Down with the Cities Part 3

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, pract.i.tioners of the benevolent art of medicine, work in tandem with the drug companies, dribbling, injecting, inserting, and popping huge quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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. Compet.i.tion 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 seash.o.r.e, 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.pan 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" (f.u.kou donshoku) is a term from the j.a.panese 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 a.s.sured 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.

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