look as though
it controls the destiny of the farmers, thereby trying to solve
the entire food problem by sacrificing the farmers. This is
nothing other than another one of the city's deceptive
stratagems. Nothing exhibits the stupidity of the farmers to the
world more than their being taken in by this trick, and then
going down to the ports to demonstrate against the importation of
rice. [15]
The insufficiency and importation of rice is the perfect chance
to eliminate (or at least shrink) the cities. Farmers! If there
is a shortage of rice, we should reduce, not increase,
production. Help promote the rice shortage! Don't oppose rice
imports! Until the authorities take action, voluntarily reduce
your rice acreage! Produce only enough for yourself and your
animals! If you prepare yourself for an austere life, then it is
the cities, and not the farmers, who will find themselves in a
bind.
If the trees do not produce many nuts, then the number of
squirrels will decrease. It is a self-evident truth that, if
supplies of the staple food fall, the number of cities will be
reduced correspondingly.
When farmers have been deceived by the cities, believe the food
problem is their own, say that we must at all costs stop the
importation of rice, and demand that government rice stocks be
opened -- when even the farmers begin to talk this way -- we can
only say that their delusions and stupidity have attained the
zenith. Are they trying to bring about again that terrible past
of plunder when our ancestors, in years of famine, had even their
own stocks of rice taken from them as tax, and starved to death
in shame? We must not be fooled by their demands to break out the
stored rice. Even if you have to throw it in the gutter, don't
give it to the city. This will be the best means of bringing
about the shrinkage of the cities. Let the cities import food if
they like. When in their dangerous tightrope act they run up
against some unforeseen circumstance, it will be of NO concern to
the farmers.
Why Feed the Hand that Pollutes?
"The farmers have a duty to provide the citizens (actually the
cities) with food." This is the noble-sounding great cause that
the city always brandishes, and the farmers believe it without
question. This faith of the farmers is proof of what I meant
previously when I said that the city (that is, the secondary and
tertiary industries) changes a problem that completely controls
its own destiny into one which controls that of the farmers, and
through this deft trickery attempts to solve its food problem by
sacrificing the farmers. And since this is blind faith, the
farmers do not realize at all that this is a trick; the city
coolly gives the farmers the responsibility for the food problem,
and the farmers themselves take on this responsibility
wholeheartedly. The city, in other words, has made the farmers
believe blindly that supplying the cities with food is their
duty.
A duty to feed the citizens (cities)? There is no such thing! I
may be repeating myself, but this "duty" is nothing more than an
artifice invented by the city -- which cannot live even a day
without robbing food from the farmers -- to take that food; such
an unwritten law has not, of course, always existed as a law of
Nature. Did not Nature decree that we either gather or produce
our own food?
We must not be deceived. Though you farmers believe from the
bottom of your hearts that "agriculture is a sacred profession,"
that is but a belief brought about as a result of your having
fallen prey to the city's plundering stratagems, and is no
different from before when, controlled by the slogan "Japan is
the nation of the gods," young men from the farms gave their
lives for the state.
Farmers! When you believe that "farming is the sacred
profession," [16] when you fall for the idea that "the farmers
have a duty to supply food to the citizens," when, with sweat on
your brow and mud on your hands, you are put on the run by your
machines in order to answer to the demand for great quantities of
food, you are preserving and promoting the "evils of the city"
that I outlined in Chapter II.
That which you nourish by working your fingers to the bone is
none other than the source of all pollution, the root of all
evil, that is, the city dwellers, the prodigal sons. In view of
this situation, the "sacred profession" in which you believe is
actually an evil that nourishes evil. We must immediately root it
out.
If we do not eradicate this evil, there will soon be no hope for
us. There is absolutely no reason why you must expose yourself to
dangerous agricultural chemicals, suffer under onerous debts, and
work yourself into the ground in order to feed the likes of those
who make cigarettes, food additives, cars, and jet planes, thus
spreading pollution all over the place; those who make guns,
bullets, nuclear weapons, and preparations for murder; the people
who force needless governmental services onto us; or people like
singers, dancers, and athletes who make their living by exciting
others.
I will say it once again: Don't answer their demands for great
supplies of food! A shortage of the staple food, rice, is an
excellent opportunity for us. If the city people do not have
enough to eat they will realize their error, and this will
engender the shrinkage of the cities, which will in turn bring
about the amelioration of the city's evils. This is what Ando
Shoeki meant when he said, "The idle and gluttonous should simply
be punished by death."
The Alternatives Pressing Humankind
Let us note that allowing land to lay idle is, as a matter of
fact, the best possible way to make the switch to organic
farming. It is said that making a sudden switch to organic
farming is difficult for our arable land, which has been ruined
by agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizers, but if one
lets the land lay idle and avails oneself of the following
method, the land will come back to life in only one year, and one
will be able to raise good rice with absolutely no agricultural
chemicals or chemical fertilizers.
On idle paddies just dump great quantities of such things as
straw, grass, chicken manure, garbage from your kitchen, and
dregs and lees from starch and tofu, if you can get them free.
After you have done this, the weeds will grow luxuriously. Cut
them and then either let them lie as they are, or (if you have
animals) feed them to your animals and return the weeds to the
soil in the form of manure. If you continue this for one season
you will find that the next year, even if you begin with no
fertilizer at all, mature seedlings planted a little late and
wider apart than usual will grow beautifully and strong, and you
will get big ears of rice even without adding any fertilizer
during the season. Truly great is the recovery power of Nature.
By letting some land lay idle you can get two birds with one
stone: begin the shrinkage of the cities, and manage the switch
to organic agriculture. Remember, the object here is not to
produce great quantities of rice, but to produce healthy rice
without the use of chemicals; if the farmers eat just a little
good-quality rice, that is all that matters.
Now at this time a food panic will arise, and it is inevitable
that the cities will ransack the farming villages in their search
for rice. But if we do not get rid of the pus, the sore will not
heal. In the attempt to deal a blow to the powerful cities, we
must prepare ourselves for a little bloodletting. It may be
expecting too much to achieve our goal without payment of any
kind.
Whether in the country or in the cities, we are faced with two
clear alternatives, represented by the following two attitudes:
"As long as I can gain happiness (extravagance and prosperity)
now, it's all right if humanity perishes in the future," and
"Even if we experience more unhappiness (austerity and a smaller
scale lifestyle) than at present, humanity will survive." These
are the alternatives, and we must choose one of them.
I think that, even if there is a little bloodletting, and even if
the cities retreat and life becomes much more inconvenient and
difficult than it is now, we should let the human race continue
to exist on this Earth.
Fortunately, a full belly (extravagance) engenders laziness, but
an empty belly (austerity) engenders hope. As long as, ensconced
in the midst of plenty, we continue our extravagant lives, we
will never have the opportunity to experience real happiness.
Supplementary Comment on "Rice Shortages"
It is said that the rice shortage (a shortage of a magnitude that
brought about the need to import rice) is the result of four
continuous years of bad weather, but a bigger cause is man-made
-- the meddling of the city.
The first of the city's mistakes is its infamous policy of
reducing rice acreage. To say that "since there's too much rice
you must till fewer paddies" is nothing more than a
kindergartner's idea for a solution. Is this the best idea that
the elite bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture could come
up with? And when we see that the politicians representing the
farming villages just let this pass, it is obvious that they are
not much smarter.
Long ago, in China, they say that even with nine years' worth of
rice stored they still had shortages. So what is all the
excitement over a three or four months' excess?
You, in the cities! This is the rice you're eating. Offer all
those office buildings as rice storage facilities. We should fill
those buildings up with unhulled rice. Should there ever be a
food shortage, all those office buildings and hotels will be
worthless compared to rice. When the Pol Pot regime instituted
the barter system, the capitol of Phnom Penh was instantly
converted into an empty shell. This is because the former
residents left the hotels and offices behind and went from
farming village to farming village in search of food. If we were
to set a nine years' supply of rice as our goal there would be no
shortages because of frost damage, and no need to import rice; at
the same time there would be no need for an acreage reduction
policy.
In such a situation there should be no need to discuss costs.
Since this is the rice that they would all be eating, they should
do the work for free. When it comes down to actually carrying out
this plan, the money economy will probably fall apart, anyway.
[17]
The second of the human-caused disasters is the infrastructure
industry. In order to build infrastructure, the government blows
trillions of yen destroying the paddies tilled by generations of
ancestors, and for that reason we are seeing a reduction in the
rice harvests (let us not overlook the effects of the dense
planting by machines, the damage due to causing the rice to grow
too thickly, and the ill effects of the great quantities of
chemicals).
The government says that the farmers benefit from
infrastructure, but we are actually the victims of it. In reality
those who benefit are the government; the farming co-ops; the
manufacturers of machines, fertilizers, and agricultural
chemicals; the rice wholesalers; and the consumers, all of whom
belong to the cities. What this means is that the city has
created a system by which it can control the production of our
staple food as it pleases. The stupid farmers have given the city
permanent control over the production of rice for a mere pittance
in subsidies.
Our traditional method of producing rice, which boasts a history
of several thousand years, has also been negated by the city
(government, farming co-ops, machinery manufacturers), and the
city has been able to achieve a system of rice production that
suits its own purpose, that is, a system which makes full use of
large machinery and agricultural chemicals, and which saddles the
farmers with debts. That this new system of rice production
(involving the planting of immature seedlings, dense planting,
and early planting) is susceptible to frost damage, is the price
the city must naturally pay.
The third is the desire of the Epicurean city dwellers to eat
the famous varieties of particularly tasty rice. It is for this
reason that the farmers plant more and more "sasanishiki" and
"koshihikari," strains that are particularly susceptible to
frost, blight, and wind damage. On the other hand, strains that
are resistant to cold and disease, since they do not taste as
good, have all but disappeared from the paddies. This is why I
say that frost damage is human-caused.
The fourth is the decline in the will of the farmers to produce.
It would seem to be a mistake to ascribe the loss of the
farmers' enthusiasm to the city, but sad to say, it is completely
the fault of the city. It is because the city has meddled with
the production of food that the farmers have lost their will to
produce. Who was it that promoted the eating of bread (that
considered eating rice bad) and increased the imports of wheat?
It was not the farmers of Japan. It was clearly the city -- the
politicians and traders and nutritionists of the tertiary
industries -- who made deals with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and grain traders. It was then that the farmers began
to lose the will to produce.
The creation of agribusiness in the early 1960s by means of the
structural improvement of agriculture, in which the government
was highly instrumental, resulted in debts for the farmers, the
increase in the scale of agricultural operations, and the supply
of great amounts of agricultural produce, which was accomplished
by making the farmers busier than ever. The ability of the
farmers to supply themselves with food -- their independence --
was completely lost at this time, and agriculture became highly
dependent on the secondary and tertiary industries (chemical
fertilizers, machinery, fuel, subsidies, etc.). This dependence
is in other words the loss of autonomy; the farmers became
prisoners and lackeys totally controlled by the politicos, the
co-ops, the manufacturers, the trading companies, and the
consumers, and their will to produce rice declined precipitously.
And what did they do to the remaining small-scale farmers? They
made a big deal of the difference in income between the
secondary/tertiary industries and the farmers, and promoted the
move to the cities. As the number of farmers shrank, the urban
population burgeoned, and where the government was not successful
in getting them off the farm, they at least managed to create
many Sunday farmers and part-time farmers. So the farmers, who
were busy making money in town, lost interest in rice production,
and they performed field work hastily with machinery, and
neglected to apply compost to their paddies.
During the same period of time the raising of domestic animals
became an industry independent of agriculture, this because
Japanese agriculture was taken in by the stratagems of the big
U.S. grain companies. Feeding great numbers of domestic animals
with nothing but compound feed burdened the farmers with heavy
debts, and this situation remains unchanged to the present day.
[18] But an even greater problem is that the loss of domestic
animals to the farmer has resulted in the loss of manure
(compost) to be returned to the soil, and this has in turn
resulted in the forced use of larged amounts of chemical
fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, and the weakening of food
plants because of damage to the soil.
The fifth is the standardization of rice-growing techniques by
means of standardized agricultural education.
Just as I mentioned earlier, it is needless to say that much of
this standardization is the result of the interference of the
government and farming co-ops, which is part and parcel of their
infrastructure. But the farmers themselves, who accepted this
system, looked with disdain upon the traditional and appropriate
farming methods of their ancestors who farmed the same land,
prevented these methods from being passed on, went off to far
away schools to learn standardized modern farming methods from a
teacher that had never once held a hoe, and thus created an
environment conducive to the acceptance of intrusion by the
government and the co-ops (of course, most of the people who
received this education became white collar workers, and so
became those who also control agriculture and the farmers). In
this way both Hokkaido and Kyushu now grow rice in the same way,
and no longer have the diverse methods to deal with problems such
as unusual weather, diseases, insects, and wind damage. Still,
they may claim that the per-hectare yields of modern agriculture
are increasing, but how far can we trust the statistics of the
Ministry of Agriculture? It is my suspicion that true yields will
not jibe with desktop statistics which take into consideration
such things as Staple Food Control Act accounts, the rice acreage
reduction policy, and incentives for importation.
The above is a very general explanation, but we can see the
"rice shortage" (or decrease in stores) does not find its only
cause in unavoidable things like frost damage, but is due largely
to the gratuitous meddling of the city.
Postscript
Without really planning it, I touched upon something I am going
to cover in Chapter V, "Down with the Cities!", so I would like
to mention here that by "Down with the cities!" I do not mean
"Down with the people in the cities!" This I shall treat in
detail in Chapter V.
SPECIAL CHAPTER NOTES
14
This chapter was written at the time the Japanese government
imported rice from South Korea. The government suddenly
discovered that it had no reserves of rice except for very old
stores, unacceptable because of the high level of bromine (caused
by fumigants). (Translator's note)
15
Some groups of farmers went down to the ports during the
unloading of the South Korean rice to protest. The January, 1985
issue of Gendai Nogyo ("Modern Agriculture") published a photo
story about some young farmers in Miyagi Prefecture who protested
the government's policies by producing all the rice they could.
(Translator's note)
16
If harvesting rice is a sacred occupation, then a snake's
capture of a frog is also a sacred occupation. There were
originally no human occupations which could be considered sacred.
17
It was at a time when China carried on no trade with other
countries that they said, "Though we have a nine years' store of
rice, it is still insufficient" (of course, at that time other
countries were also incapable of exporting). However, at present,
when arable land all over the globe is eroding and being
otherwise ruined, and the population is growing explosively,
there is no doubt that food for human beings is heading for
insufficiency. Though for Japan imports are still possible, it
will become difficult to import in the future, and we will be in
the same position as ancient China. When such a food crisis
results, we must not allow the money economy to interfere with
food storage. Also, since money serves as the lubricant by which
all the city's evils arise, we must get rid of it sooner or
later.
18
Debts are an excellent means of exploitation. In order to pay
back their loans, the farmers must work themselves into the
ground and offer large amounts of animal products.